Missing You

It's been a couple years since Ryan has been to Africa, so I knew it wouldn't be too long before he headed off to the Dark Continent.
We wanted to be sure he remembered us and knew how much we would miss him, so Miranda and I made a card for him to open every day while he is away.
He is also going to be gone for Father's day so he gets 3 cards that day..one from each of us.

Hopefully, he will enjoy reading them and not make him too homesick for us. We will miss him while he is away.

Star Tours Winners!

A while back I entered an online contest for Disneyland Annual Passholders for a chance to preview the new Star Tours attraction before it opened to the general public. Finally after weeks of anticipation, the congratulations email arrived. We won entrance to Disneyland and an opportunity to preview the new Star Tours!
So, we packed up and headed out for a one day adventure since the day to preview was on a blackout day for us, but we won the entrance and parking fees :)
Our time to report at the ride wasn't until 4pm. So we just hung out all morning. We had planned to cruise over to California Park, but realized our free passes were only for Disneyland. So we were able to explore all kinds of new places since we had a ton of time to kill.  We headed over to the new Pirate island. 

The kids and I had been there before, but Ryan needed the experience.  After all the exploring we could do, we finally decided to head to Downtown Disney and watch the new Pirates of the Caribbean Movie until it was time to do Star Tours. 
    After patiently waiting all day, it was finally time to do the ride, but when we arrived at the gate, it was temporrarily closed for technical errors.  Crud! 
Parker was beyond depressed and afraid we would have to leave before it opened.  We hung out a couple hours, shopping and having a snack. 

Finally....it opened!   We were able to ride the attraction twice before we had to leave. 

We were later than we had planned getting away, but it's all worth it!

Awards Time

As the end of the school year gets closer....it's time once again for concerts, awards and all that jazz.
Speaking of Jazz.... Parker's Jazz group performed at the final awards ceremony at school.

I love listening to Parker play the Saxophone and was thrilled when he stood up to play a solo!

Parker received a couple awards ....one was for Straight A's

 The other was the Teacher award for Science. 

I couldn't be more proud of Parker and all his accomplishments this school year.

Now it's time to move on to 8th Grade....YIKES!

Jazzin' it up

Parker had his final Jazz Festival for this year. I wasn't able to attend, so passed on my camera to Ryan so he could record and take pictures of the event. He hasn't quite mastered all the settings on my new camera yet, so I didn't get very many in focus shots.

Nancie and Raynold came to attend again and thoroughly enjoyed the great music!

Spring Storm

The kids and I took a quick jaunt to Cedar City so Parker could get his braces adjusted.
We were surprised to find our car covered in snow when we woke up in the morning.

Miranda even had her first attempt at driving in the slushey snow and did pretty well, but I was just a little nervous :)

Who knew we could have snow this heavy in the middle of May!

Mama Like!

It's Mother's Day....and my family certainly knows how to make me happy :)
They brought me breakfast in bed before church...

So delicious...

Then after church they took care of all the dinner prep and clean up

We had Taiwan Sundaes...one of my favorites :)
I love being a mom so much and I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful family to take care of and to spoil me.

Women's Conference

This year I was able to attend Women's Conference at BYU with my mom.
We had crazy fun girl time, as well as attending some great classes. Believe it or not, one of our favorites was about Visiting Teaching. We even were wild and crazy and stayed up to watch the Royal Wedding on Thursday night!
Unfortunately, I wasn't much of a shutter bug so no pictures :(
BUT.... we did discover a new little joint near our Hotel called Sammy's.
They serve Cupcake and Pie Milkshakes... I mean, an entire slice of pie and a whole cupcake, frosting and all, gets blended with ice cream... soooo heavenly and devilish at the same time!
They decorate their walls with polaroid photos of their customers. I went one night with Nicki and Minnette and they took our picture for their wall. Before I handed it over to them, I had to get a shot of the polaroid myself.

Mom was also able to visit with some of her Missionaries from the Philippines. It was a great, relaxing weekend