Kids!

Some random pictures of the kids!

Tyson is an outdoor kid all the way! Anytime he can be outside, he is. When it rains our backyard stays pretty wet in some areas. Tyson loves it! He is throwing rocks into the grass puddles! He came in soaked!!

We have a "dress up box" of strange item's that a little boy can "dress up" in. (Cap and gown caps, medals, capes, turtle shells, etc...) One day he decided Lily needed to dress up! So Cute!

Best Buddies!
(Can you tell they are related!?!)

We were getting ready to go somewhere and Brandon and I were upstairs and Tyson and Lily were playing together while they were waiting for us!

Ahhh!

Tyson poured out the rest of my potting soil on the grass and had the best time ever! (at the bottom of this blog there is a video of him singing covered in dirt!)

Our little Lily is getting so big. She sits up all by herself now!

Today we went outside for a little while. Lily was happy until....

She met the grass!!!!

Even after I put her back on the blanket she was still mad at me! I think it is cute!

Tyson singing "How does she know" off of Enchanted! He is going to make a cute girl very happy one day!

My Biggest Loser Husband!!

My favorite TV show would have to be The Biggest Loser. I am not sure why, I just love it. Well, now I have my own real life Biggest Loser...My B!

I mentioned a while back that Brandon entered a weight loss competition at work. Well, the results are finally in. I wanted to post some before pictures of Brandon, funny that they are both from the kids blessings. At Tyson's blessing, Brandon was at his heaviest, 217lbs. (He is probably going to kill me for posting this picture, but it had to be done!)At Lily's blessing (around the same time the competition started) Brandon weighed in at 198.7lbs. (His work had all of the competitors go to the U and had their body composition tested) He had 50.8lbs of fat weight and 147.9lbs of lean weight.

Well, about 5months later, doing P90X, running a half marathon and a full marathon, and weighing in one week early, Brandon weighed in at 170.7lbs. 24.0lbs of fat weight and 146.6lbs of lean weight. On the scale of very lean to very poor, Brandon went from Poor to Lean (just .1 away from very lean) and by only .4% Brandon came in for the competition as....drum roll please.............1ST PLACE!!!!!! YAHOOOOO B!!! We are so proud of you!
Brandon 29lbs lighter, one pant size smaller!

Our Biggest Loser!

Cruising for Swine Flu...

Tyson helping us pack the car. Using his binoculars ;)

Last Monday thru Friday, Brandon and I enjoyed a cruise to Catalina Island and Ensenada, Mexico with some of his co-workers. The day we were leaving we saw on the news the outbreak of Swine Flu in Mexico, we didn't think much of it because we didn't plan on wrestling any pigs in Mexico, but more to come on that...

Brandon and I as the ship set sail!

We flew to California (the first time I have flown in 12 years unless you count when I went skydiving, so that was 10 years ago) Anyways, it went well, we landed at the airport and not in the water so that was good! ;) We had two vans take the 12 of us to Long beach so we could board our ship. The driver in our van was a little crazy. He gave us a 10 minute lecture(because he would repeat the same thing over and over again) about the Swine Flu and that we needed masks and blah, blah, blah. We had one close call with him, but he got us there safely!
The cruise got on its way and we enjoyed dinner and some gambling. The roulette table was a 50 cent minimum so we went to town and won some cash. We went to the showtime performance they had that night and man was that terrible. Bad costumes, bad dancing, bad jokes so needless to say we didn't stay long for that!

Brandon and Aaron looking studly in their wet suits!Brandon and I in our hot wet suits!
At Catalina, Brandon and I wanted to go Kayaking. Krista and Aaron joined us. We were going to use the people that the cruise ship had recommended and go on a guided kayaking adventure, but we ended up finding another group that let us kayak(unguided) and snorkel for half the price. It was awesome! The only bummer thing was that I had some crappy goggles the fogged up really easy, so Brandon would point out fish and I couldn't see them. So halfway through Brandon traded goggles with me and man were there a lot more fish than I thought!

On shore at "Turtle Rock"

While snorkeling we were around a lot of kelp, which is where most the fish hung out, but when the kelp would touch me it would creep me out!!!

On Catalina.

After Kayaking we ate lunch at Armstrong's. It was delicious and recommended to us by some locals.

Catalina.
It was a little bit chilly, but the water was surprisingly warm. The wet suits helped a lot. It took me awhile to warm up after being in the Ocean, so when we got back on the ship we went hot tubing. Ahhh it was nice and warm!
So, every time we turned on the TV on the ship the headline was always Swine Flu. We were trying to decide what we were going to do, do we risk it and get off and see Ensenada, or do we stay on the ship...well Tuesday night the cruise line made the decision for us, we were going to go to Ensenada, but we were not going to get off the ship. So I saw Mexico from the ship. I wasn't too heartbroken we didn't stop, but two whole days on the ship was going to be tough. We made the best of it. We would eat breakfast, stake out our lounge chairs and lay out till lunch. It was great! I read a book, (yes, you are reading this right, Shay actually read a book!) talked with the other wives (luckily the group we went with was a really fun group, you never know when it is a group of people you have never met!) and talked with B. It was nice to actually take some time and relax. After lunch we would relax some more, one day we even took a nap. Then we would go workout in the gym. It was interesting to workout on a moving ship. You really had to work hard on staying on the treadmill! Then we would get ready for the evening, eat dinner, gamble, hot tub, or checkout the shows (which were not very good, we never lasted through a whole show!) It was a lot of fun!


Brandon tried to win some free throw competitions (there were 3 or 4 of them) the first time he played he came in second. It was hard with the wind and the ship moving. If he had won he would have gotten the coveted trophy. It looked like the Carnival Cruise ship. It was hilarious! Ty ended up winning on the last day and got the cool trophy. I am still proud of B getting second!!

Of course you have to take a picture of the towel animals. We also had a towel monkey hanging from the ceiling!

In Catalina we got the kids these cute tin lunch boxes. Tyson was so excited to have a picnic with them. He also wanted to take a picture of them. Tyson the photographer!

Tyson and Lily had so much fun with their Nana, Papa and Zak. Tyson was exhausted when we came home. This was what Tyson was doing when we were eating dinner! He was way too cute. While driving home he was asking us what we did on our trip, so I told him everything we did and he kept saying uh-huh, uh-huh... He was truly interested! What a cute kid!

Thanks Nana and Papa for taking our cute kids for us!

We had a excellent time!

Our action packed weekend!

Ange and Lily waiting to cheer on Brandon!

This Saturday Brandon ran his first marathon. The Salt Lake City Marathon! Since I was going to be there with the kids I signed up for the 5K. I called Ange and she kindly and bravely helped me with the kids and ran the 5K with me. Brandon did fantastic. About a week before the race we realized that this race was a Boston marathon qualifier and that Brandon needed to run it in 3hrs and 10mins to qualify. Well, Brandon just trained to finish, not to qualify, but he still did awesome. His running time was 3hrs and 13mins. (You are reading that right, he was only 3 minutes away from qualifying) well technically his finishing time was 3hrs and 15mins (he had to make one potty break!) He is amazing! I am so proud of him!

Tyson walking through the "roses" waiting for Dad! He loves gardens. He spent all his time (while we were waiting) finding sticks, smelling flowers, picking berries and filling up cracks and holes in the sidewalk with berries!

Tyson with our encouraging signs!

Crazy Tyson!

I was so excited to see Brandon I didn't realize that I had the camera on too long and it turned itself off. Luckily Brandon turned and waved at us! Way to go B!

The only two pictures I got of Brandon running!

After finishing. Tyson wanted to eat and drink everything of Brandon's.

Stan and Marilyn came to see their B!

Cute Nana and Lily!
Tyson helping Dad clean up. After Brandon did that Tyson asked me to pour water into his hands and he did the same thing. It was too funny!

Me and my Marathoner!

So, the 5K, I know it's nothing compared to a marathon, but quite a fun ordeal! Sometimes I don't understand Salt Lake city. The have been doing this race for 6 years now, you would think they would have the kinks worked out. Well, in our instructions the 5k runners were told to park at the Gateway and take Trax to the starting line, so we get to a Trax station and decide to wait for the University train that drops us off right at the starting line instead of the Sandy train that drops us off two blocks away. We are waiting and waiting (with other runners) when a Trax worker tells us there was some miscommunication and the University train is not running so we need to take the Sandy train and walk two blocks...duh...so we got on a packed train, Ange with the kids, me with the stroller. We get off, get the kids in the stroller and start jogging to the start when we hear... 8..7..6 and the gun. Awesome the race started. We decided that since I had a timing chip on my shoe, we would take a quick potty break and start when we were ready. We ended up starting 6 minutes late and in the end we passed 2000 people (with a double stroller) doing 8:11 minute miles! I was proud of us. We did feel bad for the bikers though. They had to use the same course as the 5k runners so the runners were supposed to keep the left side open for the bikers. So Ange and I used that as an opportunity to help the bikers and ourselves. We would yell "bikers on the left" to get people to move for the bikers and when it was clear we would pass of the left too! (We always stayed out of the way for the bikers) It worked pretty well! It was a fun race.

Then Sunday we went to Brandon's parents ward because Zak was being ordained as a Priest. Nana had an exciting time being Tyson's teacher and chasing him and 5 other 4year olds down the hall. After church we headed to their house for dinner and Brandon took two bites of dinner and got a piece of roast beef stuck in his esophagus. This happened 5 years ago and we had to go to the ER to have the GI specialist take it out. He has since then had his esophagus dilated 3 or 4 times. Well, Sunday was another trip to the ER. Stan and Marilyn kept the kids and off we went. We got to Timp and they gave Brandon some medicine to try to get it to move but that didn't help, so they called in the GI specialists. This time they only put Brandon under part way so his gag reflex would help out with the saliva, so he saw and felt them shoving tubes and the camera down his throat. Not fun! He will have his esophagus dilated again in a couple weeks. Both times we have gone to the ER it was because of Roast Beef, so NO MORE ROAST BEEF FOR B!!!!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Dying eggs. Tyson was so excited we couldn't get him to sit down! Lily was just cute and played in her high chair!

Tyson did such a good job! He did the stickers all by himself!

Checking out the Easter goodies! He was even excited about Lily's basket. (Binikies and a blanket!)

Finding the eggs! Nothing is more fun than the excitement of a little kid on the holidays!

(I know that Tyson's jammies make him look homeless, but they still kindof fit so even though they are falling apart, we still have him wear them. We should have thought about putting some better jammies on him, knowing we would be taking pictures of the Easter egg hunt:)

All the real eggs! He was so proud!

And here is cute Lily! Can't forget her! She slept thru the whole hunt. What a good girl!

My attempt at the kids easter pictures! Tyson was grumpy and not willing to do what we wanted, but I think they turned out pretty cute!

At church Tyson had to give the scripture in Primary and he did an exceptional job! He speaks so loud and clearly, even the big words!

After church we went to my moms for another Easter egg hunt. She is crazy and hid about 50 eggs for the 3 little ones. They had a blast, and I took a ton of pictures (but blogger wouldn't upload them for some reason!) For the two older grandkids, Laine and Kaylee, Mom did a treasure hunt for them. She sent them everywere in the house and outside (even in the attic) they loved it! Then we enjoyed yummy food! What a great Easter!