Grand Opening Celebration!!!

We would like to invite you to attend the Grand Opening Celebration of our restaurant Cafe Laguna! Friday, August 1st 2008 from 6:00-9:00 PM. There will be a ribbon cutting ceremony, balloons, face painting and free mini sweet Laguna frybreads!!

http://lagunafrybread.com/

Everyone is Invited! Bring Your Friends!!

I know I am a Slacker!!

It has been almost 2 months since I have done any blogging:( I have been so busy between summer vacation, girls camp and opening a restaurant I have not had time. In fact I can think of a million things I could be doing right now but I am forcing myself to sit down and update. So here goes.... everything that has happened in my life from May 22nd until now!!

Water Day at Peralta Trail! Every year the kids have Water Day to celebrate the end of the school year. I got to go and help with the Water Day festivities. The fire department came and sprayed all of the kids. It was fun!!!

Brooke having fun on the slip and slide.

Braiden with his buddy Haley.

Next was the last day of school:

Here is a video of Braiden getting an award from his 2nd grade Teacher.

In case you didn't understand. Braiden got an award for teaching the class everything they needed to know about football through sharing his journal writing to the class. Yes! he is a little obsessed! football season starts in 2 weeks!

Brooke's last day of Kindergarten! They had a little program in their class room. It was cute!

My Briana. Now a 7th grader! They grow up so fast.

Next:

Otis went to Scout Camp! Camp Gilchrist for 5 days! He had a great time. I am so glad he had the opportunity to go.

Girls Camp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is part of the reason why I have not posted for so long. I have been either planning girls camp or at girls camp. It was a blast! I love girls camp, I love being with the Young Women and seeing their Testimonies grow. It was such a neat experience. The stake staff was the best! I know I created friendships that will last a life time! I love you guys.

Janean and I, this is as good as it gets at girls camp!

Skit night was so much fun! The theme for camp was, "Oh the places you'll go" a Dr. Suess theme. Each Ward was given a different Dr. Suess book, along with a scripture and a value that ties into the moral of the story. We had to get dressed up like weird Dr. Suess characters for the skit, hence the funny hair do's.

The best part about going to camp was that I got to be there with Briana for her first year at Camp. This is a picture of my cute little ward and the best YW President ever!!

Vacation to the Beach!

We had a relaxing, much needed vacation on the beach. We did nothing but sit on the beach everyday! I think this was our best vacation yet! We went with 2 of my sisters Allison and Chery and their kids. We all had a great time together.

Brooke and her cousin Ava!

My two cute boys on the beach!

Braiden having fun boogie boarding!

Braiden wiping out boogie boarding!

My 3 cuties on the beach!

The cousins on the beach.

The Hot Lifeguard!

Okay! I had to post this one. All day Briana, Ashlee and Emilee wanted to get a picture of themselves with a "hot" life guard., but they were too shy to go and do it. So, at the end of the day I said come on girls and I walked up to the life guard and I said these 3 girls would really like to get their picture taken with a "hot" lifeguard can I take your picture with them? They were so embarrassed that I said that. Maybe next time they won't be so shy!

Finally:

Briana's Birthday! She is officially 12! yeh

Thanks to Tricia Burrell (I stole her idea and her recipe) we had a really fun facial party for Briana's birthday. We had chocolate facials, chocolate fountain, we made lip gloss, and we ate lots of junk food. It was fun.

Soo.. relaxing.

Cute girls!

We made the cake to look like their faces!! Yummy!

Well That's it! That's my last 2 months in a nutshell!

What's next on the list of thing to do?? The Grand opening of our Restaurant. July 21st is our Soft opening and our Grand opening/ Ribbon cutting is July 25th at 6:30 everyone is invited, So come and get some good food!

Coming Soon! Second Location!

For those of you who don't know, Otis's parents own a restaurant called, "Cafe Laguna". Well Otis and his brother Nick as business partners are opening up a second location, and hopefully a few more over the next few years. We are really excited! It has always been Otis's dream to own his own business.

So... If you live in the Phoenix area come try us out. We are located on Power just south of Baseline by Bahama Bucks. We will be opening in the beginning of July, I will post the exact date soon. The picture above is one of our featured menu items:

"The Gourmet Laguna"
Hand tossed Fry Bread topped with romaine lettuce, seasoned pinto or refried beans and cheese, your choice of grilled marinated chicken or steak, sautéed onions and bell peppers, with sour cream and salsa.

4th year campout, Swing!!

On our 4th year camp out some of the men decided to get together and make a swing hanging down from a huge tree in our camp. Everyone took turns standing on the back of the truck and then letting go as they swung about 3 feet from the ground. (When your on it it seems allot higher) It was fun! Even President Leavitt did it. This is him swinging from the tree. He was actually one of the first ones to try it. (sorry, I couldn't figure out how to rotate the video around and make it the right way)

Rock Solid 4th year Adventure!

Otis and I went this weekend on the 4th year high adventure camp out! The theme was "Rock Solid" Testimonies. It was a really neat experience and allot of fun! We had a great group of Young Women who really came together and supported each other on our 6 mile hike. I will always remember this experience!

Books on Wheels!

Braiden and Brooke had the Books on Wheels Parade at school. They picked a book and made a float that represents the book. Brooke wanted to do Snow White, so we made a giant poison apple and Brooke dressed up like snow white.

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Braiden's book was Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets. He had uncle clay come over and help him draw some giant attacking toilets. Then Braiden dressed up like Captain Underpants minus the underpants (he was too embarrassed to wear underpants on the out side of his clothes like the Captian underpants from the book.) It was fun and the kids were really proud to be part of the parade. Out of 500 students in the school only about 20 participated. So they had a big crowd to watch them parade through the school.

My kids have been Tagged!

So, Thanks to my good friend Tricia Burrell my kids have been tagged. It has taken me some time to respond but I knew I would eventually get around to it. I am supposed to write 5 things my kids love, so here we go!

Briana

1. Briana loves her cell phone. We broke down and got her one just before school started to help out with the communication for the carpool to and from school. It's helped out allot and it's kind of fun because I can text her in the middle of the day during school just to say, "have a good day". Anyway, that thing is glued to her hand, did you notice I didn't say ear, well that's because she never actually uses it to talk she just text's.

2. Briana loves piano, she actually just sits and plays on her own without me bugging her to practice. (I love listening to her play)

3. Briana loves to write. She loves to write short little stories or poems. In fact right now she's writing a children's book called, "Grandpa Al". It's a story of my dad and all of the funny things he used to say and do.

4. Briana loves to have her Brother and her Sister sleep in her bed with her on the weekends. It has become a tradition they love to stay up late laughing and giggling. good thing she has a full size bed.

5. Briana loves (likes) her best friend Bryce. They have been best friends since 2ND grade. If you ask either of them who there best friend is they will say each other. We tease them and say we have to take lots of pictures of them now so that we can put together a cute video at there reception. (he he) They just laugh. By the way you've probably guessed it, that's Bryce in the picture.

Braiden

1. Braiden loves football! He loves to play it, watch it, collect cards of it, play it on video games! He loves football! He's pretty good too! He's one of the hardest hitters on his team, his nick name on the field is, "Little Bull".

2. Braiden loves to play guitar hero! He is obsessed! I have to give him time limits. He has almost every 80's rock song memorized thanks to that game!

3. Braiden loves to play out side. Riding his scooter or his skateboard with the boys in the neighborhood.

4. Braiden loves scouts. He always looks forward to scout day!

5. Braiden loves to read. There have been times when I thought he was asleep at midnight and I see him hiding under his sheets with a flashlight reading because he can't put down the book. I guess that's a good problem to have.

6. One more for Braiden! Braiden, "likes Pie". Braiden and his friend Christian have this little inside joke, they go around everywhere saying "I like pie" in a nerdy voice. I have no idea why they say it, they just think it's hilarious. For scouts last week it was Braidens turn to take the treats, guess what he took?? Pie! He wrote a big sign and stuck it to the top that said, "I like Pie". Weirdo!

Brooke

1.Brooke loves to sing, dance and cheer around the house! The louder the better. The funny thing though, her teacher says she is so quiet in class she can hardly get her to speak up when she raises her hand to answer a question. Sounds like her Mom, (doesn't like to speak in public.)

2. Brooke loves to cuddle and give big kisses smack dab on the lips.

3. Brooke loves to ride her scooter and her bike. In fact, She has been afraid to ride her bike with the training wheels because one of the wheels were loose once and she fell over. So, it has been a year since she rode it. Well, 2 weeks ago she asked her dad to take the training wheels off and within 30 minutes she was riding it without the training wheels. Go figure??? She loves it now!

4. Brooke loves Kindergarten especially her teacher Mrs. Washington! She loves the songs they sing everyday and she loves doing centers, especially art centers.

5. Brooke loves her Big Sis Briana and her Big Bro Braiden! She's lucky to have them, they really watch out for her.

So, now I get to pass on the Tag! I am going to pass it on to the Watkins, and Both Halls!