Cade is 12 as of November 5th

Early morning birthday breakfast for Cade before he heads off to school at 7 a.m. He is wearing his new jacket he opened in one of his gifts. Can't believe my baby boy is 12 years old! No more Elementary school. No more Primary. No more Cub Scouts. One more year and he is a teenager!! Oh no!! We love you Cade! I know this post is belated...but better late than never!

Cade lighting his birthday cake! Neil sporting Cade's new Night Vision Goggles! Nichole smiling for the camera waiting to eat some of that Rainbow Chip cake.

One of Cade's cool presents from mom and dad. It is a giga ball and he and Neil had fun rolling each other around in it until some of the plastic bubbles popped.

Cade had a birthday party on Friday. We went to a cool park in town and had pizza and played. Then we came home and open presents and then the boys played night games in the neighborhood. Cade said that he had a great time!

Halloween Fun & An Eagle Scout

An angel (Daddy's Little Angel) and a devil (Mama's Little Devil) visited our house on Halloween!

Cade dressed up as Steve Young for this Halloween...maybe one of his last for trick or treating!?

Cade & Neil carved pumpkins on Thursday night after they performed in their Piano Recital. We forgot the camera for the piano recital, so we just have jack-o-lantern photos!

Halloween 2008!

Austin & Cade wait for Neil's Eagle Court of Honor to begin. It was held Sunday, October 26th.

Here Neil is giving his little Response talk. He had been sick for 2 days and we made him get out of bed and come to the Court of Honor. The next day we took him to the doctor and he had Strep...so we kind of felt bad about it.

Big brother Todd presents his Eagle award to Neil while Mom & Dad watch. Thanks Nichole for taking all of the photos.

Here is Neil's little display table. Here are photos of his Eagle project. He and his troop helped to clear a trail in Springdale. On the table are all of the congratulation letters from prominent people. We also had a slide show that Brent put together for all 3 boys getting their Eagles. He worked long on it and he did a great job! It was a great evening.

Trip to Logan and West Jordan

We drove up to Logan October 3rd and attended the BYU vs. Utah State football game. It was a fun game and exciting. Troy & Amy wore their Aggie shirts and Neil & Cade wore their BYU shirts (all navy blue). Brent & I had neither so we just wore our royal blue Dixie High school shirts. Of course BYU won!!! (Don't be too sad Troy & Amy :) )

Saturday we drove up Logan canyon and then over to Bear Lake. It was raining and so we jumped out every so often to get some photos. The canyon really had some beautiful fall colors! We had a fun day!

Here is Cade showing me all of the gorgeous leaves than had fallen.

Brent, Neil, Troy, Amy & Cade on the shore of Bear Lake.

Neil, Kristine, Amy, Troy & Cade. We stopped to enjoy raspberry shakes & lunch at Le Beau's (in the background of this photo).

We stopped and Chad & Melinda's on Sunday morning and watched conference. It was fun to see all of Mikell's new tricks. She is walking...it is so cute! This is Mikell's cute little poodle costume for Halloween! I was glad to see it on her since we won't be able to see it on her in person on Halloween. She wasn't feeling well that day and so wasn't thrilled to show us her costume.

Chad & Melinda fed us a great lunch! Cade & Neil had fun playing with Mikell...even blowing bubbles outside after the rain cleared out. After our visit there we headed to Grandma & Grandpa Gardner's in Provo for a quick visit before hitting the road to head back to home. It was a great little get away weekend!!

Neil 15th Birthday

Here is Neil blowing out those 15 candles on his "money" cake. You can see Austin helping him blow!

Neil got a new play kitchen for his birthday...not really! I bought it to go down into the playroom for the grandchildren. However, Neil (and Cade) had fun putting it together. We got up into the attic and found the play dishes and pretend food that Nichole had in her play kitchen. So the kids had fun showing it all to Austin on Saturday.

Neil requested french toast and bacon for his breakfast. We had Jimmy John sandwiches and lots of other food for lunch while watching the BYU vs. Wyoming game. We had birthday cake later in the afternoon. Then Neil wanted more than anything to go eat dinner at his favorite place...Outback Steakhouse. We all had a fun day! We wish Chad, Melinda, Mikel, Troy & Amy could have been here too. Well, we wish all of our friends & family could be here! :)

BYU Fans & Wild Play with Uncle Cade

Here are a couple of the BYU fans here at the house on Saturday! It was such an exciting game...we loved it...BYU winning by 1 point with 2 seconds left in the game. That blocked kick was amazing! Mikell & Austin had fun playing together. I tried really hard to get photos of the 3 grandchildren together and it was just about impossible to get a good photo.

Here is the video that Chad & Melinda have been waiting for. Sorry it took me so long. Also, it takes awhile to get videos downloaded on my dumb computer. Enjoy!!!

Mikell comes to Visit Grandma & Grandpa

Mikell is visiting Grandma & Granpa this week while Chad & Melinda are in Orlando for a vacation. They are using the Christmas present Marriott Week. We are having so much fun with Mikell. Here she is having breakfast. Melinda told us that she loves to dip her food in...dip. So here she is with some waffle pieces (Grandpa made for her) and she is dipping them into her little pile of syrup on the table. So cute! Todd & Rakel came over to watch the BYU vs. Washington game and so afterwards we had a little swimming party, and Mikell loved the water, but the pool was a little cold, so they mostly stayed in the hot tub.

I have more photos and some video but it is getting late and I need my "beauty sleep" and so look for more photos to come soon!

The Bathroom is finally finished!

It has been a lot of work and several months but finally the downstairs bathroom is finished! Brent, Neil & Cade tore the room apart & remodeled the cabinets. We hired Travis Read to laquer the cabinets for us and then he came back and painted the room for with mildew & mold resistant paint. We hired Curtis Peters to do all of the tile.

We love all of the tile...hopefully it will be much easier to keep clean

I love the new towel hooks but the boys just need to learn how to hang them properly. We love the new shower door also.

By the way, Melinda, you are probably looking for photos of Mikell (since we are babysitting this week), look back again soon and I will add those!

Found the North Rim Photos!

Finally found the North Rim photos...Brent had downloaded them on his laptop and deleted them from the camera. We had a great time and saw some amazing scenery! It even was a nice day...not so hot.

Busy week...

Neil & Cade went back to school on Tuesday!

Neil is at Dixie Middle School (9th grade) Cade is at Tonaquint (6th grade)

Last minute trip before school started. This is out in the Big Water area by Lake Powell.

Overlook at Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell. Didn't take the boat there this time.

The site of the filming of the T.V. show Gunsmoke. It was also used for a lot of other western movies. It is up in Johnson Canyon outside of Kanab.

Last week we had two fun little trips. Brent had business up North and we rode up and visited with Chad, Melinda & Mikell. It was really fun to see them even though it was a short visit. Then on the weekend we went to Kanab on business for Brent, then Lake Powell - Big Water area for business, then for fun drove out to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I am adding a few photos, but when I opened the camera file there weren't any of the photos we took at the North Rim so I don't know what happened.

More news from Kurt

Kurt's district at the Provo MTC just before they all took off to their different mission areas.

This photo is actually one taken at the Provo MTC right before Kurt headed out to the Dominican Republic. This is Kurt and his cousin Devin posing in front of the missionary statue outside the MTC. Kurt is doing great in the DR MTC. He says he loves their food. He is working hard and learning a lot. He likes to throw in Spanish words every so often in his emails and letters. He says it is super humid there. For their p-day today they picked up trash at the University close by (he said it was really trashy), and it looked really good when they were finished, but after 5 minutes of working they are soaking in sweat. He says that the people appreciate their service project and so are more likely to talk to them and have good feelings towards them.

Bathroom Project & Photo from Kurt

We got new emails from Kurt yesterday from the Dominican Republic. He sent us a night photo of the Temple. He is busy working hard, and getting a little frustrated because he feels like he is not learning the language fast enough.

Brent is into "stripping" these days!

Neil & Brent are having lots of fun tearing apart our basement bathroom. (Cade even helped ripping out sheetrock.) It is a messy job, but somebodies got to do it!! It should look good when it all gets put back together!

Oops, I forgot that I had one more Birthday photo!

I am so dumb...I forgot I had this photo to add to my last post! I thought this was so cute of Mikell with her messy little hands with cupcakes and chocolate frosting on them. She was so fun to watch as she tried to eat her birthday cupcakes. Happy Birthday Mikell! We love you!!

Happy Birthday to 1 yr. old Mikell!!

I can't believe little Mikell will be one year old tomorrow! I wish, wish, wish we could be there in person to give her a big birthday hug and big birthday kiss! We had a little pre-birthday party up in Park City a few weeks ago and so you can see that we all enjoyed the yummy cupcakes that Melinda made to help us celebrate. I love these photos of Mikell enjoying these birthday cupcakes! We will be sure to get onto Chad & Melinda's blog after tomorrow because I am sure they will have some fun photos of the big day!

New photos from the DR

Here is Kurt's new home in the DR...at least for 5 more weeks.

Kurt made it to the Dominican Republic. He emailed us photos and this is his new companion at the MTC in the DR. He didn't tell us his name...we just know that he is from Delta, UT. Hopefully we will get a name eventually. The MTC is next to the temple and so here they are posing in front of the Temple.

Photos from Kurt

Here are the photos sent to us from Kurt, I just tried to scan them in and they look a little crooked but I guess that is okay. He liked this first photo because it shows what is life has been all about the last few weeks at the MTC.

This is a photo of his room. He was happy because he had his own desk and didn't have to share it. Also, on the back he wrote that this is him "walking with purpose"...he says at the MTC they always tell them to walk with purpose.

This is Kurt's companion at the Provo MTC. He is Elder Sevey from Riverside, CA. They go along really well. Now that Kurt is at the DR (Dominican Republic) MTC he has a new companion from Delta, Utah. He says he will send more photos later. We will try to keep it updated.