Before June is over . . . . . . .

we want to wish our son-in-law Andrew a happy belated birthday!  June is Andrew's birthday month and we are so happy that he and Hillary have been here to make it a much better summer so far.  I know that Reggie and Luke have been enjoying having another man around the house to talk sports with watch male-bonding movies with and go on adventures with.

Samantha has enjoyed having a big brother around too for the fun times (like Great America) and for his helpfulness during her recovery. I have also enjoyed his willingness to help with things around the house, get the kids out of the house and watch our favorite t.v. shows with us.

It's going to be a wonderful rest of the summer!

home from the hospital

We came home from the hospital today.  The surgeon said the surgery was "flawless" so we have even more faith that this will be worth it.  There have been some difficult moments in the recovery so far, but Samantha is weathering it well.  I'm so proud of her.  It is strange to have her not talking but she's communicating with her little whiteboard.  We saw her first post-surgery smile when she and Hillary were skyping with Julia and making "Taylor Swift" jokes.  Everyday is a little better, and we ended it on a good note with the milkshake that flowed nicely through the syringe, and her favorite movies on the t.v.

5 minutes left to chew!

Tomorrow morning Samantha and I are headed to Santa Clara for her jaw surgery.  She is not supposed to eat after 11 tonight so she's got 5 minutes left to chew!  Her "last meal" is Round Table Pizza.  After tomorrow she will go on a liquid diet in a syringe to soft foods with a spoon in July to chewing again in August. The truth is I'm pretty nervous about it all.  I know everything will turn out fine and it will be worth it to do this.  But the recovery is not going to be fun.  But Samantha has a positive attitude. One thing she is looking forward to in her recovery is watching every episode of the "Full House" DVD collection we got her for the occasion.  Please keep her in your prayers!

We took this picture at Great America on Saturday.  Perfect for this post.

Luke's Trip

Well, it's Luke's turn for a summer trip. ( Funny we are all having vacations but at separate times this year.)  He just left with my sister and family, headed to Texas, and after a couple of weeks he will end up with Julia and Lester in Oklahoma.  The plan is that Reggie will meet them in mid July and they will have an adventurous road trip home (as in Lester and Julia moving to California!).   This means Luke will be away for almost a month.  Thats just crazy!  We will miss him but are excited for all the fun he is going to have.

Las Vegas, the end

One great thing about Las Vegas is it was one of the few places we could go that we weren't thinking the whole time "Oh I wish the kids could see this".  Until we took a look at The Luxor hotel that is.  The decor was amazing:

Inside it had something Samantha would have loved to see - a Titanic artifacts exhibit.

Oh well, we brought her back a pretty key chain and a very happy, rejuvinated Mom & Dad.

Here are some last few pictures of other impressive looking hotels:

MGM Grand

 New York

The Excalibur

Caesar's Palace (which seemed the biggest hotel of all consisting of several buildings)

Paris

             

But, the all time, most beautiful building that we saw on our whole trip was:

The Las Vegas LDS Temple

about 8 miles away

It was the trip of a life time!

Las Vegas part 2

The shows, the shows; there were so many to choose from.  We decided to go for 2 smaller ones at the Planet Hollywood Hotel.  They were wonderful!  We absolutely loved "Hitzville" which was a Motown recreation.  The performances were great and the crowd was a lot of fun.  They did the Temptations, The O'Jays, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, The Supremes, Gladys Knight & The Pips and more.

We also took in Nathan Burton's Magic/Comedy show.  His illusions/cutting the girl in half kind of stuff was mind boggling.  (Unfortunately they were not as nice as Hitzville in allowing picture taking.)

Sunday night we splurged in getting a room in one of the big hotels a mile away from the strip.  

Wow, what a view!

We had to laugh that our room came with his and hers t.v.s, and even one in the bathroom.

                                                                                   

Las Vegas part 1

Reggie and I spent last Friday through Monday in LasVegas.  It was a blast! Some things were obviously strange and irritating - the cigarette smoke inside and out; the advertisements for girly shows all over the place from huge billboards to little cards the people tried to hand us on the streets. But so much of it was surprisingly beautiful impressive and a whole lot of fun! Those are the things we remember most.

After arriving around 9 Friday morning we got our rental car and headed to Hoover Dam.  It was great to see and boy was it hot!

By the afternoon we checked into our Best Western Plus/Casino Royale right in the heart of the Vegas Strip.  It wasn't a huge hotel but it was clean comfortable and cozy.  We couldn't beat the location.

It was across the street from the Mirage Hotel and it's erupting volcano:

and down and across the street from Treasure Island:

We spent Friday night walking up and down The Strip through various hotels.  We realized that each hotel had it's own theme, mall, restaurants, casino and shows.  My absolute all time favorite was The Venitian.  I loved it so much we went past it and through it a couple of times over the weekend.

Outside:

Inside:

We came across some free performances happening inside the mall:

We missed some of the performances advertised, like the marionette show and the Carnevale parade, but maybe on our 30th anniversary we can go stay at the Venitian and catch those!

We made it as far as The Bellagio and watched the dancing waters before we called it a night and headed back to our hotel.

pictures

A week ago a friend of ours passed away.  She was a beautiful person known for loving life and for the fun she brought to every gathering.  She will be missed by so many people - especially her husband and children.  They took some beautiful family pictures over the last couple of years and I can imagine how every snapshot photo and portrait of her is especially priceless now.

Reggie and I had a weekend away planned and considered canceling it in order to go to our friend's funeral.  We were honored to be able to go to a gathering for her the night before but decided to keep our plans and miss the funeral.  Something that I've learned from her is to treasure the time we have together as a family and even more so to treasure the time Reggie and I have together as a married couple.  In my desire to be the best Mom I can be I think that I at times have put our marriage on the back burner.  Of course it has to be that way sometimes; parents almost always put their children's needs ahead of their own.  But sometimes the marriage needs to be on the front burner and time together needs to be the most important thing.  That is something that I need to better remember.

So Reggie and I had our weekend.  We thought a lot about our friend and her family as we were on the plane Friday morning.  But we knew that we had to do the best with our time together and made it a wonderful weekend.  You know I will be blogging all about it.  But for now I want to end with some pictures that we took.  Many of them we tried to do ourselves - you know like the kids do when they hold the camera out in front of themselves.  We weren't very good at it and luckily nice strangers walked by and offered to take the pictures for us.  Everyone of them is priceless to us.

 

p.s.  In every picture taken I swear I remember smiling my biggest smile but it doesn't look like it in the finished product.  I promise I was having the time of my life with the love of my life!

On my mind

"The grave hath no victory and the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ." - Mosiah 16:8