Our Trip

I need to get our trip pictures up, can you believe I really didn't do this until all the suitcases were unpacked?!

We flew to LV on Wed- love our great price of $505 for the family round trip- gotta be thankful for Alligiant sales! We stayed with my brother David's family. Carly and Brayden were such good little buddies. It was fun to stay with David and Shanae and stay up late each night talking to them. The girls woke up around 4:30 the first few mornings since that is 6:30 here. They grabbed books and read by the night light and Carly colored pictures in bed. They couldn't wait for Brayden and Zach to wake up.

While we were there we got to see lots of cousins, some we haven't seen in over 3 years! The Taylor's had a fun game of flag football Thursday morning, Darrell took the kids over to the park. He came back telling me Ashlee has some swivel hips- must get those from her Grandpa Taylor! She ducked and got through everyone to score. I didn't take pictures until after the game, actually these pic's were taken by Ashlee.

We had a GREAT Thanksgiving dinner with the Taylor side, then went over to have some YUMMY pie with Darrell's mom.

Friday was Ashlee's big day. I had sent a package with all the kids church clothes, Ashlee's baptism dress, and any other clothes I could fit in the box. The package did not come!! I was so stressed out and annoyed- it had been over 2 weeks! We had to run to the store and get everyone new church clothes, and help Ashlee find a new dress. We found a few cute white ones, but she knew she already had one so she found a blue and white one she loved. She was shoeless since her shoes were in the package also and I refused to buy another pair of white shoes.

We were at the church early and loved that Grandma Wiser and The Ruesch's came and spent some time with us there. Filling the font is kind of a boring process with out cousins there to play with!

The baptism was beautiful! Ashlee is such a sweet girl, she was counting down the days and was jittery with excitement when it was finally time. She asked Lexi to give a talk on baptism. Lexi wrote her own talk and worked hard on an object lesson. She used ketchup to put in someones hand and had them rub it all over. She then sprinkled water over their hand and asked if it was clean. She then had them immerse their hand in water to show that baptism by immersion is the only true way to become clean.

Ashlee asked her Uncle Travis to speak on the Holy Ghost. Travis did such a great job on explaining different ways the Holy Ghost can help us. He shared a few stories that really touched Ashlee and I don't think she will forget them.

All her cousins sang a beautiful song on baptism, she is really blessed to have so much family show their love and support. There were over 50 people there- just family members! (Of course I carried the camera around and forgot to get group pictures....)

Both Grandma's shared their testimonies to Ashlee, she has great examples to follow in her life.

After the baptism we went to Grandma Taylor's to watch a movie. Lexi was staying the night with her cousin Abbey, Ashlee and Carly got to stay the night cause they fell asleep and we couldn't wake them up. (As you can see they weren't the only ones who fell asleep!)

Saturday we planned a picnic in the park and I gave the camera to Lexi, here are a few of the pictures she took. They had so much fun playing football. Ashlee scored again, maybe she really does have swivel hips!

Saturday night we had dinner with Grandma Wiser, The Ruesch's, and the Wiser's. The kids ran all over at Grandma's (or Jill's) house, but had so much fun. Sydney was cracking us up with her picture book and signing to tell us about what the doctors did to her with her surgeries. Brooke got lot's of practice singing her preschool song "To Fat For The Chimney" I still have it stuck in my head! It was our first time to see our new cousin Easton- what a sweet little boy! We were sad to tell everyone bye, Chris hugged me and told me he used to be scared of me. I

think this was one of the first times he has ever hugged me- I guess I really scared the poor kid at one point!

We finally got our package Monday, phew- at least it came! The kids had more then 2 outfits to wear now, and I wasn't needing to do laundry almost everyday! We went to the temple to get a few pictures of the kids on the grass, but it was SOAKING wet. We took a few in hopes of getting one for Christmas cards. Along with the cute ones we got some sill ones too.

We also took a drive down by our old house and let the kids play at the park for a few minutes. This is the only time of year I love Las Vegas weather!

We came home early Thursday morning and are trying to get back on Akansas time- it's so hard! We loved seeing all our family and the few friends were able to see for a few minutes. No matter how long we plan to stay it just doesn't seem like there is enough time to see everyone or spend as much time with everyone as we'd like. Just typing this makes me tired all over again! Thanks to everyone who came and supported Ashlee in her big day- we love seeing and spending time with everyone.

All our Las Vegas friends- sorry we wern't able to get together, somehow we'll figure out a way next time!

Here is a picture of Ashlee in her white baptism dress- she was so relieved (along with her parents) for this dress to finally get here!