Tolo

Rachael and I before the dance.

Everyone at Maria's before the dance.

All the seniors in our group.

Eating at Zoopa's
We went to the Cheese Cake Factory before but the wait was to long and we would have missed the dance. We ended up going to Zoopa's buffet and were a little over dressed. lol

The whole group.

Overall it was really fun. The actual dance was quite the experience and I decided that it wasn't worth the 9 1/2 hours decorating the night before, but we all still had fun! ♥

I thought this was funny!

More Pictures up at Lake Kachess!!

Coty tried to go through the "big marshmallow" and ended up getting really stuck! His favorite thing to do!

Brandon dug himself a snow cave while Coty and I (Becca) were showin' off our skills! Can't wait to show you up in Idaho!

Tracey showing Blain how to ride like a real man.

Mark figuring out how to ride...

Blain trying to keep up to Tracey and ended up stuck...


Overall we all had fun! We all slept very well every night from having to dig out the snowmobiles every 2 minutes. We are also ready for the wii off in February. Just warning you...you better practice up because we are ready to dominate!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVE!

HOPE YOU HAVE A HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Hey! How come I wasn't invited?

Looks like you guys had a lot of fun in the snow. Save some for February eh?

http://www.jibjab.com/sendables/preview/OlE6Mg62tuhcNzyEtpJJG4TR

ODE TO OUR BROTHER!

Happy Birthday to Dave. Happy Birthday to Dave. Happy Birthday dear Dave.

Happy Birthday to you!

Just wanted to give a shout out to Dave for his 29th birthday tomorrow. (We're all 29 for the rest of our lives, right?) We miss you and hope you have a great day!!

Me Three Igauna...

We have fun too! These are some pictures of Matt pulling some of the kids on a sled behind the Jeep when Wendi and Chad came to visit. Yeah, we had a great time. Lots of laughing. Lots of joy. I forgot to get a picture of the $50K Mom and Dad gave to each of us as well. All I remember is rolling around in money and hearing Dad saying something about giving money to his favorite kids.

Me, Mom and Wendi after cooking a spectacular Sunday feast

First picture is the "Incredible Hulk" rollercoast. Those who went on it had a great time. Those of us who didn't also has a great time.
The next picture is of us at Epcot. Mark got roped into helping out with an impromtu program which again, I will have to find the video of. He was a mime. The ending line...a mime is a terrible thing to waste!
The next is of us at Jurassic park. We had to keep telling Sidney that the things on the rides weren't real. She had a hard time with that concept and began refusing to ride on certain rides. S T U B B O R N!
We went to the NBA restaurant were we had to pay extra after we got through eating because Coty drooled on all the clothes. We both were shocked and disgusted that they didn't have a Steve Nash jersey! Madness! Outside they had cement looking basketballs with handprints of different players. It was pretty neat.
And finally a parting shot of a fake tower of terror. Sidney went on the tower of terror while her mom waited for her at the safe place at the bottom. Okay, maybe it was about this time she started refusing to go on certain rides. If she grows up to be a delinquent, I blame her father.

Disney World - happiest place on earth!

We had the BEST time in Florida. I truely think it was one of my favorite vacations. Here are some pictures. The first one is from Everest. Coty even shot a video while riding it. I will see if I can find it and upload it. The next was at Adventure Island. I thought it was funny and made the kids pose. Boy did they love that!
We took a ton of pictures with Sidney and different characters (I won't bore you with those) when she got their autograph. But when Blain saw "wolverine" he really wanted a picture with him but had to take Sidney with him so he didn't look so silly. Blain is a wolverine wannabe.
The last picture is us waiting for the "fantasmic" show at Animal Kingdom. Poor Sidney. All the other kids were getting twirly, glowing, sparkly toys for the night show. But being the clever and thrifty mother that I am, I brought a glow stick that I had at home. Just before the show was to start, I break out my glow stick to Sid's delight. We open the package and bend it in half and tada..... it was to old and didn't to anything. So here is a poor 5 year old with a broken glow stick at the happiest place on earth. Welcome to real life huh?

Hawadii, as Sidney calls it.

I think I am getting the hang of this. I am now going to post my comment before my long list of pictures. The below picture is a weird maze we found when we hiked down to the dragons teeth (weird formations made by the lava when it hit the ocean). When you finally get through the maze and to the center there is a bowl that has money in it. I don't know if people put money in it or what it was for. Of course we left it so the Hawadii spirits didn't follow us when we left.

We had a great time in Hawaii. We spent a lot of time on the beaches boogie boarding or in my case soaking up the sun. One beach we went to was Big Beach. I had read in one of the tourist books that to the left of Big Beach was Little Beach. You have to climb over a rock wall (there is a path) to get to it. The boogie boarding wasn't that great on Big Beach so I told Mark to go over and check out the other beach. I had read that at times there might be a few nude sunbathers over there. After 3 1/2 hours (just kidding it was only about 10 minutes haha) Mark returns and tells me after climbing down the path you come around the rock wall and what did his wondering (or was it wandering) eyes see? An older naked guy putting sunscreen "all over" and another guy ridding commando on a surfboard. He took one last gander and said there had to have been almost 100 people, all naked and mostly guys, hanging (literally) out on the beach. He decided maybe that wasn't a family beach and came right back. He also was wondering how come the people who you really don't want to see naked are the ones who are nudists. Hmmm things that make you go hmmmm.

Here are some pictures of Coty's cross country season. He was voted captain of the cross country and track team. He is now starting to train for track. When getting ready for cross country they will run 6-8 miles each day. I am not sure I could run a mile, even if there was a lava flow behind me (much less swim 1.5 miles - sharkfest yikes).

Here are some pictures of Coty being crowned homecoming king. Who would have imagined that two high school losers could marry, have a child and he would grow up and be homecoming king. Must be the "new math" they are teaching in school. Two negatives equal a positive. It was a bit stressful for all involved. They got a list of 10 questions that they might be asked. Thankfully Uncle Matt sent in a list of witty answers. Coty got the lamest question "how would you describe Enumclaw High School to a visitor from out of town". His answer contained something about how warm and welcoming it is and how all the teachers are so great and you don't ever get swirly's, well most of the time. The judges took a lot of time trying to decide. And after 3 songs by the same guy, the girl that was hosting the show looked around desperately trying to find something to entertain us. Then she looked at Coty and asked him to do his flexibility test. Coty hesitated for a minute but went up with his white tux on, someone from the audience handed up an umbrella, and Coty did the flexibility test for the whole audience. So thank you to whoever taught us that (Steff was that you?).

This is Blain going to Homecoming as a Senior. This is the group he went with. There is also a picture of them in a limo.

Here is Blain and Coty going to Senior Prom. Coty is a sophomore and Blain is a junior. They went with a group of kids (mostly LDS) and had a pretty good time (even though they both have decided they aren't sure they "love" dances).

First grandchild to graduate!

Who would have believed it! Blain's graduation pictures for proof. All those papers I wrote that got him A's finally paid off. I seriously think that I have done better the second time through high school. Shoot I hope Blain doesn't read this, he might contest this and say he did his own work. Really though, we were very proud of Blain. He also graduated from 4 years of seminary, received his Eagle and Duty to God. Okay the rest of you grandsons... the bar has been set.

Wii are having fun!

I edited this so I could make a slideshow of the pictures up at the cabin (partly to conserve room but mostly to show off my mad skills)

So both the Butler and Thomas family got a Wii for Christmas. Now as everyone knows, we have to make fun out of nothing... so with Tracey's brilliant leadership we had a bowling Wii off. Everyone participated including Sidney and Brett (Brett is a force to be reckoned with). The top scorers in order were...
1. Coty
2. Brandon
3. Tracey
4. Rachael

Here are some of my sledding pictures from up at the cabin also. I don't want to brag, but I think my camera is better than Rachael's. Not that we were comparing or anything, I just wanted to share that with everyone.

We had a grand time shoveling and making banks for the perfect sledding hill. Tracey even road his snowmobile up and down to pack it down (it is still being determined if this was necessary or if he just wanted to show off his skills, you know he is training to be a cage fighter). Even Lucky got into the action (as you can see by her action shots). Wish everyone could have been here but this is just our motivation for February yipee!