Davy the Lion

Ronan the Lion. Love the little body big head.

Dave's work hosted a Christmas party for the kids. We saw Santa and got a family photo. Then there was presents for each of the kids. Plus hot chocolate and cookies. We love this Real tradition.

With the staff out of town someone had to fill in for Leo the Lion on Good Things Utah.

Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday Davy!

Dave celebrated a birthday yesterday. I wont say how old the old man is getting but it is above 30. I am amazed at all the things he has accomplished in just the 10 years I have known him. He has excelled at every area of his life. Not only is he a great husband and father but he has blessed the lives of many others. He manages to balance church callings and a busy work schedule and still find time for the important things in life. I am so proud of him and lucky to call him my husband.



He brought the MLS cup home for a lecture he did at Weber State. I wish we would have got a picture of the trophy seat belted in the front seat of the car with him.

I had him take his birthday off from work. For years I have felt that it should be required. Lets face it what else is exciting when your our age. Dave didn't heed my advice last year. Drove 2 hours to work in a snow storm, got yelled at by his boss, and crashed his car. Needless to say lesson learned. This year he stayed home. And I think it was a much better day. We had a big breakfast, went out to lunch, he did a project in our entryway (I'll post pictures when we have painted it), I sent him to a massage, then Leah had a school performance, and last of all he went out to a movie with some friends.

The old trick candles are funny every time.

Christmas Festivities

Gingerbread houses we made for Eva's playgroup. It was messy but oh so fun.

Eva with hers.

Leah was so excited when her name got picked to be the Christmas tree in her school performance. She was darling and did a perfect job performing.

Her teacher has the cutest program put together. So many darling songs and cute little touches to everything. Each student got their own part. We have loved her teacher and couldn't ask for a better year for Leah.

I Was Thankful For

As I am every year but even more this one. A husband who loves to cook! It tops my list every Thanksgiving. He is amazing and the food is too. I had the flu the whole week before the holiday. And lucky felt better enough to eat that day. But Dave shopped and did ALL the cooking.

Real Wins the MLS Cup

AND WE WERE THERE! There was a huge surprise for me Monday night when I found out there was room on the private flight to Seattle. Plus we all got to go from Thursday until Monday. Thankfully we had Grandma Flo and Nana and Papa to babysit the rug rats. I didn't want to lug the big camera around with me so there aren't a ton of pictures. But we did have some great times. Our hotel was right downtown within 3 blocks of any store you can imagine. All I could have wished for was a girl friend to shop with. We enjoyed going out to eat, seeing the sites, and attending a few Real events. The best part of the whole trip was going to the Real vs. LA Galaxy game. In case you didn't see it we tied, went into overtime, still tied, went to a shoot out. Where Real won. It was the most exciting game I have ever been to.

Real hosted a nice after party for all the employees and players.

This is the gang of guys I hung around with for the trip. Minus Yura but that would have been cool. They all work for Dave in the marketing department. It is a good thing these guys are fun. But do you see what I mean about needed a girl to shop with.

This is Dave being wrestled by 2 kids and a dog. Pretty funny I waited a few minutes to help him up because it was hilarious. We got to see Erin and Garreth and all the kids.

Leo the Lion and I waiting to leave on our chartered flight. We left from the Millionaire terminal and then got to return into the main terminal in SLC.

Davy with the Real plane behind us. I was awesome going with the team on the flight. I certainly loved coming back to a screaming crowd at the airport.

Halloween

Leah the skeleton. She really wanted to be something scary.

Ronan the pirate. Ask him what a pirate says, he will answer, aghrrr mates.

Eva the witch. She had a really cute halloween program for her preschool we enjoyed the Saturday before Halloween. They sang all of the songs they have been learning at school.

Assembly Super Star

A friend of ours was in charge of Red Ribbon week at Heritage. We tried really hard to get a player to come to the assembly. But they had a game on Saturday and didn't have anyone that could make it. So the next best thing......

Davy and Leo the Lion.

The crowd loved it! Dave was his charming self. And had all the hundreds of kids completely quiet. Which he didn't realize is quite an accomplishment at an elementary school. He had kids come up on stage and show their soccer moves. While he talked about how sports players stay healthy. Leo the Lion got the crowd excited. By doing standing back flips and all sorts of craziness. This picture is when they were throwing out t-shirts to the crowd of kids. Followed by a song from Davy, "pockets on the floor, pockets on the floor."

Davy and his rendition of pockets on the floor. One of the sweetest things was that Leah got to introduce Dave to the school. We didn't know she was going to do it so this wasn't rehearsed at all. She said, "Hi this is Leah Ratchford from Ms. Schneider's class. My dad works for Real Salt Lake the soccer team. Please put your hands together for my daddy Davy Ratchford."

Black Island Farm

We had to take advantage of the beautiful weather on Friday. And the fact that my mom was in town to help with an outing. For the last few years we have meant to get to Black Island Farms and never made it. I was really impressed. The kids ran every where they went. I took a ton of cute pictures and here are a few of my favorite.


Picking out our pumpkins. The girls had to have the biggest ones they could find and Ronan only wanted a small one.

There is 2 big corn mazes and one small kids one. They girls loved it. We had Leah's good friend miss K with us.

These teeter toter's were a big hit with the kids.

The corn box

This crazy slide I had to go down with Ronan. It looks really steep from the top so there may have been some screaming from Nana and I.

These two had so much fun together. They look as crazy as they were.