Back To School (and blogging) time!

After taking the summer off, I am ready to start blogging again! We have had a blast this summer and am feeling sad that it is coming to an end. It felt weird this morning when 4 of our 5 boys left for school. Logan is going to get very bored with just Mommy around. I've got big projects in store for he and I, hope he's ready to be Mommy's helper.

Mckay starting 1st grade!

Tanner and his new backpack starting 4th grade

Garrett going into 6th

and Bryson starting 8th grade (yikees, I feel old!)

Garrett waiting for the bus with his friend Tanner, and their admirers.

I had planned on taking Mckay to school, but he wanted to ride the bus like his brothers. He is too anxious to grow up. I hope he can handle being in school all day. Can't wait for the boys to come home and tell me about their first day!

Tanner turns NINE!

Every year I say I won't go crazy with throwing birthday parties for the boys, but somehow we end up going all out for their birthdays! Last night we had Grandma and Grandpa Edwards, Cory and Kristen's family, and Ryan and Karen over after priesthood session to help us eat Tanner's birthday cake.
Does he look excited or what? Tanner got a new bike this year (he looked so silly trying to ride his old little bike). I need to get a picture of him riding it! He can hardly wait to ride it to school with his friends
Tanner really, really wanted a dog for his birthday, but I really, really didn't want one. He lucked out and got two dogs for his birthday! One from his friend, then one from Cory and Kristen that snores when you tug his ear. These kind of dogs are my kind of dogs!
Tanner had a friend party on Friday afternoon, it was a sports party. Our backyard was perfect for it and the weather cooperated long enough for the kids to play non-stop outside! They had a blast playing football, basketball, doing an obstacle course, and an sports egg hunt. Of course the highlight of the party was when our neighbor started throwing water balloons over the fence.

We all went to dinner to celebrate Tanner's birthday at his favorite resturant, Tepanyakis. YUM! Our kids have been begging to go here since Christmas. We invited Ryan and Karen to meet us too. They are always fun to have around.

The highlight of the meal for the boys are their noodles. I personally love, love, love their salad dressing and the salmon is like candy. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!
The chef was so fun to watch. Mckay told him, "thanks for the show!" when we were done.

I also took treats into Tanner's class to celebrate his birthday. I am laughing at this picture because the cute little girl in the background is the one of the many girls that have a crush on Tanner. Isn't 9 to young for that? Apparently not, because he seems to have lots of little admirers I hear about.

ApRiL fOoLs!

The boys this year really got into the spirit of April Fools and pulled some "funny" practical jokes on us. It started as I tried to walk in the house yearly that morning after running and couldn't open the door because of the furniture that was pushed up against the door. When I got in, I found that all of our furniture in the family room (up and downstairs) was down the hallway. After I got the boys out the door for school, I went into the bathroom to get ready and discovered toothpaste all over in our sinks and faucets. No the jokes didn't stop there. We had vaseline on our toilet seats (thanks Bryson) and vaseline on the door handles (thanks Mckay) and more toothpaste in our sinks all day (thanks to Garrett). The boys are already planning attacks for next year.

I decided I had to get back at the boys, so...
my friend gave me a great idea and I quickly put it together before the boys got home! They were so excited that Mom had made them an earlier Easter treat!

They were very surprised when they couldn't cut through the cake and saw it was toilet paper. So the last laugh was on them! We then decided to take a couple of cakes around to their friends...

Oh, I also got them again when I told them we all had to go with Dad to a long scout meeting in Provo. They had to sit quietly and they would be serving hot dogs (the boys hate hot dogs). They were fooled when we took them to Tepanyaki Grill for Tanner's upcoming birthday dinner. What a fun day, I am nervous to see what the boys will do next year...

Donald Duck (a.k.a Tanner)

Last week was a such a fun week! We got to watch Tanner at his best be the star of the 3rd grade Disney program as Donald Duck. He wowed the audience with his moves and made everyone laugh throughout the program. I think he is the most handsomest Donald ever!!! Well, I better be careful saying that since Bryson was Donald 4 years ago.
Tanner and his friends...
Singing and dancing to "We're all in this together"
It was so fun for Tanner to have friends and family come and watch. Thanks Kristen for bringing up your kiddos. Blake you were right, "This was the best musical EVER!"
And the famous last scene from the program is when Tanner gets hit from falling balls while everyone yells "Duck, Donald, Duck!"

Chillin' in Cozumel

The food on a cruise is great, but by the end of the week, I was so excited to eat something different! Paul and I love, love, love Mexican food! So we were super excited to eat at this little Mexican restaurant after shopping all morning. I love shopping in Mexico and feeling like I'm getting a great deal. I wish we had had more time for that, even though the guys were more then done when it was time for lunch.

After lunch we finally got to go snorkeling. Paul was so excited to try out his new underwater camera. We got a ton of video clips on it, which I am not going to post, but pretty cool!

We went out by boat to 3 different locations to snorkel. It so fun to see all the different kinds of tropical fish. I was holding out for a sea turtle, but we never did see one.

Paul "hanging lose" at the bottom of the ocean in Cozumel. Note to self: Next time when we snorkel, we will bring our own gear. It is a little gross using rental stuff, even if it has been cleaned.

Jama'n in JAMAICA

Jamaica was beautiful! This is our cruise ship in the background.
I decided that Jamaicans are very good at selling ANYTHING! From hand-carved coconuts (showned above) to "something special I have for you in the back of my truck" (weed) to "I made this for you" items (made in China)...they tried to sell everything! I did get a fun Coach bag (handmade in Jamaica I'm sure).
Ahh, do you recognize the little black sign above? The Church is true! Its always fun to see the church other places, we even ran into missionaries in Mexico.

My favorite part of Jamaica was hiking Dunns Falls. Here we are all are before the hike, trying to stay warm in the cool water. At first I was freezing, but once we started hiking, it felt wonderful.

Paul having fun sliding down a rock and I'm doing the famous Crystal Light plunge.

Here are the guys trying to be funny, looks pretty cool though, I have to admit. Then, the girls and the end of the hike.

Haiti - our first stop!

I know what you're thinking... Haiti? Seriously? Yep! That was our first stop! This part of the island was not affected by the earthquake and it is Royal Caribbean's private beach. I was happy to find that the ship was bringing a bunch of supplies for the victims in Haiti. But, I admit, we did have mixed feelings playing and enjoying the island while we knew there were people suffering not to far from us.

Here is a picture looking out over the island, isn't it beautiful?

We played in a beach volleyball tournament while we were there. We had a blast! Our team got the gold medal. I guess all the years in church volleyball payed off!

Just chillin with my good lookin' hubby! We were twinners in swim shirts. I got fried the day before and decided I better be careful.

However, I couldn't get enough of the warm sun. The girls all laid in the sun while the guys laid in the shade.

Listening to the locals sing us their songs. They were making out pretty good in tips because we were all worried about how the earthquake may have affected them.

I saved the best for last... Paul and his friend Corey did this amazing zipline that started high up in the mountains and came over the ocean, then landed on a little strip of land. The zipline was 1/2 mile long! Incredible to watch, and Paul said it was worth every penny. I decided I would prefer to spend my money on a spa treatment.

Cruising the Caribbean

Paul surprised me on Christmas with a Western Caribbean cruise for our 15 year anniversary. We left our boys with with my brother Ryan and his cute wife Karen, who did a wonderful job! I actually was very impressed with myself for not worrying too much about the boys while I was gone because I knew they were having a great time.

We had a great time! We had some of our good friends with us: the Bergs, Chappells, and the Mills. This was the first day on the cruise when we all had our warm clothes on still, but by the next morning, we were laying out and soaking up the sun. I couldn't could enough of the warm weather!
The ship was the Freedom of the Seas. It was totally impressive! We are standing in front of the entrance to the Royal Promenade. This was the "main street" of the ship with shops and restaurants on each side. This is where they did the parades and dances as well.
Here we are enjoying the warm weather and catching up on People magazine, yes a guilty little pleasure.

This is all of us on the last night of the cruise with our Waiter and Waitress. They were awesome! Even though I called "Kumar" our waiter, Lumar for half the week and then Zumar for the other half, he was still nice to us. We ate way too well and came home with a couple of extra pounds.
Here are the Dodgeball Champions on the boat! They was awesome and took home the gold. There cheerleaders did a pretty good job cheering them on too.
Here is Paul in his glory getting ready to take somebody out.

The Wave Rider was so fun to watch. Paul did great on it. Infact, they video taped him and showed it on the boat as one of the highlights of the week! I wish I could watch Brady and Karen do this, they would ride some serious rides with their surfing knowledge.

Formal night in the dining room, I wish I would have gotten pictures for you Cory of all the yummy food. You would have been impressed! My favorite was surf and turf night with the lobster. However, Paul obviously can't eat shellfish, he ended up having a reaction and we had to get him some Benadryl.

Our all time favorite treat there was the lava cake. Yum, yum, yum! Our waiter was so nice, that he requested laval cake another night just for our table. I better get going, I have some serious running to do to work off all of our treats!

My next few blogs will be about our stops in the Caribbean ...