Pause.....Happy New Year

My parents hosted the "1st Annual Berger New Years Eve Party" at their house tonight. Both Teresa and Stefanie came with most of their families. We met about 5:30pm and had dinner as a family. After dinner we visited and played games together. We took the Nintendo Wii over and Teresa's boys brought their Playstation 2 and guitar hero.

We played all sorts of games. Phase 10, uno Master (a cool new game we got for Christmas), Swipe, etc, etc. Ryan and Deni playing Phase 10.

Because we all have little kids and we didn't want them to be up until midnight MST, we decided to celebrate the New Year with the East Coast at 10pm MST. The best part of the night was about 3 minutes before 10pm MST. My mom was channel surfing attempting to find a channel showing the Ball falling in NYC. Apparently everyone wasn't quite ready, so we paused live tv until everyone was ready. What did we do before we could pause live tv?



Sydney with 2 of her cousins getting ready to ring in the new year (NY time).

High School Musical Audtions

Sydney is a huge High School Musical Fan.

While we were waiting for Deni to run into a store the kids and I were listening to the Soundtrack for High School Musical 2 and I caught this little video clip of Sydney singing.



Oh and we have had the High School Musical 2 soundtrack for 4 days. She learns fast.

Also, if you didn't notice, he's wearing her High School Musical Varsity Jacket too.

Christmas Traditions - Sitting on the Stairs

Growing up, I had a lot of constants in life. Things I could always plan on. One of those was, no matter what time we woke up on Christmas morning (early or late), we had wait for my dad to "get his eye's in" and then get his cameras ready to capture the events of the day.

As a kid, it felt like an eternity. Even worse, once he had his contacts in and cameras ready, he would go downstairs and taunt us by saying "Do you think Santa came?" and "Ooh look at what Brett got." We had to wait upstairs until we got the go ahead to come running down the stairs.

I thought of my childhood Christmas's as I made my kids sit on the stairs and wait while I got my camera ready before I let them come up to see what Santa brought them. It's funny how that works.

Although it looks like Ryan is crying, he isn't. I think I caught him mid sneeze.

Christmas morning, waiting on the stairs.

Christmas Eve Snow

We went to my parents house this afternoon for a Christmas get together. We got there around 1:00 pm. It was cold but not snowing....yet. We had a great lunch and an enjoyable time visiting as a family. After lunch, we played "Disney Scene it" for a while with all 19 of us. Playing a game with 19 people isn't that easy either. It began to snow very hard while we were playing. Around 5:30pm we decided that we should get the presents we had stashed at my parents into our car. When we went out to the car, there was about 2 inches of new snow. By the time we left, about an hour later, there was even more snow. Dad got out the 4 wheeler to clean off "the driveway", however even with the snow off, we slid all the way down. The roads weren't that great coming home but we got home safely and did our Christmas eve traditions.

Ryan read the Christmas story out of Luke 2 to us.

Sydney was our picture holder.

After reading the Christmas story we put our stockings out and then opened a present from Grandma Berger. Deni read the book to the kids and then we put them to bed.

Brett, Ryan and Sydney

Ryan, Deni and Sydney

The kids have been in bed for about 30 minutes and I think they are asleep. Now comes the fun part.

Christmas Traditions - Sugar cookies

As a kid, I always remembering my mom making sugar cookies around Christmas time and as a family we would decorate the cookies for our friends. It was fun decorating them. I also remember having a good time driving around to my friends homes to deliver them.

Deni made cookies for us this year and we spent a Monday night decorating them and delivering them to some of the kids friends. We had a great time as a family decorating the cookies.

Ryan and his cookie:

Deni and her cookie:

Right before we went out to deliver the cookies:

White Christmas

I just watched the weather and it appears that we will have a White Christmas this year. It's not snowing yet but is supposed to be snowing by tomorrow and continue almost all week.

Tonight the kids and I watched a Sesame Street Christmas show on TV. They have been so excited about Christmas this year and have been counting down the days till Christmas.

We have an advent calendar (the one we had when I was little) and the kids have been taking turns putting up an ornament each day. They were so wound up tonight before bed that I didn't think Sydney was going to go to sleep. After I put her to bed, she laid in her bed singing Christmas songs as loud as she could.

Tomorrow we are headed to my parents for lunch with the rest of my family and then we'll spend Christmas day at home.

Dear Heavenly Father .... and Jesus

I put Sydney to bed tonight and she had a cute prayer. She said:

"Dear Heavenly Father.....and Jesus. I love you. And I love Azure." Her prayer continued on and she said, "and I love the movie Annie."

This weekend I was sick, so I was stuck inside all weekend. While I was here though, Sydney was saying the ABC song to me and she would get the the "L, M, N, O" part and say "Elmo Elmo P" I stopped her and told her it wasn't "Elmo Elmo P" but that it was "L, M, N, O, P". She laughed and tried it again, but for some reason it always came out as "Elmo Elmo P".

Bowling with the Bro-in-laws

Since the funeral, we had been sitting around not doing much and someone decided that we should take out my bro-in-law Brian out for some fun. I went with Deni's Dad and my 3 Bro-in-laws to a Bowling Alley about 30 miles from Heber.

I hadn't bowled in a long time, but was fun to get out and bowl. My first game was pretty good. I had 149 point going into my last frame. All I had to do was get a spare, so I could bowl one more frame. As I was getting ready to bowl Nic came from behind me and ruined my last frame.

All in all it was a fun time.

The Funeral

I went to bed at about 2am this morning (after a long drive alone from Home to Arizona). I set my alarm clock for 10am, so I would be up in time for the 1pm funeral. Wishful thinking. I was woken up just before 7am to help carry the empty casket from the house to the back of Keith's truck.

A closed casket viewing started at 10:00 am. There were lots of people that showed up. I've only been to four funerals total in my life, however by far this was the most attended funeral. I'm sad to think that Deni's sister, Azure, is gone and it is even harder seeing her husband left with a 6 month old. I did fine with my emotions for the most part. I watched as people came in and paid their respects to Azure and spoke with her husband Brian. I didn't know anyone coming in to give their respects, but sat there and watched as they came in and spoke with Brian. I was far enough away that I could hear what they were saying , but watched anyways. Deni leaned over while I was watching the people come in and talk to Brian and she pointed to the guy that had found Azure and did CPR. As I said, I couldn't hear what he was saying, however I could tell it was a special moment. There was also a video/slideshow of Azure playing in the background.

At 12:30 pm they closed the doors to immediate family only. At that point, they opened the casket and let the family pay their respects. Deni and I didn't want the kids to see her, so we kept them back. Personally, I'd always like to remember people the way they were when they were alive, instead of seeing their body.

The funeral started at 1:00 pm. We walked in as the family to a completely packed church. They estimated there were at least 1,200 people there. The Chapel was full, the gym was full, all the rooms were full as well as people standing in the hall ways. Quite the showing, from a small community.

Deni, as well as her dad, brother and sisters, spoke. They all had great things to say. I enjoyed Deni's talk. She focused on the Young Womens theme and how Azure exemplified those values.

After the funeral, I was one of the Pall Bearers, so I helped the casket into the Hearse. We then drove a mile or so to the Cemetery. I then helped the casket out of the Hearse and to the burial site. The grave was dedicated by Brian.

We went back to the church for a luncheon and then to Brian's house. Our family is going to stay at Brian's for the next few days to help him out.

Farm Fresh Days

Ryan had a field trip today that he didn't want to miss, plus Deni had signed up to go along and help, so I filled in for Deni and went on the field trip with Ryan.

First we went to Springville to a pumpkin patch and he was able to pick out a pumpkin of his choosing. It was freezing outside (about 40 degrees) and raining on and off, not the best time for a field trip. Then we went to a park in American Fork for lunch. They had us get off the bus and eat outside, but because of the wind/rain and temperature, they finally let us back on the bus to finish our lunches.

We then went to "Farm Fresh Days" where the kids learned about farming and ranching. One of the ladies talked about pigs and what pigs are used for. She said, they use pigs to make make-up, so go home and tell your mom's that they have pig on their face. They also had some really cool "sheep" dogs that herded the ducks around the arena we were at. The kids really enjoyed the field trip.

After the field trip, we went home and left for Arizona. This was the first trip that I had ever driven by myself for such a long distance. Dad came over to help me look at my cruise control, which hasn't worked in a while and we found out that it was just a fuse. After fixing that we were on our way to Arizona. We left about 3:19 pm Utah time. The drive is about a 10 hour drive.

Deni's sister, Azure's funeral is on Thursday at 1:00 pm in Heber, AZ, which is why we had to leave after Ryan's school and drive all night until we got there.

I got in about 1:30 am on Thursday, so it took me just under 11 hours. It was a very long drive by myself, one that I don't care to ever do alone if I don't have to.