International Children's Music Festival

So Dan and I have been on the committee for this International Children's Music Festival this year and in a week will be seeing it all put together. The festival is bringing over children from Japan, Nepal, Kenya, and from the U.S. who all share a common love for music. As a part of the committee I've been involved with the dancers and have paired them up with local dance groups to do workshops. I cannot wait to see them dance together!! For most of these kids it will be their first visit to the United States. While they're here they will be home staying with families across Utah from the 4th to the 10th. Dan and I are excited to host a couple of our own! If there are any of you, or know of anyone, who would be interested in hosting some kids, there are about 100 kids who still need homes to stay in!!! They will need a ride in the morning to a drop off point and then will need to be picked up in the evening at that same point. The kids will also need breakfast and dinner with your family. Nothing special, they want to experience your everyday way of life. Anyway, let me know if there are any of you who are interested!!
Also, because the festival is being put on by a non-profit organization, we are depending solely on sponsors to fund the event. This year The Singing Children of Africa are coming and we are still looking for help to cover the costs of them coming over for the event. If anyone knows of any companies that may want to sponsor a child, we'd be very interested in talking with them. We're also looking for any kind of donations no matter how small if you'd like to support the children and the festival. It's going to be an amazing experience for these children and would like to continue on with this event each year.

Another way people can support the kids is by coming to the opening and closing concerts. The opening concert will be held at Thanksgiving Point at 7:30 pm in the Waterfall Amphitheater. It'll be a big welcome for the kids with performances by Jon Schmidt, Alex Boye, Sheree Fitzgerald, The Dance Club, Ryan Shupe and the Rubber Band, and many more local artists. It's going to be a blast! VIP tickets are $20, Family passes are $15, and for general admission it's $8 per person. All proceeds will go towards the festival. You can purchase tickets before from Thanksgiving Point or at the door. Please tell all your friends and family! At the end of the week, the kids will put on a concert for us at Cottonwood High School. I'm not sure of the ticket prices for that, but it'll be on the 9th at 6pm. This concert should be absolutely amazing!! You won't want to miss it!

We're really excited about this event and think it's such a worthy cause for those who would like to get involved too!! We've got more details for those who'd like to know more.

The Ridiculous Six

This last Saturday night Dan and I went on a double date with Andrew (Dan's brother) and Liz (a good friend from work). We set them up for this date extravaganza!! The theme for the evening was Rock Band. We decided that we would create our own band named 'The Ridiculous Six'. We dressed eachother up in the best rockin' clothes that we had to get into character fully. As you can see, we looked sooo cool! Once we were all dressed up we went to the One Man Band Diner... well, because it had the word 'band' in it. It was actually very good and we signed a few autographs. We're famous already!! We ended the night with a concert in our basement. We totally rocked especially all dressed up as true rockers! It was a great night!

"The Ridiculous Six"

Liz and Andrew striking a pose

Rocker Babes Yes, those are my shirts that Andrew is wearing! We get 40 miles to the gallon on this hog...still got room for one more Rocker MOM We're the real deal!

Our Little Princess!!

Hooray!! We are having a baby girl! We just came from the ultrasound appointment and really enjoyed it. Our little girl was moving around like crazy!! It was so fun to see! Anyway, we have a DVD of it and some pictures and would like to share it with you if you'd like to see it!!

Cinco De Mayo Extravaganza

We had a blast with some of our good friends for Cinco de Mayo this year! We all gathered in Provo for a BBQ at the park. Dan and I were put in charge of coming up with fun games for the event. We took this assignment very seriously! We don't mess around! We started with 'Pin the Mustache on the Gaucho', followed by the 'Taquito Toss'. I have to give props to the Pendletons for dominating the mustache game (even though Matt started wandering way out of bounds he ended up finding his way back and almost nailing it), and props to the Tieks for beating Dan and I in a single shot overtime round of Taquito Toss. We so almost had them. We then broke up into two teams for a special relay race that included holding and passing a bell pepper neck to neck, carrying cinco hot tamales with a hot pad without dropping them, and finishing by chugging a one liter of sprite, getting the worm from the bottom and passing the worm on to their partner to eat. It was definitely intense!! Our team came out victorious!! Matt nearly threw up his sprite, but made it through quick enough to have Jamie pretty much swallow the worm whole. They had to be quick because Ben was taking down the Sprite like a champ and Sheri was on Jamie's tail to finish the worm. Way to go team!! Back at the house we ended the night with a couple of Mexican Word Wizard games where we had to match Spanish words to the appropriate pictures and also unscramble other frequently used Spanish words. We had a blast!! Thanks Sami for planning it and making that amazing Pinata!!

Dan was allowed a mustache for this special occasion only!! It usually makes me want to vomit!

Hola!! Sporting the sombrero!

Smashing the killer Pinata Sami made for the special day!!

CANDY GALORE!! Olè!!

Our magnificent Mexican Gaucho! Some people were way off! The 'Taquito Toss' was between his legs afterwards!

Dan's a little scary here. He's just really excited about the taquito event I guess.

Looks like Ben's about to throw up and Matt is in the process. They're chugging their "Tequila" Sprite!

Can we still be friends??

So Dan and I have been yelled at for not updating our blog...ever. So sorry!! We are slackers indeed. Hopefully we can all still be friends!!?!

The biggest and best news right now is that we're expecting a baby!! Baby Brandt is on the way! September 26th is my due date. Currently, I just started my 19th week. Most of my weight is being distributed to my lower half, thank you. I have a small pooch for now, but it continues to grow each week.

I have given up my beloved Dr. Pepper for the baby. It hasn't been too difficult, but I do miss it. I only use it medicinally, as I've been getting migraines and such. It's the only thing that will aid me since Tylenol doesn't do much.

Dan and I are extremely anxious to find out the gender of our baby. We were hoping they'd tell us at our last appointment, but no luck. We have an ultrasound appointment set up for May 8th!! We'll let you know what we find out.

We both feel like it's a boy, but you never know. Going off different symptoms and wifes tales, I have both boy and girl symptoms.

We may be a little anti-social right now because I get so stinkin' tired. I work all day and then all I want to do is sleep.

OTHER NEWS!!! Dan just had his 28th birthday!! Yes, he's getting old, but is as sexy as ever! We have a fun date planned for Saturday if it's warm and are planning on doing some hiking and camping when the weather gets good. Anybody else up for that?