Dog gone-it!

Seven Years nine months and twenty eight days! That’s how long we were able to put off the dog thing. Dane and I always said we would consider a dog when our kids starting asking for one. Wyatt started asking for a dog about six months ago, and we finally gave in over the weekend. Some friends in our ward had a litter of Rottweiler puppies a few months back and we got hooked on little Tank. We picked him up yesterday and the kids are simply in heaven. They played with him all the way up until bed time. As we were finally winding down, Wyatt picked up Tank and sat in his basket we made for a bed. He informed us he was going to put Tank down to bed. Sure enough five minutes later there was Tank fast asleep on Wyatt’s lap. We went in side and had a very peaceful night. When we woke up this morning there was Tank sleeping in his basket. Anyway we are excited to introduce Tank and hope he brings as much joy to our family in the future as he has brought in the last 24 hours. Who am I trying to kid?

Welcoming Tank

Gracie showing her approval

Wyatt putting Tank to bed, & it worked!

Back from Philadelphia

Dane’s work sent us back east to Philadelphia for some marketing seminar. Apparently accountants are horrible marketers and so of to Philly we went. This was perfect as it gave us an opportunity to visit Lee and Vanessa along with Jaxon, Lily, and new baby Edison. They live just outside of the city while Lee is finishing up dental school at Temple. It was so much fun, no kids and no responsibilities! While Dane went into the city everyday for his seminar, Vanessa took me to all the fun shopping spots that Philadelphia had to offer. It was maybe the best three days of my life! When we left Phoenix we had to check one bag with the airlines, when we came home due to my shopping (with Danes support) we checked four bags with the airlines. I had to borrow Vanessa’s luggage just to get home it was great! Now I have always heard it said that people from Arizona are very laid back. It’s a west coast thing they say? Well after driving in Philadelphia for the past week I understand exactly what they mean. It was such a fast pace thing. We were honked at more in the four days that we were there than my previous 29 years in Arizona combined. As soon as a light turned green, before we could even press the gas, horns were honking. Buses and Diesel trucks were driving around like they were compact cars, it was truly crazy. We topped of the weekend with a trip to Mortens Steakhouse, usually very reliable, this time very disappointing. As soon as we informed we would not need to see the wine and cocktail list the service got very bad. Long story short they ended up comping our entire meal after we complained. For the entire story visit Lee and Vanessa’s blog. Anyway we sure had a great time, but we are now back and fully entrenched in the blogging world again.

Edison Broc Chaffee

This is the newest addition to the Chaffee family (Lee and Vanessa's) I could not get enough of him. I have been going this way for a while, but I am officially baby hungry!

Go Diamondbacks!

Dane and I were lucky enough to get tickets to see the Diamondbacks beat the Cubs in game 2 of the playoffs. They swept the Cubs in 3 games and are on to the second round against the Rockies. Baseball and basketball are the sports I really understand and enjoy. We sat 9 rows from the field behind home plate. They were great seats, we sat right behind Matt Williams, who through out the first pitch and in the section right next to us was Donovan McNab, some quarterback in the NFL, I don’t know who he is. It was so much fun, on the next pitch after we took this picture; Chris Young hit a home run to left field that put us ahead for good. The game started at 7:00 pm and true to form, Dane made sure we arrived at about 5 pm to so we would not miss batting practice. The game ended up lasting until 11:30 and we did not get home until about 12:45 am. We were at the game for almost 7 hours, but honestly it was so much fun and I hope we get the chance to go back before the playoffs end. GO D-BACKS!

We sat right behind this guy, we thought for sure it was Anthony Hopkins from his Zoro days.

All Wrapped – up!

Gracie has her tough macho dad wrapped around her little finger. The other night she jumped up on Danes lap and started giving him kisses like they were going out of style. Since I get to stay at home with the kids and see this every time she wants something I quickly grabbed the camera to catch her shenanigans on camera. Well sure enough, within minutes of buttering up dad they went in to her bed room changed in to some lounging clothes and put on her favorite movie Annie. This was great except that I had told her no movie repeatedly throughout the evening. Thanks daddy.

Here she is ready for the movie with her "I won" smile on.

Diorama Project

I don’t ever remember doing a report in kindergarten, but last week Wyatt received his first report assignment. The directions asked parents to help their child research a dinosaur but not to do the project for them. Wyatt had to make a diorama and research 4 facts to represent his reptile. He had a list of dinosaurs to choose from, but knew exactly what dinosaur he wanted to do. He chose the Velociraptor. It was interesting, I knew about the Velociraptor from Jurassic Park. In the movie they are portrayed as very large and vicious dinosaur. In actuality they are only 5 – 6 feet long and 3 feet tall while weighing in at a whopping 20-30lbs. Hollywood ripped us off. We were so proud of Wyatt and his excitement, he picked out the 4 facts and other than the mountains (Dad drew them) he did the entire project himself.

He did it all himself, I think Dane would have done it different if he were allowed

The 4 facts about the Velociraptor

Stress Relief!

And just like that it is gone. About 2 years ago we invested in a landscape company with our friends. It appeared to be a great opportunity and indeed it was really good for a while. Dane and Kenny split the administrative duties and had another partner who managed and operated it. Well about 5 months ago our lives got flipped upside down when the operating partner decided he would leave the company and take all the employees and clients and do the work himself leaving Dane and Kenny all the liabilities and stress. It has been a very uncomfortable and stressful 5 months trying to piece things back together and get a grasp on how somebody we trusted so much could go and do something like this. We have slowly started to put the pieces of a broken company back into place. We decided to try and sell the company and have been praying that someone would see the potential involved. Last week we found that someone. We have sold our portion of the business. This is going to work out great for everyone involved. Prayers are indeed answered, and the best part is no more stress and I get my yard back! Thanks to all that have been their for us to lean on through all the tears and rough times.

Happy Birthday Wyatt

We celebrated Wyatt’s birthday on Saturday. Wow 6 years, where does all the time go. It seems like just yesterday we were living at Dane’s parents while our house was being finished. I woke up in the morning about 5:30 am and told Dane, “I think this is it.” He jumped out of bed very confused and I calmly went in to the bathroom to showered and do my makeup before we headed off to the hospital. Just a short time later our lives were changed forever. We have shared many firsts with Wyatt since that special day. We are so glad that you are ours and look forward to many more firsts to share together. Just please go easy on us. We had all of the cousins over for slip –n- slide fun along with cake and ice cream. We told Wyatt that he could do whatever he wanted since it was his birthday. Well at 11:48 pm Dane asked Wyatt why we were all still awake. Wyatt just flashed his handsome smile and said, “It’s my birthday, I can do whatever I want.”

Wyatt wanted moms homemade waffles with whip cream powdered sugar and strawberries for breakfast

All the cousins

Happy Birthday Wyatt

It’s an Office party

Last week The Office season premier aired. We have heard about the Office for a long time but never saw an episode. Finally some friends in our ward talked us into watching it with them. Well we quickly became hooked. So we had a little party last week with some friends from our ward to watch the season premier. It was so much fun; everyone had to dress up as their favorite office character. Dane made a little prize of a framed Schrute Buck and a Stanley Nickel for the best dressed office employee.

Dane(Kevin), Alysen(Angela), Jay(Dwight), Ashley(Pam), Beca(Kelly), Jeff(Jim)

Schrute Buck





Stanley Nickel