I know... I know...It's been a while!

Ok so I realize that it has been a long time since we posted. The holidays have come.....it is 2008......Stephanie(my sister) got married.....we are expecting.....WAIT hold on.....it is true friends! Joseph and Melinda are actually going to have a baby! I am due in July and we are completely thrilled about the new arrival! And the best news is, I get to stay home and be a mom! Goodbye teaching hello baby! I have been really really sick so I haven't even done anything for months.....and posting on our blog was the last thing on my mind-so there-I have an excuse.
Thank you to Celeste for recommending some books-I have been able to do a bit of reading. Glass Castle is almost done but I have started a new one in the meantime-Escape.....It is about a women who escapes from her life as a wife and mother of a polygamist. And if you are into weird real-life stories you will love this one! Its scary and well just scary. Not done yet but I am sure I will post when I am done.
Here is a picture of when we told my parents. We got them grandma and grandpa aprons! they were so so excited. First grand baby on the Brady side.

Knocked out.

No, I'm not dead. I was just knocked out. No big deal. I went in Monday for endoscopy to see why I've had a hard time swallowing some foods. Apparently some acid reflux had tightened the bottom of my esophagus. They widened it and I'm swallowing whole hamburgers again with the best of them.

But seriously.

I ate a jalapeño burger from Wendy's 20 minutes after I woke up....I don't remember much about how it tasted or about the next few hours...but I do remember that I ate it.

Operation Surfing Turkey

So about 5 months ago Brett (my brother) decided that it was about high time our family went on a vacation. (Don't know why - our family goes on vacation a lot.....we love to travel.....but I guess Brett was getting a bit stir crazy) So he mentioned something to Steph (my sister) and she totally agreed with the idea! (who wouldn't) And from that moment on Operation Surfing Turkey was underway.
My dad kept the location of the vacation under wraps until we got to the
airport.....

Puerto Vallarta here we come! We stayed in a Mexican casa that had 6 bedrooms, maid service and a cook! Oh and did I mention that it was right across the street from the beach! It was awesome and the best part was that we got it for a steal! You know one of those internet deal things.

We went deep sea fishing





and did a canopy tour.






We also just had fun at the beach, body surfing, sand castle making, sunburning etc.




Mark had to go to the hospital because he got bit by a scorpion.....only downer of the whole trip!

Cabin time

This weekend we went up to Idaho with Afton and Matson. We stayed at a friends cabin and had a blast. The boys went turkey hunting and fishing. The girls were on the ATV's most of the time and cooking and eating. The boys also built a huge bonfire! What a fun time we had!

Yeah for Pumpkins

Of course Joseph had Leopard (the new operating system for Mac's)on his mind when we had FHE so his is an apple :)

Erin Gruwell!!

This week me and some teacher friends went to UEA where Erin Gruwell was the main speaker. Erin is the teacher who inspired Hollywood to make the movie Freedom Writers. Erin is an amazing teacher and person and it was really fun to actually meet her in real life! She also brought one of the Freedom writers with her to speak to us!

Last year our principal took our school to see the video and then we all got journals to write in for homeroom. I really love her philosophies on teaching (though not the one about your job being more important than your husband......) Anyway really fun!

Thriller!!

Can you see the scary girl in the background?
Last night Joseph and I went and saw Thriller!! It was Joseph's first time and we both LOVED it. I hope we can make it our Halloween tradition while we are living in Utah.
Thriller is a Halloween dance concert. The dancers are zombies, ghosts, skeletons etc. People die and the audience gets a good scare now and then. Also the dancers come out the the audience a lot and scare who ever they can! I love going!!!

I love my job

So I took my students on a really really fun field trip. We have been learning about manners and how to eat properly and set a table etc. Well I thought it would be awesome if we actually practiced what we'd learned. So we went up to Thanksgiving Point. Also, I thought it would be fun if we went in a HUMMER LIMO!! So I asked the kids what they thought and they were stoked! I told them that they had to earn the money to get the Limo because it was going to cost a lot of money. $600 later and 1200 things of cotton candy we MADE it!! I took 20 kids two nights and honestly it will be one of the most memorable experiences of my life!

Happy Halloween!

We had an awesome Halloween Party this past weekend! I've been planning it with my good friend Jamee Fleming for 2 months.

Joseph and I went as Alice and Jasper from Twilight, and everyone thought we looked scary. NOT quite the look we were going for, but oh well.

Check out the Halloween food decorations. Joseph helped make the shrimp "brain" dish.

Happy Birthday, Joseph....WAIT, It's MY Birthday!!

So, for my birthday Joseph got ANOTHER iPhone in the family AND a waffle iron.....so basically, for my birthday, Joseph got a lot of gifts! I really do love my iPhone, though (he bought me a 4GB and put a Tinkerbell theme on it), and I made pumpkin waffles (with my new waffle iron) for General Conference breakfast that were delicious!

We had a BBQ for my birthday party with some friends and some family that was also wonderful. Joseph got the Best Husband Award for the day because he was so wonderful! He brought me lunch from Macaroni Grill and a cake to my work.....all the other teachers were jealous!

My kids also made me SEVEN birthday cakes......that is a lot of cake!

All in all it was the best birthday ever!

Fun in Provo...I Guess

Well, I guess you can have fun in Provo, too. You don't have to go to Canada or California. Not if your friends just come to you! That's exactly what happened this August.

First, Brad & Celeste and Austin & Sarah Baillio came into town for a baby blessing. In fact, almost the entire Baillio clan was in town, including Kyle and Megan who live here. We spent the night talking, catching up, laughing, and reminiscing about the old days.

Just a few days later, our other bestest friends, Mark & Bonni Bohn came to town with their cute son, Samuel. We took the day off and spent it at Seven Peaks. It ended too soon, but we plan on visiting them in San Francisco sometime in the future.

There ain't nothing like hanging out with friends.

Summer Travels

This is a re-post from my family blog, but I wasn't about to rewrite and reformat this whole thing. We've needed to update everyone on us for a while. This summer has been practically non-stop travels. It started out being fun, but week-after-week in hotels can start to wear on you. But we've got lots of pictures, so without further ado, here are the summer escapades of Joseph and Melinda.

The first of June we went to Texas for the Draschil Family Reunion. There was skiing, kneeboarding, swimming, lots of food, corny talents, and plenty of relaxing. It's amazing how rewarding it is to get back together with people you love and to just spend time together. At the end of June (June 29th to be exact) I waited in line for most of the day in order to buy an iPhone. See my post below for more details. In short, yep, it is everything it is marketed to be and an absolute joy to use. I'll let you play with it the next time you see me.

Setting aside my materialness and idols of plastic and chrome, we move into July. The first two weeks of July we were on vacation, first at Melinda's family reunion and then in California with Melinda's school kids.

The reunion was in Waterton, Canada, and we rode four-wheelers, relaxed, and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. We stayed in a quaint Swiss-looking lodge (the first of our 3-week hotel rooms). I tried my hand at fishing for the second time, but there's no picture for that because I didn't catch anything.



That vacation ended all-too-soon as we headed out to California for the FCCLA National Competition. Melinda had 12 kids qualify for the competition, and we spent the week chaperoning (babysitting) them...even on our anniversary. The good news is that we also got to go to cool places like Universal Studios and Disneyland for free.

Herding 12 kids around for a week ain't easy, so believe me when I say we were glad when it was over.

Home, you say? Nay! How about our third straight week in a hotel room? Melinda was a week-long Tour Guide for a group of elderly tourists in Utah Valley. We stayed at the La Quinta Inn near Wal-Mart in Orem despite the fact that we were only a couple of miles from our apartment.

Finally this past week we've been back in our own apartment and it has been great, although I've noticed the bed doesn't make itself while we're gone during the day. Not to worry, though. Melinda is doing the Tour Guide thing again this week and we're BACK in a hotel room.

As a final treat, here is what Melinda and I would look like as characters from the Simpsons (courtesy of SimpsonizeMe.com)

Compare those pictures with this one of Mel and this one of me. Not bad. And here we are in our natural habitats (i.e. at our jobs): Melinda @ Dixon. Joseph @ Decade Media.

Enter the iPhone

I hadn't planned on getting one. 

Melinda and I were with Sprint and had a great service plan. She had a camera flip phone and I had a Treo 650. All was well, until Steve Jobs announced that Apple would be producing a phone/ ipod/ internet communicator. 

 Still, I wasn't sold. Not that I didn't want one...I just had it so good with Sprint and my Treo.  

In June, Preston mentioned he needed a Treo for medical school and I started getting monetary contributions to my iPhone fund for my birthday.  Mel and I gave our phones to Preston and Annette and transferred our contract to them .

Soon, June 29th had come around and I found myself camping in line outside the Apple Store in Salt Lake waiting for 6 pm when the iPhone would go on sale.

It was a long, hot day (from 10 am to 6 pm), but Melinda spent some of the time there with me. I was there with Decade Media's sales guy, Kevin, and we spent the day on our computers and phones working (and drinking lots of water). Apple treated us right by periodically bringing out bottled waters and sno-cones.

Finally, the time came. Amidst cheering and clapping, we entered the Apple Store just after six o'clock. I broke down and bought the 8 GB model and took a few last photos with my Treo inside the store.

That's a happy boy.

I didn't take pictures of the next hour because I was too stressed. Turns out I'd left Melinda's phone on the sidewalk. We searched through a trash compacter and all around the area. I went to tell the Cingular/AT&T store to deactivate the phone, and they gave me a new one! 

So, what's the verdict on the iPhone? Love it. It is everything they advertise it to be. Works just like the videos show. I'd never been so excited to drop $600 in my life and almost a month later I've had zero regrets. 

Goodbye crashy Treo. Enter the iPhone.

Draschil Reunion

This past weekend we had the first annual Draschil/Shumway Family Reunion!
I had my very first 4 day road trip...and I survived!!! We drove down with Tommy and Anna and baby Tommy. On our way down, stopped off at the "BIG TEXAS" for lunch. They are famous for the 72-ounce steak and if you eat it in an hour you get it for free. While we were there some fat guy totally ate the entire 72 ounces!! Plus the salad and garlic bread and baked potato! It was totally gross. We took a picture at in the biggest rocking chair I've ever seen!
Our first day in Tyler was spent at the lake house playing around on the jet skis and catching up with the fam.
The next day we played at a ranch house that had a pool, lake, tire swing, playground etc. That night we had a talent show and dance party. I also was very proud of myself because I got mad at the manager of Sam's Club because they had horrible customer service and I got 5 free pizza's out of the conversation!
Sunday was spent relaxing and just being together as a family! And Joseph and I decided to miss our flights and ride home with Tommy and Anna.
We drove down to San Antonio to spend time with David and the girls. We went to Sea World. We went up to Colorado Springs and stayed with my parents and celebrated what we thought was Joseph's birthday.....we kinda got our days mixed up and celebrated his birthday a day early! Blonde moment BIG TIME!

Sometimes you just need to dance

Click to Play

...and sometimes you need to do it with a hanger on your head. This was Melinda late at night at our sister Afton's house. Melinda was tired, bugged, and ready to go home.

Cue the hanger, please.

Paula

We had Dixon Idol kinda like our version of American Idol anyway I got to be Paula......The kids loved it and we had a great time!

Aftons Wedding

Well it finally happened. Afton and Matson finally tied the knot after 6 long drama filled months. We went four wheeling for (as my dad called it) Afton's Bachelorette party. We had a blast driving through the mud puddles and relaxing before the big day.

Saturday was long and tiring but Afton lived out her dream wedding and it was fun to be with family and friends to celebrate. We are so glad that Afton and Matson found each other.

First Cord

Joseph has been playing capoeira these past few months and they finally had a "performance" or a batizado which means "baptism" or initiation. Capoeira is a mix between dancing, break dancing, and martial arts. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Joseph is so talented and so were the other people there. They were flying all over the stage sliding across the floor on their heads, flips, turns. It was AWESOME! Here is a website to help you understand what it is that he does.