Our Family Vacation

Just before we left to go on our family vacation, Melissa had to run something into the kids' school. Naturally, as we're sitting there in front of their school waiting for Melissa, they got to talking about how fun it was that they were going on vacation while all their friends were in class!

Our first vacation stop was in Las Vegas to see the Donny & Marie Show. Thanks to Wendy and Jerry for getting us the tickets! The show was very entertaining; we had such a good time. All of the kids have become Donny fans as they've watched him on Dancing With The Stars.

It was really nice to have Grandma and Grandpa Besaw with us. After the show we all went to Serendipity for a "little" dessert.

The next day we drove almost straight to Adam's baptism. His baptism was beautiful, and we're so glad we got to be a part of it. Unfortunately, on the drive there, Madison got sick. Amazingly, during the baptism, she was fine. But just before and after were a different story.

The next day Madison was fine, though, and she and Mackenzie had a great time hanging out playing with Annaka. And the two peas in a pod seemed to have a lot of fun being Nerf warriors!

After visiting with Carl and Amy and their family, we headed over to Renee's. We hung out long enough for Annabelle and Daisy to warm up to their cousins (which didn't take long).

Then we zipped off to the beach after having an incredible lunch--probably the best tacos ever!

The beach in October is a little cool, so we weren't planning to swim, but it didn't take but a few minutes before the kids were soaked enough that they didn't care how dirty they got.


So Clayton let everyone bury him, and the rest of the gang seemed to enjoy piling on the sand. Meanwhile, Morgan seemed rather obsessed with finding shells.


We had a lot of fun at the beach. We always do whenever we go. We are glad we got to have so much fun together with Renee's family.


Who would guess that the American Girl store closes at 7:00 p.m.? We had planned to meet Wendy, Jerry, and Michaela at The Grove so the girls could all go to the American Girl doll store. But they were closed! Grrr. (Actually, can't say as I minded so much that it was closed, but the girls were sure disappointed.)


The painful part of the store being closed is that we then had to go back the next day! Clayton was such a trooper: 3 1/2 hours in the American Girl store. Now that is torture for any young boy. Madison, Mackenzie, and Morgan seemed in heaven, though.


Ah, the American Girl doll store. Such . . . fun. Yeah, such . . . um . . . fun.


Now the mission at San Juan Capistrano was fun. The grounds there are just gorgeous.


We got to spend another day with Renee, so we headed to San Juan Capistrano. We visited the mission and then grabbed a quick bite at a fun little restaurant nearby.


The petting zoo was a huge hit. Who'd have thought?


We had another really fun day with Renee and her girls. San Juan Capistrano was a great idea. It was also nice for us that it was along the way to San Diego, which was our next stop.


We spent two days at Sea World and really had a blast. This was our first time to Sea World, so the kids didn't really know what to expect.


They loved the rides and the shows. There was one exception, though. Morgan was not very excited at all about going on Shipwreck Rapids. Truth be told, neither was I.

We'd have probably been a lot better off had we followed Morgan's instinct. We all got drenched and were freezing the rest of the day!

Sorry, Morgan. Next time we'll listen to you!


The shows were a different story altogether. Very impressive.


Touching a dolphin was perhaps the kids' real highlight . . . and Melissa's!

We wanted to show the kids the San Diego temple, so after Sea World, we stopped to take some pictures on our way back to the hotel.


The temple is beautiful and we were glad to have a chance to let the kids see it.


The dolphins were perhaps the Sea World highlight, but swimming at the hotel pool was by far the most anticipated event. And it always is.

Flag Football

Youth sports is supposed to be about learning the game, playing as a team, and having fun. Yeah, it is fun to win, too, but it's more fun to see the kids having a good time together while developing their talents. These two video clips are THE highlight of Clayton's flag football experience this year. In the one, he got to kick off AND grab the other kid's flag. In the other clip, Clayton actually ran the ball in a game.

Clayton used to love flag football, but now he doesn't really care about it. Unfortunately, every game this season, one kid ran the majority of the plays. Now Clayton thinks the game is boring. Truth is, it was. But, hey, that's a good thing! Now he doesn't want to play tackle football. Whew!

Little League Fun

Clayton had a great time with little league baseball this year; it was his first year playing. He had a great coach and learned a lot about the game. It became one of his favorite sports. It was fun to watch his games because he had such a good time playing with his friends.

Clayton's Baptism

Kent (Clayton's uncle) made a great comment in his talk on baptism just before Clayton was baptized yesterday. He said, "I've been to Clayton's flag football games, soccer games, basketball games, and 5Ks, but I'm most grateful to be here for Clayton's baptism." What a great thing for a young boy to hear from his uncle! Kent's comments, and other things he said in his talk, set a perfect tone for the way we all felt at Clayton's baptism. Being at Clayton's baptism was a special experience for all of us.

Clayton enjoyed contacting various family members asking them to participate in his baptism. He called his grandfathers and asked them to be witnesses. They were, of course, anxious to be involved, but Grandpa Laurence let Clayton know that his participation was conditional: "If I'm going to be a witness I reserve the right to remind you whenever necessary that you've been baptized!" Clayton seems to still be trying to figure out just exactly what Grandpa Laurence was getting at, but he has a hunch that it has something to do with keeping his nose clean!

All the kids sang "I am a Child of God" at the baptism and reminded us of how lucky we are that our kids' cousins are some of their best friends. Some of our family on Craig's side were unable to be there and we missed them, but we felt so blessed to have so many family members and friends there.

We are so pleased that Clayton chose to be baptized. It was an almost perfect day as the spirit of the baptism carried over into the time spent with family afterward in our home. We know Clayton made the right choice; we could feel it in our hearts and in the peace that surrounded us. We love you bud!

The Third and Fourth

We had a very enjoyable Independence Day weekend. Robert and Renee (Craig's sister) visited Utah from California with their twin daughters Daisy and Anabelle. They stayed in Midway at Zermatt, and we cannot pass up an opportunity to go to Zermatt, of course! So we joined them on the 3rd for a swim.

Tarahumara is one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, so we ordered take-out and enjoyed a nice poolside lunch. Craig's parents brought yummy donuts for everybody, too. Rumor has it that Clayton and Robert were grateful for the leftovers later that evening!

After our pool party, we went to North Salt Lake for a stop at Kevin and Patrice's. In addition to the festivities of Independence Day, we also always get to celebrate a few birthdays as Morgan's birthday is June 30th, Clayton's is July 3rd, and Kirsten's is July 4th.

So we usually get to have a little birthday party followed by fireworks. Robert and Renee supplied the cakes this year--one for each of the birthday kids, and we all had a lot of fun relaxing, BBQ-ing, exchanging presents, and watching fireworks.

The next day the party moved to our house where we had a little backyard fun. Klara and Morgan seemed to enjoy soaking up the rays.

Almost all of the kids tried out the slip-n-slide. Even Daisy and Anabelle mustered the courage toward the end to give it a go.

This little video is just a funny demonstration of how completely random Morgan can be. Everybody's just having fun relaxing in the sun and Morgan decides it is a good time to remind Craig that he and Grandpa need to fix the bottom step! Hope you saw that, Grandpa, because Morgan seems to think it is a job for Craig AND you! What a character.

Madison and Mackenzie seemed to form a special little bond with their twin cousins. Must be a twin thing!

Grant and Clayton could play for hours on end--and they did. They had a lot of fun with the laser tag guns Clayton got for his birthday.

With a cousin gathering this size, we had to play the candy bar game. Klara seemed a bit frustrated that she wasn't rolling doubles, but Madison made up for Klara's missed opportunities with at least 5 doubles, so Madison got to have her pick of the candy; it was fun for all of the kids.

Independence Day at our house isn't complete without the front yard spectacular, which always starts with the kids chasing down their parachute prizes.

One small disappointment this year was that the flasher fireworks we bought turned out to be duds. They're usually the crowd favorite as they get people onto their feet dancing to the strobe effect. The flashers were a bit short-lived this time around, though. Oh well; there's the 24th to look forward to!

We all had a really great time and had a lot of fun watching Anabelle and Daisy get more accustomed to us, and we also had fun watching them savoring their popsicles! Now we're looking forward to next year!

Bobbleheaders

This is Clayton's first year in little league. Last time we went to a game, Melissa commented that all the little guys look like bobbleheaders with their batting helmets on. This little video is pretty cute because if you watch carefully you can see Clayton sliding into first. He hit a double and the 1st base coach is telling him to go onto second, but he had to slide into first because he loves to slide into the bases. So he slides into first, gets up and trots to second!

Another 5K--Are We Insane?

Apparently we are insane because one 5K wasn't enough. Yesterday Clayton, Craig, and Melissa ran in the Lehi Roundup 5K--our second 5K! All three of us got personal records. Clayton beat his best time by 2 and a half minutes, coming in at 26:50. He's pretty proud of himself, and we are, too! That's pretty amazing for a 7-year-old . . . or any age!

Clayton (and we) really appreciates that Uncle Kent came along. He ran with Clayton to help set his pace and to help push Clayton through some of the tough stretches when walking seems like a really good idea. Kent's pretty much responsible for getting us into this running business. It would seem that the insanity is contagious!

Craig finished with a time of 25:58, which was 5 1/2 minutes faster than his last 5K. Hmm, what does that say for the kind of shape he was in for the first 5K? Ouch. At least he ran the whole thing this time!

Melissa shaved nearly three minutes off her time compared to the last 5K. As you can see from the clock in the picture, she came in at 27:40-and change. It must have been due to the sweet new running shoes Kent won for her at the last 5K. We all had a lot of fun and are actually looking forward to getting ready for our next race; a distance of 5.2 miles. Yeah - insane!