10-10-10

So there we were at the video store at 9 pm. the man helping us noted that "tomorrow is 10-10-10. Lisa brightened up and said, "That would be a great day to get married!" Yuck-yuck. We got our movies and retreated home to watch them.

After the second movie it was around 1 am when Lisa indicated that she was serious about getting married that day. Yes, we did have our marriage license and were planning on getting married within a couple of weeks, but I wasn't seriously entertaining the idea of getting married THAT DAY, then going to work the next day. Her counter was that we could get married at 7 am (yes, in 6 hours), then still have time to scurry away for at least a 24 hour amateur night. The more we talked and debated, the more I realized that my role should be to say, "Of course, whatever you want!"

So there I was at WalMart at 6:30 am to buy a substitute wedding ring for myself since mine was on order, while Lisa was calling Kathy, our dear friend, who is a licensed Chaplain and is LDS and able to perform the ceremony. Fortunately, she didn't answer her phone until 7, so we had a little extra time and ended up finalizing the ceremony at 10:10 am (okay, so that was Central Time - we're counting it!) on 10-10-10.

At the top of Stone Cliff, where we live is a vacant lot with an incredible view. I retreat there often to enjoy the view while meditating, worshipping, returning to my center and just enjoying how beautiful this life is. It has become a somewhat sacred spot to me, and now to us. Lisa suggested that we have the ceremony there. It was a GORGEOUS autumn morning as we gathered with Kathy, her son Cade and our short-notice witnesses, Teresa (my sister) and Mike.

We had already discussed with our children and other family members our plan to have a ceremony without inviting ANYONE since we had found it impossible to find a time for including all of the people close to us. Instead of taking the risk of offending some people, we decided to offend everyone and not invite anyone.

Kathy's ceremony was beautiful manifestation of our LDS values and deep spiritual appreciation for our Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ. In that GORGEOUS setting for such a sacred event, we revelled in our love for each other, our love for our Heavenly Father and for such a welcome beginning to our already wonderful lives.

The Engagement

YOU HAVE TO HAVE A STORY.....that is a family mantra, which is cool, but it puts the pressure on for events such as a potential engagement. The answer wasn't in question - we had talked about it several times. The ring wasn't a secret - she had sent me an email of the ring (picture, size, features, etc.) and said "BUY THIS". After some planning here is how it went down.

We regularly get couple massages, so I made arrangements for one and coordinated with the massage therapists ahead of time. Lisa had heard and liked the idea of a 4 hands massage, so, with 15 minutes remaining, my massage therapist and I joined hers to give her a 6 hands massage.....her comment was "this is heaven"! I was working her arms and hands. When I got to the left hand, I oiled it up real well and pulled out the ring. That was the signal for the two therapists to disappear. I wasn't smooth enough to slide it on her finger undetected. When she felt it, she started to jump up and I foolishly had her stay laying face down (I know guys...what was I thinking?) Anyway, I had to crawl under her face pillow and propose flat on my back, looking up into her.....well, I couldn't see anything, but it would sound romantic if I were gazing into her gorgeous blue eyes. SHE SAID YES!!

BIG NEWS!!!

Incase you haven't heard yet DAD AND LISA are getting MARRIED!!!! For anyone who hasn't met Lisa you should...we like her! We are all so excited to welcome her to our family. No date is set yet and Dad will be filing in their story very soon.

Celebrate me home!

So let's be honest we can find any reason to celebrate at any time...and thanks to dad we do! We jsut celebrated Dad's 54th Birthday with our new trady.

Since we are all spread out we started celebrating on our own in behalf of eachother. So for Christie's birthday everyone did sonic and taco bell that day and for dad's we did a treat. Then we each text a picture to everyone else showing us celebrating. It's like we are all doing it together....I know we are so cool! And now you will probably start this as well.

Here are some of the pics that have gone around in honor of eachother. Lisa for Dad's birthday

Kailey's play- Cookie cake from her siblings

Richard at Taco bell for Christie

Scottee and Dad with Chilli's celebrating Daniel's High Math Score on the Teaching test

Mel and Chris actually have a special glass they toast whoever to celebrate

Daniel at DQ celebrating his new job at WACO High School Kimmie for Christie's birthday Little Lulu celebrates with us too of course...this was Christie's birthdayChristie Celebrating Dad's brithday Texas Style
Kake for dad's birthday at Sonic Thanks for the Legacy of Celebration DAD! We love it and we love our new Trady!!!

And The Winner Is...

LAKERS LAKERS LAKERS LAKERS!!



How Exciting!! We love when it goes to game 7 of a great series...



So the Final points for this years bracket are:

Dad- 15- better luck next year
Scottee- 16
Daniel- 16
Chris- 25
Melissa- 26
Christie- 36
Richard- 41

AND THE WINNER...KIMMIE WITH 45!!!

Laker's never fail!!

THE FINALS!!

Round three was CRAZY to say the least... some of you out there still have some hope for your bracket... and Let's just say... LAKER's BABY!!

Here are the results from Round 3 (games worth 10 pts each )
and total Points thus far...

Dad- 1 pt= 15 total
Scottee- 1 pt = 16 total
Chris- 10 pts = 25 total
Daniel- 1 pt = 16 total
Richard- 10 pts = 21 total
Christie- 10 pts = 26 total (SHES THE LEADER!!)
Kimmie- 10 pts = 25 total
Melissa- 11 pts = 25 total

AND ON TO THE FINALS!!



SO EXCITED!! and so is Chris as you can tell!





Here are the people who are still in:

Richard- Lakers in 6
Kimmie- Lakers in 6
Melissa- Lakers losing in 7
Chris- Lakers losing in 6
Christie - Celtics losing in 5



This one's for ALL the marbles!

On to Round 3...

Round Two ended quite too soon... I guess we are learning what teams mean business... In round 2 each game was worth 3 points, and 1 extra point for amount of games predicted... So here are the scores for round 2:

IN THE LEAD- CHRISTIE with 10 points!
Chris- 9 points!
Kimmie- 8
Melissa, Scottee, and Dad with 7 points
Daniel and Richard with 6 points...

Round 3 games are worth 5 points each! Here are the predictions...

Eastern Conference Finals:

Celtics vs. Orlando:
Daniel has Orlando in 7
Dad has Orlando in 7
Christie has Celtics in 6
Everyone else is OUT!

WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS:
Lakers vs. Suns:
Melissa has Lakers in 6
Richard has Lakers in 6
Chris has Lakers
Kimmie has Lakers in 7
Everyone else is OUT!

Remember, you can still get points for predicting games... so if you havent (CHRIS) get those to me by the end of the day!!

GO LAKERS!!

The Leader Board

Round 1 is over... and Im not going to lie, there were some upsets...
BUT life goes on and here are the points going into the second round

Kimmie- 6
Richard- 5
Christie- 7
Melissa- 7
Chris- 6
Scottee- 8
Trevor- 8
Dad- 7
AND IN THE LEAD... DANIEL WITH 9 Points! Way to go

Here are the picks for Round 2:

Lakers V. Jazz- ALL LAKERS!

Suns V. Fags (aka Spurs) ALL SUNS!

Cavs V. Celtics- ALL CHOSE Cavs (including Chris...) except Christie

Hawks V. Magic- All MAGIC!

Looks like we are all pretty much on the same page... Good Luck!

PS... if you haven't predicted number of games, let me know ASAP cause youll get extra points if youre right!

Play Off Time!!

It's an exciting time for the Conner family! NBA PLAYOFFS!! WHOP WHOP...




We have some GREAT series to look forward to this year...



We have some interesting twists in this years brackets...



So, I am going to post the predictions by round. First Round games are worth 1 point each... so Ill post the points weekly. There will be a WINNER each Round!! We will use number of game predictions for tie breakers

Here we go for Round 1:

LAKERS vs. Thunder: EVERYONE picked LAKERS!

Denver- Kimmie, Richard, Melissa, Trevor, Chris, and Scottee
vs.
Utah- Dad, Daniel, and Christie

Phoenix vs. Portland: EVERYONE picked SUNS!

Dallas vs. San Antonio suckers: EVERYONE better be pickin dem MAVS!!

Cleveland vs. Chicago: Everyone picked Cavs!

Boston vs. Miami: Everyone picked Celtics!(I think everyone is scared of Chris...)

Atlanta- Kimmie, Melissa, Trevor, Christie, Daniel, Dad, Chris, Scottee
vs.
Milwaukee- Richard

Orlando vs. Charlotte: Everyone picked Orlando!

Here we go...
(PS Kailey is the only person who didn't do her bracket... not tryin to get competitive...)

Easter 2010

All of the sibs got to gather again - this time in St George. Scottee & Kimmie have recently moved there, KiKi, Lucy and KK flew in for the occasion and Chris&Meliss stopped in during their move to Chandbert, AZ. It was such a wonderful gathering at Mike & Teresa's along with the Brax Southwick cousins! We even took time for a rich Easter sunset devotional (no one would get up for a sunRISE devotional).

Oh, it is Love!

There is NO WAY you could not LOVE this girl...

Our Little lu di doo dee, jucy lucy, lovin pot!

Hernandez Update

Richard and Kimmie moved to St. George Utah!

Check out their blog to see pictures... hernandez08.blospot.com

Our baby Kay Kay is 16!!!

Kailey turned 16 January 25th! We had so much fun with Dad when he came up the weekend before her birthday and brought his girlfriend Lisa to celebrate with us! Of course we had steak and congs, strawberry banana fosters, and Rolo cookies! We went to Kent and shopped a little...had some Chipotle then went to see Avatar in Digital 3D...which was RAD! It was Dad, Lisa, Chris, Melissa, Scottee, Shane, Kailey and Katie that went. Everyone loved it but Scottee.

We also went Mini golfing that night. Katie and Kailey rocked it with 3 holes in one. But Dad won overall....somehow. It was a good time and we had fun celebrating together.

Here are some pics from the movie. Just stylin in our 3D glasses...

Acting like "Avatars". Weirdies...

Biggest Chipotle burrito..it was FATTY and delicious!

On Kailey's actual birthday Melissa and Dad took Kailey lunch at school. Dad tried to embarrass her by wearing a rainbow colored tie-dyed shirt and some short shorts (he was really just wearing it without knowing it would be embarrassing) ;) . Dad left back to St. George and that night Melissa made her a special cake and we went to Mom's for cake and presents. For some weird reason she said she wanted a palm tree cake (random) so Melissa took the challenge and came up with this...

Opening presents on her birthday. She got new scriptures, EFY, and a new camera from the parents.
She got good presents that she loved from everyone. Here she is looking old and showing off her gifts....

HAPPY 16TH BIRTHDAY KAKE! LOVE YOU!

And here is a little video requested by the Lotts...

Braces Are Off!!!!!!

SUGAR GLIDERS!!!!

So this is MoMo. One of my new flying squirrels. The other is Ray but he's blind and bites harder haha. We made a big cage for them downstairs. The other day i forgot to lock their cage and MoMo got out. So when i woke up he was gone and it took me like and our to find him uptairs by the computer. Then I have a long process to get him out of where he was. If you really wanna know i got them from Bria in utah and i had to sneak them on the plane by sticking them in my pockets and then drive all the way from boise to Washington with them in the car. It was an adventure. But yeah that's all i can think of that i wanna tell you so.. yep(: lovins...