A Look Back

As we get into another great school year, I just wanted to take a moment to look back on some of mine and Brian's old yearbook photos. First here's Brian:

Totally boss

Used all his mom's Crisco for this picture

Lovable nerd

Long-hair phase

Not sure about the afro

Business in front, party in the back

Almost got the role of Zach on 'Saved by the Bell'

And now for Becky's:

Pin curls never go out of style

I wish I still had those wing-tip glasses!

I could be Samantha's sister on Bewitched!

Gotta have my flower shirt like any decent hippie.

This reminds me of my mom so much, it's scary.

Farrah Fawcett stage

Not sure if brunette is really my color

I'm pretty sure this is my actual 7th grade picture.

Makayla

I thought since Kylee's had so much attention with kindergarten that Makayla needed her own post. My little Makayla will be 3 in a month, and this last year she has grown up so much. She is such a beautiful, sweet-natured, happy little girl! She may act like Kylee's little shadow a lot of the time, but she has such a funny little personality of her own that I've loved watching develop. When she gets in a silly mood, her laugh is so hilarious we all can't help but laugh too! She's a little ray of sunshine in our household, and I'm glad I'll have the opportunity to have some one-on-one time with her while Kylee is in school (being the 2nd child, she hasn't had a lot of that!). Here's some recent pictures of my baby.... I mean, BIG GIRL (as she constantly reminds me)!

Kylee starts Kindergarten

I can't believe it - my little Kylee started Kindergarten!! She was sooooo excited, which I was glad about, but I was still a little sad knowing that she will be gone all day 5 days a week. Kylee's first day was a huge success, she loves her teacher and all the fun things they do. When she got home she kept talking about her friend "Brooklyn." I was glad she made a friend, until that night when she announced to Brian and me that she's going to marry Brooklyn when she grows up. That's how we found out that Brooklyn is a boy!! We told her not to even think about marrying anybody for 15 more years. Jeesh!! Isn't she a little young to be starting this??

Here's my cute little school girl in her school uniform:

This was me and Makayla after we dropped Kylee off. Makayla cried all the way home, but only because she said she wanted to eat at Kylee's school, like we did the night of the open house. I was worried she would have a hard time with Kylee gone, but she seems to be doing great. I think she enjoys having the toy room to herself!

Brian's Parents Come to Visit

We had the great privelage of having Brian's parents come and visit us the end of July for one crazy, fun-filled, whirlwind week. As Kylee would say, "It's a miracle." It was great to have family come visit us, especially since we don't get to see family very often, and we usually just sit here all sad and lonely (sniff). Even though we were dead tired by the time they left, we had so much fun, and we're so glad they came to see us! So, anybody else wanna come visit? We'll show ya a good time, I promise. :) By the way, these pictures are in backwards order of when we did stuff. I was just too lazy to switch them around.

Ellen in front of the big bat statue at the Louisville Slugger museum, where they make....can you guess? Louisville Slugger bats!

The girls showing off their souvenir bats from the museum

Brian with Kylee who's holding some old famous baseball player's bat (can't remember whose it was)

Brian imitating the great Babe Ruth at the museum

Makayla took this picture of us in Brown County. Child prodigee!

Brian and his dad at the Cincinnati Reds game. They lost, as usual. Nice matching Utah shirts, boys.

Ellen and the girls. Isn't this picture adorable?

Me, Ellen, and Makayla at the Johnson farm in Kirtland.

All of us, except Brian, on one of the Ohio river cruises, with the skyline of Cincy in the background. Brian had to work most days, poor thing.

This pretty much sums up how we all felt after dropping off my in-laws in Louisville when they flew out. Yep, that's Makayla sleeping under there.

Disney World

Here's a few pictures from our fun, but HOT, day at the Magic Kingdom. Along with our family, Matt, Aline, Nancy, and Bruno went.

The 4 of us in front of the castle. If you're wondering why there's a cloud of smoke in front of the castle, that's from the show that was going on in front of it.

Kylee and Makayla in front of Mickey's house.

Makayla, Nancy, Aline, and Kylee

Me, Brian, Matt, Bruno, and Kylee on Splash Mountain (Kylee was behind Brian)

Trying to pull out the Sword in the Stone

The Light Parade that night.

Sea World!

A miracle has happened - I finally got motivated to put up our pictures from Sea World. Because of the passes we bought, we ended up going to Sea World 4 times, so we ended up with a couple hundred pictures! So you can imagine why I've been overwhelmed at the thought of trying to post some pictures. I'm just warning you, there are probably a couple dozen pictures here, so if you don't give a hoot what we did at Sea World, you'd better exit now! :)

All of us at Sea World - well, before Matt and Aline got there.

The girls with Elmo after the Elmo show.

This was at the dolphin nursery, where pregnant moms up to 1 year old dolphins are kept on display in their own little pool. This little guy kept showing off for us. It was so much fun watching these little ones!

I think this is the same dolphin as above - he actually flung himself up on this rock and posed for us!

This is a new mom with her 4 day old baby dolphin. So adorable!!

The Shamu show, which was so incredible! We saw it twice, and got some great pictures.

Kylee was so excited when we got splashed by Shamu!

Makayla sitting on Grandpa's lap during the show.

Everyone waiting for the show to start. I'm pretty sure they only look miserable because it was hotter than the blazing depths of heck.

Us learning how to feed the sting rays. Sounds kind of freaky, but it was SO FUN! I liked it even more than feeding the dolphins. You stick the fish between your 2 fingers, hold your hand under the water, then a sting ray comes by and sucks the fish right out of your hand. It feels so funny you can't help but laugh!

I love this picture, it looks like this sting ray's gonna eat Makayla's arm!

Kylee trying to get brave enough to touch one of the sting rays

Me and Makayla feeding the dolphins. You would think this would be funner than feeding sting rays, but the dolphins don't really like to be touched, and the Sea World employees yell at you for every little thing, so it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be.

This funny little sea lion was waiting for us to feed it something. Sorry buddy, we spent all our money on the sting rays.

A mom and baby mantee.

These silly little birds were all over the place trying to beg food from people.

Jenicca, Jason, Logan and Kylee in this cave thing where they had all sorts of aquariums.

This is one of the aquariums in the cave where the kids can pop their heads up and view the fish from "inside" the aquarium.