A Tribute

I know that my sisters have already written about all of this on their blogs and I have posted on Facebook, but this is mostly for my recording purposes because I want to remember and I am really behind on my blogging so I am trying to catch up now.

While James and I were in Amarillo at Matt Hill's wedding I got a call from my Dad that our Uncle Robert had passed away unexpectedly. It was a pretty tough blow because it always seemed like he was invincible.

Growing up we always lived close to my mom's cousins in Mesa. The Brinton's were always the closest. Aunt Ann and Uncle Randy and Aunt Nanette and Uncle Robert in particular (not really aunt and uncle but have never been anything but). We spent many nights sleeping over, swim parties, dinners, family home evenings (this is something that we do where we spend one night - usually Monday - a week together as a family, playing games, eating food etc. We spent many a Monday night with the entire Brinton clan), Brinton Halloween Carnivals at my great Uncle Dil's house and so many more memories from living in Mesa with them.
Then we moved to Texas when I was 9 and every summer, and most Thanksgivings we came back to Mesa to visit family and stayed with them. They even came to visit us right after we moved to Texas and stayed with us. They have 7 children, 5 of which are fairly close in age to all of my sisters and I. We would roll out blankets all over their living room floor and have a giant party. I don't think we slept much but the great part is neither did mom or Aunt Nanette or Uncle Robert or Dad. They would sit up in the other room talking just as late as us so we didn't get in trouble. :-) And then the next morning Uncle Robert would make us waffles and home squeezed orange juice. I spent one summer learing how to swing dance with Matt and his friends, and did many makeovers, barbie doll playing, boy drooling with Staci.
I also got addicted to playing Mario Kart on their super nintendo and spent many nights sitting in Robert and Nanette's backyard smelling the orange blossoms from their citrus trees and the grove over their fence.
I can't remember a trip to Mesa where they weren't involved somehow. Many times we were there and they weren't and we were told you WILL stay at our house, you WILL enjoy it, there is food there and we won't take no for an answer. I even remember spending 2 and a half weeks there after our car broke down and they just kept Kiersty and I there and never complained, or made us feel like we were putting them out. We got to go to the movies and play miniature golf and just in general have a blast. We were part of the family.
Their house was always fun, loud, and happy. Kiersty had her wedding reception there - Mom and Dad were living in Idaho and I was in Texas, but she and Seth wanted to get married in Mesa because there were a lot of memories there and family and Robert and Nanette opened their house to all of us. They booted kids out of rooms, again made us all beds throughout the house. Drove us to and from the wedding, helped decorate and adjusted everything inside when rain made the outdoor reception not feasible. This was the first time James met them and they took him right in. It was like he had always been part of the family too. They cooked all of the food along with my Aunt Belinda and Uncle Kay and Uncle Robert was right there in the middle of all of it with his apron on. I can't remember a time I didn't see him doing service for someone and he always had the biggest smile on his face. He was the first to start a joke and just have a good time. He was also quick to tell us all how special we were and how much he loved us and our visits and our time with them and how we better hurry up and come back to visit. And every time we have gone back to Mesa since then we have always been able to go visit them. We were even supposed to have a big birthday party for Andrew for his first birthday when we were all there for Christmas until we all caught the "plague" and didn't want to go get anyone else sick and missed it.

I was able to fly back to Mesa with Andrew for the funeral. (Here is Andrew at the Dallas airport on the way)
It was wonderful to see how much of an impact Uncle Robert made on his whole community and the people around him. The amount of tributes that came out about things that he had done and the amount of people who came to show their respect for this man should amaze me, but it doesn't because I knew what a great man he was. It was awesome to hear and see the tributes though. He has a great legacy and has left behind an awesome family to carry it on for him. And it was wonderful to see so much of my family. I hate that it seems like these are the only times we get together anymore but I loved to be able to spend time with those of us that made it. My cousin Jen was kind enough to open her home for all of us to get together in that night after the funeral.




Andrew slept through this whole fun get together. The 2 hour time difference was rough on the little man as you can see by this pic.

It was so fun to be able to meet all of my cousins children and introduce Andrew to all of them and my aunts and uncles that haven't met him yet. I'm really grateful we got to go.

Uncle Robert will be sorely missed in our family because he has had such a great impact on our lives. I am so grateful to have known him and to call him Uncle.

While at Grandma and Grandpa's Andrew discovered a "tractor" outside. The riding lawn mowers are quite exciting to this little boy. He loves going to Home Depot and looking at them....ok he doesn't look so much as climb all over and throw a big fit when it is time to go. But you can imagine how exciting it was to find one outside the door at Grandma and Grandpa's. He climbed all over it and played with the steering wheel and the gear shifter - which luckily didn't work - and in general had a great time.



The sun was obviously bright since he was making such a funny face looking at me.

In October we got to go to Amarillo for James' best friend Matt Hill's wedding. Andrew spent most of the time hanging out in Dan and Susan's garage. They converted their garage into a playroom for the kids so he is in heaven hanging out in a room full of cars that he can't get into trouble in. Heaven! It helped that Macy was my awesome little babysittier so I could just hang out instead of worrying that Andrew was destroying something.
He found a box of legos....Yikes! Macy kept a close eye on him so that he didn't eat any of the pieces.


Lane showed Andrew all of the cool car video games and kept him entertained watching cars.


I am terrible at getting pictures so here are a few that I did get and a few from the wedding photographer.
The Groomsmen waiting with some kids head in front of me. I couldn't seem to get around that.

The cute little flower girls.

The Bridal Party - James in case you can't spot him because he decided to shave - is in the top left corner of the pic.

Our silly groom Matt.

And here is the happy couple. We are so excited for them and wish them all the happiness.

New Addition

We got talked into dog sitting for my friend Melissa. She had to go to Oklahoma to see family and needed her lab mix Colt to stay somewhere. I of course volunteered and shortly thereafter we became the proud new adoptive parents of this very large dog....and for the record we are done dogsitting!
Andrew loves Colt. He is big enough to handle how rough Andrew can be with him. Andrew follows him everywhere and tells him Night, Night and gives him big hugs and kisses all of the time. He loves to play fetch with him too. Colt isn't so sure about that part though. He gets a bit scared by Andrew throwing stuff at him.
For such a big dog, he is a bit of a weenie. But he is certainly a sweet dog. And super energetic. When the weather is good, he is a motivator for me to go running to get rid of that energy so I guess that helps me too.
Here is a pic of the cute pooch.

Andrew loving on him.


Playing Fetch.


Brodie wasn't so sure about him. Mattie is pretty indifferent so I guess that is good.

Ready for some Football?!?!

The best thing about fall is Football if you ask James. And he is certainly trying to pass that on to Andrew.

He has learned to say "Touchdown"!, "Husker Powa" (Husker Power) and "Go Red" (Go Big Red). He says this everytime any football is on, even if it isn't Nebraska.

Playing in the Water

We have been in a major drought throughout the state of Texas this year and in Austin we had over 80 days of 100 degree+ temperatures. So we spent a lot of time at the pool and playing in the water. We have also been on water restrictions and the only way we could water our yard, was to hand water with the hose. Andrew thought this was great fun. I caught some good pics of him though.






Can you tell he had a blast?

A Visit from Aunt Kalli and Uncle Steve

Anyone who knows my brother in law Steve, knows he is a die hard BYU fan. So this year they played UT and he jumped on the opportunity to come, because of course he couldn't help but come see us. :-)

It was a quick trip but we had fun. We took Steve out for some good bbq at Pokejo's. Not quite as good as Salt Lick but he liked it anyways.

We didn't get many pics but here are the few we did get. Most of them involved us sitting around the house, or going to the pool since it was 800 degrees.

Andrew was loving on Steve which was amazing....Steve walked in the door and Andrew chased him into the guest room, followed him back out and cuddled up on the couch with him. He rarely ever does that but something about Steve got him.


Here is Andrew enjoying his first mint chocolate chip ice cream bar...Daddy is corrupting him.


And here he is realizing that the ice cream is all gone.


Here are a bunch of shots of Kalli trying to catch a good one of Andrew on the way to the pool. He wouldn't stand still long enough obviously.






Thanks for coming to visit Uncle Steve and Aunt Kalli!