Where did the years go?

Friday is going to be a bittersweet day. Jordan is graduating from high school! That's two days away!

Did I really just say that....GRADUATING FROM HIGH SCHOOL!

Growing Up!

Becoming an Adult!

Moving away from home!

Leaving a big hole in our day to day family!

Of course I couldn't be prouder! He's accomplished so much. He's had a very full life while under our wings. I look back with a thankful heart for every (good and not so good) memory that we have shared with him. I know that it's not over, but it won't be the same. He's off to a great start into the big world and I know the best for him is yet to be!

But a big part of my heart will be breaking. The years went by way too fast. What a blessing he's been. What a privilege I've had.

It must run in the family

We've been enjoying all the misinterpretations that Chris has been having lately thanks to Cindy keeping up on her blog. Does he need a vacation, a nap, hearing aids, or is he just being his smart-alecky self?

Last night we had a little chuckle ourselves. Brendan sent out a family email inviting everyone over to our house for Memorial Day. He asked for replies and everyone's two cents as to what time we should get together and what everyone wanted to bring. Allison and I happended to be in the office with him and as she read over his shoulder she got a very confused look on her face.

"Dad? Why does everyone need to bring two cents to come over on Memorial Day?"

It's nice to still have a little innocence in our house.

State Track Meet 2009

Jordan has been in track since 7th grade. He has done the long jump, high jump, 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay, javelin throw, and 100m hurdles. It seems that every year he changed events because he "finally found the perfect fit." But then the next year it was the same thing. We wish he would have stuck with the same events because he would have perfected some of them, but at least he can say he tried them all. He went to the Region finals last week and got 5th in the javelin throw. They took the top 4...he missed it by 3 feet! His relay team did qualify, however, and came in 2nd! He was so excited. So this past weekend they went to the State Finals at BYU. They were 1/2 a second shy of beating the school record so that was a goal they had besides placing at State.

They ran great, but their handoffs just didn't go well. They finished 5th or 6th in their heat and didn't place in State. Their time was 1/2 a second longer than their region time. How frustrating for them. They had done so great all week at practice, but you only get one chance when it counts. Just like the poor Olympians who train for years and then they drop the baton or trip during the games. Again, another "last," but it sure has been a great ride through the years.

I was so proud of him and his teammates anyway! Qualifying for the State Finals was no small task. Congratulations on a great season!

MR.LEHI

Mr. Lehi was quite the event with 15 boys competing for the title. The talents were "interesting," the swimwear was a little "different," and the eveningwear ranged from dinosaur pajamas to sweats to pin striped suits with alligator skin shoes (that would be Jordan.) He didn't win, but came home beaming! They had SO MUCH FUN and those memories will last a lifetime! My camera didn't cooperate with the lighting on the stage, but we did video tape the whole thing. When I get a minute, I'll try to take pictures of the paused tape on tv to post.

Who's calling me old?

Partial conversation recently had in our home:


Me: "So Jordan, how was your Sunday School class picnic this afternoon?"


Jordan: "It was fun, but why do you keep calling it a picnic? It was a BBQ."


Me: "Picnic. BBQ. Same thing."


Jordan: "No. It's so not."


Jake: "Jordan, it's ok. That's what old people call it."


Jordan: "Yeah, you're right."


WHAT DID THEY JUST SAY?

This drives me CrAzY!!!

Does anyone else ever encounter this scene when opening the door to their bathroom? Do I need to spell it out on a chore chart or something? How hard is it to change out the toilet paper roll?????? Obviously a bit much for all the people in our family. Just one of those days today.

Who celebrates Cinco de Mayo?

Apparently we do now.

On Brendan's side of our family are some of the biggest 4th of July fanatics you'll ever see. I say that in a very good way, it's a big deal and one we ALL look forward to each summer. So I guess it's normal to now get a little festive to celebrate "the Independence day of our neighbors to the South" as Brian so eloquently put it in his prayer as he blessed the food. I'm not one to laugh during a prayer, but this one got a little out of hand and I think even Grandma was chuckling a bit.

Anyhoo~Brian and Lauren called up to let us know that they were planning a party at Brendan's parents' that evening. Hey, any excuse to eat his mom's chimis is good for me. I picked up the boys from the high school where Jordan was finishing up track practice and Jake was done with his Basketball Open Gym session. We dropped Allison off at Timpview for dance and headed across the street for the Fiesta. Brendan met us there after work. We ate homemade chimis/burritos with Cafe Rio pork, chips, 7 layer dip, and salsa. I brought specialty drink mixers to make Pina Coladas, Strawberry Daiquiris, and very sour Margaritas. Yummo!

Brendan's brother Joe (the real party animal of the family) brought over a pinata for all the little kids. Cute little Jack was scared to death of it and refused to hit it, but there were plenty of other little hands (and big ones) who did the job.

Brian walked around saying all the Spanish phrases he knew and even had Mexican music blaring from some site that he found on the computer. I just sat back and laughed at how crazy this whole party was, but we all had so much fun.

Here are Jordan, Brendan, his brothers Brian and Joe, doing a little "Mexican" for our entertainment.

(I stole this photo from Debbie's blog because it's just so cute to see all the little cousins holding hands to cross the street.)

Everyone went across the street to the park to play baseball after the pinata. Problem was, no one could find a baseball or a bat. It's been a LONG time since kids lived in the house. No problem. The house was full of ingenious eagle scouts....they sanded down a stick found out in the yard for the bat (which was also used for the pinata). A whiffle ball just wouldn't cut it so they got masking tape to cover the holes and give it some weight. Oh these boys just get better by the minute. Jordan designated himself as the pitcher, but we all soon realized that just because you are a quarterback, doesn't mean you can pitch. They played until the tape started to unravel and the ball became useless.

This was my very first Cinco de Mayo celebration, but I'm thinking it won't be our last.

Prom 2009

Well, here goes another "Last" for Jordan. Last high school date dance. He had a great time at Prom this year. It happened to fall on Nicole's 18th birthday which made it that much more fun.

He had the BYU invitational Track Meet on Saturday morning, so their "Day Date" had to be on Friday. His group of 10 went to the Pleasant Grove Space Center (the place that everyone goes on a field trip to in 6th grade.) They had a blast fighting aliens and commanding the space ship. Sounds a little silly to me, but he's been talking about it ever since 6th grade and they all said it was very intense and lot's of fun.

Dance pictures were taken at the high school between 4 and 6 pm and not during the actual dance so that made one more stop along the way. Jordan and his buddies made the rounds to pick up their dates, had a few snags along the way which made them late, so they took their pictures at the school first, which limited our home photo shoot afterward to 5 minutes. They got to Jordan Dew's at 5:30 and had to be up in Salt Lake by 6:00. Such a bummer, but we did what we could.

They were so lucky that the rain stopped and the sun came out just long enough to get these gorgeous shots. Jordan and Jordan insisted on re-creating their famous poses they did last year for their prom photoshoot. Yes, Jordan Dew IS wearing a headband. Funny guy!

Nicole looked absolutely beautiful in her dress and perfect hair, makeup, nails, and jewelry. She's so cute naturally that it's not too hard. I don't want to jinx things, but I REALLY like her a lot!


She is so beautiful inside and out and the more we get to know her, the more we all fall in love with her. I'll admit that I pictured these photos with her in white instead of brown and liked what I saw.

She and Jordan have so much fun together and really bring out the best in each other. We'll see if they can survive "the mission." If it's meant to be....we'll see. I'm crossing my fingers though.

One of the highlights, for Jordan anyway, was his car for the night. His boss from work let him borrow his black mustang. This is the boss who's car Jordan rear-ended last summer. He's one nice guy, if you ask me. Too nice. I'm always nervous when Jordan goes out late, but I couldn't stop stressing all night about Matt's car. It's one thing to get in a wreck, but when you are driving someone else's car....not good. He had it valet parked for dinner and I was picturing the scene from Ferris Bueller's Day off when the parking attendants take their car for a joy ride around town. Thank goodness it was returned to Matt without a scratch.


They went to dinner at The Melting Pot in Salt Lake and then came back down to UVU's ballroom for the dance. The "after the dance" movie/hangout was at our house, but between curfews and everyone exhausted it didn't last long. I wanted to take pictures of everyone at the end of the day, but the girls all felt their hair was too messy. I forgot to post about MORP back in March, but I'll have to do that another day. Too much to do and blogging takes up too much precious time!

Screams, Laughs, and Good Eats

The title pretty much sums up our Spring Break. This year we decided to stay a little closer to home, but we had to get away from the never ending snow. We headed to Las Vegas for four fun packed days. We got into town just in time to check in (at the Stratosphere), take a potty break, and rush over to Planet Hollywood for our first show. We saw the Fab Four which is a Beatles Impersonator Band. It was a little cheesy, but they had all of us dancing in our seats. Allison, however, got picked from the audience to play the tamborine with them on stage.

The weather was forcasted to get chilly and windy the next few days so we spent the rest of our first day/night riding the rides around town while we could. We went over to the New York New York for some arcade games, New York style Pizza, and then we hit the rollercoaster. I love these pictures that they always take on the rides. The kids' faces are priceless!

It was about 9:00 pm, but still warm outside so we went back to our hotel and rode the elevator to the observation deck which is 800 feet "way too high" up. Brendan, Allison, and I were having a hard time just standing out there and trying to look over the edge. Jake and Jordan rode all the rides which dangle you off the edge. It was hilarious to see Jordan sweating and VERY SCARED as he came off the Rocket which shoots you up an additional 200+ feet in the air. Jake, however, was Mr. Cool.

The next day we spent a few hours at The Luxor. We are all huge Criss Angel fans and couldn't wait to see his magic store. It's not anything like the one they show on "MindFreak," so that was a bust.

From there we went through the 4 floors of the M&M store and took a little break at the Coke store. There we bought a taste tray of sodas from around the world.

Some were good, some were just ok and one was the absolute most disgusting thing we have ever tasted. NEVER drink "Beverly" from Italy. Jake said that next time he goes to the dentist, he's going to request a swig of "Beverly" to numb his mouth. It tasted kind of like carbonated ground up cloves. It really was sick. We had fun watching all the people around us try their tray of drinks and then get to #8! From there, we did a little window shopping at the extravagant stores at the Venetian. One of the things we were looking forward to was eating at The Grand Lux! We loved it a few years ago in Chicago and couldn't wait to eat there again. We were so full though, that we couldn't cram in dessert! Dang! We even had to go find some alka seltzer for Jordan who had stuffed himself to the brim!

From there, we headed down to the Blue Man Group Theater to enjoy one of the best shows ever! We laughed the whole time and marvelled at the creativity of these talented guys. The music was great, the stunts were hilarious, and the toilet paper covered audience at the end was a great way to end the whole thing. We took our tickets up to the them afterward for autographs, but they gave us "blue" kisses and fingerprints on them instead. It took almost 3 days for the paint to dry!

After the show, we found out that there is ANOTHER Grand Lux in the adjoining Palazzo Hotel so we headed over for some incredible dessert! Heads up for you Grand Lux lovers, the Venetian restaurant does not have the Beignets, so make sure you eat at the Palazzo one.

We spent the next day shopping at the outlets for some spring clothes, sunglasses, and basketball shorts for Jake. That kid lives and breathes basketball every minute of every day. He was having some withdrawels from not playing for two days. We had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and ended the night at Treasure Island to see Mystere Cirque de Soleil.

Such an amazing show, but also so dang funny. They took a really cool picture of us at the show, but it was $45 to buy it so we'll just have to remember that one in our heads! Holy Cow....Seriously? $45 for a picture in a little leather folder? Jordan snuck these photos in during the show, which was strictly prohibited.

An usher crawled over through our row to where Jordan was. Brendan and I thought, "He's busted!" But actually they talked to the guy sitting right next to Jordan and confiscated HIS camera. He was taking photos too, but he held his camera way too high and got caught. Whew! Jordan learned his lesson thank goodness.

We couldn't believe that our lawn and streets were covered with snow when we got back. I've lived here long enough to know that yes, it sometimes snows in April, but you don't have to shovel and get your streets plowed in April. Our house was a freezing 57 degrees since we had turned the heater off. Welcome back to Utah!