Happy 28th Birthday to our Daughter!

Since Kevin had his turn seeing his school pictures, now its Amy's turn.  Today is her birthday and I asked her dad to write a birthday note for her too. This first photo is Amy in Kindergarten. They're all cute photos as you'll see.

Here's the note from her dad: "Wow, are you actually that old? That’s pretty scary for your parents."

We’re so proud of you and what you’ve done with your life. We do wish you had decided to do it here in Phoenix instead of moving back to LA, but that’s OK.

We’re thankful for how you’ve grown and for the choices you’ve made - earning your Master’s, getting married, starting your own business. We’re so glad you brought Andrew into our family. And we’re very thankful for the marriage with which God has blessed you two.

I miss going to your plays and concerts – I still remember how proud I always felt watching you perform (maybe someday you could think about starting to do that again). I miss the other family times we spent together, like family vacations, holidays, and going to plays, concerts, & Suns games together. I remember how you & your brother used to pick on each other so much, and then what great friends you became.

It’s hard being separated from you by 400 miles and not seeing you as much as we’d like, but as long as I have history books you want to borrow, I know we’ll stay in touch.

Happy Birthday, my beautiful daughter! 

Now slow down … I’m going to feel ancient when you turn 30.

Love, Dad"

1st Grade

2nd/3rd Grade

Amy was one of just four or five 2nd graders in a combination 2nd/3rd grade class and by the end of the year the teacher recommended that she skip 3rd grade because she had been doing 3rd grade work all year anyway.  By then we didn't have much choice since it would have been silly to make her sit thru 3rd grade again.  She handled the jump just fine.

4th Grade

(her shirt says "Chill Out")

5th Grade

6th Grade

7th Grade

8th Grade

9th Grade

10th Grade

11th Grade

12th Grade

(her casual photo - I like this one better than the formal one because it looks more real, like she is.)

Formal Senior Portrait

 This was taken in 2005.  We sure love being with our girl.

Happy Birthday, Amy!  We hope you have a blast at Hearst Castle and an awesome year ahead.

The Happiest Place on Earth with my favorite people on earth!

O.k. this may sound ridiculous, but sometimes I think that I posted news on my blog only to find out that I just posted it on Facebook. So those few who aren't on FB, but check my blog are missing out on the news. Sorry about that. I'll try to do better in the future.

First off, for those who don't know; Terry and I drove to Los Angeles on Saturday to spend a couple of days with Amy, Andrew and Kevin! Yes, Kevin flew in from Omaha to spend a little time with us before he moves to Meridian, Mississippi for his new job at the end of the month.

We arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday afternoon and...

• Drove to LAX to pick Kevin up from the airport
• Stopped to see the studio where Andrew works
• Stopped to see Amy & Andrew's apartment
  
• Went to visit Terry's brother, Ted, his wife Kristi and 2 of their kids, Spencer and Lucas
• Sunday we went to Disneyland and California Adventure with the 3 "kids" all day
• Monday morning we had breakfast together at CiCi's Cafe on Ventura Blvd in Tarzana
  
• then drove back to Phoenix with Kevin.
  
• On Tuesday morning I'll take Kev to the airport to head back to Omaha, then on to Mississippi very soon.
  

It's been so much fun to be with all the kids together. Not sure when we'll all be together again, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for sometime around Christmas. We'll see how things go with travel and time off work and all...

So as you can imagine, there's a lot of fun to post about, but I won't get there tonight. Here are a few fun ones to give you a glimpse of our time together.

I also have a confession to make. Do you remember the gorgeous blue Mickey scarf that Amy was wearing when she was in London (same scarf pictured here - this photo wasn't taken by me). Well I liked it so much that I bought the same one for myself and can't wait to wear it. I actually checked to see if they had a green one so I wouldn't copy her EXACTLY, but they didn't and I didn't like any of the other colors nearly as much, so I got the same color as hers. I figure since we're in different states, it won't be a big deal, right? Of course you may look at both of our blogs and see pictures of us wearing them, but oh well. I'll live with that, and hopefully Amy won't mind too much.

So much more to come, so stay tuned. The easiest way to keep up on my posts is to click the "Follow" button on the right side of the page and you'll be notified each time there's a new post. See you soon!

Another Drawing, as promised:

So I didn't hear from the other 2 ladies that won the first drawing, so I put all the remaining names in a hat and had Terry draw two new ones.

The winners are:

Nancy from North Carolina - a retired kindergarten teacher. I'm sure she'll get good use out of them with her grandchildren and Sunday School teaching. I'll send her "God Gave Us Heaven".

Julie - who I'm assuming is Julie Schubert, but I'll double check. She'll receive "When God Made My Toes".

Congratulations ladies!!! I hope you enjoy them.

While I'm on, I thought I'd post this picture of me, Terry and Amy that a friend of ours at ODF found and gave us. He said he thinks it was taken at one of the church Christmas dinners. I'm assuming that it must be around 1983 when I was pregnant with Kevin because Kevin wasn't with us and I do NOT remember the top or dress that I'm wearing. I guess it must have been one that I borrowed from one of my friends, since there were so many of us with child during those years we traded clothes a lot. I also don't remember Terry ever wearing a tie to an ODF function, but who knows. Bill still wore a tie in those years, so maybe...

Merry Christmas to Mom and Happy Birthday to Amy - and a great excuse for Terry and I to go to a Suns game!!!

It's so fortunate for us that so many of our family members are Phoenix Suns fans because then we get to find reasons to go to games. This year for Christmas we gave Terry's mom a personal gift certificate to either go on a weekend trip with us or to go to some kind of show or event and we would pay for it. After several months of debate, she decided that she wanted to go to a Suns game. What an awesome grandma is that, huh? It turns out that she had NEVER been to a regular season game even though she has been in the Valley since the franchise started!!! Can you believe it? We couldn't either. So we were very excited to fulfill her request. Also, since Amy's birthday was this week and she's moving to L.A. and won't have a chance to see her "Sunnies" very much any more, we asked her if she'd like to go to the game with us as her birthday present and, of course she said yes.

So, off we went to see them play. We were in for some extra treats as well! First of all they won by a huge margin. Then we got there early and were able to see Amare, Boris and Gordon Giricek warming up. And while we were wandering around before the game we walked by the stage where they tape the pre-game show and got to see some of the announcers doing the show. We also got to see my all-time favorite player, Kevin Johnson who just happened to be in town for a fund-raiser for his campaign for mayor of Sacramento. Awesome!

We all had a great time and got to see ALL the players contribute, which is amazing since they don't always get to play.

By the way, I started my "Bucket List" and one of the things that I want to do before I kick the bucket is see a Suns game from seats on the floor. Can anyone help with that?

I also wanted to add that we're very proud of where she is right now in life. I love that she's using her creativity in photography and trying to build up her business doing weddings, portraits, etc. She has a great eye and we look forward to seeing where the Lord leads her in that area.

Take a look at her Teegan Photography website.

Check out her photography blog too.

And after finishing up her Master's degree, she's got to have the BEST JOB ever! She works about a quarter of the time and gets paid to read books the rest of the time. Talk about being spoiled.

Oh well, she does enjoy being a princess...and we love her all the same.