If Home Is Where Your Heart Is. . . .

So, here are some family pics from the weekend taken by one of Chelsea's friends! Cousins (and Maggie): Elizabeth, me, Chelsea, Maggie & Sarah Elizabeth & Katie Me & my boy! Next generation of cousins with me: Nelly Lou, Maggie, Gabby, Dax, Tiki, Peyton & Hays Personality clones (except I have some "people pleaser" in me)!

First of all, let me say, thank you, Bronwyn for your comment on my last post!  I miss you! So, our weekend was perfect. . .picture perfect as you will see!  I don't even know where to begin because we have had SO much fun! Thursday Hays took a sick day and headed to Telluride with his best friend, Kenna, and her dad.  It was Kenna's birthday wish and they went jeeping for 12 hours!  Brett said that they had a great time with tons of memories and lots of laughing!  The pictures don't even begin to explain what a wonderful (and beautiful) time they had! Then Friday morning we all hopped in the car and headed to Flagstaff for my cousin, Lindsey's, wedding.  The kids were wonderful in the car and they were so excited to see GoGo and Pops that they didn't make a peep!  As always, we had a blast with my parents (but I wish we would have had them all to ourselves instead of having to share).  It was fun to see my cousins and the rest of my mom'...

Andy and I had the best day together!  We dropped the kids off at school and headed North.  We stopped and took a great hike.  The trees were beautiful and the views were breathtaking.  We got time to sit and enjoy one another and talk without any interruptions.  We headed to Silverton for lunch and then came back to Durango in time for school to be out.  This day could not have been better!  Thanks, Andy!!!  I love you!

Okay, so I realize that it isn't October yet, but it is the week on the calendar when October starts and I am just so excited about this month to be that I have to blog about it. . .so much for living in the now, I know.  Yes, there are MANY days with green arrows going through them which means that Andy is out of town, but there are so many orange days and even EIGHT pink days, so I am pretty excited!  Okay, I am extremely excited!  (By the way, pink days are days in October when I will be gone!) We've got a road trip to Flagstaff coming up on Friday!  The kids and I (with Lesley, thank goodness) will drive down to Flagstaff for the weekend where we will see Pops and GoGo and get to go to one of my cousin's wedding.  Andy will meet us there from Phoenix and then head back to Phoenix in order to fly to Enid. Then I am taking the kids to the Grand Canyon on Sunday.  I cannot wait for them to see it.  I realize that only Hays and Maggie will probabl...

Today was a big "mile stone" day in two of my boys' lives. . .mile stones they weren't even aware of. Hays got his first school ID. He doesn't really think it is a big deal, but for his mom, it really is. I cannot believe my first baby has a middle school ID. Crazy how quickly time flies. Dax lost his MeMo (blanket for those of you new to Braner Party of 7) today. And when I say lost, I don't mean that it is unaccounted for, but that he lost his MeMo. I asked him to do something very important and the consequence was that his MeMo would be forever gone if he disobeyed. To be perfectly honest, it was just a threat because I thought for sure with a threat like that, he would obey with perfection. Nope. So, I had to follow through. . .my broken heart, Dax's broken heart and all. The red MeMo (cape that Pops had made for him--his favorite) is now in a memory box (in the trash as far as Dax knows). Sad day. Life. Not always fun and it goes by too qui...