Because everyone is here, something that rarely happens and will happen less often as the kids get older and busier, Lisa and I felt bad sending Alex and Sarah off to school everyday. Today we pulled them out of school so they could be with everyone else. It is a bad time to do it with finals and junior papers imminent but I can't help feel that this is more important. Today was focused on the family dinner tonight. Of course it is a major job just to keep the house clean but come four o'clock we loaded up the van and headed to the church. Yesterday when the girls went shopping they
all bought these funny blankets that they can wrap around themselves and tie them up like a dress. They are all so excited it is funny to watch them. You'd think it was Christmas or something. The first picture shows them all in their wraps. Everyone gets to the church and we all start our different jobs. A very good friend of ours, Molly Sanchez, cooked all of the food. Here is a picture of Brandon in the kitchen with Molly showing her how to cook good Mexican food. You can also see that Peter is very busy as well. Despite the picture Peter really is a sociable fellow. We have forced him to read
Twilight. He was reluctant but we assured him that anyone who works at a book store should be familiar with this very popular book. The agenda for dinner was divided into four general sections. Introductions, story telling, video and thank you's. I want you to know that it is very difficult for me to get up and talk in front of a group of people so I was definitely out of my comfort zone doing this dinner thing. First of all we got the tables all set and and looking pretty and then I got up and welcomed everyone and we made all the introductions. I introduced all of our family, Chuck introduced all of the
Cotters and then we made Ben and Sharley get up and introduce their bridal party and their significant others. After that I got everyone started eating. As you can tell from the pictures, the whole dinner had a Mexican theme. This seemed appropriate since Ben went to Mexico on his mission. This is the same theme and same food we had for Brandon's wedding reception when he was married. Brandon also went to Mexico on his mission. It was really good then and it was really good today. Once people were all dished up I once again got up in front of everyone (embarrassing) and told a story about Ben. I couldn't
think of anything really funny to tell so I just shared one of my favorite memories. I then invited Chuck to tell a story about Sharley and then I invited anyone who wanted, to share a story about Ben, Sharley or Ben and Sharley. A lot of people told a lot of stories and you can see from Sharley's picture that some of them were quite embarrassing. I obviously can't tell all of the stories but I would like to share my favorite story. It was shared by Alycia. In elementary school Ben and Alycia were walking home from school together. Ben would have been older (5th or 6th grade) and Alycia would have been younger (around 2nd grade). There was another kid who kept harassing Ben but Ben was a good boy and ignored him. Finally Alycia couldn't handle it anymore so she tells this punk to take a hike. Immediately this punk starts into Alycia at which point Ben picks him up and shoves him into the lost and found bin and tells him to leave his sister alone. They then head for home and Ben chews Alycia out for picking a fight with an older kid. It was really pretty funny and pretty cool how Ben protected his little sister. The stories went on for most of the evening but as they petered out I got up once again (ugh) and we
watched a couple of video's. The first video was of Ben's
skydiving/bachelors party. That must have been quite an experience and I'm really quite jealous. The second video was from an experience at Sharley's bridal shower Wednesday night while I was at Sarah's
Track banquet. Since Justin, Brandon and Alex were home alone and totally bored they decided to crash Sharley's bridal shower. Some one there had a video camera and caught them on film. Justin found Alex's old Halloween costume and put it on. It was a golden crown , a sword and a long red robe. He represented the long lost prince that many girls are looking for. He didn't have a shirt on so his hairy chest was prominently displayed in the open robe. Brandon had his shirt unbuttoned, wore a cowboy hat and played a guitar and Alex wore a "Tonka" hard hat and carried a tire iron. They showed up at the shower and then once they got some appropriate music on (I believe it was the beach boys) they started dancing. You should have seen it. Justin (quite surprisingly) was quite reserved. Has anyone ever seen Justin reserved? Alex was a bit more animated but Brandon was into it big time.
He was really swinging his hips. He ripped his shirt off and tried to get Sharley to dance with him. That wasn't going to happen. Finally Justin was swing dancing with Kira and Brandon was swing dancing with Serene but poor Alex couldn't get anyone to dance with him. It was a very funny video. Before everyone left I got up again and thanked the Cotter family and told them how thrilled we are to have Sharley become a part of our family. The Cotters have always been good friends and I think this is a cool thing. The whole dinner went very well and most people stayed to help clean up. We then went home and had a surprise birthday party for Brandon.
His birthday is June 2 but he flies back to Alaska on Sunday morning and won't be here. He had a cheese cake for his birthday cake. The one thing that put a bit of a downer on the day was when Lisa noticed that her ruby was missing out of her ring. This was her Granny's ring and Lisa's birthstone is ruby so it had great sentimental value. She is broken hearted. We went back to the church and looked but we had swept up pretty good. Most of the garbage was already in the dumpster but I brought the garbage bag from the kitchen home. I will go through it but it was late that night and I still haven't done that.
Other than that lost ruby it was a very fun day.
Because everyone is here, something that rarely happens and will happen less often as the kids get older and busier, Lisa and I felt bad sending Alex and Sarah off to school everyday. Today we pulled them out of school so they could be with everyone else. It is a bad time to do it with finals and junior papers imminent but I can't help feel that this is more important. Today was focused on the family dinner tonight. Of course it is a major job just to keep the house clean but come four o'clock we loaded up the van and headed to the church. Yesterday when the girls went shopping they
all bought these funny blankets that they can wrap around themselves and tie them up like a dress. They are all so excited it is funny to watch them. You'd think it was Christmas or something. The first picture shows them all in their wraps. Everyone gets to the church and we all start our different jobs. A very good friend of ours, Molly Sanchez, cooked all of the food. Here is a picture of Brandon in the kitchen with Molly showing her how to cook good Mexican food. You can also see that Peter is very busy as well. Despite the picture Peter really is a sociable fellow. We have forced him to read Twilight. He was reluctant but we assured him that anyone who works at a book store should be familiar with this very popular book. The agenda for dinner was divided into four general sections. Introductions, story telling, video and thank you's. I want you to know that it is very difficult for me to get up and talk in front of a group of people so I was definitely out of my comfort zone doing this dinner thing. First of all we got the tables all set and and looking pretty and then I got up and welcomed everyone and we made all the introductions. I introduced all of our family, Chuck introduced all of the 
Cotters and then we made Ben and Sharley get up and introduce their bridal party and their significant others. After that I got everyone started eating. As you can tell from the pictures, the whole dinner had a Mexican theme. This seemed appropriate since Ben went to Mexico on his mission. This is the same theme and same food we had for Brandon's wedding reception when he was married. Brandon also went to Mexico on his mission. It was really good then and it was really good today. Once people were all dished up I once again got up in front of everyone (embarrassing) and told a story about Ben. I couldn't 
think of anything really funny to tell so I just shared one of my favorite memories. I then invited Chuck to tell a story about Sharley and then I invited anyone who wanted, to share a story about Ben, Sharley or Ben and Sharley. A lot of people told a lot of stories and you can see from Sharley's picture that some of them were quite embarrassing. I obviously can't tell all of the stories but I would like to share my favorite story. It was shared by Alycia. In elementary school Ben and Alycia were walking home from school together. Ben would have been older (5th or 6th grade) and Alycia would have been younger (around 2nd grade). There was another kid who kept harassing Ben but Ben was a good boy and ignored him. Finally Alycia couldn't handle it anymore so she tells this punk to take a hike. Immediately this punk starts into Alycia at which point Ben picks him up and shoves him into the lost and found bin and tells him to leave his sister alone. They then head for home and Ben chews Alycia out for picking a fight with an older kid. It was really pretty funny and pretty cool how Ben protected his little sister. The stories went on for most of the evening but as they petered out I got up once again (ugh) and we
watched a couple of video's. The first video was of Ben's skydiving/bachelors party. That must have been quite an experience and I'm really quite jealous. The second video was from an experience at Sharley's bridal shower Wednesday night while I was at Sarah's Track banquet. Since Justin, Brandon and Alex were home alone and totally bored they decided to crash Sharley's bridal shower. Some one there had a video camera and caught them on film. Justin found Alex's old Halloween costume and put it on. It was a golden crown , a sword and a long red robe. He represented the long lost prince that many girls are looking for. He didn't have a shirt on so his hairy chest was prominently displayed in the open robe. Brandon had his shirt unbuttoned, wore a cowboy hat and played a guitar and Alex wore a "Tonka" hard hat and carried a tire iron. They showed up at the shower and then once they got some appropriate music on (I believe it was the beach boys) they started dancing. You should have seen it. Justin (quite surprisingly) was quite reserved. Has anyone ever seen Justin reserved? Alex was a bit more animated but Brandon was into it big time. 
He was really swinging his hips. He ripped his shirt off and tried to get Sharley to dance with him. That wasn't going to happen. Finally Justin was swing dancing with Kira and Brandon was swing dancing with Serene but poor Alex couldn't get anyone to dance with him. It was a very funny video. Before everyone left I got up again and thanked the Cotter family and told them how thrilled we are to have Sharley become a part of our family. The Cotters have always been good friends and I think this is a cool thing. The whole dinner went very well and most people stayed to help clean up. We then went home and had a surprise birthday party for Brandon. 
His birthday is June 2 but he flies back to Alaska on Sunday morning and won't be here. He had a cheese cake for his birthday cake. The one thing that put a bit of a downer on the day was when Lisa noticed that her ruby was missing out of her ring. This was her Granny's ring and Lisa's birthstone is ruby so it had great sentimental value. She is broken hearted. We went back to the church and looked but we had swept up pretty good. Most of the garbage was already in the dumpster but I brought the garbage bag from the kitchen home. I will go through it but it was late that night and I still haven't done that. 
Other than that lost ruby it was a very fun day.
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