Bracky turns 3!

September 10th

Our little Brack Brack is 3 years old!

His birthday fell on a Monday which is one of the evenings that Curtis works.  I like to celebrate birthdays on their actual day as much as possible so we hoped to celebrate during Curtis's office hours and have a birthday lunch celebration at Texas Road House (Cowboy restaurant to Bracken) but we had to skip to plan B because Curtis needed to the time to finish up a big project. Sooo....

Marco and I busted out balloons galore to make the house more festive and...

I let Bracken open one present so he wouldn't have to wait another whole day for his birthday family dinner which we decided to postpone till Tuesday evening.  I wanted to make his birthday feel special even if the celebration had to wait another day.  Bracken loved his birthday decorations and played with the balloons all day long.  And every time someone wished him happy birthday he would wish them a happy birthday too!  

We decided to enjoy a trip to our local zoo.  Bracken loves animals and he soaked in every moment of our stroll around the zoo.  

At the last moment I decided to go ahead with our plan A and take the boys to the Cowboy Restaurant all by myself! I may have been crazy but it actually turned out OK.  Towards the end Marco was starting to get a little tired and when he's tired he shrieks, loudly.  The booth behind us had 2 mature couples enjoying dinner, and after several high pitched squeals one of the gentlemen mumbled "Get that kid a cracker!"  I was embarrassed but his sweet wife pointed out to him that I was by myself with 3 little boys and he needed to give me a break! 

When I tucked Bracken into bed later that night I asked him if it was a good birthday and he said "YES!"

Mission accomplished!

Stake Center Dedication

September 8th

Curtis and I were involved in the open house for our growing Prescott Valley Stake brand spankin' new stake center.  Curtis was on hand from 1:30 till 6:30 for any Spanish translating needs and I was involved with the musical entertainment.  The open house was a really involved venue.  They had amazing presentations throughout the tours and awesome displays with wonderful information in the cultural hall.  The feeling and energy in the atmosphere was amazing and we felt really grateful to have been a part of this little bit of PV history.

September 9th

Sunday evening we packed up our kids and headed for the dedication service.  I accompanied the choir musical numbers and had to be there early for the last rehearsal, which left Curtis alone to handle our 3 boys.  He did his best to keep them occupied, entertained and quiet and luckily another family jumped in to help him with the older kids while he bounced a fussy Marco.  Curtis survived the meeting, but barely.

As for me, I had my biggest piano playing blooper EVER!  A small mens choir sang a beautiful song that had challenging accompaniment.  I practiced A LOT in preparation for this song and just as we came up on a key change that lead into an acapella section I turned 2 pages instead of 1 and I flubbed the key change so badly that the poor men singers did NOT get their key change!  I could have died!!!  I didn't know what to do!  Halfway through the verse I had to join back in with the choir but now there were singing in a different key than I was playing.  It was a mess.  I came in when I was supposed to and prayed that things would right themselves out somehow.  The men floundered around for a few measures but eventually they adjusted and we finished the last page of the song with everyone back on track.  I was too devastated to cry, luckily, but I was so disgusted with myself I went home and moped.  Curtis tried to cheer me up but in the end a good nights sleep was all that could cure me of my self loathing.  It was pathetic and I'll never forget it.