Abuelita Mia...

"Family faces are like magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us... we see the past, present, and future."

- Gail Lumet Buckley


While we were in Utah last month, we visited with my sweet grandmother who is going to be 96 this year! The whole lot of us had just finished visiting the Living Aquarium in Salt Lake City and had enjoyed a fabulous lunch at a near by fast food restaurant. Then I called Grandma and told her that we were in the area and that we wanted to come see her. She was so excited. I then told her that there were a LOT of us coming. She just laughed and said to quit yappin' and start driving! Okay, so she didn't REALLY say that, but I could tell she was anxious to see us. I love to see her every chance I can get. :)

Dad, Mom and Grandma. My mom is her baby out of 9 children!

Noah with his great Gram and his Great-Gram!

A whole LOT of us...

Thanks to Chae Chae for taking all the pictures!!! I didn't have time to photoshop you in, girl. Knew you'd understand. :)

We love you, Grandma...

Nicole
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Dap! Dap! Dap!

One of the highlights of our recent trip to Utah was a visit to a local duck pond. Apparently this is a favorite past time of my little nephews who live right nearby. Noah REALLY enjoyed his first attempt at duck feeding and, as you can see from the videos, he has quite the arm and aim for it! For all the Smith's reading this... NO, Kevin did NOT fall into the duck pond this time. Bad memory of his from when he was little. I'm sure he'll thank me for bringing it up!

Now to explain the title of this post: Noah calls all ducks "Dap Dap." Even his rubber ducky. We're pretty sure he's saying "quack quack." He demonstrates this for you in the videos. Oh! And little Miss Riss does HER impression of what the duckies say as well! So darling... Anywhoo. One of Noah's favorite songs to sing right now is about the five little ducks. You know, where they all go out to play and then stop coming back one at a time? Well, at the end (for those of you not familiar!) when no little ducks come back as their momma duck calls, the DADDY duck quacks quite fervently and then all five little ducks come waddling back... or so they sing! So when we sing this part of the song, Noah does his almost violent impression of the daddy duck. Please see the second video below. Note: Don't you just LOVE little children's songs that inadvertently teach them to fear one parent over the other??? I'm just sayin'..... :)

Gram, Aunt Jamz, and Noah.... It was REALLY windy and a bit chilly!


Grandpa with the secret duck-feeding ingredient

More cold duck-feeders: Sammie, Ben, and Beautiful Aunt Maren

Um... These are the ducks.

Our little Sammie was so cold... He ended up with Gram's jacket!

I LOVE this picture. :) Aunt Rinny and Marissa were the coldest, straight from Florida. Rissa's little bottom lip wouldn't stop shivering, but she had fun!


Noah didn't want this lone duck to be left out:




"But when the DADDY duck said...."




Dap Dap Dap,

Nicole
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Mother's Day

We didn't do a lot of fun and exciting things for Mothers' Day this year. When I asked Nicole what she wanted for breakfast-in-bed, all she wanted was a bowl of Lucky Charms. She's so funny ;) We were glad that part was easy since the rest of the day was pretty hectic. Both of us were teaching at Church, both of us had some new responsibilities, and then we volunteered to feed the missionaries dinner at the last second as we were leaving our meetings.

One of our little traditions is taking some pictures of Mom and the kid(s) before church. Noah was a bit less cooperative this year, but we still got some cute pictures on our balcony. I can't wait for next year!







Mother's Day is such a great holiday :)

~Kevin

"WICKED" Awesome Trip!!!

Yes, that's right! We just returned from a "Wicked" Awesome trip to Salt Lake City... You have to say that with a fake Boston accent, kind of like Boston Rob from Survivor Allstars ("Am-Bah!") Anyway, we spent some good time with both sides of our families and we got to meet our beautiful new niece, Maeli Noelle. :) What a sweetie!!!

But the highlight of the trip was going to see Wicked at the Capitol Theater on Saturday afternoon. It was everything we'd hoped for and much more! The best part was being able to see it with my family. Unfortunately, mi cunado Chad had to stay in Florida and do the medical school thing. He was TERRIBLY missed! We love you, Chad... :)

After being wowed by the "Wicked" Awesome performance, we all headed to McGrath's Fishhouse for dinner. It was so good to sit down with my dad and mom and my brothers and sisters for awhile and catch up with each other. Now that we live pretty spread out across the country, it doesn't happen very often. Good times over Clam Chow-dah! he he... Please see above for proper pronuciation guide.


Our week in Utah also included visits to the Living Aquarium, the spectacular Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point, seeing Grandpa and Grandma Stephie and Grandma Gardner (my grandparents), a rousing game of wiffle ball with the Smiths (even though TECHNICALLY we were the only Smith's there!), Noah's very first time feeding ducks, more than one kickin' dance party with the cousins, and so much more! We'll blog more about these adventures later...

So we're back safe and sound in Nebraska and ready to fight the mosquitos! Apparently they decided to come out for the season while we were gone. :)

Have a WICKED AWESOME week!

Nicole
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