brad

Brad is going to live with us. for a hole year. he shode up today.






by ben

The Slip and Slide

The summer before I turned eight years old I wanted a Slip and Slide. You know, those long sheets of plastic that you spray water on and then run and slide onto. I dreamt about that Slip and Slide, I could imagine the fun we would have all summer long, playing with my friends on my new cool toy. I asked my parents for one, I begged, I pleaded, and always the answer was no.

I distinctly remember the day it happened. My mom came home from somewhere and called us inside from playing. She said she had a big thing to tell us that was going to affect our whole family. I was sure it was a grand Slip and Slide announcement! We were going to get one, finally!!! And of course this was something that affected the whole family, we would all have so much fun together on it! (It still makes me smile to think about how my eight year old mind worked.)

I remember running into the house, begging to know if my dream was about to come true. "Are we getting a Slip and Slide? Are we? Are we?"

My mom sat Kenny and I down, and the big announcement was made. "We are moving."

WHAT????

MOVING????

WE CAN'T MOVE! ALL MY FRIENDS ARE HERE!!!! I DON'T WANT TO MOVE!!!!

I JUST WANT A SLIP AND SLIDE!!!!!!!!

But we did. And to the best place in the entire world, Missoula, MT. I am the person I am today because of where I grew up. I made friends those first few days of third grade that are still some of my best friends in the entire world. One of them introduced me to the LDS Church, something I will be forever grateful for.

But I never did get that Slip and Slide. Every time I see one in a store, or on a commercial with kids happily sliding their summer away, I remember that feeling of not only having my childish hopes dashed, but of having my world fall apart. All I knew was Aurora, CO.

And that is why my kids are getting an air hockey table.



(It's in Spanish Fork, UT, only 10 minutes from where we live now.)

Hats

I love hats. I wish I lived in a time when you could wear a hat without people looking at you funny. But since I don't, I put them on my babies! Hooray for babies in hats!

Sophie

Blessing bonnets count too

Lillie

Funny hat

There is a baby under that hat, I promise

There is a Josh under that hat, I promise.

Santa hat

Goofy hat

Another goofy hat

Goofy girl in a hat

Kindergarten graduation hat (from way back)

Josh in a hat from even farther back!

And even me in a hat.

Family Shmamly

A couple of days ago I was talking to Josh about some plans we had for what we were going to do that day. Josh had other ideas, wanted to play with friends, mess around on the computer, battle Ben on the Play Station. Finally I said, "Josh we are going to do this as a family." He turned to me and tried to say "family shmamly", while rolling his eyes at me, in the most smart aleky way. Instead he got flustered and said "Family shmaggard!" I burst out laughing at him, as did he. My Josh is getting so grown up, eye rolls and all, but even Josh the smart alek is pretty funny. Now I just have to look at him and say "Family shmaggard" and he cracks up. I love little boys, even when they aren't so little any more.

Inasint

Before I wrote this blog Ben was bugging me, and was writing this on the blog spot (Boom boom tshshsh!)hudgduyuy! So I cornerd him slitly kicked him. He said it hurt.






by Josh W. Millward (:

Weird Dream

I’ve got to start this post with a disclaimer and mention that I don’t normally dream of rainbows and fluffy bunnies. My dreams are filled with far manlier topics like motorcycles, sports highlights and race cars, but the other night I woke up laughing at the weird dream I had.

The dream took me back several years and I was sitting in class at BYU. I looked down and could see the ends of what looked like a flame or tribal tattoo on my forearm. (This was so common at BYU I can’t count how many students had tattoos like this.) This in no way surprised me because I could clearly remember getting the tattoo several months earlier – with Kamie. Naturally we went and got them together. (Can anyone say “date night”?)

When I got home that night I took off my shirt and above the forearm tattoo was our anniversary date and .......…. a pink Care Bear next to a blue unicorn – WHAT???. This came as a total shock to me and I realized there had been a terrible mistake months earlier. (Why it took 4 months to discover the error was not fully explained.)

You see, there was a mix up at the tattoo parlor and although they got the forearm correct, Kamie’s tattoo of choice was put on my upper arm, and she got mine. Unfortunately I woke up before finding out what she got. There you have it, a mix up at the tattoo parlor.

You’re welcome to take a stab at interpreting the dream on your own, but unless you’ve got something really good I am sticking to the fact that we saw Toy Story 3 a few days earlier and that the Care Bear was Lotso Huggin Bear and that a blue unicorn made an appearance in there somewhere. I’m not quite sure how it fits in with the tattoos, but it must mean something.

In Other News

We just wrapped up Ben’s final season of T-ball. I was the coach and Josh did a fine job as the assistant coach. My main goal for the kids was to have fun, create some memories and hopefully teach them a thing or two about baseball.





Most of the kids showed improvement over the season, I’m pretty sure they all knew which way to run around the bases by the last game. We had a chance to tour BYU’s baseball facilities which if it wasn’t a highlight for the kids, at least it was for me.

It was fun to be Ben’s coach and have Josh on the staff. As a bonus, the parks and rec gave each of the coaches $20 off our next sports activity. That sealed the deal for me, and I will see you next year for Ben’s inaugural season in coach pitch.


Joe

joging and walking

today I went on a jog. with my grandma and my dad. we were going to go on a shorter distance jog. but we went on a longer distance jog. we walked 2 miles. we jogged 1. by ben