She said............

Stay tuned for more pictures.......dance is Sept. 19th.

Love to all
Darci and Family

Homecoming

So, we are at that point in our lives where we now have to come up with cute and clever ways to ask people to dances and to answer those who ask. So the other day, my son, Diego, comes home and says that he wants to ask someone to homecoming so that he can double with his best friend and his girlfriend. I said that should be fine, we will think about it and talk to dad. Well, he informed me that he and his friend were both planning on asking thier respective dates that night! This was at about 6-6:30 pm. How on earth was I supposed to come up with something awesome and clever on a moments notice? And yes, I said I had to come up with it, surely you weren't thinking that my son was going to think of something???? So his idea, well he got it from someone else, was to give her a box of Honeycomb cereal, which I happened to have on hand, and say " Honey, comb your hair, we are going to homecoming." Really? That's what you want to go with??? So, I, being the clever person that I am, came up with this (on short notice I think it is pretty good):







We opened the box and added a bunch of tiny pieces of paper that said different things, one of them saying that is was from Diego.


So off they went, Diego, Cody, and my husband (ya know, for moral support, hah) to doorbell ditch this girl to ask her to homecoming. Oh, and by the way, in case you were wondering what his friend was doing, he was getting a bunch of tiny little fish, putting them in a bowl and telling his girlfriend that out of all the fish in the sea, will you go to homecoming with me? That's are boys!!!!!!! So anyway, they made it to both girls houses, dropped off the stuff, and now we wait.................

Back to School

School has begun!!! Here are some pics of Miguel and Antonio on that beloved first day of school. Neither one of them wanted to take a picture, but what they don't realize is that it could have been much worse. I could have followed Miguel out to the bus stop and taken his picture in front of the bus door (like I did for kindergarten:)) and for Antonio I could have gone to the school and taken his picture in front of his classroom door (he walks to school), but I settled for pics at the house:

(I didn't get one of Diego, but he was just as handsome as these two:))

Antonio with his goofy smile

Miguel thinkin' he is all that and a bag of chips!

For the next two years I will have a child in each of the three schools. It is so amazing how fast they grow up. My son is a junior in high school, can you believe that? It seems like just yesterday he was sitting on the counter with me looking out the window waiting for the bus to preschool to come pick him up. CrAzY!!!!!! Of course, that only means that I am getting older as well.

Love to all
Darci and Family

Random pics

Random pics that I came across:

Charlotte trying to see what Miguel is playing

Charlotte trying to give Miguel a kiss through the window

My sisters baby peacock

This is what happens when you let a 16 month old eat spaghetti by herself

Yes, I have a sister :)

July, 1993: Family Reunion in Provo, Utah. I had just had my first child, he was three months old. Lots of local family, lots of out of town family. I was excited, I had my own little family now and some of my siblings were there to meet me new little boy. My sister, Shery, was there with her husband and her two girls, Harlie (5) and Sydnie (almost 1). We had a great time.

Flash forward 16 years to Aug 2009. Here is how the conversation went:
(Me)"My sister is coming through town. They are moving from Arizona to Boise." (others)"You have a sister?" (Me)"Yes, I have a sister." (Others)"I never realized that."

My kids didn't even know I had a sister until about 5 years ago. Why, you ask? Well, when my sister joined our family, I was 5 and she was 10. I don't know exactly why we weren't close, but I kind of attribute it to the fact that we didn't grow up together as small children. I looked up to her, I thought her jewelry was awesome, 'shared' her earrings (although she always got mad), and liked some of the same music she did. In fact, that is how I got introduced to Kenny Rogers. She LOVED him and had lots of his music. She even went to one of his concerts. So I started to like his music and still listen to some of his older stuff. Then she left home, got married and moved. We weren't best friends, but I guess I thought we would keep in touch more, 'cause that is what family does, right? Well, not exactly.
I hadn't seen or heard from her since that family reunion in July 1993. There was one time in Nov a few years ago when we were almost together again as an entire family, which hadn't happened since my wedding in 1992, but that fell through and Shery and her family didn't make it to Thanksgiving with the rest of us. It was really kind of sad. There we were, 7 of 8 kids with all of our families. Hoping to take family pictures. Unfortunately, the family pictures we did take weren't complete.

Well, Shery and her family decided to move back to Boise. They left Arizona on Monday morning and needed a place to crash as they came through. Of course, our home was open and we had the space to accomodate Shery, Sean and Roudie (Harlie already lived in Boise and Sydnie was staying in AZ to finish school), plus 2 cockatoos, a baby peacock, a parakeet, and a dog. (I know!) They got into town around noon on Tuesday and stayed overnight and left Wednesday morning to head on to Boise. My kids were really excited to finally meet their Aunt Shery and her family, and we were excited to finally meet Roudie (almost 15). It turned out to be a great visit, they were able to get the rest that they needed to continue on with the trip, and we were able to get re-aquainted. Scott and Helen were there for Tuesday evening as well. I don't even know how long it had been since Scott had seen her, but Helen had never met her.

Sadly, there have been many times in the last 16 years that in talking about my family I sometimes would forget, subconciously, that I had a sister. How sad is that? I realize that our lifestyles are as different as they can be, but should that have an affect on our relationship? I didn't ever think that we would be best friends and talk every day, and visit all the time, but I didn't ever think that it would be 16 years between visits, phone calls or letters either.

I want to say to all of my sisters-in-law, on my side as well as my husbands side, that I am grateful for all of you, I consider all of you my sisters, and now hopefully I have gained one sister back. Not that she was ever gone, but hopefully now that we are all older and wiser (???) and we live closer to each other now that we can stay in touch more.

I hope everything works out for their family. They have had lots of ups and downs. I really hope that they realize that no matter what anyone thinks of anothers lifestyle or situation that family is family and we are there for each other when needed. I hope that she can see that in the help that my brother Tim and his daughter Sydne were able to give them when they were packing up the truck, I hope that they can see that in my parents who helped them line up a place to stay both here and in Boise until they can get settled, I hope they realize that in the help that my family was able to give them in a place to stay for the night on a long trip, and I hope that they realize that if any of the rest of my siblings were anywhere where they could have helped they would have, hands down. We are family.

I know this is kind of long, and the person who it is meant for the most will never read it, but I just wanted to get it out there that yes, I have a sister and hopefully it will stay in the forefront of my mind where it belongs. As many of you know me, I am not a totally sappy person, and those of you who know Shery know that she is even less of a sappy person, so there was no heart to heart between her and I, but I think the message between us got across in its own way.

Thanks for listening
Love to all
Darci and family

It Seems Like Just Yesterday.......

Really???????? Am I that old???????

My oldest son, Diego, is now an official licensed and insured driver and has a girlfriend! I can't believe that we are here already. It seem like in the last few months teachers have wanted baby pictures of the kids for presentations, etc., so we have been looking through a lot of photos and it is so amazing to see how my children have grown. It doesn't seem like this is the point at which we should be, but, here we are.

We were at a baseball game the other day for the son of some friends of ours. He plays machine pitch on a city team and the ages range from 7-9 (I think). Anyway, while we were sitting there watching these little guys play, I was thinking how tiny and young they look. Then it dawned on me, Miguel had just turned 8 when he tried out and made the team is on now!!! I can't even remember him at that stage. Isn't it weird how when you look at your kids every day you don't remember them any other way until you look at pictures or have 'dawning' moments?

Then here is Antonio, just turned 11 and is a New Scout! He will working on merit badges! I keep looking at him and I wonder if I will ever be able to look at him and not see my 'baby'. He is getting older, but he will always be my baby.


Love to all
Darci and Family

Here they are again sporting their Goofy hats (Diego got one on the last trip but didn't bring it with him:()


Here are the boys posing on the way into the Astro Blasters ride at Disneyland


This is Miguel buried at the beach


This is the boat from the movie King Kong


This is Antonio buried at Newport Beach