(Happy 70th Birthday, Joey!)/2

Joey & Crew (J. Crew?) in March 2007

To our dear older brother:

It's easy to reflect on all the good times we've had with Joey over the years. He is always the first with a pithy comment, idea for a game and an eye for the fun in every situation. I remember when we went and watched a Rocky movie at the Lord's house (no, not that Lord's house) and came home to a locked-up house. Joey tried to ease open the window to our parents' bathroom, broke it, and ended up cutting his wrist. Sometimes I don't think he knows his own strength. I was acutely aware of Joey's strength since I was typically at the other end of his fist. As I watch my sons fight with each other and hang out with each other, it reminds me of the times I spent with my big brother. I don't know if it was the closeness of our ages, but I always remember doing a lot of things together. Trips to Disneyland, camping, Angel's Landing, scout camps, church.

Now that we're all grown up (I can make fun of Joey's age because I'm half-way to 67), I cherish two particular adult-era memories. One is the camping trip to Zion that Joey organized before my wedding when we all climbed Angel's Landing, my favorite hike. The second memory occurred last year, when Asher and I traveled to Hutto for Ethan's baptism. I had so much fun reminiscing, playing games (Powergrid, anyone?), and enjoying Erin's great cooking (we still make Bengal barbecue skewers, though not as much as I'd like). Of course, I also enjoyed meeting and getting acquainted with your friends, Rudy and Amy. I wish y'all, including Rudy and Amy, would move back to Las Vegas.

Happy birthday, brother! We love you!

Happy Belated Birthday Alex!

Alex with his teacher Mrs. Botsford

We wanted to wish a Happy Birthday to Alex (a few days late)! We love him a ton and we are so proud of what a big kid he is becoming. One of my favorite things about Alex is his loving heart. He is a great friend. Once you are his friend, you are always his friend. He stills asks about his friend from preschool, Summer. He is also a great friend to our neighbor, Braydon, who has Cerebral Palsy. At church, he is the first one to say hi to him and he always wants to sit near Braydon to help him feel more comfortable in Primary. At school, he always hurried from class to say hello to Braydon and give him a big hug, whether he wanted them or not. I am so proud of the boy he is and the love he gives. I hope he had a great birthday this year. We can't wait to see what the future holds for him. We love you, Alex!

I want you to meet the new recruits...

These are this years new Air Force recruits.

Trainee Gregory has a sharp eye for his uniform. He is wearing his black AF tee with his AF shorts and AF belt, he added a new addition to the uniform this year the yellow AF tie and yellow AF boots.

Trainee William is just happy to be part of the USAF!!

Trainee Jack Jack has mastered military discipline. The Air Force is no joke to this trainee. He chose his Dinosaur uniform for this picture session! The Air Force is very proud of our newest and sharpest troops!

More random pics of Iraq

Me showing off my sweet modeling skills......note the sweet mustash
Me and my buddy Boyd. Give me a big smoocharoo
Me and my buddy Bautista before my promotion cerimony
Our 1st Sgt pinning on my new rank, he had a hard time cutting my old rank off it was fused to my hat.
Here he is making sure my new rank stays on with his fist, how thoughtful. It has been a long time coming. I cant wait to see you all soon. I love a miss you very much. I hope you all are doing well and know that I am doing well also. This will all soon be over, all my love Mark Jr

Some random pics of my deployment starting with Fort Dix

Firemans carry, us messing around in the cold New jersey morning
See even I have a little talent for posing
Lunch break between training, I dont think I was very happy that day
Pupule squad posing for a picture on Thanksgiving, day before dinner
During traning we had to give five i.v. s to get certified as a combat medic, which means we had to get five i.v.s from our fellow trainees.

Were back!

We finally got our household shipment so were officially moved in...YEA!! We unpacked our computer and I couldn't wait to see what I had missed on the fam blog... Anyway for your info...Our new address is 214 Carlton Court, TAFB, CA 94535 and my new cell is 707-815-6713...so that's it, I miss you all and we had such a great time at the family reunion!

I have a lot of good pictures, but...

Long story short. I keep forgetting to bring my camera to work so I can do a day by day travel blog like I did for my Hawaii trip...Then I thought I should just launch my own blog. I am always recording voice memos on my phone about stuff to blog. And then I don't post cause I feel like a blog hog. Or I feel like it's so random that it doesn't belong..... so I'll make my own. I have tons to write about. So I'll post the address here as soon as I create one.

This is what I mean by random; I want to do posts on the craig Titus/kelly Ryan sentencing thats coming up august 22nd. I'll go interview him again after his fate is learned. I have a local politics post I want to write that will mostly endorse a few candidates for family court judges. Mybe I'll write a bit of celeb gossip. So watch out Mr. Belding and Screech... Sorry I mean Dustin Diamond. Maybe even bag on Kanye a bit. Maybe I'll do a weekly segment called Kanye doesn't care about....." It won't be your average blog. Ok I'm gonna go... gotta figure out how to make one.

Grandma's Movie Day

Grandma's Fifth Annual Movie Day at WALL.E. It was such a cute movie.

This is a picture of everyone, except Grandpa who is the photographer. We arrived at the theatre after having hot dogs at Mark and Victoria's. We had Daniel and Hannah helping with the chaperoning this year.
Here is everyone waiting to go in. Elara is especially eager as you can see by her stance. And Grandpa is in the backround buying tickets.
Popcorn in hand and everyone seated and ready to see the movie. Daniel is behind everyone watching over us. If you haven't see WALL.E, yet it is so cute. A wonderful, green love story. We had a really great time.

Yeah forYellowstone !!!

Here are just some of the pictures I took at Yellowstone. I loved seeing the paint pots and the bear. My favorite was seeing all of the bison and driving through this part of our beautiful country. I had a great time and I'm sure we all have memories that we'll treasure forever.

Who is This?

I came across this picture the other night. Am I the only one who thinks this looks like Matt's baby pictures?