Trip to Sacramento

Sometime around June or July Erin called me to tell me that Southwest was having a huge discount on tickets and that I should bring Brooklyn out to visit her. I decided that I would do it as a birthday present to myself and go out over the weekend of my birthday. I am not sure how smart that was but I did have a good time. Mike would have liked to have been able to celebrate with us. Also, we found our new home and closed the week I was leaving. Mike ended up moving lots while I was gone. Also, after booking the tickets I found out that Ned would be at Mom and Dad's on our birthday. We were able to have a video chat that made up for not being at the celebration at Mom and Dad's. It all worked out and I had a good birthday. Camille Palfreyman Reed came over to Erin's for the celebration. It was really nice to see her.

I flew into Sacramento on Thursday night and stayed until the next Wednesday. It was Brooklyn's first time flying on an airplane. She did very well. Some people even commented that it was the best baby airplane experience they had ever had. There were some issues but we were able to survive them. First off just before I got on the plane my flip flop broke and I didn't have any other shoes with me. I had to hobble around with just one shoe and then bought some when I got to Erin's. Also, on the way back I decided to get some apple juice for Brooklyn. That was a mistake because it ended up all over our laps. Well, better luck next time. Thanks Erin for a fun week. Here are some pictures of the week.

We went to the Gourd Festival one of the first days, got Italian Ice drinks, and went on a tractor ride.

On Sunday I wanted a picture of all the girls in their pretty dresses.


Brianna and I played her new princess game and had fun dressing up and putting all the jewelry on.
Erin made a nice dinner for my birthday and baked me a cake. I was joking that I wanted chicken courd on blue but she made it anyways. It tasted really good.
One of the last days I was there we went to the Children's Museum. They have a lot of fun things to play with. You could play house, paint, dress up and many other things. I think that one of these days we will have to go up to Salt Lake and go to the Children's Museum at the Gateway.

Our Big Move

We recently bought a twin home in Springville, UT. Our first home and largest purchase. We were sad to leave our comfortable apartment and awesome neighbors but glad to be expanding our living area. We just had too much stuff to fit into our apartment. We found our home pretty quickly and were able to close on it about a month and a half later. Some of you might be wondering what a twin home is. Basically it is a town home where we share one wall with our neighbor. Our new home has four bedrooms, two and a half baths, a garage and our favorite a dish washer. It was built in 2006. We love the new space we have. Just after we were able to close I went on vacation to visit Erin and Chad. This left Mike home to move a lot of our stuff and work with our painter. I didn't plan this trip just so I didn't have to help out. It was planned even before we found a home. We thought it would be a great idea to get the place painted while I was gone. We found a painter and had him give us a bid. It seemed too high so we almost opted to not have him paint. We decided to have him only paint the main areas and our master bedroom. He was eager to get the job and brought the payment down quite a bit. He told us that he would be able to get it done by the day after I returned. We had told our landlords that we would be out of the place by that weekend. It happened that the painter was not really true to his word and didn't finish until Sunday morning when he kept saying he would be done by Thursday or Friday. We ended up piling everything in our garage and sleeping at our parents house for two days until we could get in. We have been at our place for about three weeks now and are really liking the place. We have most of our boxes unpacked and are still working on decorating and painting bathrooms and bedrooms. Here are two pictures of the outside of our house. I will post more when we get things a little more in order inside.

Erin's first time meeting Brooklyn

This past February Erin came to visit with her two girls. They were able to meet Brooklyn for the first time. Erin being the great photographer she is was able to tons of cute pictures of Brooklyn. I am very grateful for the pictures. Here are a few of them.

Christmas Morning

We woke up bright and early Christmas morning to open a couple of presents at home before heading back over to Mom and Dad Gardner's. Brooklyn decided to sleep through the opening of her presents but have enjoyed most of them since then. Once we got to Mom and Dad Gardner's we had a nice breakfast and then took the famous picture up on the stairs. we then opened presents. Because Dad had gotten hearing aids Ned decided to give us our own kind of hearing aid. I have a couple of pictures of those presents. One of my favorite gifts was a running stroller but it was delayed so I didn't receive it by Christmas. It still hasn't come but we ended up canceling the order and ordering it from another place. It should arrive sometime tomorrow. My favorite gift that Brooklyn got was a floor gym. She loves grabbing the hanging toys.

Christmas Eve

This past year we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day with Lindsay's family. On Christmas Eve we had pizza for dinner instead of the assortment of h'ordeurves. It was a change but it was satisfying for all. Afterward we had a talent show where most of the kids and a couple of the adults performed for us. Maddie shared her violin skill, Morgan did some crazy dancing, Kayla and Lexi sang a song, Mark played the guitar, the return of the Ned and Matt Duo and much more. It was a great night of talented people.

Photo Shoot

Brooklyn is sure one spoiled little girl. Mike's sisters are constantly giving us clothes for her. Laura send us this beautiful dress. I just had to take some pictures of how cute she looked. I even got one of her notorious smiles. The other picture is just one of my favorites.

Brooklyn's Blessing

Brooklyn was given a name and a blessing by Mike on November 28th in Mike's parents ward. Mike's dad is the Branch President of the Lakeview Manor Branch and we thought it would be nice for him to be able to sign the blessing certificate. Mom Gardner had purchased the blessing dress for Brooklyn to wear on this special day in her life. It is interesting what we go through for her to wear for just a short time. She looked beautiful in her dress. We decided to have our brothers and brother-in-law to join in the circle. There were many who came to support us in this joyous occasion. All of Mike's family came and even some of his extended family. All those immediate family members in my family came and also Wendy. Afterward we gathered at Mom and Dad Gardner's house to have some food and take some pictures. It was a nice occasion.