Merry Christmas 2015

So I guess we should really re-title this blog "The Tuutau Family Christmas Card Blog" because that seems to be what we've been using this for the past few years. Brandy doesn't blog much because we have her family so close that we don't need the blog to keep them in the loop... I guess having the extra kids affects the frequency as well. Anyway... here's our card and updates for the year.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

We hope your year has been as adventurous as ours, so here are a few highlights:

 Daniel

2015 has been especially busy for Daniel. In May he finally finished his DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) degree from the University of Utah and is officially Dr. Tuutau. This is particularly impressive considering that besides finishing coursework, a dissertation, and a final lecture recital, he was involved with 6 different opera productions during the first 6 months of 2015. His Bishop must have figured that since he was done with school, he would have more time to serve, and called Daniel to be 2^nd Counselor in the Bishopric. We also took a trip to California in September to say goodbye to Daniel's mother, Gloria, who passed away the day before baby Emily was born. 

Brandy

Brandy spent most of the year pregnant! Things started out rough with months of awful morning sickness and chasing around 3 crazy little boys that took a lot of energy. Because Daniel’s mom died we decided to be induced that same day so we could make it to the funeral the next week without problems. Brandy was in labor for 10 hours before giving birth. Many of those hours were very intense and difficult, but she pulled through and gave birth to a gorgeous little girl. Besides being home all day taking care of children, Brandy subs as a water aerobics instructor, she serves with the youth at church (personal progress leader), and she looks forward to another amazing year with her family.

Johnny

Johnny turned 7 in October and started 1^st grade in school. He loves his teacher and classmates and although he gets in trouble sometimes he’s still learning and progressing. He loves math and reading and especially loves when his homework consists of working on a tablet or computer.

Johnny has already lost 5 teeth and is on his way to losing another one soon. He’s been a little scared of having his teeth pulled so his last two teeth he decided to take out himself. He was so proud of himself and didn’t have a problem at all. He is a very active kid and loves playing outside and jumping on the trampoline. He’s into Pokemon (because all of the kids at school trade cards), Sonic Racing, watching Daddy play Minecraft, and his favorite food is macaroni and cheese.

Joshua

Joshua turned 5 in August and started Kindergarten. His August birthday gives us yet another excuse to throw a BBQ and enjoy our new backyard, artificial turf and all. He is doing so well in school and is progressing quickly. His teacher has been really great about challenging him enough to keep him moving forward and becoming better and better. He is a very creative kid and enjoys anything artistic like coloring, drawing, painting, decorating cookies, and helping mom cook and bake in the kitchen.

He lost his first tooth in October and proudly proclaimed, “I did not cry!” before receiving a whole dollar (we don't do the tooth fairy, we just give 'em cash). He is such a sweet boy and always has a lot of compassion towards other people and animals.

James

Jimmy turned 3 in November and is becoming such a big boy. His biggest accomplishment this year was to become potty trained a week or so before his birthday. He is speaking and communicating very well and LOVES to sing (just like daddy!). He is very mischievous and gets into EVERYTHING. He must think that the walls are too plain because we find scribbles and drawings everywhere including on the windows, furniture, blankets, and even the baby! He loves being home with mommy and the baby all day making messes and smothering his sister with kisses. He is also a very active child and loves playing with his dinosaurs, action figure heroes, taking baths, and is amazing at finding candy and sweets. 

Emily

Emily Indah Rose was born on August 26, 2015 at 3:46am and was 6lbs 14 oz and 18in long. She was our only child that spent time in the NICU (a whole 30 min!) because her oxygen levels were a little low right after she was born. We’re so grateful her oxygen levels rose as fast as they did and she was back in Brandy’s arms in no time. Although she weighed 6lbs 14oz at birth (by far our smallest baby) we only got to enjoy having a teeny tiny baby in newborn clothes and diapers for a couple of weeks before she surprised us by skipping over all of her cute 0-3 month clothing and basically going straight into 3-6 month clothing by the time she hit 1 month old. She has blue eyes and a thick head of brown slightly curly hair. She is such a calm happy baby and we all love her so much.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Tuutaus in 2015

Merry Christmas 2014

So, nothing like waiting a year between blog posts, ha! Obviously we've been busy, and when I say we, I mean Brandy, since she's the one who kept this thing up. I guess we get lazy now that family is so close, but either way, it's Christmas time and here's our annual post. We hope all is well with you and yours as well.

Merry Christmas:

As a family, we had a wonderful year. We took the kids to see their very first Opera, “Hansel and Gretel” at the University of Utah which they absolutely loved. We had a great time at another year of Folklore Camp up in the Mendocino Woodlands. We cut down some trees in our backyard, put in a concrete patio and built a wooden fence which will make things really nice this next spring/summer. We also were able to attend the “Hansen Family Reunion” in Arizona over Thanksgiving which was a lot of fun. We figure if you haven’t been following our adventures on Facebook or in person, we’d sum up the year for you.

*   *   *

Daniel started his last year of grad school. Yes, you read that correctly he will actually be FINISHED with school in May. He will graduate with a Doctorate in Musical Arts and we couldn’t be more proud of him. This past year he not only performed at the University of Utah but also as a chorus member for Utah Opera at the Capitol Theater in Salt Lake City. He was in the chorus for Puccini’s Turandot and Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio for Utah Opera, and he performed as the Count in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro at the University. This past October he did a joint recital with another Doctoral student where they sang songs from Bernstein shows and then performed Trouble in Tahiti for the second half. Although he is very busy getting ready for this next year’s full schedule of shows and performances he always makes a point of having family time.

Brandy turned 30 years old this year and in honor of that Daniel made her a 7 layer cake (it was literally 7 cakes stacked on top of each other covered in frosting and sprinkles!).  At the beginning of the year Brandy ran in the “Hale Freezes Over” 5k run in Orem with her mother. She finished in 34 min (which is her best time so far) on a very cold winter morning and received 2 tickets to see “Big River”. In July she became the Primary President (In charge of running the program for all the children in our local church congregation) which has kept her very busy.  Besides chasing around 3 crazy-cute little boys she is trying to develop her talents in photography, cake decorating, and crocheting.

Johnny turned 6 years old this year and celebrated with a Ninja Turtle birthday party with his cousins. He finished his 3^rd and final year of preschool and started Kindergarten at a charter school called Pacific Heritage Academy. Although he is still in speech therapy, he is progressing well and loving his class. After a visit at the eye doctor we found out Johnny has “Refractive Amblyopia” which means he got glasses.

He lost his very first tooth a few months ago and now the tooth right next to it is also loose.

Joshua turned 4 years old and had a really fun Star Wars birthday party. He started Preschool this year and absolutely loves it. He loves coloring, singing, listening to music and playing (well, fighting) with his brothers. He’s such a sweet and cuddly little guy who also loves Ninja Turtles and of course pizza!

James turned 2 years old this year. He had a little bit of a rocky start learning how to speak but now we can’t get him to stop talking! James is by far the most mischievous child in our house. He gets into EVERYTHING and is constantly getting into trouble. Brandy is constantly having to fish things out of the toilet, scrub pencil and crayon off the walls and furniture, or wipe up something else he’s spilled all over.  Then while she’s distracted doing that he makes his way into a bedroom to pull things out of the drawers or make a fort out of all the pillows and blankets in the house…then makes it rain cookie crumbs and cereal everywhere  (who needs a clean house right?!) . Despite all of that Jimmy is such a sweet boy who absolutely adores his older brothers.  There’s never a dull moment when Jimmy’s around!

Merry Christmas 2013

Nothing like letting a year blow by to keep everyone in the loop...

So, 2013 has flown by and another Christmas is here... we hope your year went as well as ours... here's a little update and a Christmas greeting.....

The Tuutaus in 2013

What a great year 2013 has been! The Tuutaus started off the year enjoying a couple of wonderful performances at the University of Utah. Daniel sang the roles of Papageno in Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute and Ford In Verdi’s comedic opera Falstaff.  Daniel turned 30 and celebrated with a big BBQ and 3 different cakes. He and Brandy had the exciting experience of going zip lining for the first time with Brandy’s dad and stepmom. Talk about a rush! As a family we enjoyed another vacation to Northern California where we attended the Mendocino Folklore Camp. We camped out at the beach the night before then spent a week in a cabin in the woods enjoying the crazy fun of Folklore Camp. Later in the year Daniel and Brandy took their first ever trip-without-kids to Palm Springs, California, for a “work-cation” helping to put on the 50^th reunion for AMAN, an LA based folkdance group. Besides taking care of three little wild boys, Brandy has stayed busy scrapbooking, cake decorating, and photographing. Her Valentine’s Day present this year from Daniel was a website for all her creative activities: www.SweetsByBrandy.com. Daniel finished off the year performing as one of the three kings in the one-act opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors and is gearing up for the role of the Count in Mozart’s The Marriage of Fiagro next Feb.

Johnny finished his 2^nd year of pre-school and in the fall started his 3^rd year at a new school with a new class and new teacher. Johnny has LOVED the change and is progressing so much. His teacher Ms. Cheryl has been so good for him and has really helped him figure out better ways to communicate with us and express himself. He has developed a love for reading and will actually sit through an entire story without getting distracted or bored! He turned 5 years old in October and celebrated throughout the week by taking a trip to the zoo, visiting ChuckECheese, going to a Utah football game with his daddy, eating a giant rice crispy treat in the shape of a 5, and picking out fish for his new fish tank his Aunty got for him. He was Superman (again) for Halloween, making it 3 out of 5 years he’s been Superman—quite fitting considering our Christmas Card choice this year.

Josh turned 3 years old in August and had a very fun birthday party with family at Hollywood Connection, and later a birthday BBQ where he fell asleep right before it was time to cut the cake. We ended up doing it without him, but we took lots of pictures so when he’s older we’ll just tell him he was there! By far his biggest accomplishment of the year was getting potty trained, yay!! He was Darth Vadar for Halloween and was just as excited to give away candy at the door as getting it trick-or-treating. He continues to grow (almost speaking as well as Johnny) and he loves going with Daddy and Johnny to the Utah basketball games.

James had his blessing on the Sunday before Christmas last year. It was fun to have everyone come over to our little house afterward for food and company. We had over 40 people inside and it was good cozy fun.  It turns out that James has respiratory problems and he spent much of the first half of the year sick with one thing or another. Despite this, he has been a very happy good-natured little guy. He didn’t let RSV, pneumonia, or multiple hospital visits keep him down. His first tooth came through on the day he turned 10 months, and he took his first steps at 10½ months. He’s been enjoying the added mobility to try to keep up with his wild brothers running all over the house. His pediatrician has him on a inhaler-prescription that seems to be helping, or at least he’s been enjoying less time being sick. He did, however, have another trip to the ER in October to get stitches for an almost-cut-off ring finger from an older brother who decided to close the bathroom door on it. He was a little frog for Halloween, and in November enjoyed sharing a pirate party for his 1^st birthday with his best buddy Bosley.

The Tuutaus are doing great and hope you and yours are too

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

James Birth Story

Where do I start…. This pregnancy was very unique in many different ways. I thought by my third kid I would have everything down and know exactly what to do and exactly what to expect, but boy was I wrong! I had many people tell me that since this was my third he would come really fast and they were all positive it would be my shortest labor. YEAH RIGHT!! About a month before I had him I started getting “warm-up” contractions (or braxton-hicks). Sometimes they would come pretty regularly but I knew it wasn’t time yet so I would just kept ignoring them.  About a week before Halloween they started getting a little more regular and on the 24^th I experienced my first ever “false alarm”. After 8 hours of contractions that started out 10 minutes apart then got closer and closer. When they were about 4 minutes apart I decided at about 2am to go to the hospital to get checked out. I was still a little early (I wasn’t even 37wks at the time) and I wanted to make sure everything was going alright. I was a little worried because I didn’t want to have a problem with his lungs not being fully developed or something like that. When they checked me out they told me I was dilated to a 1 and about 70% effaced but they didn’t think this was the real thing so they sent me home. A little while after I left the hospital everything stopped and I was fine once again. My mom and sisters were secretly hoping I would have the baby on Halloween but the 31^st came and went and still no baby. I was still experiencing many episodes of contractions but nothing was regular or consistent enough to warrant attention. Another week went by and we had another false alarm. This time I thought that my water broke (I’ve never had my water break on its own and I wasn't sure if it was real or not). Daniel was at rehearsal  and I was home taking a bath and after I got out I felt a gush of fluid and wasn't sure if it was my water breaking or simply fluid coming out from sitting in the bath for a while. I called my mom and sister and asked them to come take me to get it checked out and again after sitting in the hospital for a while (and still experiencing many contractions) they checked everything out and said no, my water did not break it was just discharge (…weird) but I was now dilated to a 3 and 80% effaced. They still didn’t think it was the real thing and recommended I go home. My sister asked the nurse what was going on with my contractions and the nurse looked at the monitor and said they had been between 3-5 apart the whole time I was there and they were lasting between 45seconds and 3 minutes each…WOW!  No wonder I was so uncomfortable. I went home and cried my eyes out for a little while (I couldn’t believe I had 2 false alarms) and finally fell asleep. Things slowed way down for the next few days and I had some time where I had all the energy in the world and got my house cleaned, the yard cleaned including raking all the leaves, and cooking yummy banana bread muffins.

On Nov 15^th was when the real fun began!  *Note: Time wise the next few days were kind of a blur for me. I didn't want to watch the clock or it would have made me crazy so my sister was the one that monitored how long things were and when things happened. Just know that after my sister counted everything out she figured out I was in labor a total of 56 hours* When the contractions started up they were really intense but kind of far apart and not exactly regular, but they felt different than anything I had experienced thus far. They kept going for a while and I kept brushing them off because I didn’t think it was the real deal so I just went about my night as usual. I kept waking up all night and had a terrible nights rest but at least I got some rest. The next day I planned on having a normal day and I even planned on taking dinner to one of my good friends who had her baby just 2 days previous. I was hoping that by being around her little guy it would force James to come a little quicker! But unfortunately by the afternoon my contractions were much much closer together and still really sore so I stayed home and tried to relax my mind and body a little more (Thank goodness for Hypnobirthing and the HypnoBabies CD's I listened to. They were such a wonderful help to me throughout this whole process). That night things were still the same and Daniel left to go to his performance (he had an Opera performance the 16^th and 17^th). My mom and sister came up again and were helping me get the kids ready for bed when I had another discharge of fluid (which I thought could have possibly been my water breaking…which it wasn’t…again!) and I was sure my mucous plug was coming out. When Daniel got home I made him call his sister to take the kids and we went to the hospital again to get checked out.  I was dilated to a 4 and 90% effaced but the contractions were just not consistent enough for them to classify me as “progressing” so they sent me home again. I was bawling my eyes out and couldn't believe it. I kept thinking to myself that I was just going to have the baby at home by myself because I didn't want to go into the hospital again! All that night I was up every 5-10 minutes and at about 5am I got in the bathtub and soaked in the water for a while. I was so much happier when I was in the water. All morning they just kept coming 3-5 minutes apart and lasting about 45sec to a minute and a half each time. I managed to eat a little bit of breakfast but I wasn't that hungry. I made sure to keep my water bottle filled so I wouldn't have a problem with dehydration but even that was hard to remember. My sister brought her IPad with her and had the movie “Brave” on there. We started watching it and she would pause the movie each time I would have a contractions, wait, and then we would keep watching it. About half way through the movie (and about 1:00ish) my contractions went to 1 minute apart and they were lasting about 1 minute each. I got in the bathtub again (which made everything so much better) and labored in the tub for HOURS. Daniel was in there with me helping me keep calm and trying to relax. At about 3:00ish I felt the urge to start pushing but after checking myself his head wasn't down far enough yet. I knew I was really dilated (I was probably about an 8 or so) but his head wasn't down enough. By 5 o’clock I started getting to that panicky “I can’t do this anymore I’m so exhausted” stage and decided to get out of the bathtub and go to the hospital (I really was going to have that baby in my bathtub but I couldn't figure out why he wasn't coming down.  Daniel told me he would have to leave soon to go to his Opera performance and asked if I thought I would have the baby soon or if he should just go to the performance. Since neither of us knew when the baby was actually going to come and I did have my mom and 2 sisters there for support I told him to go to the performance and we would let him know what was going on after we went to the hospital. We left at 6 for the hospital and Daniel went to his performance. My sister rushed us over there and dropped my mom and I off at the front and my mom wheeled me up to the L&D. The nurse came in checked me out and said I was complete and ready to deliver. They took me straight into a room and after getting me into a gown and doing a blood draw (which the girl missed and pulled out the needle before taking the tourniquet off so blood was gushing out of my arm all over the place!) the midwife came in with the delivery nurse. The midwife asked if I wanted her to break my water and I said no because I had a bad experience with that when I had Johnny. After 45 minutes of trying to get that kid out she asked me again and I told her I didn't want to have the same problems I did with Johnny so we kept going. After another 15 minutes or so she asked me for the 3^rd time and told me that if my water were to break she was positive the baby would come right out. My mom and sisters thought it was a good idea too and I finally said yes. My sister Brittanny asked me if I wanted to call Daniel and tell him to get over there but I knew he was right in the middle of his performance and I just wasn't bothered about him not being there. Instead she grabbed my camera and filmed the whole thing! I was a little nervous about having my water broken but on the next contraction the midwife popped the water sac and James was out in 3 minutes. I remember feeling relief when the water sac broke (completely different than Johnny’s birth). I found out from the midwife later that the reason James wasn't coming out (because in her opinion he should have…and would have…been out hours earlier if this had not been the case) was because he had his little hand up over his head and every time I would have a contraction he would press against my water sac (which was apparently super thick) and it made it so he wasn't coming down like he should have. This was definitely not an emergency situation but it was pretty funny that he was perfectly content to stay inside of me even though my body was obviously ready for him to come out….hence the 56 hour labor!

I was expecting them to plop him on my chest like they did with my other two boys but the umbilical cord was too short for them to move him too far so I had to wait a few minutes until the cord stopped pulsing and my mom cut the cord to be able to hold my baby for the first time. He was so tiny! Definitely smaller than my other two but I wasn't ready to give him up for them to weigh him.  A short while later the placenta came out and the midwife showed me how thick the water sac was…trust me, that thing wouldn't have popped on its own! We called Daniel and left him a message on his phone while the baby was still crying and making noise. Daniel called us back at intermission and announced to everyone backstage that the baby was born. Everyone was cheering and screaming congratulations into the phone. He finished out the performance then raced up to the hospital once the curtain fell. After holding him for a while I decided to let them weigh and measure him. They did this in the room with me which was really nice because with my other two boys they had to take them to the nursery to do the measuring. He weighed in at 7lbs 7oz and was 19.5in long. We took lots of pictures with my mom and siblings (my brother had been waiting in the hall with my nephew until the baby was born then he came in to be with us) and then when Daniel arrived they decided to go home and I took even more pictures of Daddy meeting baby for the first time. So much fun!

The next day was Sunday and after picking up the boys Daniel drove over to spend some time with us at the hospital. John and Josh were so excited to meet the baby then they got distracted with Spongebob on the TV and Joshua was stole Daddy's phone to play Angry Birds. After what seemed like a really long day they let us go home that night (I did NOT want to stay there any longer. They said I could stay an extra night so I could relax and get some sleep but how are you suppose to do that when people keep coming in every few hours checking on you or checking on the baby?). 

And now for a whole lot of pictures.....

Right after they handed him to me

There's that pesky little hand that gave me so much trouble!

Look at all that hair! 

The best midwife and delivery nurse EVER!!

Right after Daniel got to the hospital

Our first family picture 

First bath

Johnny watching Spongebob

Joshy playing Angry Birds

Nap time for everyone!

This picture was taken the morning after we came home from the hospital. 

Now we’re home and things are great! I love having my 3 musketeers together and even though this transition from 2 kids to 3 kids has been a bit difficult for me I’m loving life more and more with each new day. I’m so happy to finally have my sweet baby boy here and I wouldn't trade this experience for anything in the world.

WELCOME HOME BABY JAMES!!!

Merry Christmas 2012

This has been a very exciting year for us. We started out the year by moving into an apartment in the Family Student Housing at the University of Utah. We had been living with family while we were in the process of finding a house. Since we had no idea how much longer it would take, after a few months we knew we needed our own place to live. Even though it was tiny and the walls were made of cinder block we fell in love with our new home, neighbors, and ward. After only a month we finally had one of our bids accepted, and we were in our new home by the end of March. We took a couple family trips to California (to Mendocino Folklore Camp & to a wedding in San Diego) over the summer. We added a new (used) mini-van to the family, and a new laptop for Daniel. Oh, and new baby too. We’ve been overly blessed in almost every aspect of our lives, and are grateful every day. We hope you can count your blessings as well, and we wish you a most merry Christmas and an excellent New Year!

Daniel – Finished his first year as a Doctoral Student in Vocal Performance at the University of Utah. He had two leading roles in their productions of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah. He also sang in the Moab Music Festival in September, and stays busy working at the library, teaching lessons, and singing all over town.

Brandy – Since she spent most of the year pregnant, Brandy really enjoyed taking water aerobics class a couple times a week. She won a online photo contest for a picture she took of Joshua (won tickets to the BYU/Utah game, free paint, and BestBuy giftcards). She went through three weeks of Braxton Hicks contractions before enduring a 56 hour labor while still managing to have a natural unmediated childbirth. She loves having her Three Musketeers (and generally taking care of her 4 little boys).

Johnny – He’s still a crazy little rascal. He finished his first year of pre-school (he’ll have a few more to go). We were able to trade voice lessons for speech therapy, so Johnny had speech therapy continue over the summer. He’s speaking more and more, and he’s found that he love singing (though you often have to listen closely to figure out what song he’s actually singing). His favorites right now are Nephi’s Courage, Two Little Speckled Frogs, and the Bob the Building & VeggieTales theme songs. He loves having a new little baby brother, and is a great big brother for his two little bros.

Joshua – He’s a little cutie that looks more and more like his mama. Josh doesn’t show any of the speech delay signs that John had at his age. He’s talking quite a bit, and is often as stubborn as an ox. He’s currently in a training program (the potty type), and we’re hoping he gets the hang of it soon. He’s still our little white boy who eats like a Polynesian: not ‘til he’s full, but ‘til he’s tired.

James – He was born on Nov 17th 2012, at 8:15pm. He took his sweet time coming out, and after waiting 56 hours, he finally decided to make his appearance once his Daddy was on stage during an Opera Scenes Performance. Brandy had her mother and sisters there to help her through it. Though smaller than either of his big brothers, James Daniel Brandyn Tuutau was 7lbs 7oz and 19inches long. Since then he does a lot of new-born activities: eat, poop, cry, poop, eat, be cute.

Merry Christmas!!! 

And a Happy New Year!!!

We Won!

A couple of weeks ago I got a junk e-mail telling me of all the cool contests that the local Fox 13 news station was putting on. One of them had to do with winning tickets to the BYU-Utah football game. Um...yes please!! (If you remember my dilema from last year.....was my heart still RED or was the BLUE secretly coming out?) The contest was a photo contest. Pretty much you enter a picture supporting either BYU or UTAH and have all your friends and family vote for your picture and whoever has the most votes wins. I hate doing things like this because I hate having to ask people to vote. Luckily it was one vote per e-mail address per day and my husband has quite a few different e-mail addresses and I managed to force my family to sign up then give me their log-in info so I could do all the work and no one felt put out. I think there were like 60 different entries and most of them were really stupid and had nothing to do with the theme (someone put a picture of their dog walking down the street, another was a guy with a black hat and black sunglasses, there was even a picture submitted of chewbaca!) I read through all of the rules and regulations beforehand and found out that the voting would only last 1 week and whoever had the most votes by the end of the week would win 2 tickets to the game, $300 gift cards to Best Buy and $150 gift card to Kwal Paint (since it was Kwal Paint that sponsored the contest). The second place prize was $100 Kwal Paint and $200 gift card to Best Buy. Either way those are pretty good prizes. So I entered this picture...

Cute huh? I kept watch for the moment they allowed voting then Daniel and I kept diligently entering our votes every single day. I don't think anyone really gave this contest much notice because of all the entries only about 11 pictures actually had votes on them after the first few days. They eventually narrowed it down to the top 6 pictures and there was really only 1 other person that was even anywhere close to us. We had such a huge lead that I wasn't too worried about not winning until the last day when 2 of the other pictures all of the sudden started getting A LOT of votes. But even their last push for votes wasn't enough to beat Daniel and I and we ended up with 99 votes and the 2nd place winner had 79 votes (I think the 3rd place guy that was keeping pretty close to the 2nd place picture ended up with 66 votes). I was so excited and then I became even more excited when they actually called me and told me where to go to pick up my prize (sometimes you just don't know if it was all a hoax, but this was legit!)

Here's a picture of us after we picked up our prizes. 

I got to pick what we got with our winnings so before the game Daniel and I went over to Best Buy where we picked out a "Nabi" tablet (super kid-friendly/mommy friendly tablet) and a kinect (for our X-Box 360 that Daniel managed to get for free...that's a whole other story!). 

Being 31 weeks pregnant and having sharp pains when I sit down too long on a chair I decided to stay home and watch the game from the comfort of my own bed while Daniel took Johnny and his buddy Brandon to the game.

It was a great game and had one of the craziest endings I have ever seen. Utah ended up winning 24-21 and the boys LOVED being there all in RED cheering on the winners. (Funny that we cheered on Utah even though we won the contest promoting BYU!)

Europe Trip: Rome

*Yes, yes...I realize it's been a year since we went to Europe but I didn't realize how incredibly far behind I am on recounting our incredible journey there. Shame on me! It's important for me to write these things down because I'm already forgetting details about our trip and I don't want to do that. It was so amazing that I want to make sure I remember as much as I can for as long as I can. So I made a promise to myself that I will be better about writing down the things I really don't want to forget later on in life. This trip is one of those things. So here's a continuation of our amazing adventure and I promise I will work on getting the rest of it finished soon.*

When in Rome...

I actually didn't like Rome as much as I thought I would...but I still enjoyed myself. We camped again that night and it took us a long time to find the campground because our GPS was off and the street it told us to take led us into a field! After driving around for a while we found the campsite and picked our spot. It was already getting late so we found something quick to eat and set up camp. The next morning we bought some sandwich supplies and a few snacks to take with us at the little store at the front of the campsite then waited for the shuttle bus. We rode a shuttle to another smaller bus which took us to the train station which then took us into the city. 

It was a very hot day and the city was very crowded. We walked over to Vatican City and tried to make our way through the sea of tour groups inside. It took a very long time to get in but finally we made it inside and started looking around. It was amazing to see so many cool things in person that I've only ever read about in books or seen in the movies. The only problem was it was very crowded, very hot, and the kids were not handling it all that well. Daniel and I ended up getting annoyed with each other and getting into a small fight which caused us to leave a little earlier than we thought. Once we got outside and found some shade to eat our lunch things started to calm down and we made up with each other and kept going with our day.

St. Peter's Basilica was really cool! I had just finished reading Angels and Demons by Dan Brown not long before our trip and kept thinking about the book as we waited in a VERY long line to actually get inside. I was so happy with myself because even though it was a very hot day I still made sure to put on modest clothing. At the front of the line to get in they had workers there that were inspecting everyone's clothes to make sure no one was admitted that wasn't modestly dressed. I kind of felt bad for the people who were turned away after waiting for at least an hour or two in line but I was impressed with their policy and glad I don't wear sleeveless tops or short shorts anyway.


The inside of the basilica was beautiful. I actually liked looking around here more than the Notre Dame Cathedral. Maybe because it wasn't so gloomy or it seemed like there were more things to look at, I don't know but I loved it. Daniel gave me a lesson on what "Crepuscular Rays" are (you know how you see rays of light shinning down in almost a stream onto something? they're really cool looking and give a "holy" sense when you see them).

We filled up our water bottles at the public fountain which made us feel special like we had holy water in our bottles! Then we made our way over to the Hard Rock Cafe to get our pin. It wasn't too far from The Colluseum which we planned on being our last stop because the city was so crazy and it took us forever to get from once place to another.

We got there a bit late because of stupid traffic and trying to figure out where to go so it was already closed for visitors. We ended up just walking around the whole thing then taking a few pictures in front of it while the sun went down. We could see the inside through the gaps in the arches anyway so it wasn't that big of a loss that we didn't get to go inside. We left and caught a bus that took us back to the train station that took us to another bus that took us to our shuttle to get back to our campsite. There was a darling little girl that sat in front of us on  one of the buses (about 3 or 4 years old) that fell in love with John and Josh. She kept calling them "Picollo" and trying to rub Joshua's head. It made the bus ride so fun. We were sad to see her go when we got to our shuttle. 

The next day was Sunday and it took us a little while to find the church building in Rome so we were a little late then we found out that Sacrament meeting was last so we didn't get to attend any other meetings. Oh well, it was still cool to attend church in Rome. We stopped off at a supermarket and bought more sandwich stuff for lunch then started our journey to Venice....