Brett leaves on his mission to Ghana!

My little brother Brett got called to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint for two years in Ghana! I am so excited for him and so proud of him. I am 10 years older than him and always considered him MY baby. Jessica was Jenn's and Brett was mine :) I remember sitting at my desk in sixth grade and praying that Brett would be safe... I guess I should of seen it coming that I would be a slightly paranoid Mom!


So I don't have any pictures for this but I really better write it down :) Things were just crazy the end of April and beginning of May, SO much going on. We waited til last minute to buy the plane tickets home for AZ and it ended up being about $400 for all our tickets. Finally I get this purchased when my Mom emails me and says I bought them for the wrong weekend. Oh goodness! Alegiant does NO refunds so I panic and call a friend who is an executive there... turns out if you cancel within 24 hrs of purchase there are no fees... yay! So I go to buy new tickets and the prices have jumped to $500. I take a deep breath and "buy" them anyway. On the way to the airport I can find our confirmation email and panic a little, but am 100% sure I remember buying them. We get to the airport and try to curbside check as usual only for them to say, "We are sorry, but you are not on this flight."  More panicking. I run inside with all our kids, suitcases and gear, and ask them to double check... definitely not booked on this flight. The flight in leaving in 55 minutes and I tell the lady we have to be on it, just tell me what it's going to cost. 10 minutes and $350 later we are headed to security with boarding passes in hand. Unreal. I could not believe I had somehow messed up AGAIN and kept saying prayers in my head that somehow it would work out. Not only did it work out but it saved us money! I am so grateful that Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers... even with something silly like this.

We were so glad that we were able to go visit the weekend before he left! These two cuties were being so nice to eachother and holding hands in the airport.

Marlee could not wait to see her Grandpa! Even though it had only been 4 days :)

Saturday morning we were able to go to Grant's baptism. It's the first time we have made it to a cousin's baptism and we were very glad to be there. Afterwards we went back to Brian and Katies house for yummy lunch and snow cones!

The girls all rode home together. A car full of cute and crazy girls!

                                                                My baby, and her baby :)

Mark and Clarissa were so nice and let us stay with them over the weekend. It was fun to get to spend time with just them and their cute kids.

Clarissa is so awesome and cut all of our hair! It really needed it! Marlee thought it was fun, thank goodness.

Irrigation day! Oh how I loved irrigation day as a kid. I remember pulling to the SE corner of Baseline and Recker for date to check the irrigation schedule hanging on the old wood telephone pole. I know this water may not be the cleanest, but the kids sure had fun!

Playing on the slide that we got for Christmas when I was age two!

Saturday night was a baby shower for my cousin's fiance, Tamsen. Tamsen is awesome, and Aaron is one of my favorite cousins so I couldn't be happier for them!  My niece Anne joined us too.

Casen kept spying in the baby shower (it was in my grandma's rose garden). He has a little crush on Ashley (my cousin Mark's wife). He got the courage to sneak over and give her a rose :)

Brett gave a great talk in church for his last Sunday here. So glad we got to be there. Beforehand we had lunch at my parents and Brett sat outside with all these crazy kids.

It happened to be Mother's Day and so I needed a picture of our little family. Love these guys!

The ENTIRE Judy family! All 9 kids, 4 in-laws, awesome parents and 12 cute grandkids! It was so great to have everyone together! 2 years ago on Mother's Day we were all together sayig goodbye to Jessica when she left on her mission. And we thought, when will this ever happen again when are all here for Mother's Day? Who would have thought, two years later! Casen didn't want to be in the picture but Brett was awesome and was able to sneak him in the back :)

We had to leave straight from the church to the airport. There is this little grass area near our gate so we usually play here til it is time to board. We all had fun playing chase.

I was chasing and tickling the kids when Ryan captured this beauty :) Turns out my game face is a mean one!