Parade of Lights

I love having family traditions! I can remember going to the Parade every year as a little girl and then still as I grew up. Now it's so much fun taking my own little family every year! This year was beautiful out and made it a little more crowded! Which I like. The more the merrier I say! We had a blast as usual!

Vacation

I'm falling so far behind on my posts! I feel like I will never get caught up! So here we go... I have lots of pictures to share, so grab a drink and maybe a snack or 2. This might take awhile! And please just bare with me, because I need to mention a lot for journaling purposes too! In November before Thanksgiving my family took off on a cruise to the southern Caribbean. We had been anxiously waiting for this trip for over 7 months I think! My mom had received a little bit of money from my great aunts passing and was able to use some of it to take us on a family cruise. My mom, Jerry, Gary, Brayden, my sister, her friend Thea, and I would all be going on this adventure together. Here was our itinerary and some of the fun we had! Friday: Travel all day to Puerto Rico. We traveled from Denver to Atlanta and had a 3 hour layover. And thank goodness! Between Brayden, who I was afraid would get to restless on the long ride and my sister who has anxiety about flying, the long layover was a nice welcome! We arrived in in Puerto Rico later that evening. HOT and HUMID! As we were landing Brayden yelled out "We are gonna crash!" I thought my sister would have had a heart attack if she were sitting near us. Not to much excitement that evening. Just walked our block where our hotel was and tried to find dinner. And no one had chocolate milk for Brayden... WHAT?? I think Gary and Jerry had to walk to 3 different stores to try and find it. I thought I was going to have to do some weening off the choco milk on vacation! Saturday: We took off to Old Town San Juan. Beautiful! We first visited an old military fort. It was old and did I mention how HOT and Humid San Juan is? Yuck! After walking around the historical site I wanted to just jump in some ice cold water! We then went to downtown old San Juan and had some lunch. We wanted to try some real puerto rican food. So we asked locals where we should eat. I can't remember the name of place and of course didn't write it down. But it seemed pretty traditional. I had mofongo chicken. It was mashed plantains, made into a volcano with shredded chicken with some sort of garlic sauce. Now the first bite really was not that bad. Even the first few. But after that the taste was just blah. Gary got a dish with grilled chicken and some kind of pesto sauce on it. It was DELISH! Everyone else had I had only with different meats on it. After lunch we walked around. It really is beautiful town. Old stone streets, and all different colored buildings. After walking around town we decided to head back to the hotel area. We ended up being told to take the wrong bus back and ended up on a 2 hour bus tour, I mean ride back to our hotel. We pretty much saw the whole island. I should say this too, we were told to take this particular bus and it would drop us off near our hotel. We rode for 2 hours to only have the last stop NOT be anywhere near our hotel. So we had to hop on another one to get us closer. Then we almost missed our stopped because we were all turned around. Finally back at our hotel! We decided to go to Sizzler for dinner that evening. And I will NEVER eat there again. EW! I remember them once upon a time but don't remember the food. I don't want to remember it this time either. Ha Ha! It reminded of a mixture of Country Barfet and Golden Corral. Nastiness! After dinner we didn't do much. Back at the hotel just hung out at the pool. I loved the people in Puerto Rico. They were so friendly and so helpful. They loved Brayden. They loved his blonde hair, which apparently they don't see very often. The lady at our lunch kept touching it. He definitely was the star of the show. Sunday: YAY!! Our big departure day. It was a day filled with excitement. We were so ready to get on board! I love the anticipation of going on cruises. Everyone around you is in total party mode! Everyone is happy, everyone is friendly, and everyone is looking for a good time! I am always amazed at how large the ships are! Just total amazement! And then you get on and it's endless fun! Our ship had 3 swimming pools, and outdoor theater, dance clubs, spa, camp carnival (for the kiddos), hot tubs, ice cream 24/7, Casino, 2 dinning rooms and a few other restaurants. They also did a different show every night. Magic shows, dance shows, musicals, and comedians. We also played bingo one day. The first day on board is mostly a day of figuring out where everything is. Checking out your room, eating, eating and more eating. And for those who like to drink and party. This is your place to be! They have a big send off party by the pool! Brayden actually was so tired our first day that I think Gary and him were in bed by 10pm. So I just went up to try and find the rest of my family for the big send off. Monday: By monday morning we were already in St. Thomas. We had no set plans for the day. My mom and Jerry had been here before so they planned the day to take a ferry over to St. John so they could do some snorkeling. Unfortunately they got over there and they had red flag warnings all over the beaches and no one was allowed to get in the water. Total bummer! Gary, Brayden and I met up with Thea and Angie and walked the town for a few and then headed over to the beach. I was so excited to take Brayden to the ocean for the very first time! He is such a water baby and I LOVE the ocean, so I thought it would be perfect! He was a little afraid but he did it. Before we even left on our cruise I would talk to Brayden about swimming in the ocean. He first started out saying no. He would tell me there are crocagators in there. LOL! Then he would proceed to tell me there are sharks and whales. I couldn't really argue with that one, but I still tried to convince him to go in and that I would keep him safe! He did go in and liked it at first. But never lasted long. He would much rather stay on shore and dig up the dirt and make sand castles! We still enjoyed our day at the beach. We spent a couple hours there and then headed to Senor Frogs for lunch. Gary had never been there so we wanted to check it out. St. Thomas was not really what I expected. I had heard so much about how beautiful it was. It wasn't my favorite. But we still had a nice time at the beach! Tuesday: This would be our only day at Sea. I honestly wish we could have had at least one more of these. I loved hanging out all day by the pool. I think this was the day we played bingo and just checked out everything on the ship. It was so relaxing and totally felt like vacation. Brayden had fun just splashing around in the pool all day! Wednesday: We had ported in Barbados. Absolutely the most beautiful water I had ever seen! Pictures will never do it justice. All of us planned an excursion that day. We are going swimming/snorkeling with Turtles! We boarded a catamaran, which none of us had ever been on. It was so much fun!! They even provided drinks and lunch for us! We rode along side the island for about an hour and then they stopped in an area that was just full of turtles. It was so cool to be that close to them and to be swimming with them! Seriously one of the best things I've ever done! Even Brayden got out with us. He liked seeing them until they got to close then he wanted back on the boat with daddy. After we snorkeled with the turtles they brought us to a remote beach and we all got to get off and play at the beach for a little while. This was a great day and I love Barbados. Although we didn't really go inland, so I didn't see much of Barbados. I just loved the water and the beach and what we got to do there! Thursday: Now we are in St. Lucia. As far as the islands go and what you see when you pull into port, this was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. SO GREEN! It really was so beautiful. Full of rain forests and mountains. Lots of fishing villages. Gary, Brayden, and I along with my mom and Jerry did a van ride tour of the island. It was fun and perfect for Brayden! We saw a lot of the villages, these 2 huge mountains they call the Pitons that were just majestic. We also got to drive into a crater of a Volcano. It was kind of funny actually. The volcano of course is dormant and has been for over 200 hundred years or something like that. So there's mud baths set up near it and you can take a short tour to see a waterfall that is over 300 degrees and then see some small geysers. A town was pretty much built in it. And they don't tell you as your driving up to the "small" geyser area that you are already inside this crater. Very anti-climatic! We also drove through one of their banana farms and got to try banana flavored ketchup and BBQ sauce. It was actually pretty good. We got to see an area where part of the original Dr. Doolittle was filmed. There were these random guys on the side of the road with Boa Constrictors. My mom and I got out and held them! CRAZY, I know! But who gets to do that?!?! The hills of St Lucia are just so beautiful and seriously the greenest I've ever seen! We had a great tour and a great day! Friday: St Kitt's! Again all of us except for Angie and Thea took a train tour. It's an old train and it's all open air on the top level. So we headed up to the top to enjoy our ride. St Kitt's was okay. On the train kids and families and people would all come running to wave at us! Very friendly! We saw a lot of the landscape. They also had some black sand beaches that were pretty cool! It was a nice relaxing ride. Just a good way if you want to take in the whole island in a couple of hours. This island is known for having those little cute monkeys. So after the train ride they had some guys waiting there with diapered and dressed monkeys that you can hold. They were actually practically throwing them on me. Brayden thought it was pretty funny! I really only wanted to hold a few. NOT 20! LOL, oh well, made for a funny photo! We decided to try and get lunch off the ship. So we found a little place that had a patio. It ended up being quite the experience. Brayden was so tired so he was having a tantrum moment. Gary and Jerry had taken our bags back to the ship. So of course I wasn't thinking and I didn't have a diaper or a sippy cup. Brayden of course decided to poop then and crying for choco milk. Maybe that's why I didn't enjoy lunch as much as I would have had it been a better situation. Saturday: BEAUTIFUL St. Maarten! We all decided to just spend the day at a beach. We took a taxi to one of the resorts. We rented chairs and there was an outside bar and grill right there. It was seriously one of the best days ever! I would do this more on my next trip too! We all just played in the water and played in the sand all day! I would go back to St. Maarten and just stay there for a week! The food was so good and we even had a little Parrot friend that ate with us. He kept saying "hello". Brayden thought he was cute, again only until he would get close then Brayden didn't like him. It was a day filled, with sun, sand castles, and ocean swimming all day. VACATION! This was the best way to end our week! Sunday: Back in Puerto Rico. We had a long day of travel. Off the boat and straight to the airport we went. I think we got home around 9pm that night. We were all pretty tired and just ready to be home. We had so much fun and I feel so lucky to have been and to have seen these beautiful places! We had a wonderful time! Enjoy the slideshows! Puerto Rico

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St. Thomas

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On Board Ship:

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Barbados:

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St. Lucia:

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St. Kitts:

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St. Maarten:

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My Little Cowboy

We had a fun Halloween week! Lots of things to do! We were so busy going to party's, trunk or treats, boo at the zoo and a carnival game night that we didn't even carve a pumpkin this year! I also wanted to take Brayden out trick or treating for his first time and he decided to take a late nap instead and then was grumpy terd. So on to next year for that one! Hope you enjoy some pics of the cutest cowboy in the west! We enjoyed a cold day at the pumpkin patch (Yup, didn't pick one pumpkin! Just played!) Ok, he would totally wear this everyday and probably would if we lived in Texas. I had to post this one! This is my best friend and her little one. He was the cutest Oscar the Grouch ever!!! Now that's cowboy! Boo at the Zoo with Grammy! Going in for the Wild West Carnival We had so much fun!! Halloween passed by so fast! Now on to Thanksgiving and Christmas! I am magically in love with this time of year!!! I look forward to it every year and it just makes me happy! OH.. AND... we leave for our cruise day after tomorrow! Now this has felt like a long day coming!!! I'm so EXCITED!!! Yes LOTS of pictures to come!!! Have a great week everyone!

Go Cubs Go!

To Facebook or not to Facebook???

That is the question of the day. It's almost become an addiction (that I am not proud of). I am constantly checking my phone for updates or every time I get on the computer I look at Facebook. And to be completely honest more often then not it is completely boring. OR POLITICAL. UGH! Why does politics bring out so much hatred in everyone? So sad!!! And annoying! I have gone through my 'friends list' numerous times and "cleaned it up". So I can honestly say it's mainly family and old high school pals with a little mixture of other friends. BUT like I said it has become an addiction of constantly checking. Taking time away from my family or just time I could be doing better things with my life. Like I could probably actually finish reading the 2nd book in The Hunger Games. Ya, I have been trying to read that for 6 months now! I'm lame! Or I could bake more, or craft more, organize more, play with Brayden more, or get back to studying my scriptures more. So many more better things to do. (well this is totally making up my mind!!) I think I have talked myself into it! So this is where I will post my pictures and family updates! I haven't done well this past year. But will plan on keeping up to date! Our family journal! Yay! Thank you for following along! If any family and friends have a blog I love to follow along too! Pass along your blog to me please! This past week I had a dear friend come to visit for a few days! She bought Brayden a cooking kit. He was so excited to bake some cookies. And that's just what we did today!

Boo! We're ba-ack!!!

Seriously!! I can't believe April was my last update! So much has happened and changed since then! We had a long busy summer. Here are some updates: -Gary lost his job in March. Made for a long summer but we got by just fine. He has since been re-hired by his same company basically. Just different position under different management. He loves it and that makes me happy! -Because of our circumstances we only made it out on 2 camping trips this season. Now if anyone knows us that is extremely unusual! But we enjoyed our time and can't wait for next summer and hopefully lots more camping and fishing! -NOTHING new with me! I know I'm boring! -Brayden - growing big and strong. He just finished up his speech therapy classes in August and now he is talking like a weed. Sometimes it's hard for me to remember that he is still only 2 years old. I have to constantly remind myself of this. We have begun the talk of potty training and he wants absolutely nothing to do with it. Except for he keeps picking out underwear he likes. ha ha - I mean, who wouldn't pass up Thomas the Train underwear!! -We moved, AGAIN! Only about 10 mins away from where we were so not a big move. But we are back on our own again. We had been living with Gary's aunt and uncle. And as good as that went and helped us to pay down some bills, it is nice to have our own space again! We are now living in my moms rental condo. She ended up having to kick her renters out. The pretty much demolished the place. So we had quite the work cut out for us getting it put back together. It is not all completely finished but it was done enough to move in. So we still have some work to do but totally worth it to have our own place again! Once we are done I will have to post before and after pics. Brayden and I just got back from visiting Nani and Papa in Chicago. We celebrated Nani's birthday and had a great week!

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Brayden's First Swim Lessons

Brayden started swim lessons this last week! What fun! He is definitely my little water baby!

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Hippity Hop

We had a very eventful Easter weekend. I was sure beat by the time the weekend had ended. I know Brayden sure did enjoy it! We started the weekend off on Friday night over at Brayden's cousins house, coloring eggs! We had so much fun. Brayden understood a little bit better what he was doing this year. We had lots of eggs to color. I think we did over 5 dozen eggs. Saturday morning we headed over to Gary's step-moms. She made us some YUMMY sticky buns! And then had a little Easter egg hunt for Brayden. That afternoon we went to Gary's moms house for her annual Easter egg hunt and lunch. All the cousins came and we enjoyed some yummy ham and potatoes and the kids enjoyed finding the all the eggs and playing outside all afternoon.

That evening I wanted to try one last time to get Brayden to see the Easter bunny. We drove all the way down to Bass Pro Shops and we were an hour too late. The Easter bunny had left for the day! LAME!!! Although I highly doubt that Brayden would have actually sat on his lap.

Sunday Brayden and I went to church with my mom. It was beautiful. I haven't been for awhile again and I loved it. It was good to be there and I felt the spirit strongly. It was another reminder of how grateful I am for my Savior. The love He had and has for all of us. To die for us. To suffer for us. To bleed for us. I am eternally grateful for his resurrection, I know that He lives! I am so grateful for the Easter season for true meaning!

That afternoon we headed over to my moms for dinner. We BBQ'd and enjoyed the nice weather! Brayden got to do another Easter Egg hunt. I am pretty sure he has this down pat after this weekend!

We don't have much planned for this next weekend and I am kind of looking forward to it. Weather isn't looking to hot this weekend anyway!

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Happy Green Month

Green is my favorite color ... therefore I declare March my favorite month! I'm actually looking forward to St. Patrick's Day this year. More fun with my little family so I can color all of their food and serve it to them green... Muahhaha haha...

Another month passed and I didn't post a thing! I haven't been very good at keeping up with this lately! We had a very busy month!

Gary and I celebrated our 3 year Anniversary! YAY, for us! Thanks to Grammy and Grandma Cindy's help with Brayden, Gary and I were able to go away for a long weekend. We took off for Glenwood Springs. Gary had never been and I feel like I practically grew up there because my grandma and grandpa took my sister and I there at least once a summer. I love it! We went up the mountain on the Gondola and did the Glenwood Caverns. One day we drove to Aspen and walked around... little did we know that nearly everything is closed on Sundays. So we grabbed some hot chocolate and walked over to the bottom of the ski hill and did some fun people watching. And of course we went to the Hot Springs. It was soooo cold out and the pool felt sooo good. It was hard to walk on the cold hard cement in our wet suits when we got out. I could have stayed in the pool all night! We enjoyed our time very much but almost couldn't wait to get back to Brayden. I don't take for granted the time I have with Gary but once you have a family we just enjoy so much our vacations with our little guy. The whole time we kept thinking how he would be enjoying all the things we were doing. Funny how that all works.

I'm so grateful for my loving husband and for these last 3 years we have had. It's been a fun, fast, and crazy ride. I wouldn't have wanted any other way. We have learned so much from each other and about each other and I know we have so much more to learn. I can't wait for the years to come and the love that continues to grow between us!

I know I got a little mushy on everyone reading this... but when your in love that's just what happens sometimes! So I'm not apologizing! HA

Okay ... Okay... Moving on... Brayden...

He is getting so so big! He is talking up a storm these days! It's crazy how fast this has taken off. I had brought him to a speech therapist before Christmas because for turning two he wasn't even saying mama yet. And maybe had 5-10 words in his vocabulary. Which according to the doctors wasn't enough or should I say where he was supposed to be at for his age. I don't always pay much attention to what the doctors have to say in regards to percentages and all... but I talked to a friend who said I can get him free speech therapy. So I said, well it can't hurt. Well now he is talking up a storm. She comes weekly to our home for an hour. He loves sitting with her and playing with her and follows directions really well. He still has a hard time with his P's and B's. So she is concentrating on that right now. He has been doing well with it all though.

Brayden has also started taking a dance class. We did a Hip Hop class for about 5 weeks. It was actually an older group that he wasn't age ready for but the teacher let him stay since his cousin Ravyn was in the same class. He did so good and would go in with out me every time. He learned the crab crawl, sit spin, and sumo dance. He still does them at home really well! We had to go back down to his age group for the next session of classes because Ravyn moved up and Brayden wouldn't go by himself. So now we do a Parent/Toddler class. We have so much fun dancing together. This makes me excited for when I can get him started in all his sports. He just seems to enjoy anything with other children and getting out of the house. Although he has been having his moments of being a little home body.

He is still totally into his trains right now. What's funny though is I can't get him to watch Thomas the Train but he loves his pajamas and trains that are from it. We took him to the Train Expo here in town and he loved it. He didn't want to leave and of course I was ready to go after being there for over an hour as it was. I'm thinking he really enjoyed it!

Brayden LOVES horses. Actually that's almost an understatement. He is addicted to horses. We have watched the movie "Spirit" at least 102 times (we've only owned it for maybe a month and a half). His cousins bought him the show "The Black Stallion". So he always asks to watch the "black horse". He has a stick horse and a cowboy hat that he insists on riding at least 5 times a day.

Other things that he loves:
Caillou
Polar Express (Choo Choo Spress... that's his name for it)
Wow, Wow, Wubbzy (Or Wubb-gee... if you heard him say it)
Dinosaurs ( he calls them ARR's and growls usually when he says it)

He has been having some Terrible Two Tantrums that I would rather do without but I still think I will keep him. :) I'm not gonna lie sometimes on those really bad days of tantrum after tantrum it's not like I'm dying to be around him. But all those cute adorable loving moments definitely do make up for it! I love my kid!!!

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I finally did Brayden's 2 year photo shoot! 2 months late but here they are!

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What January???

No, really, I don't even know what happened to this month. It went by so extremely fast. We had so much going on this month that here we are at the very end.

We rang in the new year with all 3 of us getting flu/head colds. I think for 3 weeks straight one or more of us were sick. And it couldn't have been just your normal head cold with a runny nose. It involved vomiting and soar throats and sinus infections. It was NO fun!

After we began to feel better we got a phone call in the middle of the night from Gary's sisters that his dad wasn't doing to well. Actually not very well at all. He had taken a turn for the worse and was put on Life Support. They wanted all the family to come because they were taking him off of support that next day. It was kind of a sudden thing. His dad had gotten sick right after Christmas and he had been in the hospital since then. But he was getting better. Then the one night he had a sudden change for the worse. We met all the family up at the hospital so everyone could say goodbye. It happened very fast. I think it was good for the family so they wouldn't have to see any suffering. Though I know it was still very hard and always is to lose a loved one!

Gary just recently reconnected with his dad after a long period of not talking. They have been working on their relationship for about 2 years now. I don't know all of the exact details of why they quit talking nor do I care that much. It was in the past and I was just glad that Gary was able to reconnect and working on getting to know his dad. I learned that it doesn't matter how close you are to a parent, it's still hard losing one. Although it didn't seem to have an affect until days later on Gary, you know, realizing he was really gone. Death affects people differently in so many ways. I was grateful to know Gary's dad and I am grateful to be a part of his wonderful family. The service was very nice and so many loved ones came and supported the family.


Gary Willard Mesch 1959 - 2012

This past weekend we spontaneously decided to go up to Breckenridge for the Ice Sculpture Fest. Gary's aunt generously allowed us to use her condo. We had so much fun. Our friends met us up there and we had a fun freezing time! Another tradition started for sure!

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No wonder why I don't know what happened to January. We had something going I think every single weekend.

YaY for February! Valentines day and Anniversary this month! Looking for to it!

"Mooo... , Naaaaaay"

Every year we try to go to the National Western Stock Show. We have so much fun and it's even more fun now that Brayden is totally into it! He is going to have to be since his mama is a total country girl at heart! Every time Brayden saw a cow or a horse he would say the sound. Which means he said it all day and a lot. Because they were EVERYWHERE!

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We also celebrated Brayden's Birthday party here at home last weekend. He had lots of fun!