Veterans Day Concert

Last night the Golden Corridor orchestra that I play 2nd violin for, held a concert to honor the Veterans. Last year's concert was about 4 times bigger, probably because we were in a much bigger hall. This year was small but still very fun. We played 7 different songs and Dan was so sweet to stand and video all of them for me. Including 4 songs from the youth orchestra. I am going to post my 2 favorite numbers from last night. Take a minute to watch, you won't regret it!





O, America you’re calling,
I can hear you calling me:
You are calling me to be true to thee,
True to thee… I will be.

O, America no weeping,
Let me heal your wounded heart:
I will keep you in my keeping,
Till there be… a new start.

And I will answer you, and I will take your hand,
And lead you… to the sun:
And I will stand by you…do all that I can do,
And we will be… as one.

O, America I hear you,
From your prairies to the sea,
From your mountains grand, and all through this land,
You are beautiful to me.

And… O, America you’re calling,
I can hear you calling me:
You are calling me to be true to thee,
True to thee… I will be.

And I will answer you, and I will take your hand,
And lead you… to the sun:
And I will stand by you… do all that I can do,
And we will be…as one.

O, America you’re calling…
I will ever answer thee.
The fact that William Joseph wrote the music does not suprise me. This is one of the most American heartfelt lyrics I've ever heard. They are truly touching. Brad Kepler the soloist often sings for us, we are lucky to have him.




We played this tribute for the armed forces veterans. Airforce, marine, coastguard, army and navy.

Cindy's Wedding

Cindy is Dan's youngest sibling. She had the faiytale wedding she always dreamed of, and now they are off in Paris, France enjoying Disneyland and the Eiffel tower. They are such a cute couple.


Can you believe that I only snapped one picture of the bride and groom and they weren't even POSING! I'm going to have to steal a better picture from someone.

Dan and Maysa just danced it up at the reception that night, it was very cute.

The purple girls were all the older girl cousins, aren't they so sweet. They really loved being together and hanging out.


These were the flower girls with the white and yellow dresses. They LOVED being flower girls and throwing flowers out of their baskets, even when they weren't supposed to.








Dan, his brothers, Dad and Grandpa. Aren't they a great lookin group.
SO there you have it. I wish that I took way more pictures, but we were having too much fun visiting and playing with cousins and family we barely ever get to see. Dan has 7 brothers and sisters, they were all there. I will post a better picture soon.

Trip to Canada

We had a really great time in Vancouver B.C during spring break. Mostly we visited family. We also visited Glen Canyon park, Crescent Beach and White Rock Beach. We had 2 Canadian thanksgiving dinners while we were there, it was fun.





These 3 pictures were taken at white rock beach. It was sort of a chilly day, the sea wind gave me a bit of a headache. But it was beautiful, the beach is such a novelty to those that abide in Arizona.

Fun hottubbing at Dan's sister Lillian's house. Dan's little brother and wife Viviana were there as well.

Maysa playing with cousin Fynlee.


Glen Canyon park....

... and Suspension bridge...

lots of fun with cousin Leah.

Its scorpion season!

Oh yes this is for real, our neighbors found this nasty monster scorpion in their yard and put it in jar. It was dead when they found it, I had to take it out of the bottle to get a picture, and yes I wore gloves.
Welcome to Arizona!
We have been extremely blessed to not have any scorpions at all in our house in the past 377 days. Yes, we do see them in the yard still especially in September and October. NASTY WASTY, I hate them. But I know for sure the Lord has blessed us in keeping them out of the house. We took exceedingly great pains to seal the house last year and haven't had a problem since. However, if you would like to come to our yard after dark with an ultra violet flashlight, we'll show you a few and how they light up neon yellow. ITS LIKE FREAKY FRIDAY, it really does give me nightmares. Be grateful if you've never seen one! Nasty, nasty, nasty

Uncle Drewy....

Dan's little bro came to visit us for a week in September. We just LOVED having him here and visiting with him. He played with the kids all the time, so that was really great for me. I started to call him the Manny which I'm not sure he was keen about. But he is so good natured, he's just a big teddy bear. I'm not sure he'd like that either. Drew and Dan and Elena hiked picacho peak one day, then they went golfing the next day. Then he celebrated his 27th birthday on Friday. He bought a killer leather jacket at the flea markets. We baked pineapple upside down cake for breakfast then he and Dan had all you can eat steak and cheesecake at the golden corral that evening. What a day. For his last day here we took him out on the boat on canyon lake. It was a fun day and the water was wonderful as usual. Here are some pictures with Uncle Drewdy Drew (as Sierra calls him.)














We miss you Uncle Drew, please come again real soon!!

Children's Museum

Its a good day to blog. I love general conference, but we don't do much else on this day so I needed to catch up. Thats just a picture of the girls working on their conference packets that you can print off the LDS website. I LOVE THOSE! Not a whole lot has happenend since school started, we ended up going to the children's museum on Labor Day. It was crowded, nothing AT ALL like I expected. The kids loved it, Elena was a little bored. But seriously, I was thinking we were going to see like sculptures of the easter bunny, tooth fairy, santa claus, that sort of thing. Maybe some antique toys. NO clue. So I was suprised when they told us the kids were allowed to touch and play with everything in the entire museum. Its kind of just a big fun house. A room where the kids can play store, a room where they can build forts, ride tricyles, an arts and craft room and a monster tree house they could climb around in. I was impressed that most of the projects and contraptions were built from recycled materials you would find around your home. Anyway, I would totally recommend it, I think Dan had just as much fun as the kids, but it was a one time thing. I don't think we'll be going back any time soon. SO here are some pictures of our fun day.






I wanted to add in this last picture of our one rainy day, cause it was such a glorious experience. Everyone from arizona knows what I'm talking about. The whole neighborhood gets together and does the rain dance. Its awesome>!

First Week of School

Well, the first week of school in the Brinton home was fun and a bit frantic. A while back Dan brought home 2 hamster cages from a garage sale across the street. I looked at them and thought Oh NO. So one night a couple days before school started Dan took the kids out. When they came home they suprised me with a box. I thought it was donuts and when I looked in and saw two little mice my heart stopped and I screamed. I was informed they are NOT mice, one is a hamster and one is a gerbil. O-Kay. So the gerbil lasted 5 days. The poor unfortunate thing had a heart attack from too many kids coddling it and possibly Maysa holding it by its tail and running away with it at least 3 times, -that didn't help.
But the hamster is still living... However on the second day of school Elena decided to open the door and just see what it would do. It immedietly ran out the door and stayed under the couch for a good half hour. We kept trying to coax it out with a piece of cheese but it was having way too much fun eating little bits of popcorn and nuts and raisins and whatever else treasures are under our lovely couch. So I finally told Elena to go get ready for school right now and I will catch the dang thing. Twice it came out from under the couch and I could not talk myself into grabbinh it. I'm telling you, it looks exactly like a mouse. Finally it came out again and I grabbed it and maybe sqeezed it too much cause its eyes were bulging, the whole time thinking (THIS IS NOT A MOUSE)and put it back into the cage.
So the same day, we get a call from the school informing us that our neighbors have a killer bee nest in their yard so I should not let the kids walk to and from school. So I've been driving them as well as having nightly nightmares about my kids being attacked by killer bees. So anyway
The kids seem to like their new teachers. They don't have any of their church friends in their classes so thats too bad. Elena's best friends weren't at school this week because one went to Disney and the other is attending Legacy school now. So she spent the recesses reading her book. Sierra is still the social bug, she does well.
Our house continues to be the neighborhood open house every day after school. The neighbor kids start poring in around 3:30 and I think they really love Dan. He entertains everyone ( cuz he's still a big kid at heart) and I hear constant giggles and shreiks until 5 oclock when everyone gets sent home. We then eat dinner and kids do homework and chores till 7. Its been really great to get back on schedule. Even though this first week has been hectic its also been fun.
We are now in the process of planning another trip to Canada for fall break in October. Dan's little sister Cindy will be getting married in October. SO from now till then we have to scrimp and save every little penny we can manage. We'd REALLY like to fly.
I've been enjoying my time with little Maysa all week, she gets bored without her sisters so she clings to me all day. I've been taking her to the kids club at the gym, library, visit teaching, Mcdonalds play place and shopping. Looking forward to having her in pre school!
Also this week I've been trying to enforce healthier eating habits in our home. Since most of the summer we spent eating pizza and ice cream and all sorts of other rubbish. I'm tired of forcing my children to eat veggies so I've been cleverly putting veggies into smoothies. They really love drinking smoothies. SO yesterday they had spinach, avacado, orange, blueberry and strawberry smoothie with their dinner. Did they know it- nope. Dan said he would NOT drink it, but he did try it and totally suprised himself. He loved it and wanted more. hmmmm

KQ Ranch and San DIEGO!!

We had a very nice relaxing week staying in a cabin in the mountains near San Diego. This was our first time staying at KQ ranch. It is an RV resort that is part of our ownership in the Colorado River Adventures. I'm not sure you could call it camping because it was so comfortable and we even had satellite tv. But our nice little (and I mean little)cabin was nestled right on the outskirts so all we had behind us was bush and trees. The resort itself is wonderful. There is mini golf, kids club with crafts and fun games, bubble bounce, fishing pond, swimming pool, playground, bike trails, tennis, basketball courts, horseshoe pits and a dog park and the weather was PERFECT!! No mosquitoes either. So anyway we stayed mostly at the ranch but we did drive into San Diego on two different days so we could play at the beach. Coronado beach was nicer and more family friendly than mission beach but both days the high only reached 70 so we absolutley froze. Dan and the girls swam in the ocean but I hardly put my toe in. What a wimp I've become. Maybe its my old age. So here are some pictures of our adventures this week. You might think I posted too many pictures... you are right. BUT I still had so much more I didn't even post.!

This is our little rental cabin. We loved how it was far enough away from everything to feel secluded. We had our bikes to get around so that was nice.

An inside view. It had a full kitchen and room to sleep 6 people comfortably.


The living room....


This is a scenic view from the other side of the ranch. Isn't it great.


THis is our backyard. We BBQ'd alot and made s'mores at night time.

We spent a little time visiting the town of Julian, which was a couple miles down the road. It is a historic mining town which is now a big tourist attraction. They claim they are world famous for their apple pies. Well, we had to find out what all the fuss was about. It was easily the best apple pie we've ever had. $14.00!!!

Just taking some photos around the ranch, it was really beautiful there.

This fishing pond is always stocked, we will bring rods next time we come.

We spent alot of time at the pool because the highs usually reached 90 during the day.

Dan and Sierra doing their water ballet. It was cute.

We loved Coronado beach, but I just about had a heart attack crossing the huge rickety old bridge to get there. Sierra buried in the sand, she loved it.

Dan loves building sand castles just as much as the kids.


Elena got the hang of boogie boarding after a while.

Maysa buried in the sand.... it didn't last long, I snapped the picture real quick.

For breakfast every day we had pancakes with cream and apple butter, sausages, eggs and orange juice. What else is vacation all about!

Mini Golf.... Maysa.... "how the heck am I going to get that ball through the tunnel"


"Oh ya, now I KNOW!"

I thought this was hilarious, the mini golf course had a bunch of antiques for decoration and when we came across this "washing machine" Dan said, "hey this is what we used growing up." I said you can't be serious, so I'll have to check with his mom if its really true.


This was the view outside my window every night. This picture does no justice. The full moon looked so much bigger.

I LOVE SAN DIEGO!
Well, if you read this far then you are a true blue friend.