Sunny Seattle???

So after years of saying, "Yeah, we'll try and come up some time," we finally made the grand trip to Seattle and apparently we made it on the best weekend of the year cause it was sunny the whole time and I even got sunburned. So much for the "Twilight" theory that Washington's the rainiest place on the earth. We had a great time while we were there eating fish, going to the park, seeing Pike's place and the Space Needle, visiting the temple and even the salmon ladder and boat locks. It was a lot to do in 2 days, especially considering the airline lost 3 of our 6 checked bags (including the car seats the kids needed to drive around in). But we had a great time anyway and we eventually got all of our stuff back. We even got lucky and had our room upgraded to a suite at our hotel when they didn't have our correct reservation ready on time. Rock on Seattle!! Anyway, here's the picture diary of our trip.






Eating fish and chips by the water. It just doesn't get better than that!







Rich came up for the weekend too and Tom and Meg did a great time showing us around

"Look at all these lovely flowers I can pick. 'I'll get you my pretties'"

Shan's favorite blooming flower. It's beautiful when fully bloomed but I didn't get a picture of that.

I didn't know there was still a major metropolitan city that had ducks on the sidewalk and geese in the middle of the road (both of which we saw:-)

Brooke and Bry both LOVED Tom's motorcycle helmet......

.....Brooke because she liked being able to pretend she was one of the villainous motorcycle troopers from Bolt (her current favorite movie)....

...and Bry because it reminds him of even simpler times from the womb when all sound was muffled and his head was even more disproportionatley large compared to his body.

The fam at the temple

The Seattle temple is pretty big as Brooke so aptly demonstrates

Brooke loves statues

"Come on Uncle Rich. Get up!! We still have to see the Space Needle"

"Tiptoe....through the tulips."

Weird totem outside of fish and chips place

Rich and Meg enjoying the sun....feeling the flow.

Brooke and Tom having some fun

Brooke's 4th Birthday

So our little girl is now 4 and what a great 4 years it's been. Brooke wanted a Tinkerbell fairy themed birthday party so we had a great day with her and all her friends dressed as fairies and princesses running around our house. Shan made another awesome birthday cake as she always does and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. Brooke also got to have her first "Birthday Dinner" at a restaurant and had a lot of fun being sung to and being the special person. Thanks to everybody for all the great gifts and to all who came to the party to help make it such a special 4th birthday!






Brooke wanted to dress up like the "New-Born" Tinkerbell as is featured in the new Tinkerbell movie which is why she's wearing a white dress instead of green. After the Halloween fiasco we have learned not to try and dye Brooke's hair yellow.




Bry didn't seem to keen on the idea of being a fairy so he was the lone Peter Pan.



The girls all potted flowers as it is a fairy's responsibility to make sure the seasons change correctly.



And Peter, after tiring of waiting for Wendy to come around, decided to approach a cute little fairy more his age.

"Four and Flitterific!"

Brooke could not contain her excitement upon getting the Bolt movie



" "Finally I can actually read one of these things!"

"You can't tell much from shaking a bag"

Happy Birthday Brooke!

Easter Time!

We had a lot of fun this easter with the Easter Bunny coming to our house and leaving some fun treats for us to find. Brooke got to go on a ward Easter egg hunt the day before (in the rain if you can believe it) and Kenny got to be the speaking voice of the Easter Cantata during church. Shan even got some great pictures of Brooke all decked out in her Easter attire. Enjoy!

" Oooooooh. I like Easter!"

"Why is Brooke the only one who gets to color eggs?"

"Egg anyone?"

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!!!

Hello Lasses and Laddies,

Well with the arrival of St. Patrick's day and me on my last spring break ever from school before I graduate I find myself in the unique position of having time on my hands. As you may have already guessed from the first two pictures, so far I've wasted most of that time fiddling around with Photoshop, but hey, I don't regret it. Nonetheless this has been an exciting month so here's the run down

Bryant has made many important strides in becoming a full fledged walker (get it......STRIDES:-) and has now taken up to 6 steps all by himself. This has opened up endless new avenues of exploration for our young boy who is enjoying his new freedoms of pulling down everything he can get his hands on and making huge messes. As for Shan and I....well... we're happy for him???

Brooke continues to be a social butterfly and has great fun playing with all her friends in her playgroup. One of her most recent landmarks is that she has finally crossed the alphabetical barrier as she can now sound out and read very simple books which she has a blast doing. The books are fun to go through and I continue to be enthralled by the tone and plot twists presented from books like "Mat and Sam" where two supposed friends go through adventures until suddenly at the end "Sam sat on Mat" for the surprise ending. (Yes that actually is one of her books)

Anyway, we hope all are doing well and we hope you all enjoy the pictures this fine Irish day!

This is the design we've chosen for the 8x20 foot tapestry we'll be hanging on our entryway wall.

Too much???

After having heard so many stories that involve talking animals, Brooke finally could no longer seperate fact from fiction and fell in love with a Bear.

I've just made this huge mess that I'll never have to take responsibility for cleaning up.....not unlike many of our modern day investment firms

It's important kids have solid role models to help teach our children the things that are really important in life:-)

Although this ride is fun, I think it's already a little too "baby-ish" for me

"This is the best ride I've ever been on!!!!!"

Just hanging out.

This is what I think of "Bedtime"!

"Where to Guvna?"

Bry and Grammie trying out his brand new shoes

"We've now assigned Brooke Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for dinner"

"Do you remember what I said in the tunnel?"

"For some reason I feel I should be getting ready for take-off."

"I love parks!!!"

Valentines '09

Happy Valentines Day!! Just thought I'd take a quick minute and post my beautiful wife's Valentine's day gift to me which was these pictures of the kids. My favorite is the cowboy one but they're all awesome! Hope everyone has a great day and we love you all.