Wyatt turns 3

Yesterday was Wyatt's third birthday celebration. For those of you who don't know Wyatt he is Kevin & Kathryn's son. If you know Wyatt, you know he is much smarter & more talkative than most 3 year old boys. In the picture below (Eric is pushing him on a swing), when I walked up to him it was the first time he had seen me at his party & his response to me was "Hi Andrea, How's it going?" He cracks me up!

It's nice to have bigger cousins to push you on the swings!

Wyatt was chilling with Jody & Brien.

The birthday boy with Grandma Prescott. Can you tell she is happy to be able to spend some time with him?

Singing Happy Birthday to Wyatt!Aunt Dee Dee modeling the cute birthday hats!

Wyatt's birthday loot (the pile grew as the day went on). Lots of cars & trucks in this pile, I am sure!

Kathryn (Wyatt's mommy), Jackie (Dave's girlfriend) & old family friend Dave Pichauffe

There were WAY more people there but I never did get a picture of everyone. I never did get a picture of Gracie either - I think she was being passed from person to person. We were all so happy that we were all able to get together to celebrate Wyatt's special day (okay not everyone, Jamey & the boys are still out of town). But after the scare with Gracie on the weekend of Wyatt's actual birthday, we were very blessed that everything worked out so well & she is healthy & Wyatt got his birthday celebration as planned! It was a fun day with family & friends!

Scout Camp

Last week all of the guys were at camp. David was at Santa Cruz Island with Troy and Jason, and Eric was at Mataguay. They all had a ton of fun. It was a really quiet week for me. At least I had a big project to keep me busy - getting ready for Joy & Max to come home. I was able to watch a lot of movies the boys would never let me watch - like Twilight. I watched scary movies, too, which was probably a bad idea since I heard lots of noises in the night.

Don took these pictures at Santa Cruz Island. (The ones that David took are still waiting at Target for me to pick up.) They placed they camped is called Scorpion Anchorage - I can see why. There was lots of wildlife, apparently. David has been there before, and just loves kayaking in the caves. Although, he did say that Don almost died. He wasn't kidding. They went kayaking, hiking, and even spear fishing. Troy caught one fish. He said that was his favorite thing. Jason said his favorite thing was the food. All of the boys came home from camp and said that their camp food was better than eating my cooking. They told me I should go to Lex's house (the camp cook) and get lessons. GREAT! They said that the coolers were at least 200lbs each. They ate really well there!

Eric didn't take any pictures, but he had a terrific time. He wasn't really looking forward to going since all his friends that have been to "MataGAY" said it was lame. He had so much fun and got 3 merit badges - Rifle shooting, environmental science, and aviation. They went up in a glider plane and got to zero gravity. He said that was a blast. Times to remember forever.

This is my first time with a collage. I don't really like how it turned out. I'm sure I did something wrong. Click on it and the pictures will be clearer.

Our Missionaries Have Returned

Saturday Joy & Max returned from a 2 year mission at the Washington DC Temple. It's been a long time, and a lot happened while they were gone. Joy got so emotional driving up when she saw everyone, that she couldn't drive. I think her glasses were fogging up!! So the guys pushed the car to the driveway. It was pretty funny. Here's Grandpa re-introducing himself to Wyatt

Grandpa meets Gracie for the first time. He took her to Joy, and there were more tears. Joy was afraid for awhile that she would miss the chance meet Gracie because of her health problems a few weeks ago. We are so glad that Gracie is doing great now after her surgery! It was a really hot day, so we came over to our house to bbq and swim. It was a pretty quiet event for a Prescott party, since Andrea was the only one in town from her family. This is Jody, Brien's wife. That's something else J&M missed while away...another daughter-in-law.

Wyatt is always the life of the party. The kids all love him. He's really talkative, so he wouldn't let anyone ignore him if they tried!!

We all really missed Joy & Max, but are glad they are good examples to us all. Although, I must say, I am not anxious for them to leave again. (Yes, they're talking about it)

It was a nice day to spend together. When the Jamey and the boys all get off tour, we'll have to do it again.

Girls Camp in pictures - by Andrea

You might be asking yourself.... girls camp in the desert?

But actually it was really beautiful.... if you could stand the heat long enough to enjoy it.

We spent a lot of time in the swimming pools....

and hanging out inside the air conditioned club house

Some of us even chilled by the pool & pretended we were somewhere tropical....

All in all it was a great week of bonding, playing together & building our testimonies. I love the YW in our stake & look forward to spending more time with them. They really are strong youth saved for these latter days. They amaze me!!!

Girls Camp - by Dee Dee

Girls Camp this year was held in Anza Borrego Desert at Butterfield Ranch. It was really beautiful there. The temperature ranged from 103-110 during the day. The camp had 2 swimming pools, and we took a little blow up kiddie pool for the girls to lounge in around camp. Camp was quite eventful. It started off by me having a dental emergency and having to stop on the way to get a tooth fixed. Then the motor home kept overheating, so Marsha had to stop a couple times to let it cool off. Bishop was pretty smart and used the super soakers on it, and it made a big difference cooling it down. We finally made it, just a little late.

The second day there was a hike. One girl already had heat exhaustion, so I stayed with her in the motor home and enjoyed the a/c. I was more than willing to stay behind!! The girls swam and lounged in the kiddie pool, and shot the leaders with the squirt guns. Fun stuff!

Just before dinner, one girl found out that her best friend had a seizure, and the doctors found a rare brain disorder. She was on life support, and the family was waiting for our yw to come back and say good-bye before they pulled the plug. That was a huge turning point in camp. I took our girl home that evening, and stayed at home so I wouldn't be falling asleep on the drive back. That evening, another girl had heat exhaustion. I left early from home the next morning and went back to camp. That day was an obstacle course. The girls were pretty wiped out from the heat and only a few participated. They were told to wear long pants, but one opted not to. She ended up with a horrible burn on her leg from going down the hot metal slide. Bummer, back to the a/c and first aid!!
Then we went on a geo-caching treasure hunt in Julian. It was so much fun. We had to read plaques to go from site to site and ended up at a geo cache. It was much cooler there. While we were there, one girl got a nose bleed, and another got horrible stomach pains. The girls were dropping like flies!! After we got back to camp, the leaders sent the girls to do certification and we had a little meeting. We decided to relocate camp to a cooler climate. The girls weren't handling the heat very well. They weren't really having fun because of how they felt, but they NEVER complained!! I was really proud of them. When the girls got back to the motor home, we put it to a vote - whether or not to relocate. We told them we weren't going home, but moving camp and finishing it out. Obviously, they voted to leave. We got to Joy & Max's vacant house around 11pm and slept there. That was our new home base. I texted our yw that had to go home, and told her that we would be picking her up in the morning to finish camp with us. Having us all back together made it what it was supposed to be.

Thursday am we went to Torrey Pines State Reserve and hiked, identified plants, and practiced first aid. We hiked down to the beach and played in the water. We even were able to swim with dolphins playing in the waves. We went back to "home base" and worked on certification. The girls are also putting together a magazine about camp. We went to Bishop's back yard and had dutch oven dinner and dessert, made woof 'ems, and had a testimony meeting. Then back to home base. They really enjoyed the "sleep over" type camping, and stayed up until 1am. They finished camp Friday morning with trying to eat as much left over food that they could, finished certification and worked on the magazine. We were asked to sing in Sacrament meeting, so we practiced our song. Then we had an awards ceremony and took the girls back to the church to get picked up. It was such a great experience, and the girls loved seeing so many different climates in the same week. We grew closer together as a group, and each of us strengthened our testimonies as we had these experiences. It was my best yw camp ever!

Punk "Rock" Stars!

As many of you know, our (Jamey & Andrea) boys are in a punk rock band called "Jakked Rabbits". Some of you may even know that they are spending their summer on tour with 4 to 5 other bigger punk rock bands. They started a non-stop tour on July 1st & it doesn't end until August 2nd with 29 shows in between. They started in Seattle Washington with shows all down the West Coast, all across the US and then up the way up the East Coast. Luckily our boys are used to traveling & they are also used to preforming as a band - what they are having a hard time getting used to is the non-stop moving....

Today is the first day since July 1st that they have been able to sleep in & relax. You may be thinking, well it's only been 5 days since their tour started - yes you are right but when you are used to sleeping in everyday & laying around playing video games, the non-stop (late night) adgenda will most likely take their toll. I just hope Jamey survives! He is the manager & driver of their "tour" RV.

They are having the time of their life & building memories that will hopefully sustain them while they all serve a mission & are away from home. Never did I think after having 4 sons how much fun they would have together. It makes a mother proud! :o)

If you wondered why the kids standing next to the stage weren't looking at the band it's because of this.... the pit of kids running around in cirlces that normally would knock over other people... if you didn't pay attention you might just get run over (hense the people looking at the crowd & not the band).

Another picture of the pit.... they are running so that's why it's a blur.

4th of July, Again

Yesterday David and the boys worked at the Spring Valley Swap Meet to get the fireworks show ready for tonight. They worked several hours yesterday, and then today David went back and worked a few more hours. Today's work was for ages 18 and up since it was with ignitors. Tonight was the pay off. We were able to watch the fireworks right up close. We could see them shoot right out of the cans and were able to look up straight over our heads to watch them. It was really cool, and they all were proud that they helped make it happen. Thanks to Don for working it all out so they could be a part of a great show.Last night David and I went to Seaport Village and walked around, and ate dinner. David has been sick for the last couple days, and he had a fever and got the chills, so we came home and went in the jacuzzi to warm him up. It wasn't exactly the anniversary we had last year, but it was nice - the time that we did get to spend together. We'll have some time tomorrow to hang out and then we won't see each other much for 2 weeks. I sure hope after everyone gets home, we will have a more normal life and things will slow down. We've been way too busy for too long, and he's been sick almost every month this year. I'm sure it's because he's run down.

Thanks for the post, Andrea. I guess since I don't like having my picture taken, I have to put up with the few pix that there are of me. And I'm for sure not digging out wedding pictures and posting them!! Such 80's hair - yuck! When we were dating, David always said that he wanted to get married on the 4th of July - some year. Every year the 4th would come and go. He wanted to be able to afford to buy a house before we could plan to get married. (Plus, he was scared.) We dated for almost 8 years before we were ready. It's been a great 21 years (29 total), and I married such a wonderful guy. He's always doing something nice for somebody, and still makes time to make me feel like a queen. I'm sure lucky.

Happy Anniversary & 4th of July!!!!

Family picture Dec 08

(Sorry guys this was the only picture of the two of you I could find on my computer! Sad, huh?)

Yes today is the 4th of July but today is also known for another special reason.... today is the day that David & Dee Dee got married 21 years ago!! I bet looking back at the wedding pictures bring back some fun memories... other than the 80's clothes & the hair. (ha ha ha - oh yea).

Imagine David planning so many years ago about getting married on the 4th so he never had to work on his anniversary. Of course I thought they were crazy the year they got married, but now looking back it really was a good idea! So very smart!! I hope that they had a good day & ended up getting to do something special together. Happy Anniversary David & Dee Dee!!!

Happy 4th of July to the rest of you!!! Hope you all had a fun & safe day!

Gracie Update

This is a picture of Gracie from today - she still loves to be bundled up.

This morning I was able to spend a couple of hours at the hospital with Gracie, Kathryn & Kevin. It was my first time seeing her since about a week after she was born. She looks pretty much the same - I think she weighs only a few ounces more now, although her face has changed quite a bit. I was amazed at how alert she was & as you can see she has the biggest blue eyes! They were looking at everything & as at I sat talking to her she looked at me so intently. It makes you wonder what she's thinking. She stayed awake almost the whole time I was there.

She had nursed just before I had gotten there & after 2 and a half hours she had still kept her food down. (yeah!) I'm hoping she continued that progress after I left. She sure is a fighter! (and a cute fighter at that!!) She sure had us all worried there for a while. But it is nice how the family banned together to pray for this sweet sweet baby girl! Thanks to everyone for the prayers. I know it meant a lot to Kevin & Kathryn.... Hopefully she will get to go home tomorrow.

Baby Grace

Gracie has had a hard few weeks of life. She had a condition where the muscle grew too big around the intestines, making her unable to digest her food and to keep it down. She has been losing weight, and Kevin and Kathryn have been taking her to the doctor with no help until yesterday. They finally found the problem. Tonight Gracie had surgery and is already nursing and doing better. The poor baby almost starved to death. Thank goodness Kevin & Kathryn were persistent in trying to find the problem.

These are from earlier today before her surgery. She has the splint on her arm to keep the IV in place. This is from after her surgery. She just has a small incision on her belly. She is much happier now that she can eat, also after having been on the IV for more than 24 hours, she has already gotten stronger. We're glad you're a strong little girl, Grace.