And he's off... (Brian reporting to the MTC)

Brian flew in to Utah on Tuesday night. Marcus and I picked up my mom and him from the airport and went to Nana and Papa's for a little get-together in honor of the new missionary.

We had one of the few meals Brian actually loves for dinner... Pizza Hut Pizza :)

Family enjoying pizza, salad, fruit, and desserts

The three of us yet again :)

Playing some games on the couch with Aaron and Alex

My mom's cousin Amy and her son Max

Three little ones- Alex, Sydney, and Max

After a couple hours of spending time with family, Brian came down to Provo with Marcus and me. He spent the night with us, with included hooking up the Wii :) In the morning, my mom came down and Brian got ready.

The beginning of the transformation to Elder Page... getting ready at our apartment. (be prepared for a lot of Brian pictures!) We did go to lunch at Cafe Rio between here and the MTC drop off with Nana, Papa, Jonne, Corie, and Jana; however, I'm not posting pictures because photography is technically not allowed in Cafe Rio. Trust me, it was fun, and the food was great!

Brian and Mom...before the teary eyes

Marcus, Brian, me-- the trio of "awesome"!

Definitely a personal favorite- haha.

In front of the Provo Temple

Brothers-in-law :)

Gotta have those cliche MTC sign pictures!

And then I tried to do something new with the traditional photo

Brian made fun of me for taking this picture, but I think it's pretty cool.

How crazy is this- Brian's randomly assigned escort ended up being Elder Alex Page. It's definitely a small world when cousins find each other within five seconds of being at the MTC.

Brian and Alex, excuse me, Elder Page and Elder Page... just a couple Pages- haha.

Getting all his stuff together to enter the MTC

And he's off. ...I'd like to thank Alex for carting off Brian's luggage :)

After dropping off Brian at the MTC, my mom and I went to see This Is It. Just like when I went with the Hardys after dropping off Paden at the MTC, we were the first people there (at the same exact screen in the same theater) and got to pick what we thought would be the best seats.

but this time, we were the ONLY people in the theater. :)

I thought this was a cool picture. Go MJ ;)

I know, pictures of a movie screen are lame, but it was a fun documentary!

Later that night, I had a concert with the Utah Valley Symphony. It was pretty intense because my stand partner was given our music as we walked out on stage. That could've been interesting! But it was a good concert-- and a great day. Hopefully Brian is enjoying the MTC. (Write him letters! or emails.)

A Weekend of Sunshine

Marcus and I made a quick trip to Phoenix this past weekend. Brian was giving a talk, formerly known as a farewell, so we flew down for probably 48 hours. These three were probably the most excited to see us:

Charlie. I know he looks calm here, but he loved more people around. Just don't tell my dad he's on the couch in this picture :)

my mom-- it's been a big year for her. her oldest got married, the second is going on a mission, and her baby got his drivers license. wow!

my little ol' guy- Allegro. isn't he cute?! he always loves more attention.

We had a fun and eventful couple days, including going to Nello's for pizza and the dog park with Charlie. There was a lot of family in town to support Brian, which was awesome. We also had some great family games on the Wii!!! Lucky for Marcus and me, Brian is having us babysit the game system for the next two years ;) But that's not where the elder's generosity ended.

My lap top died a couple weeks ago, so Brian decided to give us his... since he obviously won't be needing it for awhile. Marcus spent his free time upgrading it to Windows 7 and deleting Brian's crazy games :) This was before church-- he was on a roll getting it ready for its big move up north.

All ready for church. Trevor tried to convince all the guys to wear bow ties. G-Daddy did, as well as...

Marcus trying to perfect his bow tie-- Trevor had to teach him how to tie it!


my family outside the church building right after Brian was set-apart as a missionary.

the kids... too bad I'm not as tall as everyone else :)

the big man himself, Elder Brian Gardner Page of the Russia Moscow Mission

After church, family went to Mimi & G-Daddy's house for lunch and some hang-out-with-Brian time...

Mimi getting food ready before people came over

The new Russian elder with cousin Jake

Brian, Papa, G-Daddy, and Ada chillin' on the couch

some family out by the pool-- it was a beautiful, sunny day outside. Loved it!

the nerdy twins grabbing some more food-- Brian finding sandwiches, Marcus searching for shrimp

some relatives on the Page side having lunch

and some Gardners (I thought about making a joke using the last picture's caption and this being the other side of the Page... good thing I didn't!)

Uncle Brad and his four week old baby girl, Ada Rae Gardner

The two Gardner granddaughters... we're only 22 years apart ;)

I had to include this picture-- Trevor was so afraid of hurting Ada that it took him two days to build the courage to hold her. Here's proof he made it :)

Our fun weekend in the sunshine quickly came to an end, and Marcus and I were headed back to Utah... at least we missed the storm over the weekend.

Erica's Un-Birthday!

For my birthday (in August), Marcus bought us tickets to go to the So You Think You Can Dance tour, and the big day finally arrived. We had a fun evening, and we definitely started it out right...

We made Funfetti cookies for our primary class in anticipation of a great Sacrament program :) Okay, so that really wasn't part of our evening, but I did make those cookies, and they're amazing! And our primary class did a great job today-- they even sat still for almost the entire hour. almost.

This is how our exciting night actually begun... We went to one of our favorite places to eat!

Just thinking about it makes me want to go back. Maybe next week :)

And this is almost what my meal looked like. (I just found the clip art and had to include it.) Their chicken tortilla soup is my favorite-- if you know the recipe somehow, let me know! Marcus had some gross sea food soup and a yummy sandwich... I don't need that recipe. :)

And then we were off...
An hour later, we were at the E Center, anxiously waiting (for the doors to open because we were so early, which is what happens when Marcus makes the travel plans) for these dancers...

Obviously a few other people were either just as excited or had someone pushing them to get the best parking because the E Center had a huge crowd out front.

Soon we were inside. We had great tickets. Although a very tall lady sat in front of Marcus, I wouldn't complain about our seats at all. Row 20, middle! Seriously. It was like all those amazingly talented dancers were performing for us. So much cooler than watching on tv! There were a couple girls who should've stopped jumping out of their chairs so much, but they figured out that more people can see if everyone is seated by about intermission. :)

The man himself, Nigel Lythgoe, kicked off the evening. I know this is horrible, but I was so relieved when Cat Deeley wasn't there to host it. She drives me crazy. I enjoy listening to Mary Murphy more than her!

And the show begins... The dancers emceed for themselves, and their scripted jokes were a lot of fun. I can't lie, I laughed a lot.

This is my favorite dance of the season. Battlefield performed by Jeanine and Brandon. You can almost see them on the stage in this picture-- sorry, I took all these pictures on my phone, so they aren't the best.

Intermission. They were setting up the mirrors on the floor for a group number.

This was at intermission. The show was longer than we had anticipated, which probably bugged Marcus more than me :) But we had a blast!

But you should've seen him grin ear to ear when this number started! He loved Janette and Brandon in Ruby Blue-- it's the one where they're burglars. He really enjoyed the second half, which made it even more fun for me.

And finally, the big finish, which kind of reminded me of Disneyland. I'm so glad we were able to go! It was a ton of fun-- and obviously Utah was crazy excited for Randi to be one of the dancers since she is from Orem because everyone went crazy when she was on stage.

We were about deaf by the end, but I loved it all. And so did Marcus, just don't tell :)