Dueck's Roost

My beautiful sister was recently married and these pictures are some of the highlights ... for our family at least. The actual wedding photos are amazing!! Mine aren't so artistic, nor do they represent the entire event. We don't even have a picture of the kids walking down the aisle with their flower baskets. I had already proceeded them in the official procession, and Kevin was playing mother duck monitoring the kids and telling them when to start walking. He was amazingly cute about it too. In the waiting process before the festivities, they sort of followed him around and sat quietly, listening to his crazy story telling:). My boys were certainly unsure about the bow ties , but how cute ... I mean, handsome! Mother duck himself With little helper duckling (think they look a little bit alike?) Duckling cheering section The wedding party My little ring bearer ... a little bit nervous, maybe They may not look a lot alike, but wow are they sure good looking! Gotta love my...

Yippee, I've been looking forward to blogging about this since it happened a month-and-a-half ago. So here's the story ... I wake up on a Friday morning to the sound of Kevin maneuvering our Master bathroom. I leave him to get ready for work, or so I think, and begin to slowly make the bed and pick up socks and water bottles that are currently decorating the carpet. It happens to be a no-school day so I'm not at my typical speed, but we (as in the boys and I) do have a morning scheduled with doctor and dentist appointments, so I'm certainly not trying to waste time either. I hear my mother enter the house downstairs; no biggie, since it does happen to be her day off work and she is coming to stay with my littler ones for a while. Sure, she's an hour or so earlier than need be, but, hey, that's just her. What isn't usual is that she heads straight up the stairs and bursts into my room with bagfuls of shoes. Yep, shoes. Shoes, in fact, that she sprawls out all...

On the second day of our trip home, we had the privilege of visiting my sweet grandma, Dorothy of Kansas herself, in Ontario, Oregon. We only had a few short minutes but it was so nice to spend some time with this amazing woman. Mother of ten, delightful cook (I doubt I'll ever have anything like her homemade waffles and syrup again in my life), master of many a card/board game, distinguished fisherwoman , and just a wonderful, kind-hearted person. I only wish my children could know her as I have known her, but I'm so happy they were able to share in this experience. She really is lovely, isn't she?

I realized after I posted my "last" Utah post, that I had forgotten the most important part of a seven-year-old's birthday: cake and presents. After our fun day at Thanksgiving Point, we headed back to Kevins sister's house to enoy a family gatherng where we stuffed ourselves first with a delicious dinner and then with a humongous Costco cake, and afterward gave James a few presents ... the highlight of which was a motorized scooter. Somehow the birthday boy did not make it into this first picture. Ah, there he is. Do you think he's excited? Here is James, wishing for the motorized scooter he fell in love with at a cousin's house just a couple of days ago. Such a sweet little boy ... happy with his Lightening Thief books The look on his face when he realized he was getting what he'd wished for We sure do love you, James!!

Warning: in the following post you will find an excessive amount of pictures that may include the following: Gigantic bones from ancient creatures A family cheesily clad in BYU attire Moms that will not stop smiling all the time A child being fed to a famished shark And, a father having more fun than his children Seriously, though, this last post from our Utah trip shows the amazing day we all enjoyed in honor of James' seventh b-day. After much deliberation on how to spend this monumental event, we decided on the the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point, and were so glad we did. Our day included hours enjoying all of the fun exhibits and activities at the museum itself, multiple visits to the museum gift store, lunch at one of the attached eateries (fun word, huh?), and a quick jaunt over to the neighboring theater for an awesome 3-D showing of "How to Train your Dragon." Fun times. Thanks for having a birthday, James.