Well...it happened. Josh talked me into getting a dog. Our neighbor across the street has a chocolate lab that had 5 puppies and as soon as I saw them I knew we were in trouble. We talked about it for about a month and ended up compromising quite a bit. We finally both felt good about it, however we had fallen in love with both the yellow and black labs. It took us about a week to decide which one to get, and on Friday, July 10 we brought the yellow one home with us to stay. We decided on the yellow one because she was the cuddliest and calmest of them all. She is also the smallest. We thought she would do better with the kids than the black one, which was the most aggressive. I'm still not 100% sure that I can do this, but because Josh agreed that it will be an outside dog I am going to try and hang in there until she can stay outside all the time. Here are some pics when we were trying to decide which one to get, about 2 days before we brought her home. After seeing Brayden with her, how could I not say yes?!
As for her name...that's another story. We took her to Josh's parent's house the night we got her and jokingly I mentioned the name Jazz to Josh's mom. Josh overheard and went with it. To me, Jazz is more of a boy's name so we compromised. We named her Jasmine, which for short will be Jazz. It's grown on us and we love her. What sold me on the name is how cute Brayden was when he started calling her Jasmine and Jazz. Here are a few pics from the first night.
Because we keep taking SO many pictures of Jazz, I have decided to start a blog dedicated to her. It's www.andallthatjazz3@blogspot.com. As soon as I'm caught up on our blog, I'll get hers started. This way I can print a blog book every year just of her!
Here's Brayden checking out his stash of candy. Notice the bagel behind him he quickly discarded as soon as the candy started coming. What a great breakfast!
The reason we came - cute baby Simon:
The cutest kids after the parade: 
After the parade we headed back to Ryon and Jana's for some pizza. Jana's family has a tradition of doing a huge waterslide every year, so we helped get it all ready. It was a ton of fun going down the waterslide, although Brayden wasn't a fan. Josh first took him down with him but ended up going really fast, so Brayden screamed the whole time. So we decided to put him on the slide just half way and push him down. It went well the first time, but the second time Josh pushed a litle too hard and he ended up on his back. 
So we tried one more time and he ended up sliding head first into the puddle of water.
Let's just say he was done. Unfortunately for him, we were not. So after about 30 minutes, I carried him up the hill while he was kicking and screaming and took him down with me. I covered his eyes when we went through the water and I think that helped, although it was not the solution. At the end of the day he still hated it. 
Here we all are going down the slide.
Brooklyn, on the other hand, absolutely loved it. I took her down with me quite a few times, then started sending her down just holding her hand. I didn't get a picture of her, but she was giggling the whole way down. Although it doesn't look like it, you get going pretty fast. Here's Josh:
The other main attraction was the tire swing. The kids couldn't get enough of them. At one point Brooklyn almost fell asleep.
Of course Brayden had to play hoops with dad.
We had a great game of volleyball:
As we were all running to the cars to make it to the fireworks, I realized we hadn't taken a family picture yet. Here is our quick attempt:
Because there was only one entrance to the neighborhood we were in, it took us 2 hours to drive the 1/2 mile to the freeway. We couldn't believe the gridlock we were in and how rude people are. We finally made it home and had a great night of sleep. Thanks Ryon and Jana for a great holiday!
Here's Ryon playing the guitar and singing to Simon. I didn't get my camera in time, but when he started singing Simon just sat and watched with the biggest smile on his face. It was so cute. You can also see Carson and Nacho, the dog, in the background.
While the kids napped, Josh went with Ryon and their kids Hannah, Carson, and Harrison to the ice caves. I forgot to send him with the camera, of course, but he had a lot of fun. Here is a picture of when I went 2 years ago.
That night we went next door to the neighborhood firework show. He had bought some illegal fireworks so everyone came out to watch. Brayden HATED them. He just screamed and screamed b/c of the noise. We all thought it was funny until a firework fell over and shot something at the kids standing next to us and then it fell in Brayden's lap. We all jumped up freaking out. Luckily nothing happened, but that was the end of it for Brayden. He was beyond freaked out now so Josh took him inside for the rest of the show.
Here he is trying to hide.
All I want to know is how in the world do you get a little girl to sit still?!
