Thank goodness for change.

Well tonight was Andrew's last T-ball game. His grandpa Giles was there to watch him play and he reminded me that I had not been writing. So here I go. Everything is changing... Soon my kids will all be married, the grandkids are getting big and doing more, and there has been a big yellow thing in the sky...I think it might be the sun.
Like I said Drew has been playing T-Ball and he is doing well. He probably throws better than anyone on any of the teams (of course I am grandpa and a Little bit one sided) seriously though he play pretty well. He can hit a pitched ball instead of from the tee (if I can toss him a pitch worth hitting) and he anticipates the ball being hit when he is in the field. It has been fun to help with the T-Ball team. BIG news... Andrew can ride a two-wheeler without training wheels. He was so excited he was jumping up and down yelling "I did it!" Preston is right behind drew all the way. He can't wait to be on the field. He is enjoying riding his power wheels four wheeler and fighting over everything with Isabelle. He and I are always teasing each other and he is always telling me "Don't Waaff" which means "don't laugh." He is so funny. Isabelle is getting taller and her features are changing. I guess that means she's growing. She is Preston's wrestling partner. They can scream and argue over everything. It's comical. Stacey is playing softball again with Skywest and a couple of weeks ago she was hit with a ball in the side and has a very nice bruise. She pitches and she plays the game well.
Braden has graduated from Boot Camp at the San Diego M.C.R.D. It was so good to see him. He looked great in his uniform. He was home for ten days (of which it rained 9 of the days) and it was good to have him around. We were able to go fishing on the only dry day. It was a lot of fun. He is now back in San Diego at Camp Pendleton for his Marine Combat Training and after that he will go to Virginia for a couple of months. It's odd to think he is in the military. Brooke and Tim are getting things together for her wedding on July 5, 2011. She has her dress, and it looks good on her. Sorry Tim I have no pictures. Things are a bit crazy, the wedding is coming up so fast. Stacey is organizing, checking on things, and doing as much as she can between flying and everything else she has going on. Courtney is back in school again. I think she is doing well. Every Saturday she works in American Fork at the Hospital. She seems to really like it, other than they are long days, and if you have not seen her lately she has been hoola-hooping, waking, and has lost weight. The problem is I keep finding it and putting it on me. Doug was up here last week. It was good to see him and you can tell the boys were glad to see him. Doug has now traveled up and back to Mesquite without any car problems. Yahoo!! I hope I did not just jinx the whole thing.
Whitney is working, working, working and doing well. Jason is flying now and stationed in Utah. Isabelle is the beauty queen. She is so fun. She is a water dog just like Preston. Those two are so much a like. She played in the water the other day until I was cold watching her. You need to see her ride her four wheeler. Thanks to Aunt Ginger she has a Pink Power Wheels 4-wheeler.
Other BIG news. Yesterday I received a text from Jayme. She is in the USA. She is in Washington. I am so glad she is in the U.S. I think she will be there for a couple of weeks and then she will be home. Is that cool or what?
Well, there has been a lot going on and I just have not had time to sit and write but I am glad I did today. Thanks for reminding me. Thank goodness for change. Braden has been home, Jayme is coming home, all of the grandkids are learning new things, Brooke and Tim are getting married.
I hope everyone has a great week. Be safe. Jayme, we can't wait to see you! Semper Fidelis (Always Faithful). Love ya.

Spring???

Well we woke up to six inches of snow this morning. I did not expect that. This weather is crazy and I want to go fishing. Two more weeks and Braden's graduates as a Marine. He is doing well and seems to like what he is doing. H was the top shot in his platoon and I know he was excited about that. I can tell that he has learned a lot while he has been gone. It seems like he has been gone for a year. I am really excited to go to California and see him graduate. I was able to talk to Jayme tonight via Skype. She is doing well and trying to get things in order to come home. I am not sure when the day is but I am excited to have her back. Courtney and the boys are back in Mesquite this weekend with Doug. They went hiking and looked at some petrogliphs ( I have no idea how to spell it) today. Andrew has been on medication for about two weeks now and, knock-on-wood, he has not had another seizure. That has been great. He just attended his kindergarten orientation. He was very excited and full of information when he came home. Preston is talking like crazy and wearing big boy underwear, yep a big step. Doug just had his Birthday he is 12. Well that's what drew told me. Jason is now flying for Skywest. He is doing well. The weird thing is that he is based out of Palm Springs, CA. So he continually needs to travel to California for work. Whitney and Izzy are doing well too. Isabelle is growing up too quick. Chatter bug, Chatter bug. Izzy and Preston can't seem to be outside enough. They love the outdoors. Brooke and Tim have work school and oh ya, a wedding to keep them busy. Stacey is busy with the wedding as well, and I am just trying to stay out of the way. Things are good except for last Monday I did something to my back. My back is somehow a pain in the butt. Preston, Andrew and I built a couple of tiny birdhouses last weekend. The boys did a great job. The houses are on our fence in the front yard and they look great. Andrew had his fist tee-ball ball games. As luck would have it we played in 30 degree wet weather. I am trying to help out the coach, and it is like herding cats. There are only four kids that know that you run to first after hitting the ball, and they are Andrew and three girls. Go girls. The rest of the team manages to run to the pitchers mound, second base, or third. Drew is having fun and I noticed that he actually anticipates the Ball being when each batter is up. That's cool. Well I an going to go back and put the heating pad on my back. Have a great week everyone.

Marching, marching, marching on!!!

I thought I would take a minute and let you know how Braden and Jayme are doing...Well we have received a couple of letters now from Braden who is at boot camp. First of all he wanted me to tell everyone who wrote to him THANK YOU very much. He was so glad to hear from you, and that the letters arrived at just the right time. He said that they have been practicing marching, push ups, pull ups, and running several miles each day. He said that he can climb a rope now and they have been issued their M16 rifles. He said that this week they begin swimming which he said was going to be a welcome change and he could give his feet a rest. After this week they go to the mountains for three weeks. All in all he sounds like he is doing well. He wants everyone to know that he misses loves you all. I was also able to talk to Jayme on Skype the other day. She looked great and is doing well also. It is starting to get hot in Iraq and it was already in the 70's there. She is working from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. She also wants everyone to know that she misses them and sends her love to you all. She comes home in about three months. It will be nice to have her here.
On another note, Isabelle (the really cute 1yr old redhead) has to have tubes put in her ears because she keeps getting ear infections. It will be nice to get them in and get her healthy. She is such a funny kid. Let me tell you, she runs the show. She is awesome.
Doug is in Florida at a Physical Therapy Training thing but I think it is just an excuse and he is just at Spring Training with out ME!
Brooke and Tim are going to Mesquite this weekend. She gets to take care of Daisy while she is there. I hope the drive safe and have fun.
Jason is finishing up his final weeks in ground training and I know it has been tough but he can do it. Whitney is doing a good job keeping things going while he is away.
I have not seen Andrew and Preston today but I am sure that drew is playing video games and Preston is playing with his trains. Courtney is doing well in her nursing and it has not been easy lately. I can't wait for Andrew to start T-ball. It will be nice to be out of the house. I don't know how we will keep Preston off of the field because he will want to do what his brother does. Preston is really start to talk up a storm.
Well its time to clean up and get ready for bed. Have a great weekend. Happy Fishing.

USMC - Marine Recruit Braden Quinn

Hi all. Well it finally came…Time for our Marine to leave home and go to Camp Pendleton in San Diego, California. Yep, he is a “Hollywood Marine”. Our family had dinner together Sunday night and after dinner Stacey and I took Braden to the hotel that they put the recruits up at. I think they do this so they know where the recruits are at 4:45 a.m. on Monday morning. I doubt Braden slept at all on Sunday night because he had a cold. On Monday morning I called the MEPS office (Military Entrance Processing Station) they person that answered said that they would “probably” swear the Marine recruits in between 11:00 and 1400 hours. Yes it was like setting an appointment with Comcast. I was able to see him sworn into active duty and it was cool. He was ready to go. It was great to see him although I hated to say goodbye again. That was a week ago already, and last night we received a call from a member of the Bishopric who said he had seen and talked with Braden. I was so glad to hear that someone had seen him. Braden has a bad cold but is doing ok. He said that he was very impressed with Braden. He said that this group of recruits were the best he had ever seen, and he has been a Marine since 1947 (Yes, he is retired). He gave me Braden’s address and told us to write as often as we could. He said that Braden will graduate on May 13. They have a parent’s day on May 12 where I think the recruits can show their parents around and introduce them to their officers and other recruits. So I can’t wait for May to get here. I will try to keep up a little better with my blog so that everyone can see how he is doing. Thanks to all of our family who helped out with the parties for Braden before he left. You guys are awesome! Taylor and Scott, thanks for going shooting with us before he left, it meant a lot to Braden and me. Thank you also to Braden’s friends who came to see him. It was great to see and meet all of you. Semper Fi Braden. We LOVE you. ( P.S. I think I can do 10 or 8 or maybe 2 pushups)

Almost Time

Well just a few more days and Braden goes into the Marines. This is really strange. We have not had anyone in the military and now we have Jayme and Braden. Braden and I spent last Friday together just goofing around at Cabela's and to a range to shoot the guns. It was nice to spend some time with him. He leaves on the 7th of February, which used to be miles away, but now is almost here. I saw Jayme on the webcam the other day and I felt so bad for her because she was sick. It was still great to see her. I am trying to find out if the Marines will let Braden fix our cars from San Diego. Maybe he could just text me how to fix them and keep them going. I hope he does well. He did get his motorcycle running and it sounds great. You know I like to ride the motorcycles, but his is so fast it scares the crap out of me. Well the Marines are lucky to be getting Braden. Love you Braden.

New Year? Where did the old one go?

Hi everyone. Just before Thanksgiving, yep before Thanksgiving Andrew wanted to know where our Christmas tree was. Well we found it. Of course the grandma said now that we have it it needs to be up. Our tree was up before Thanksgiving. Andrew and Preston decorated it, so all of the ornaments are at a similar height and grouped together and that's where they stayed the whole Christmas season.

Now let's talk Black Friday... We were at Walmart from 10:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. trying to get what we needed (or wanted). One item was on sale at midnight, and when midnight came they told us they did not have the item. What a kick in the ____ (insert body part here). We lucked out and they tried to make it right. It was a long night, but it was fun being with Stacey, Brooke and Whitney. Then as always we went to breakfast. I am surprised we did not all fall asleep in our food. Yahoo Black Friday!

Christmas was very fun. It was nice to get together with the extended family for our Christmas party. A couple of years ago Stacey started a tradition on Christmas eve at our house. She always has new pajamas for everyone. Christmas morning was very good. Everyone was over to our house to open gifts. It was nice to have little kids around. They were so excited for each gift. Preston opened up his first gift and it was a train. Big mistake. He was totally excited for the train and was OK not to open another gift. All he wanted to do was play with Thomas the Train. Andrew, on the other hand, was excited to open more and more presents. He helped grandpa pass out the gifts to everyone. I think he enjoyed it. He opened one gift and said "it's just what I've wanted my whole life." Lucky kid. Isabelle looked terrific as aways and is getting good at tearing wrapping off of presents. I hope Braden had a good Christmas. He received a gun from Santa. Christmas is always good when you get a gun. Hopefully he will not shoot his eye out! He did not get any new clothes. Just like he wanted. Brooke and Tim received new pots and pans, so could someone volunteer to teach them how to cook? It was nice to have Whitney, Jason, Courtney and Doug all here.

We did miss one person, and she is in Iraq. Jamie we all hope you had as good of a Christmas as could be. It will be nice to have you here this next year. Thanks for what you are doing in Iraq for all of us.

That reminds me... Doug had quite the trip getting here for Christmas. Doug's car broke down in Santaquin. Braden and I went to see if we could fix the car and it took us forever to get there because dad did not listen to Braden and took I-15 and they just happened to be fixing pot holes that night. We were stuck. When we finally made it to Doug, we popped the hood and could see that the idler pulley had almost come off of the car. Everything was closed so we towed the car home. I think we got home about 12:30 in the morning. The next morning, Braden took the car apart, while Doug and I ran for parts. With the help of Checker, Autozone, Pepboys, and Napa Auto we were able to get all of the parts. Pretty soon the Altima will be brand new. (At least under the hood)Stacey and I got some very cool gifts from the kids. Thanks kids. Courtney and the boys went to Mesquite for a few days and they picked just the right day to leave, because now we have a ton of snow. They had a lot of water at their house last week. I even saw their street on the news. I am glad it all worked out.

I hope all of you had a warm, safe, enjoyable Christmas and that everyone's heart grew three sizes that day. Just 360+ more days until the next one. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Another Christmas Season!

Fa la la la la, la la la la. Here we are again at another Christmas season. But wait it is different this year. We have little ones around. Awesome. Isabelle is laughing and trying to talk. What a hoot. She now tells everyone she sees "Hi." She is walking, climbing, and trying to run from grandpa when he tells her he is gonna get her. The little boys Andrew and Preston have both had birthdays. Andrew has turned five and is "much" older now, and Preston turned two and is doing everything he can to keep up and be like his brother. Jamie is back in Iraq, Braden is going to Marine "pool" activities, Brooke is working and playing. Whitney and Jason are trying to keep up with their daughter who's is giving them a run for the money. We had Preston's birthday party and Andrew was most definitely more excited than Preston. Don't get me wrong, Preston enjoyed it, but Drew absolutely could not wait. It was fun watching him be so excited for his brother.

Well I don't know if anyone else or if everyone else went to the Black Friday sales, but we did. It started Thursday night. ALL NIGHT. From 10:00 p.m. until Friday at who knows what time. It was crazy but it was fun being with Brooke, Whitney, and Stacey. I hope everyone else got what they needed to get. We did OK.

Courtney is finishing up another nursing semester and it seems like she is always taking another test. She seems to be doing OK.

Thanksgiving was nice. Almost everyone was at mom and dads for dinner and it was fun. The kids always have a blast. It seems that the house just gets louder and louder with laughter.

Well not too long until Christmas so mind your P's and Q's and no crying. You better watch out, he's watching. Have a great week. See ya.