Road Trippin...

On my way to work on Friday (May 22), I had the thought that we should take a quick trip to see my brother Jack and his wife, Amy. I didn't have to work again until later in the week and school is only on Thursdays during the summer for me. I texted my dad about it, and he said that was funny because he had decided to go see them in the morning after a doctor's appointment. So we decided to meet at my house an hour after I got home from work so I would have time to pack a few things and get the kids ready. We headed out at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, and Utah looked like this....

I was so excited to be heading to warmer weather. Jack lives in Redlands/Riverside area of southern California, so I expected nothing less than 70 degrees, thank you very much. Goodbye cold, hello warm! There was a smallish incident with a low (ok, practially FLAT) tire and a short two hour detour to get new tires on my dad's SUV, but we made it there safely and that's what really matters.

Here's Nick at Jack and Amy's, just exhausted from sitting in the car for 10 hours.

Here's Bella, sprawled out on the floor, happy as can be.

The proud parents-to-be, Jack and Amy. They are soooooo cute! So happy together and excited to see the new baby. They are ready, and it could be any day now! I know you can't tell because she's still so tiny, but she's almost 38 weeks here.

Here are my kids with Jack and Amy. Bella loved to feel her cousin kicking and tried to talk him into being born while we were visiting. Sadly, it didn't happen...

So, it rained throughout the entire stay in California (basically, Sunday). Here we are, heading back to Utah, and it's warm and sunny. yep. figures. Bella would have loved a beach day :-)

And here's Mr. Nick, who doesn't really like to be interrupted when he's trying to play his Nintendo DS...

Here are the kids at the Nevada/Arizona state borders. Nick wanted a picture while they were in two places at once :-) We decided against taking a pic at the California boarder...didn't want to make anybody nervous...hahaha.

A lovely shot near St. George. At least it was sunny and beautiful there.

And another boarder picture. Here are the kids at the Arizona/Utah boarder. You can tell by now that they are quite done with the road trip and would just like to get home, please.

And we're home. It was kind of a full-circle trip, leaving with snow and coming back with snow. But it's beautiful and it's home. We hope to take lots more trips out to southern California this summer to see the new baby, and we will just have to have a few beach days then. :-)

Time to catch up :-)

I can't believe I let a whole month go by without posting anything. It's been a busy month at times, not so much at others. Here are a few things that went on in our lives since my last post:

My mom sent this photo to The Friend a couple years ago, because the kids love to read about other kids and really wanted to be in the magazine. Apparently we had given up on looking for it, because the moment we stopped looking, a friend at work showed it to me in the March 2010 issue!

Nick had an ice skating field trip with his 3rd grade class at the end of April. He found out that hockey skates are much harder to skate in than figure skates. After changing skates, he had a great time and really wanted to go back with Bella. Bella wasn't so excited about the idea, because the last time she went, she slammed her thumb in the time out box and doesn't have great memories of the whole event.

Checkin out the zamboni...

Mel was kind enough to help me in the daunting task of stocking all 3 nurseries for the first time, so of course we had to get in costume and create a new division on the floor (Stock Patrol). Hahahaha! I love it. She has a lot more pics, so, to be continued...

May 1st was our 11th anniversary. Aw....

A robin set up this huge nest in our tree just in front of the house. It's kinda nice to play host to a new family :-)

These friends are not new. A family of sparrows made a nest on the side of our house years and years ago. At first I was bugged by the amount of droppings, but it was fun to watch them protect their eggs, then see the babies as they hatched, and then watch them grow and fly away. The most amazing part is watching them come back year after year. Even after some neighbor kids knocked the nest down, they came back to the exact same spot, rebuilt the nest, and continue to come back. I think this is about year 5 or so. :-)

My Mother's Day haul...Nick and Bella made me cute cards (Nick's included a Top Ten Things About You list), Bella painted a pot, Nick made a flower pen and vase, Mario got me my favorite cookies, flowers, a card and a little bear. Too bad the bear says "Love to Grandma". Hmmmm...

The Paramore Concert....WOW!!! So much fun! Julie and I went and braved the general admission crowd for the first time in forever. It was actually the best choice. We were so close to the stage, there weren't any idiots trying to start a fight, and it's such a high energy show, I doubt I would have been able to sit anyway.

They started off by playing a few of their older songs like "That's what you get" and others from their first cds.

Here's the funny story of the night....Julie and I had two separate guitar pics thrown our way and didn't catch either one. The first came at me, flew through my hair and the kids behind me grabbed it. The second came at Julie, bounced off her cheek and into the unknown. Figures. That's just our luck. hahaha...

Seriously, this girl has a crazy amount of energy packed into her little body. She is an amazing live performer, sings even better in person, and is just fun to watch.

My favorite songs on the new CD are the acoustic versions of "Turn it Off" and "Ignorance". I also love love love "All I Wanted", "The Only Exception" and "Misguided Ghosts". They may or may not be on a playlist on my ipod, frequently on repeat.

We had a great time and I would go again in a heartbeat. I've said it before, but concerts really are my favorite hobby. I just love the excitement and energy of a good live show.

***This has been a great month. I've had the best time catching up with old friends and getting to know new ones (heeeey Mac and Kenzie, of the Mckenzies...lol). It's a great way to lead into my new adventure in nursing school. Classes start in the morning (yeah, I might be a little nervous since I should be in class in about 8 hours and I'm blogging). But I know I have a great support system, and I'm so thankful for all my friends and family who will be there for me the whole way. Fair warning, I will call on many of you in the near future, I'm sure of it :) Thanks for loving me enough to put up with the madness I will endure while being a working mom going to school. I hope I don't drive too many of you away.... :-) Wish me luck ***

My baby turned 6 years old today!

I saw it coming when Nick turned 9 this year, but now my baby girl is 6 years old, and that means I really don't have any babies left. Crazy! It's all gone by so fast. Here are some pics of Bella's first 6 years....

Bella helped continue the line of women in my family, becoming the fourth generation of Gifford ladies in this picture. Here is my Grandma Beth, Mom Nancy, me, (Nick, but lets not count him in with the ladies, huh?)...and Bella.

Baby Bella...yep, that's her own foot she's chewing on. I promise I fed her well...

Bella loved and still loves to play in the sand. She loves to dig, bury, hide and find anything she can get her hands on. She also loves to help grandma in the garden. Her favorite thing to do is pick strawberries.

Me and my little baby girl in Denver. This is before she had her front four teeth capped. I love that smile!!!

Grandpa made Bella a special elephant cake. Elephants are her favorite animal, of course. She also loves the color purple. But when asked what color she wanted grandpa to make the elephant, she replied with a very simple "Gray, of course". What other color would an elephant be???

Here is mom and the birthday girl at her special birthday lunch at Olive Garden. She picked out that sash from the party store and insisted on wearing it to school. Fine with me. It went great with the giant crown they gave her in class. And of course, she would need to wear it to lunch and everywhere else that day, too. Diva.

Dad and the birthday girl.

She got a special birthday sundae and they even sang to her! She was so excited :-)

Bella's list of birthday wishes included going to Kangaroo Zoo, which she did later that evening with a few friends and Nick, have a cake with animals on it (because she's going to be a vet someday)...check--see below--, and she wanted a red wagon (which grandpa got her) and a Barbie bike (which she is both on and hugging, shown above). Lucky girl, she got all of the above. Because no one can say no to HRH Isabella...

Here is the "zoo" cake we got for her. It had to be green "so it looks like the animals are playing in the jungle".

And here is the crew for the evening. We sent out the invites a little late, but she still had four friends able to come to the party (one isn't pictured because she met us at Kangaroo Zoo and we had to do cake and presents first at home). And that's plenty when it comes to six-year-olds.

Happy Birthday, Bella. We all love you so much!

Spring Break

If you live in Utah, you know what a strange spring break we had last week, weather wise. Mother Nature decided to show us a little bit of each season, and I guess that's fine with me because we hadn't made any major plans to go anywhere. We decided that we would do something fun each day since we weren't going on vacation. We had a Chuck E Cheese day, a movies day, a Thanksgiving Point day, etc. Some of the plans fell through because I worked a lot last week and had a hard time doing everything on our list, but I think the kids had a good break. Here's a little of what we did:

Of course, the week started off with Easter Sunday. The kids had slept over at grandma and grandpa's the night before and had a lot of fun over there, and even got great Easter baskets from them. When they got home, they found that the Easter Bunny had left them some giant chocolate bunnies.

Then, this happened. And I said to myself "Only in Utah would you have to worry about throwing down some ice melt during spring break".

But later in the week, the sun came out again, and we got to spend a day at the park. I love this view. You can see the houses down the hill, Utah Lake, and the beautiful mountains and blue sky behind it all.

Nick and Bella even got to ride their scooters to the park. They loved it, and of course Nick the Dare Devil had to go up and down the hill as many times as he could until we caught up with him.

I can't believe how tall Bella is getting. I was following them and just thought "When did my kids grow up?" It amazes me every day.

Cute girl. Always posing.

Here's Nick, being Nick.

They are so quick to make up stories and adventures. I just sat back and watched them act it all out.

The Fatafehi kids, conquering the playground...

And in hopes of spring, I decided to get a couple highlights. I was surprised when I looked in the mirror to see a ton of very light blond streaks throughout my hair. This was the first stylist who was bold enough to not just do some baby-fine light brown highlights, and I decided to follow in her boldness and just roll with it.

Happy Spring!

Michael Buble concert!

So, I finally had a chance to download all these pics from the concert (I worked every night after the concert except for Sunday up until this morning, so I am just now recovered enough to function!) If you read my previous blog entry, you'll notice that I have many pics from before the concert, but my camera died as our Mikey walked onto stage... sad, I know, but luckily, my aunts were sitting on the 18th row on the floor (lucky ladies!) so I stole a few good concert pics from Bev's Facebook page (Thanks Bev!). Enjoy....

Here's me and Mellie, very excited to be at the E Center and about to find our seats!!!

This is the set up before the concert...I love that they thought we were special enough to put our initials up on the big screen. Welcome Melanie and Brittney (MB)...heehee...

Here is the disco ball that hangs from the ceiling of the E Center...I don't know, I thought it was amusing...

A little smooch for luck before the concert...

What a hot mama...sucks having friends who are so much more photogenic than you are. But I love this pic, go Mellie, go Mellie!

This poster thing wasn't securely fastened and it kept moving if you touched it even a little bit. And you know we probably touched it a little bit. :-)

Here are some wonderful pics from Bev, I'm so glad she got some good ones I could steal...yum.

Such a great show, he could have just sat there on that stool all night and serenaded us, and I would have been just fine with that. Amazing voice.

Workin it...

No words needed....

Two very happy ladies, indeed. Such a great night. I have a few more pics on my phone, including a video of the trumpet soloist who performed just a couple stairs above us at the end of the show, so I'll post those here soon. It was such a fun night and amazing concert.

Murphy's Law renamed....

Growing up, we were taught about Murphy's Law...except it was known as "The Price Curse" to us. It's a little gloom and doom unless you see it our way. You just have to assume that the weirdest, messed up version of what could possibly happen will actually happen. That way, you aren't surprised, you just laugh it off and know that it means you are a "true Price". I was hoping this would magically go away when I changed my name, but sadly, its genetic and my children inherited it too. Here are a couple examples of what I'm talking about.

* It apparently carries over if you marry into the family- When Jack and Amy got home from their honeymoon, Jack was being the nice new hubby and attempted to carry Amy over the threshold of their apartment. Jack should have seen this coming, since he had 26 years of the Price curse, yet he clearly wasn't thinking straight...They have a cute pic of the two of them just outside the door, but immediately following that, he knocked her head on the doorway and almost dropped her. Welcome to the family Amy...

* My camera died just as Michael Buble stepped onto the stage. Yep. I said it. That's why there aren't going to be a lot of great Buble pics on my blog as promised. I was so distracted by the events of the day that I forgot to check the battery life on my camera. I took pics of me and Mellie before the concert, a couple videos of the amazing opening act, and as Mike stepped onto the stage, the camera shut down and wouldn't even turn back on. So sad, but I couldn't act surprised, I had to expect it. But what I didn't expect was that it would carry over to Melanie too. She went to turn on her camera, just to find out that it too was dead. The Price curse has gotten stronger, look out my friends!!!