THE DAYTON FAMILY

I cannot believe that our sweet little boy is already a whole year old! Time goes by too quickly! He had a fun birthday on June 25th playing with balloons, blowing bubbles, and swinging in the park. In the evening we had a "party" with a few presents (thank you to all the relatives who sent gifts) and some chocolate cake that Tay loved! I made him his own little mini-cake with some of the batter from the main cake. :)

Our last little bit in Kiev - spending time with our wonderful friends: We flew from Kiev to Moscow on Saturday, May 30th and spent a week in Moscow, Kaluga, and Ryazan visiting people from David's mission and also interviewing at several firms in downtown Moscow. On Saturday, June 6, we left for the airport at 4am Moscow time (6pm in Utah), at 8am we flew from Moscow to Prague (almost 3 hours), then had a short 1.5 hour layover where we had to check back in and go through security again, then we flew from Prague to NYC (11 hours) - by this time it felt like 11:30pm to us, but it was like 2:30pm in NYC - and then we had some issues again and BARELY made our plane (just over 5 hours) to SLC. We arrived home in SJ around 9pm (7am in Moscow.) So we had a 27 hour trip with an 11 month old...NOT fun. But we made it!!! Seeing Grandma after the long journey home: The next morning we went to 9am sacrament and then jumped into our cars and made the 9 hour drive to Colorado Springs becau...

This past week was our 4 year anniversary. Every year, something has gone wrong and it has been really lame. This year was no different - David started feeling ill on Monday evening. By Tuesday, he had chills and a fever and was throwing up. He spent Wednesday (our anniversary) through Friday in bed and didn't really feel better again until Sunday. This is ironic because our 1st anniversary was after we'd been on tour in Ukraine for 3 weeks, we were flying to Russia soon, and David spent the night (after 2 shows that day) with a fever and throwing up. We have decided that even if we end up living inUkraine, we won't spend another anniversary here. :) He did get me some of my favorite lilies though - what a sweetheart!!! Here is David walking home with Sasha ( 18 year old boy who lives with us, he and David have become good friends) from his last activity before he got sick...basketball (of course!) Not much new has happened this week because of the illness. I did go to th...

I hate walking. I really do. When I was a kid, my friends and I would pretend that we were X-men. We would take turns picking which character we wanted to be. Some of the most popular picks were Wolverine, Cyclops, and Gambit because of their strength and unique skills. It didn’t matter if I was given the first or last pick no one ever chose my character. I was Professor X, and I did not choose him (although I might have, with my keen 11-year old brain) because he was a mutant scientific genius with one of the most powerful mutant minds, or because he was a high-level telepath. Nope. I chose him because he had the floating chair. While all of my friends would walk around, fighting and attacking each other, I would sit in my chair and imagine that I was floating with them, and using my telekinesis on them. A few years ago, while Heather and I were living in the condo, I had classes that started in the mid-morning at BYU. I would drive a little early to school, stop between the RB and t...