Florida

Every couple of years my parents plan a family vacation for our whole immediate family. So right now Jayden and I are on vacation with my parents, 5 of my siblings & their kids in Florida. We are having a great time, but we MOST DEFINITELY miss Shane and Tia. Tia is on vacation at her Aunt's house and is enjoying her first pedicure, playing with her twin cousins, painting, going to parks, and lots of other fun stuff. She's been a very lucky girl-Thanks Aunt Tera! And Shane is, of course, still in Texas :(

Anyways, we are going to be sharing a bunch of pictures these next couple of days so that Shane & Tia can still be a part of this! We love you both and miss you soooooooo much!

The Flight

Love this thing...it kept Jayden busy for 45 minutes on our flight to Florida!

The Atkin Clan (minus a few of the siblings) at the Orlando Temple.

Grandpa Atkin's 66th Birthday Party (at Buca di Beppo's)

Waiting for dinner to come.

Table 1

Table 2

Grandpa Atkin had the little one's blow out his birthday candles.

For Grandpa's birthday we all contributed to his "new road bike" fund, so here's a cake showing what we got him (since we couldn't bring it with us).

Eating ice cream & cake after dinner. Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Lizard Hunting with Uncle Rick

After dessert Uncle Rick took all the little kids out hunting for Lizards and other wild things.

We saw BILLIONS of these...

And this crazy thing...

(this made our night)

We also saw this sign by the Resort pond...

...gotta love Florida!

Goodbye Captain!

Shane left this morning for San Antonio, Texas :(. He is in training for the next 6 weeks, then we will meet up with him in the Los Angeles Airport for our flight to Japan. We will miss you Shane, but we are so excited to begin this adventure with you! We love you!

Captain Shane Andrews

Before Shane left to Texas his family threw him a little party and his dad (who is a Lieutenant Colonel) commissioned Shane to a Captain. It was a very special meeting with family & friends! Thanks everyone for making it so sweet!

Shane's sister Tiana put together a really neat, patriotic video for the evening. It was very touching! Thanks Tiana!

Here's Jayden and I pinning Shane with his Captain patch & pin...

And here's Shane being commissioned to a Captain...

Shane and his cute sisters.

Congrats Shane...we love you!

HELLO UTAH!!!

Yes...we are back in Utah! The military does not need us in Japan until the middle of July, so we are hanging out with our families until then. Both of our parents have been so kind to let us move in...AGAIN. It seems like we move home about once a year...thanks guys...we love you!

Here are some fun things we've done in the 2 weeks we've been here.

TOWNSQUARE PARK

in Downtown St. George

Jayden & his twin cousins.

Jayden

Cousin Sage.

Cousin Aspen.

DAYS OF CAMELOT

MEDIEVAL FESTIVAL

We went to a Medieval Festival with Shane's family. The kids really had a great time!

Sage

Here's Aspen cheating with his hands.

Jayden was really excited to use his sword (and not get in trouble).

Jayden swung and MISSED the first time :(

So here he is coming back with a vengence... Just look at that face!

Tia & her horse...which she didn't wear for more than 1 minute.

Tia's attack!

Grandpa and the Sponge Throw.

Way to go Jayden!

Then Uncle Byron decided to spice up the attacks...

Grandpa was a GREAT sport! We love you Grandpa!

Here's Jayden becoming a Knight...

And here he is signing a paper saying that he will NEVER use his sword to hurt anyone (grandparents, parents, cousins, his sister, etc.)

We've Moved!

It's done...our belongings are now on their way to Japan. All we have to say is...having someone else pack & move your stuff is AWESOME!!! The military payed a moving company to pack & move EVERYTHING. It only took them 1 day to do it all. Watching those movers in action was so exciting! Shane & I were having a blast! We tried to be there to help out, but just seemed to get in their way. They have it down to a T. Way to go REBEL Van Lines Moving Co.!!

Everything was individually wrapped in thick brown paper.

Then labeled...

and packed into this beauty....

The guy in charge told us this was a 53 foot semi. It was HUGE!

I don't know if you can tell, but in this picture you can see that there are a bunch of crates inside the semi. After they would fill a crate they would nail it up and put our name & destination on it. Then these crates were loaded onto a ship and set sail for Japan!