Land of the Free... because of the Brave!

When I drop Audrey off at school I often see a car with this written on the back window:

 "Land of the Free 

Because of the Brave!"

Every time I read it my thoughts always turn to appreciation for those that serve in our military and for their family members.  

Today we got to help my cousin Justin celebrate his graduation from the Police Academy and this was the first thought that came to my mind when I saw him in his uniform for the first time......  Land of the Free because of the brave

Justin did very well in the Academy and is excited to start working on the Arcadia Police Force.  We are nervous about his new line of work but know that he is ready and are glad that Arcadia has a brave new officer looking out for them!

Congratulations Justin!

Officer Reed

Fun in February

i can not believe how fast this month is flying by!  here are a few pictures from the past few weeks.

we spent saturday at disneyland with the salmons.  

stacey and ty on the carousel at california adventure.

dave, audrey, stacey, aaron and dahl (hard to see in between stacey and audrey) on the water rapids.  they were soaked!

i stayed with this gang while they road the water ride. 

 they hung out eating goldfish and laughing at carter!

the gang (ty was asleep under the blanket)

walking to the next adventure

brady is 8 months old and still a happy guy! he has 2 teeth and is starting to master crawling, watch out!  he grabs everything which is always fun when he wants to sit at the dinner table.

see his 2 teeth

friday was beautiful so after i picked audrey up from school we headed over to balboa island for a few hours.  the kids had fun digging in the sand and building castles. 

brady's favorite hang out!

sorry the pics are small.  i'll post them bigger next time!!! 

pictures...

so apparently i need to buy "blogger for dummies" because i can not figure out how to post these pictures the way i would like.  does anyone have any advice?  sorry they are not in the order i had hoped.  enjoy!

this picture is for kathy burton.  audrey had a mishap with the whip cream can the same day as kathy.  she looks sad but we were all laughing!  she eventually saw the humor!

buddies

dahl was fearless on the slide.  he must have gone down by himself 20 times!

birthday dinner at claim jumper....yummm

Busy Weekends

so here it goes....i have been putting off updating the blog because the thought of trying to summarize the past few months in one post seemed too big a task.  i've decided to just start fresh and hopefully be a lot more diligent so that i don't get behind again! 

we've had a fun past couple of weekends.  dave's birthday was last week so he and i went to san diego for the weekend (thanks to mom, cara and joe for watching the kids for us!)  We had a great time relaxing, site seeing and enjoying some good food.  one of the highlights was visiting a pizzeria we had seen featured on the food network.  we showed up and there was a line out the door, always a good sign!

gaslamp district downtown san diego

we finished off the weekend with a superbowl bash.  dave made his signature meatball subs which hit the spot!

this past weekend we were able to meet up with tom and wendy in palm desert.  it was so good to be able to spend some time with them.  we really miss seeing them as often as we use to in calgary!  tom, wendy, dave and aaron had a good golf game saturday morning.  i think the kids had the most fun swimming.  we have some great pictures of the kids going down the water slide!  we are going to try to meet up with them again this weekend!

the last picture i posted is of brady and carter.  carter absolutely loves giving brady huge hugs, all the time!  in this picture poor brady is giving me a look like "help"!  he loves his brother but sometime i thin he would like a little more breathing room!  

ok i am totally frustrated right now.  I am trying to post the pictures and i can't figure it out.  if anyone knows how to make this easier let me know!  i'll create another post and include the pictures