Berkley Kate

Berkley had her birthday on May 14th. She turned 1 year old. I am so in love with this beautiful brown eyed, blonde hair baby.

She is so kissable with her fat cheeks and if you ask her for a kiss you get a wide open mouth one.

I think her favorite thing to do is eat. She is so noisy as she eats because she is saying yum yum yum with every bite. She will try most every food, but has her mind made up on what she will eat and it changes hourly.

Heather made her this little cake and she ate it all. The whole time she was saying yum yum yum. I'm one lucky grandma (or Munga) to have such beautiful granddaughters to love.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was wonderful but very busy. We went to our church and then ran to our friend's son's farewell. We had to leave right after Ashton spoke so

we could be home to talk to Greg. We had scheduled the phone call for 2:00 before we knew about Ashton's farewell. So Taryn and Heather made the phone call and where able to talk to Greg until we made it home. Any mother of a missionary would agree with me that the phone call is all they need or want for mother's day. It was so fun to talk to him and hear his voice. I'm also thrilled to say I only have one more phone call until he comes home. He was disappointed to tell me that he will be coming home a week early. I was happy, so he will return home on January 28th. I guess in Brazil they get them home a week before their visa's expire.

I try to get a picture with my children on Mother's Day and forgot all about it until later that night. So I dragged them outside and tried to get a decent picture. Taryn and Taylor make it pretty hard, they are always doing something crazy. When we saw the first picture we had to ask Taryn if she knew the leaves were in her face. Just wait until they get kids of their own and when they do I hope they are as wonderful as mine.

Taryn's Graduation

Last night Taryn graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in Recreational Therapy. No that is not a degree just to camp or be a park ranger. She always

gets teased about that. This summer she will be doing her internship with Vista in Salt Lake. Along with her internship she will be working full-time.

Thank goodness she is young and has some energy. If we are lucky she will be able to sneak away and join us at the cabin.

She graduated with honors and we are so proud of the young woman she is. She will be able to do anything she wants to in life.

At dinner my awesome daughter gave me an early birthday present. She got me tickets to see George Strait this July. I am so excited and couldn't ask for a better gift. Also her friend Ryan said he would come clean my windows for Mother's Day. Life is good.

Prom

Taylor asked Sierra to the prom. They are good friends and like to be goofy together. She was going as Aubrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's". They found her dress

at a vintage dress shop and I thought she looked great. Taylor and his friends meet at a church so us parents could come and take pictures. We were lucky that the

rain held off until we took all the pictures. These are some of the handsome priests in our ward.

The prom was held at the capital. Thursday night for the day date they went up and toured the capital. Zach's dad was able to take them around and see places most of the public never gets to see. Then the night of the prom they had breakfast at Zach's grandparents house and then went to the prom. Yes it was Taylors idea to have breakfast. I thought they looked great and I was impressed that all the girls were dressed modestly.

Elder Greg

It's Wednesday morning and I'm checking my e-mail constantly waiting for Greg's e-mail. I am so grateful for the internet and the ability to communicate with my son every week when he is so far away. He still loves his mission. His companion is from St. Louis and is his second companion from the states. He says they get along great and he loves scaring him every morning as his companion leaves the bathroom. You would think his companion would catch on by now. They are in a hard area and have struggled finding investigators. I'm looking forward to the phone call on Mother's day. He is not because he realizes that he only has one more phone call before he comes home. He doesn't like to think about leaving Brazil and not being a missionary.

This is the goofy picture he sent us in his e-mail.

Spring Break

We have always had interesting Spring Breaks. One year we spent sixty hours stuck in the Denver airport, another time we almost capsized our brand new boat on Lake Mead. That was after spending the night fighting the wind and sand blowing and chasing Greg in his tent as he was being blown down to the lake. Let me add that he had a huge propane tank in it to help keep him from being blown away. I've also spent an hour in the middle of the night in an outhouse at Arches with a severe case of food poisoning. So our trips are usually interesting. This year we decided to rent a motor-home and see the Grand Canyon and then on to Disneyland and Sea World. We brought Heather and Braelyn and Berkley along with us. We got on the freeway and around Orem the traffic came to a stop. It took us 2 hours to get from Orem to Spanish Fork. A terrible car accident caused the delay. Our plan was to get to the Wal-Mart in Page Arizona and park for the night. When Steve made a wrong turn in Kanab we decided to pull over and start again in the morning. We found a restaurant that was no longer in business and pulled in. Just as we were getting to sleep Berkley woke up. Heather just got her to sleep when Braelyn rolled out of her bunk and hit the floor. She screamed and that woke Berkley up again and she stayed up for the next hour and she wasn't happy. Nobody slept much that night.

The next day we made it to the Grand Canyon. We stopped at the first stop and were amazed at how beautiful it was. Our plan was to get to the South Rim and then take the tram to the other stops. The motor home was so big that we didn't want to pull into the stops. Luckily we made one more stop and before we got to the rim and were stunned at the view.

When we finally made it to the South Rim it was foggy and cold. We waited around for a while to see if the fog lifted so we could view the canyon. Then it started to snow. After all that time driving all we could see was a big bowl of fog. We gave up and made it down and found a campground for the night. The next day we drove on the historic route 66 drive and then onto Anaheim.

Disneyland was fun but very crowded. Just our luck the two school districts surrounding Disneyland were also out for the week on Spring Break. But Braelyn got to see the princess and Taylor got to ride Indian Jones so our trip was successful. We stayed three days there at Disneyland and California adventure.

I will admit that I loved California Adventure more then I did Disneyland. I loved the roller coaster and we went a bunch of times. Soaring over California is also one of my favorite rides. It was less crowded then Disneyland and the parade was much better.

On Thursday we drove down to Sea World. We stopped at the beach in San Diego. Berkley loved the sand and water. Braelyn wasn't so sure she liked the sand on her feet. It was colder that day so we didn't get in the water, just sat on the beach and made sand castles.

On Friday we went to Sea World. We did the breakfast with Shamu. I would recommend that to everyone. The food was wonderful and the whales were right there. We made it to all the shows and that week they were doing some night shows. At the Shamu one they were playing some great 80's rock songs and we were having a ball dancing and singing to them. They then started to take pictures of the people in the audience and put them up on the big screen. We saw a bright light and then a minute later there we were up on the screen. The guy in front yelled to me to hold up the baby. I had Berkley so I lifted her up.

The night shows were the best and a great way to end our vacation. We got up early Saturday and drove straight home. It was a tiring but great vacation. Maybe me and Steve are getting to old to run that hard and fast. We are really looking forward to the weekend at the cabin. I think we might just sleep.

Unlucky mouse

We foolishly opened the cabin up a month too early. We thought for sure winter was over and we could enjoy heading back up there. The last weekend of March we saw the weather and since we had turned off the fireplace, and the water was on we worried that the pipes would freeze and we would have a mess. We headed out Thursday and everything was covered with snow. We had to walk in again and after getting settled we decided to go for a walk. We went down to the river and then started to walk back to the cabin. I was following in Steve's tracks and I stepped down and felt something underneath my boot. I jumped and ran past Steve and told him I had stepped on something. He turned around and there where we had stepped was a mouse. Either me or the mouse was very unlucky. I guess because it was so cold I told Steve to cover it back up with snow. Now that I think of it, we should have done something else. I do not want a mouse in the cabin. Good thing we went out because that morning when we woke up it was 1 degree below. Someday Spring will come and we will be able to drive into the cabin. I think we have decided that we need to wait until after General Conference to open the cabin up.