I've Got Rhythm!

We still can't get this video to work!! AHHH! We (I mean Matt) will keep working on it. Sorry.

Ok--the title once again has nothing to do with me--I have NO rhythm...I can't do that! But here is Dale once again! So sorry to my family for taking forever to get this up. I used a different camera this time and couldn't figure out how to convert it and copy it to the blog. Matt was busy all day Saturday and so he wasn't able to get to it until last night and this morning. Here are Matt, his brother Ryan and his Dad all working hard on the basement! It is getting there. Now if we could just stay in town long enough to get it done!

After working all day then we had our ward party, so now I have some pictures that my Lehi friends can enjoy. ;) This is on the Healey's lawn. We had so much fun! The ward has changed sooooo much! Sorry to my bookclub girls. I don't know what I was thinking. I had the camera with me for most of the night, but for some reason didn't think to take pictures of pregnant Ilene doing the Boot Scootin' Boogie.

Will someone please put Uncle Dale to bed?

I was downstairs reading to the girls and Kierra was successful at getting Dale to sleep. Matt doesn't usually travel much, but he is gone again, and so once again I am having someone else help me with bedtime routines. We really are having so much fun with Dale here. I even got to go to a Jon Schmidt fireside with him tonight. (I was hoping to have pictures of that, but it was in the chapel instead of the gym.) As I was sitting at the fireside I was feeling like the worst friend in the world. I'm sorry that I didn't let some of you know about the fireside. I was remembering when Heather took me to see him when I first moved here. He was a little more low key at a Sunday fireside than he was at the high school, but he was still amazing. I had to play the opening and closing song with him sitting right there--talk about intimidation. Actually, worse than that was last year when we sang a Jenny Phillips song for a musical number at a fireside she did. I had to play HER song with HER sitting right there. That was wierd.

I do have one more thing about today. In my Lehi Roundup Post I talked about my friend that lost her brother in Iraq. That happened a year ago this Thursday. Today in Sacrament Meeting I played the song that they asked me to do for his funeral. There was such a special spirit helping me through that song. Music really is an amazing thing! I love the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants that says, "The song of the righteous is a prayer unto me." Jon Schmidt talked a lot about having that constant need of the spirit. He said that whenever we can kneel we should, but our Father also hears every pause and plea of prayer to Him. I love knowing that I can communicate with my Heavenly Father through music. When I am having a tough day or trying to find answers, all I have to do is sit at the piano and I can feel His presence. Mom and Dad you are awesome for "forcing" us to take piano! I have had so much fun listening to Dale play these last couple of days. He is so talented!! I love being asked to play! I try to never turn down that opportunity and I think of you guys every time I sit to play. Anyway, I've rambled long enough. Life is good. Dale is da man! Good night!!

And why are we finishing the basement?

I am sure Dale will kill me for putting this picture on. An unfinished basement is a perfect spot to practice tap, rollerblade or store that much needed junk! I am very excited to get it finished though. The family that lived here before us did finish 3 rooms, so we have one smaller bedroom, a bathroom and the family room to finish. Now I just need to find a place for all my "stuff" that I think I need to keep.

Here is Dale who is staying with us for the weekend before heading back to another YASE camp. The girls have had so much fun doing shows for him and watching him practice. I'm sure he is so sick of us and our noise.



Here is the bathroom and the bedroom. I haven't decided if our office will stay upstairs or come down here. Actually there are a ton of things I haven't decided yet, but we are getting there.


And here is the family room. We have had so much great help on this!! The boys will be doing the insulation on Saturday, and then the drywall will be next. Hopefully more pictures will come sooner than later!

I Can Do That

Are you kidding me?! I can't do that! I would trip over my two left feet. That was just the title of Dale's solo last night at the Young Ambassador Singing Entertainers camp at BYU. My mom and dad and my sister DJ and her two oldest came to watch Dale first perform in a Spamalot number and then do his showcase number. He is amazing! The girls loved him....and so did his nieces!

Dale is on the right!

Here are Briannyn, Kaylee, Emily and Brooklynne with their famous Uncle! Don't they look so colorful! Taylor and Kierra were just waking up from naps, which means they were quiet for the show.

We were going to bring our video camera, but thought they usually said that video taping wasn't aloud. My little still camera does video but not very well. I was also trying to find my zoom out button. So in other words, sorry for the shaky video and that you can't even see his face, but Dale says that's fine with him! The sound is also way off, but you still get the idea--he is amazing!

Will someone please put the Gardner girls to bed?!

Matt was gone today so it has been a pretty blah day. He is always so great about getting the girls to bed at a set time, especially on Tuesday nights when I am at my young women activities. He reads to them and sings and does the routine and the girls love it. I am horrible at it. Especially on nights like tonight when the whole neighborhood is outside. I LOVE this neighborhood. We have so much fun! Well at about 10:30 my kids were about done. They went inside to get pjs on and watch tv on my bed. I told them I'd be right there, but the story I was hearing outside was just getting so good--I'm sorry Matt--I'm a horrible Mom I know. At one point our friends that want me to wait to hear the rest of this outrageous story and see the pictures start calling to their daughters to go and check on my kids. One daughter was eating dinner (yes at 10:30 ;) and the other must not have been in hearing distance because once she and her friend heard her mom say "Will someone please put the Gardner girls to bed?" they were very excited to run over and check on my kids. I'm so sorry Matt. ;)

Anyway, I have missed him all day, so I thought I would post some pictures of us in DC from a couple of months ago. One of my other blogging friends was talking about her trip to DC, so I started looking at our pictures and thought I would post them. We had so much fun! Matt had to go for work which also happened to be over our anniversary, so Matt's boss (aka Bishop Routh--who many of you will recognize) helped us make a big trip out of it. We went with him and his wife and had a blast! I think at some point the girls had stayed with everyone in Matt's family--even extended family. We took Kierra with us, but she was great--in fact very fun to take around! So here are some pictures!

In the plane getting ready to leave. I wish we had taken the plug out of the baby. Oh well. ;) Below is a picture of Thayne and Lisa for you Wyoming people.

Look at that cute baby! This was her chillin' at the Denver airport and then being so happy as we were strolling her in and out of all the sites around DC.










P.S. I really need tips on how to do this layout thing. It never looks like I want it to. :)

There are no kids meals at taco places!

As we were driving up to Kemmerer for the Gardner 4th of July camping trip all I could think about was how to blog this and how to blog that. Can you tell that I am getting hooked? We were trying to figure out if we should get dinner in Evanston or keep going on to Kemmerer. Of course the girls wanted kids meals but we knew they weren't going to be very hungry because we had been snacking a little bit on the way. So Matt says, let's go on and eat at Taco Time (because that is pretty much the only place we know of in Kemmerer). He said, "There are no kids meals at taco places!" The girls totally believed it, however we still went to Wendy's in Evanston and managed to get away without the kids' meals and toys and the best part was I had the opening story for my 4th of July camping trip blog!! Yes, pathetic I know. Anyway, the pictures will pretty much speak for themselves.

I feel like I have so many pictures and I know that Matt's sister Danette has some even better ones that she and her kids took. I'll have to get some of those from her and post them later. I didn't have my camera on our hike and there were some cool pictures there. Anyway, enjoy! I'll have to do some explaining along the way. Like this clown rock picture. The kids made paint (out of mud) and spent hours painting all of the rocks and sticks in camp. I wish I had a picture of them actually doing this. Taylor especially was very meticulous about her painting. And of course they got dirty.

Matt is driving Grandpa's truck to take these crazy kids on one of their wood or water runs.

We saw these moose on our way up to camp.

We are pretty sure one of these slept in some

willows just below our tent on the last night.

It's always good to make new friends!

Kierra Ann! She was so great! She had a hard time falling asleep the first night which really made me second guess what the heck we were doing there with a baby, but after that first night we had a blast! These pictures remind me of ones we have of Kaylee camping when she was that age. Eli, who was 2 (almost 3) at the time (now in the yellow shirt) would say, "Her needs her cousin" and crawl in the play pen with her. He and all of the cousins take such good care of my girls. Eli and Kaylee still have a cute, silly bond (as you can see in a video further down).

Emily Lynne! She is definitely the emotional one right now. (I know...they are all girls and always emotional--including their mother). She stayed by my side a lot, but had a lot of fun!

Taylor Marie!

CLEAN! DIRTY!

Taylor with Grandma Gardner.

Kaylee Elaine!
Smores!

And the dancing! I wish I had a better video of these kids break dancing. I forget that it is easy to tape and upload videos from our little camera.

So that is it for now. That was a huge blog I know. I wish I knew how to do this better and faster, but I guess I'll learn as I go. The layout, font, colors, etc. don't really matter I suppose--All you really need to get from these pictures is that we had a ton of fun! Happy 4th of July!!

Bro. Willey

Here Mom and Dad--these pictures are especially for you. We had such a great time last night visiting with Bro. Willey and some of his family. It was supposed to be a birthday party, but with his birthday actually being in January I think it turned into more of a celebration of them getting the book of his life published. Besides, according to Taylor it wasn't a birthday party because all anyone did was stand around and talk. I think she wanted to see Bro. Willey do the limbo or red rover or something. Anyway, the book is amazing. There is so much about Laramie and the growth of the church in Laramie. I want to be able to really read it and not just skim through it.


As you can see they went all out with the Wyoming decorations. They even had brown and gold jelly bellies. (if you ever decide to do that please don't get the mocha flavored ones--the root beer are best!) And then of course I saw Emily! I don't think I've seen her since we were maybe 12 or 13. It was wierd to think that we really only hung out a few times, but it felt like we knew each other so well. We had so much fun visiting! Her little ones were very cute in their brown and gold! I know I know...where were my kids' Cowboy clothes? I definitely should've known better. The invitation was yellow and talked about this Cowboy celebrating his birthday, but I didn't realize a family living blocks away from BYU would be such Cowboy fans! We had so much fun!