Orlando Trip with the Dester Crew

Thanks to my parents, we managed to get a much needed break a couple of weeks ago. Kurt just graduated from BYU, and Amanda just finished her radiology boards with flying colors... so they flew into Fort Lauderdale to visit Jen. Mom & Dad flew into Jacksonville to visit us, and we all met in Orlando for a few days.

Here's a picture of my parents with my four crazy kids (this is the least crazy shot).

Here are the four crazy little boys... Cole, Dallin, Mason, and Parker. And a shot of little Mason and cute Brookie--Mason calls her Bokky. (Yes, I noticed, but they're the best shots I've got).

And one of Kurt and my Dad who, along with Russ, spent a lot of time playing pool, ping pong, air hockey, etc. while the little boys watched/tried to play their own games. What a great week!!!

Orlando Trip Part 2

So, I was trying to figure out why I have hardly any pictures of the adults from this trip... Jen was there, I was there - no pictures of either of us. I do have some very nice pictures of Amanda with Sadie in the pool... Aha! We were all in our swimsuits by the pool almost the entire time. No wonder the pictures are all of the kids:)

Here's one of Cole with my Dad. And below is one of Mason with some funny action in the background. This is the farthest Mason ever wanted to be in the pool... and it took him a while to get in this far. Apparently we haven't spent as much time with him in the water.

Here is Parker, who has finally learned to love the water... and my Mom with Sadie - both of whom like the pool much better than the sandy beach!

1st Beach Day!

We've had weather in the 80's all week and too many stressful things going on, so we decided to make a trip to the beach this weekend and relax for a couple of hours. It was Sadie's first beach day ever, and our first beach day of the year.... so here we are in all of our whiteness:) Her cuteness was not so cute, however. Hopefully she'll enjoy it more next time when we don't decide to wake her up half an hour into her morning nap to go. The rest of us had a lot of fun though!

Happy Easter!

We really enjoyed our Easter this year. It was a busy day, but lots of fun, and lots to be grateful for. The bishop asked Russ to give the "Easter Sermon" at church, and the kids did a great job trying to sing a song with the primary that they barely knew. There were lots of other great musical numbers, and the meeting was very uplifting. We had some friends from Russ' class over for dinner and an egg hunt to celebrate the occassion - although I think we had nearly as many non-Christian friends as Christian ones:) The kids all had a great time hunting through the backyard to see what the Easter bunny brought...

Jess took some great pictures including the one of all the kids below: Mason, Elsie, Luke, Mimi, Parker, Katie, Cole, Ellia, and Kayla. What a fun bunch with so much personality!

3...2...1...Blastoff!

On our way back down to South Florida to spend spring break working on our least favorite project, we stopped at Cape Canaveral to see the shuttle launch. Wow! What an amazing experience! It reminded me how much I would still like to be an astronaut (my childhood dream), and how amazing science is and how tiny we are in comparison to everything out there. If you look closely at the last picture you can see a white dot (the shuttle) and then underneath are two tiny white dots (the two rocket boosters) which eventually fall down into the ocean I believe. Anyway, thanks to Dave and April for reminding us it was coming and letting us know where to see it. We had a great time and hope to go again before we move!

We also had a great time with Jen and Doug. Lucky for us they're still in Fort Lauderdale, otherwise all of our trips down would be much less enjoyable. We just wish Russ didn't have to spend the whole time working on the condo so we could see some other people we miss - but Jen & I and the 6 wild kids had fun! Lucky we can always rely on the Pratt girls to give us a bit of a reprieve!

Daddy's Girl

Sadie has recently discovered her "talking" voice. She loves making all kinds of different sounds, especially when her Daddy gets home! It's almost like she's trying to tell him all about her day.

Her new favorite time of day (besides talking to her Dad) is bath time. She hated it the first couple of months, but she's decided she likes it after all and gets very excited kicking her legs all over when she's in the tub. Probably because it's about the only complete one-on-one time she gets with me. Kind of sad being the 4th child I guess, but she does have lots of fun with all her brothers!

Uncle Wayne!

Our big event for February was the annual Daytona 500 visit of the boys "Uncle Wayne," (one of Russ' good college friends). We had a good time celebrating Valentine's Day and Wayne's Birthday. Hopefully he'll still come to visit us when we move away from the race track:)

The boys still adore their baby sister Sadie! She hit the 4 month mark this month and is starting to laugh a lot more.

Always something new for us living here. Since it doesn't get cold enough for the leaves to fall in the autumn, they all come off just before it's time for the new ones to grow on in the spring. So, we've been doing a lot of raking lately!