Makenna graduates the 6th grade

From left to right we have Lucia, Makenna, Katrina and Kiesha

Prom Night 11

Mikey and Kiera. Prom at Payson High

42 years later

So it's Dads birthday again. We had all the kids home for the weekend. Always fun when we get together.

La-Shana and the kids baked a Laker cake and Mom cooked the best Rio' Cafe beef burritos for dinner. Basically we ate till we were sick to our stomachs.

La-Shana and her bottle

Dad opening his gifts

Breath Blake, breath

Easter

Tradition, tradition, tradition. Well Easter is difinitly one that Mom never forgets, no matter how old the kids are get.


Hunter and all the treats that Mom and the Easter bunny agreed is sufficient for a little boy.

And everyone else in the house.

La-Shana is still asking why she never got one.( she is married and moved away)

Spring Break '11

So it's Spring Break '11. Dad has just started a new job and with the plans to travel to the Cook Islands and New Zealand he didn't have the time needed to take a long break with Mom and the kids.

So Mom and the kids travelled to Idaho for a few days then return to Utah, then Dad was going to join the family in St. George.

The new underwater camera is taking some getting use to but we are excited for it. Our kids love the water so much we should have purchased it sooner.

Hunter digging a tunnel for his lizard

The Lizard the kids caught in the driveway

Makenna and Lucia sleeping. Lucia is Makenna's friend that joined the family on this trip.

Trying to dig out tunnels for the lizard.

Conference Weekend

This Conference weekend is a little different from all the previous. This weekend also marks the end of our Grandparents mission at the Church History Center in Salt Lake City. So today (which is Sunday) the family decided to have Brunch in Alan and Leanne's home, cause today or this evening our Grandparents return to the Cook Islands ( Rarotonga) to be released off their mission. So exciting and sad emotions all at the same time, and we also get to hear from a living Prophet and Apostles.

Leanne set up a Bingo game with words and phrases that might be mentioned in Conference and it made you, at least listen to the talks in order to win the great prizes she had.

I know, the interest level looks low, but this picture may have been taken after Conference.
La-Shana and Blake were down for the weekend. It's always fun to have them home.

Wow

The pins in the x-ray eventually will be removed but the two black spec's next to the pins are anchors which will remain in his finger

These are some of the before and after surgery pictures.

Well Dad finally had a real doctor look at what he thought was a dislocated finger. Well Dad was right about one thing it wasn't broken, but both ligaments and a tendon had been damaged. So this is what it looks like now. So Mom has to doctor him back to normal. Mom says that he is such a cry baby, all men are she said. Yes he has a couple more pins holding him together but these two come out in two weeks.

Planning Process

It's been really weird, cause we have been planing this trip back to the Cook Islands for a while but we feel like time is going by to fast. We would ideally like to make the trip to the Cook Islands really for our Grandmothers Birthday, but at the same time there are a lot of family our kids have not yet met. So there is a lot of planning going on to arrange the perfect timing for all involved. The young kids are really excited and the teens are saving feverishly. Part of the planning is going to be where we are going to house everyone and the second leg of the trip to New Zealand. La-Shana has requested we make a short trip to New Zealand to see where our family all started, which we are excited to do. It just seems like time isn't moving fast enough for the little ones but there is so much more planning to do, in so little time.
Will keep you posted.

Photo shoot

One of the weekends we were fortunate enough to have La-Shana home, she decided to have Makenna dress into her cheer outfit and take a few pictures.

La-Shana had just bought a new camera, so it didn't take much to get her out to try her new toy. We don't know how long it took to take all the pictures that they took, but we did here a lot banging and clanging and yelling at the dogs in Hunter's room. But here are some of the final pictures.

Thanks Shana, it did help that you had beautiful subjects.

Makenna had to be cold............

Vegas, Rugby Sevens

Dad found out from some guys at work that the World Rugby Sevens was in Las Vegas, so Dad made some calls and he and Uncle Alan and his friend Alex decided to attend. So after work Friday night they drove out to Vegas to enjoy a weekend of Rugby.

Uncle Alan drove which made it possible for Dad to sleep, which didn't happen. Dad said that Uncle Alan drove at 90 miles per hour all the way to Vegas.

The weather was weird, but nice. It was cold in the Morning and evenings, but hot after the sun showed it's face.

Here they are enjoying the games. The games were 14 minutes long. So they watched over 30 games.

New Zealand looked really good but was beat by a better Fijian team.

South Africa won the whole event.

Had a ton of fun, must do it again

Ethan played earlier in the week, so they met up for the rest of the weekend. It was fun to go out as the guys. Just like old times....

Here Dad had to use the program to cover his head to avoid the sun

Uncle Alex out cold

Uncle Alan purchasing a Manu Samoa sweater.

Go Maverick's

Some of the pictures that Makenna took under water

We decided to make a last minute trip

to Colorado to visit Blake and La-Shana and watch Blake play basketball. We stayed in Fruita this time at a La Quinta because their swimming pool is indoors. When we arrived the first thing Makenna and Hunter did was find out what room Drew and Barret ( Blake's Nephews) were staying in and persuaded them to go swimming. Dad had bought a new underwater camera and wanted to try it out, so Makenna is taking pictures of everyone underwater and it also takes video pretty cool contraption.

After we watching Blake's game that evening we all decided to eat at Texas Roadhouse with Blake's parents, his Aunt Doreen and his Brother Mason and of course Drew and Barret.

It was a fun evening and we look forward to our next trip out there.

Had no idea that the indoor pool wasn't heated.

La-Shana helping Makenna upload pictures to Makenna's laptop

They took this picture cause Makenna wanted it as her wallpaper on her laptop

Here you can barely see her, but La-Shana is under that pile. Don't remember why, but Drew,Barrett, Hunter and Makenna attacked La-Shana. Below is the first opportunity to use the waterproof camera so it may be blurry, shaky but a lot of fun.