anniversary

So, in all the excitement of Jo's birthday and family pictures I forgot to post about our anniversary. That's right, our 10th anniversary! Can't even believe it's been 10 years already. Kev had been in Las Vegas for a school district convention until the 21st so I had plenty of time to cook up something without him knowing. We began with breakfast in bed:
I made him french toast and sausage! Both are throw pillows for when he is laid up with his legs hurting and confined to the couch. He was using these old raggedy pillows from when we lived at the trailer but they weren't very fun and I decided he needed some comfort food for when he's not feeling good. Oh, and I posed them here next to the piano bench so you can get an idea of the size of the toast. . . it's 6 inches wide all the way around the dark brown part (the crust). And the sausage is actually a neck pillow so he doesn't have to wad up and smash down a regular pillow to use on the couch. He LOVED them, although it was a little off-putting when I said, "I'll be right back with your breakfast," and then returned with a huge black garbage bag.

Next, I got to open mine. He made me a pearl necklace in Vegas! There's this place in Hawaii (where we went on our honeymoon) called the Pearl Company where you get to pick your own oyster and they crack into it to see if it has a pearl. The same company has a branch in Vegas, in the very hotel he was staying, so he went down and tried his luck at picking a pearl. Turns out this is one of the best coloring (more white than yellow) and bigger than usual . . . too bad his luck didn't extend to the poker tables . . . so he had it set in this necklace setting for me. I LOVE IT!!! And little did he know (well, he knows now) when we were in Hawaii I had seen this place and wanted to try picking an oyster but we newlyweds had no extra money to do it then. :)

My wonderful parents came over to watch the kids so we could go to dinner and a show that night. We went to the Nine Iron Grill at the golf course for supper . . . we hadn't been there before and it was nice, for a special occasion:

Of course since it is a nicer place I didn't want to just whip out my camera and ask the waitress to take our photo so instead you get to see purse-pictures of us:After supper we scrambled back to Green River to see the movie Inception. Fabulous show, even if it did have a "Kevin Ending" -- no spoilers here but a Kevin Ending denotes a movie where not everything is wrapped up nicely at the end. . . .

Fantastic way to celebrate 10 years together! We thank God so much for these years so far and pray He will bless us with many, many more!

summer boy

McC-Ander-Brown Family portraits

So, here they are for your viewing pleasure!

And after we got all the ones of the whole family, we had to do the yearly sister pictures:And one bizarre one, just for fun, which succeeded in getting head shaking from our husbands:

Thanks again, Valerie! In October it's your turn!

party time

So, due to scheduling conflicts we had Josiah's birthday party today. More photos to come, but I had to put this on here because it's my first cake and I was really happy with how it turned out. Kev says I don't need any more hobbies . . . but it sure was fun!

the night before

So, 10 years ago tonight, I was wearing a funny headband with toulle attached to the back, trying not to laugh too much and irritate my mom as my dad propelled me up the aisle for the fourth run-through at our wedding rehearsal. After we completed that last trip, the BBQ was lit and we had a great big family barbeque of a rehearsal dinner. Sometime between inhaling the giant burgers and the gooey desserts, it dawned on Kev and me that even though we had an entire 13 months to plan this event, we still hadn't picked a song to walk out to after the ceremony. Ahhhh!! We frantically searched through my friend's CD collection from his car but nothing jumped out at us except Leaving on a Jet Plane mainly because we were doing just that to get to Hawaii for our honeymoon - but it's not that uplifting of a song. My girls were getting antsy and wanting to get on with the bachelorette-party festivities and the guys were ready to kidnap Kev and leave me to my own devices so we finally settled on If You Could Only See by Tonic. Again, not the best or most appropriate (having perused the lyrics a time or two since then) but it got the job done and no one really noticed. And every time we hear that song now we smile and say "Remember when we didn't have a song picked....."

Then, with a last kiss and a "see you in the morning - and you'd better be on time and able to stand at the alter unassisted!" (from me, not him), we went our separate ways for the evening. I still don't know for sure what all the guys did but he was indeed on time and able to stand upright so I'm content to leave it a mystery. We girls went out for drinks -- even though several of our number were underage, thank you Bayfair Mall Red Robin and your relaxed carding rules -- then back to the house for mani-pedi's and gossiping. I didn't get to sleep until well after 2am and was up nervous and sick at 5:30 so it's an amazing thing that I was able to keep my eyes open by the afternoon.

Tonight, 10 years later, I'm sitting at home waiting for Kev to return from a school conference trip to Las Vegas, trying to keep the kids entertained until bedtime so they don't notice he's not home yet. Eventually I'll get them into bed and then watch TV until he walks in the door. I love it when he walks in the door. I'm pretty sure I'll sleep just fine, especially with him back home, and if I'm up at 5:30 it'll probably be because Gennie had a scary bad dream or Josiah can hear the wind blowing outside his window.

And I'll probably end the evening with another last kiss -- and a "See you in the morning."

Then tomorrow we'll celebrate 10 years!

mini me

So, I noticed something as I was editing our recent round of family photos. Josiah really is a smaller version of my dad. Exhibit A:
Fantastic photo of my parents. Love 'em!
Exhibit B:
My kids - love 'em, too. But look a little closer:They even SIT the same way! Palms on legs, feet flat on the floor (even tho Josiah is sitting on a ledge), left leg just a little in front of the right one. Honest to goodness, no one coached them to sit in any specific way. And the one of Gennie and Josiah was taken before the one of my parents so it's not as if Josiah saw the way Grandaddy sits and tried to be like him. It really just happened.

I love family traits.

coming soon!

So, Valerie has worked her magic once again and we have new family photos! More to come, but in the mean time, enjoy the ones on the right --------->>>>>>>

tiny bubbles

So, we had us some bubble fun this last weekend. Can you tell?

Nothing like standing two feet away from your brother and blowing with ALL YOUR MIGHT. . .

. . . which results in bubbles stuck in his hair:

Disney Top Ten

So, I finished editing all the Disneyland photos. . . and ended up with 236. Rather than subject you to the dreaded "Vacation Photo Slideshow". . . really, who wants to see someone else's vacation photos? . . . I chose my top ten faves and we'll leave it at that.

1. Alien Blasters ride. Kev and Jo, both with their little ray guns, helping Buzz Lightyear save the universe from Zorg. Jo was beyond happy!

2. It's a Small World. Gennie loved every minute of it, and sang the song for most of the rest of the day.3. Jungle Cruise. I love love love this ride. I would live in the jungle forever if I could . . . as long as the jungle is just like this, without bugs and snakes and right smack-dab in the middle of civilization. 4. Tiki Room. And a family photo op.
5. FANTASMIC! I saw this show years ago on another trip to Disneyland. But this time I watched it with my own family, over my mom's shoulder, with my daughter on her tiptoes in front of us. I love that you can see both of their profiles lit up in this photo. Love it.

6. The Dumbo Ride. I loved this one when I was a kid and Gennie does, too!
7. Josiah loved Dumbo, too. This photo isn't the best of the ride but you can almost see Jo tucked in there with Kev.8. Tarzan's Treehouse. Kev and I took Josiah thru it while the others were on the Indiana Jones Adventure. He loved climbing all over and running on the rope bridges. In one of the rooms you can peek in and see Baby Tarzan with his gorilla mom. Josiah thought the monkey was stinky.
9. The Teacups. All 4 of us were in the teacup next to Mom and Sarah and Jonathan so we had a great view of him turning the teacup as fast as he could and Mom and Sarah trying really hard not to get sick.10. While we were waiting for one ride or another, we found a bench and let the kids run off some energy. They wanted to show us their very best attempt at a human Tiki -- I think they did pretty well!

These three posts are pretty much our vacation in a nutshell. I'm printing the rest of the photos for the mandatory vacation album . . . of course I'm making a separate Disney album . . . are you really surprised? :)

autographs

So, a few posts back I showed you the autograph book I made for Gennie to take to Disneyland to get character's autographs. Well, the phrase of the trip was "shut out". Every time we tried to get the signatures, we were at the end of a huge line of other little kids trying to do the same thing, and the characters are only allowed to stay and sign for a specific amount of time. We'd wait in line and just before we'd get to our turn, they'd have to move on. So, instead of explaining this to a disappointed little girl, I decided to take photos of each character we saw, even if Gennie wasn't standing with them, and when we got home I'd look up the signatures online and print them off for her book. Worked pretty well!

Some of them we were able to get, like the Queen of Hearts here:

Buzz was on his way somewhere and we got in his way so he couldn't pass until we got his photo. Then he tickled Josiah and scared the poo out of him so Jo wouldn't stand close to him:
The same thing happened with Woody here. We got in his way just as he was headed into the "cast members only" area, and were able to get a fist bump for Josiah: Not sure what I was doing with the camera here, but that's the back of Woody: And the sign on the cast door just cracked me up: "Open Door Slowly. Be Sure to Smile!" The next morning we got over to the Princess Coronation and got to see three princesses at once. Tianna from Princess and the Frog:

Ariel, on land, of course:And Jasmine:
Later, Aunt Sarah saw Aladdin and Jasmine together and Mary Poppins and Bert:

We thought that'd be all the ones we could find, but as we were getting the stroller packed up to leave that night, my parents spotted Mickey with a tiny line behind him. They ran to get me and Gennie and we raced back to catch him. The handler guy he had with him told us it was time for a "cheesecake break" and the people in front of us were the last ones but I begged and pleaded with him and he let us be the last ones.

After 31 years, at the end of our vacation, exhausted and sunburned, I finally got my picture taken with Mickey Mouse!

And Gennie, lucky little girl that she is, got to escort Mickey to his "cheesecake break", skipping thru Main Street holding his hand:

After I took this photo, it occurred to me that Mickey Mouse just ran off with my child. Good thing he's easy to spot, what with all the kids clamoured around him.

So, we got enough photos to fill her little book, including the princesses' signatures and Goofy and the Queen. But when we got home and unpacked, we realized the autograph book didn't make the trip back with us. We have NO idea what could have happened to it but it's not in our possession. So I'll make her a new one - that's the great thing about photographing your projects as they are completed - and make pages specifically for these characters.

And Gennie's as thrilled as can be!