Washington DC Bound

Our day started bright and early since we left the house at 5am. I never enjoy that part but it must be done.

 I just first take a minute to pause and have you notice my seat number. I have never ever been first on a plane ever!! And I probably never will again. How cool is that. We flew into Reagan airport which was actually the same price as the other airports. So Jeff & Rachel picked us up right at the curb and took us to their apartment. It is so cute. They have it setup perfectly. Rachel had cooked us dinner and we hung out for a bit then they drove us downtown to our hotel that night. I can't really mention Mendis in the blog for Mesquite reasons haha so know he was in meetings Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday and Wednesday he had appointments set up with the Senators and Reps from the state. Jeff and I went with him Monday to his conference. Then Jeff went with him to the rest of his meetings and all of his appointments. Jeff may not have loved it but Mendis loved having him there.

 I love those big windows at the end of the halls in Rachel's office building. So stately.

 We took Jeff & Rachel and had lunch down at the bottom of Union Station at the food court on Monday. We all just went and got what we wanted and ate together! Mendis and I went to Bo Jangles and got some excellent fried chicken.

It's a pretty central location so that worked out great.

 John F Kennedy's office from when he was a senator.

 There is a rotunda there in the Harmon building. Apparently that's where the Senator's do most of their interviews for the media. Who knew? I always thought they were at the capital. So after lunch we headed back to the conference for the afternoon. t about 3:30 I told dad if we were going to make the 4:00 tour at the bureau of engraving we either had to leave him or get going. We ran out of there hoping to use uber so we could get there on time. I was excited to try it but there was no cell service. So we grabbed a cab and got there just in the neck of time.
The Bureau of Printing and Engraving was really cool. That's where they print all the paper money. It was amazing to see it being so fast and the process they go through. Quite fascinating.

 That night we went back out to Crystal City and had dinner at Nando. Very yummy. One of Jeff's faves.

You live and die by the Metro map

The downtown area. Our home away from home.

May Fun

The last week of April/first week of May was crazy busy and super fun. It's funny how things happen in bunches. The end of April we went to see Brian Regan at Tuacahn. We love his show. We met up with Dr & Carolyn Jensen, Shelie & Jeff and Mike and Cheryl. We laughed until we cried.

 We even got off work an hour early so we could all go but no one 

else in the office was able to make it this year.

May 1 was May Day

We got to see Rees dance to "Move it, Move it".  He had those moves down.

The next day we had Tball and coach pitch and on into Vegas for Cinderella. Before we went to the play we met my Mom & Dad and Uncle Andy & Aunt Kathy at the Red Rock buffet. We wanted to stay well away from the strip because that was the night of the big fight. We gave them their choice of where to eat so we went to the buffet. We had a fun time eating and visiting and then we were off to the play at the Smith Center. As you can tell by the picture we were clear up at the top in the upper balcony. Be surprisingly you can see from everywhere. The play was awesome. We enjoyed every minute of it. We got home not too late which was good because there was a plane to catch the next morning!

Provo

We went up to Provo the weekend of April 18 so we could celebrate Laura & Rachel's Graduation from BYU and to see Mom & Dad who would be there for the festivities. We left home first thing Friday morning because we had some appointments with Stacey in St George on the way. As soon as we finished that we took the pickup over to Costco for new tires and then we met up with Hayden & Megan & Stacey for lunch at the Habit. Then Hayden got his tire cut up pretty bad so after lunch we took his car over to Costco and got his tire replaced. We picked up the glass for my desk from Jones Paint & Glass and parked the truck at Hayden's for the weekend and finally hit the road five short hours after we started!!

The celebration dinner at Tucano's. We love that place and everyone had a great time. We got there with no time to spare on the reservation. Hayden and Megan drove up after Megan got off work so they missed the dinner.

 After dinner we headed to the house Carolyn had rented for her family and chilled for awhile. After everyone got there we all took our guesses on where we thought Emily would be going on her mission. I won by the way since I guessed the Philippines and she is going to Hong Kong in August!

 We all spent the night at Christina's. And by all I mean Coopers. The next day we had lunch all together again at Zupas. After lunch we took Mom and Dad with us and went to the Payson Temple open house. What a beautiful Temple it is. I knew it would be pretty but the details were incredible. I especially loved the stain glass inside and out.

We weren't able to get tickets but luckily they let us all in on standby which cost us maybe one extra minute. That night we all met up again and this time we went to Mexican food. IT took over an hour to get seated so we were pretty starved by the time we sat down. It was a fun night. It rained on and off the whole weekend so we went back to Christina's that night and watched some TV and chilled with a pazookie. Yummy! What an awesome weekend. We had so much fun. On the way home the four of us stopped at G & G Cooper's for dinner and a visit.

Coach Pitch and TBall

Seems like just the other day we were attending tball and coach pitch games for our own children and now it's time to watch the grand kids already. Little kids playing baseball has got to be the cutest thing ever!

Once in awhile the whole Cooper cheering section would show up to cheer one of the boys on. So cool!

 Cooper played for the Red Sox. He was adorable. Apparently he took extremely good care of his gear and was so excited to play. This was his first team ever! He did great!!

 Rees played for the Orioles or as they said oreos.  He seemed to really enjoy playing catcher but did a great job at all his positions. He was really hitting the ball like a champ by the end of the season.

 Rees' team won the championship! He got a huge trophy to keep and a trip to McDonald's with Grammy & Grandpa to celebrate with lunch. The boys did a great job. It was awesome to cheer them on.

Clark County Fair 2015

 While Chris was here we had a movie night with Ashley & Jolynn one night and we went shopping in Vegas one day but pretty much the rest of the time I had to work until it was fair time! Thursday was carnival day. Christina headed up to Ashley's earlier and I met up with them all after I got home from work.

 Dane was too young for the carnival pass I got him so Christina used it and took him on as many rides as she could.

 

I love the photo bomber in the back ground.

I totally used my kids pictures from instagram so thanks kids!

 Saturday night Ashley got Megan's sister, Emilie and her friend to babysit so I could take all the adult kids to the rodeo. There were way too many of us to slip in the side gate and watch with Mendis.

 It was a fun night! And a fun fair actually even though I am usually not that excited to go to the fair any more.

  

Too bad I am too lazy to take the tag icon off that last picture I stold!

And We're back

The day after we got back form our cruise was Easter Sunday.  We had dinner at our house with Ashley's family and Christina got there just in time too. After we ate we had the Easter egg hunt in our front yard. Now when you see the pictures keep in mind we had just gotten home and hadn't had time to mow etc so there was lots of long grass and weeds to hide eggs in!

The kids were really getting into it, even Dane caught the spirit of things and found a bunch of eggs. Awesome day. It was good to be home. We had a fun filled week ahead of us with Christina here.

Coming to an End

All we had left of our vacation was one last sea day. We spent it sleeping in and packing up and there were still alot of fun things to do on the ship.

 I watched a towel folding demo.

 I said good bye to Ben & Jerry's even though we never even ate there. Who had time?

 I wandered around and took a few pictures on the ship.

 What a view!

 I thought this was cool. They had interactive maps so you didn't have to drag a map around with you or your daily compass that told you what was going on. This showed you all that and how to get there etc. We used them alot.

Dinner was a party. 

 The crew put on a little show for us and we all applauded them for a great cruise and fabulous service.

 Our last sunset

We sat in front of these awesome ladies every night at the theater. They were so cute. They were always telling us to quit hugging. Jeff & Jolynn got to have breakfast with them on our last day. Lucky!!

  Gotta have one more peak at the room. Our home for a week.

The sea was of luggage now. We had to find ours and go through customs.

 Yup the party was over and it was time for the long flight home. We stopped at In & Out Burger on the way home and guess who we ran into...the Keel's. Thank goodness since we were missing everyone already.