More England Pics

Some more cute pics from England that I found on Mom's phone.

Coming soon.... pictures from Ricky & Eden's July visit! (aka.... Lincoln & Logan overload)

Moms Birthday Party

We had a big family reunion/birthday party for Mom this year. We missed having Nancee, JJ, Roo and their families here, but everyone else showed up. It was a LOT of people.





We ate good food, played board games, talked, played tennis, rode the golf cart, went on walks, and played with the animals. The boys got to do a fun sleepover on the balcony too!



On the day of the birthday celebration, Spencer and Kristin brought a fun cupcake shaped pinata that everyone got to take a whack at--including Grandma Tutu! Spencer had to figure out a way to suspend the pinata from the ceiling! It all worked out pretty well.



We also had Matt come up and give everybody a personalized gun shooting lesson. He set up a special gun range with targets and everything. It was lots of fun!




The girls decorated the house up very nicely with patriotic decorations, and then Mom blew out the candles on her delicious American Flag cake.


Even Freckles got in on the party! (He's been a very good sport)


Thank you everybody for making the effort to come up and celebrate with us.

 Happy Birthday Mama Tutu!

Fire in Poky

While Mom and Dad were in England, we had a huge fire in Pocatello. It was a very hot and windy day--perfect conditions for a fire. It burned all day and all night, and they had to evacuate an entire subdivision. The fire ended up claiming 66 homes, with hundreds of others displaced indefinitely. The hillside where the fire came into town is still all burned up.
I had a birds eye view of the fire just a few minutes after it began, and I took this photo from Mom & Dad's balcony.

Away to England!

After dropping Erica and Sadie off in Phoenix, Mom and Dad flew directly to Houston to help Roo and Annie with their newborn baby, Penny--and the little matter of relocating their entire lives across the Atlantic Ocean to live in England. No big deal.

Mom and Dad did all they could to watch the girls as Roo and Annie got their house packed up and fixed up to be sold, Dad spent a whole day fixing up the yard, Roo and Annie spent time getting international visas for themselves and the kids, they sold their cars, and best of all, Esmé got to go to the water park! Mom says that Esmé still talks about that one.

Then it was off to England on a 9 hour flight. They took a red eye flight and Grandpa Tutu was generous enough to give up his seat for a few hours so Esmé could stretch out and have a nice sleep. Mom said the girls did really well on the flight.

Mom and Dad had a great time once they arrived England. Getting used to the small cars, driving on the left side of the street, the complex roundabouts and tiny parkings was hard. Mom said the living spaces were really small and the exchange rate was tough to figure out. She said the weather was beautiful and that everything was super green. She said everyone has a wonderful yard and there aren't even any sprinklers. She said the meals were amazing--better than she was expecting!

Surprise Visit

Troy and Nancee had been on a long road trip from Tuscon, Arizona all the way up to Seattle, Washington. So, on their way home they thought.... whats a couple hours out of our way to stop at Grandma & Grandpa Tutu's house?
So, they came and ended up staying a whole extra day. Then, Mom offered to let Troy and Nancee drive the rest of the way home in peace while we watched Erica and Sadie. Mom and Dad were planning on flying to Houston at the end of the month anyways, and they had a layover in Phoenix so they thought it would be easy to just drop Erica and Sadie off at the Phoenix airport on their way to Houston.
I suppose being able to make, manage and adapt to plans like this is why Mom and Dad were able to raise 8 kids (somewhat) successfully. I have a hard time keeping up with their crazy hectic schedule. But, they do anything they possibly can to help out their kids as much as possible, and we love them for that. They are actually in England right now trying to help Roo and his family transition to life in a new Country. Mom already has her fake British accent down pat.

This is what happens when people from Arizona visit Idaho. It was about 40 degrees, which is pretty cold when you're used to it being 100 or so.  40 degrees in mid-June is pretty lame.  

Nancee's darling daughters. We are playing memory here. Erica totally kicked my butt. And she even let Sadie hold the instruction card so she felt like she was playing. We had lots of fun with the girls. Dad watched them a lot and played outside with them, Mom took care of them in the mornings. I took Erica out on a special date where we went to McDonalds and we went to see "The Lorax". After it was over I asked her what she learned about it and as a joke she said, "I think I'm gonna go cut down some trees". Too funny! 

Grandma Tutu and Erica hanging out at the office

It started snowing while the girls were visiting, and Erica was staring out the window trying to count all the snowflakes as they came down. It was pretty cute. 

Summer Conventions

Right after returning home from North Carolina, Mom and I packed up and went to San Diego to attend the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry trade show. Summer is usually very busy for Baby Banana Brush because of all the conventions that are going on this time of year. 

We debuted our new product, the "Octo-Brush", and people seemed pretty excited about it. A few weeks after getting home from San Diego, it was off to Phoenix for the American Dental Hygienists Association trade show. Both shows were very busy, which is great news for our company! 

Here are a few pictures from our travels....

Mom and Janet standing in our booth at the AAPD meeting in San Diego. 

Uncle Dennis and Aunt Janet capturing a Kodak moment at the San Diego show. 

 \Working these long hours can make you feel a little silly at the end of the day. We found this fun hat shop in Seaport Village and took some funny pictures. 

 We ended the weekend with an awesome authentic Italian dinner in "Little Italy", just outside of downtown San Diego.

 Troy, Nancee and I working the booth at the ADHA meeting in Phoenix. We had a great location, new shirts, new "models" for the products, and an awesome new professional looking sign.

I think this picture shows that all of our efforts were worth it! It was a very busy but very good show. Thanks for snapping this sweet picture Troy! 

North Carolina Trip

Dad, Mom and I went to North Carolina for a long weekend to celebrate mothers day and Nolan's first birthday. We had such a fun time! We ate a lot of delicious meals.... and cake. We saw movies, went to church, went on walks, took lots of pictures and just hung out. The weather there was absolutely beautiful, no humidity yet. 

Thanks for letting us celebrate Nolan's first birthday with you, and for being excellent hosts! 

Just a few of the many darling pictures from Nolan's first photo shoot: 

We had a fun first year birthday party with yummy white cake and a special "Fudgy the Whale" ice cream cake that were sooo good! Jennifer had the whole room decorated with cute under the sea themed balloons, table cloths, and even a poster with Nolan's picture on it. 

Nolan was very tentative about his cake at first.... gently examining it and just dipping one finger in the frosting at a time. But, it didn't take long for him to figure out how this whole "cake" thing works. 

Here are some cute videos we took while in Charlotte too. Nolan did such a good job modeling the Baby Banana Brush for us, that we have decided to officially make him the new baby model for our brand new product, the Octo-Brush! 

"Ahhhh Nolan.... Don't ever be a college president". 

 He was trying to get my iphone from me here, but it turned into a super cute picture. 

We love you guys! Thanks for letting us hang out for the weekend. :)