Sam's third birthday

Since we had already celebrated Sam's birthday with our family we decided not to do anything crazy, and just have the three of us do the things that he likes.

So we went bike riding around the pond.



Finally bought him his favorite movie, Cars. And we even let him stay up late watching it :)



We went tubing down the river again.



And we busted out the sprinkler toy that my parents gave him for his birthday. He loved it!! He kept doing somersaults over the water!



Happy birthday Sam!! Its been 3 very fun years!! We love you buddy!

Winter Park, CO

Our family vacation started with Brooklyn's baby blessing. Sam got to meet his little cousin and he loved her. He wanted to hold her and he was always really nice to her. Hopefully, this means that he will be a good older brother.







After the blessing we went to the Hogan family reunion. We had fun canoing and playing games around the fire. Sam loved his older cousins, especially the ones who kept giving him M&Ms.

The next day we drove to Winter Park. There we had fun playing "truco", ( a Brazilian card game), the train game, going on hikes, bike ridings, barbecues, playing wallyball, swimming, driving through Rocky Mountain National Park, playing miniature golfing etc.


By the waterfall we hiked to



Tracy got us these orange shirts so we could say: "Orange you glad you came to our family vacation?"







One of the days we went to Rocky Mountain National Park. It was very beautiful. We saw quite a few herds of Elk, but none were as impressive as these bulls which we ran into at the top of the world. (Really, we took this picture a few hundred feet from the highest paved road in the world. We were a few hundred feet above the tree line)



We celebrated Sam's 3rd birthday two weeks earlier. He had fun singing happy birthday to himself, blowing candles, eating cup cakes and opening presents.

Austin NAMM Show

A couple of people from mediaRAIN went down to Austin Texas for the NAMM show. All in all it was a great experience and we had a worthwhile trip.

This first picture is of the amazing house that we rented out while down there. It was beautiful and just outside of the city.



My boss bought this "freakin sweet" hat for me at a gas station.



Here is our booth at the show. It looked quite nice, and very different from the rest of the other displays. Ours was much more tech savvy, people loved looking at our big iMac computers.



Here is the Afred Publishing booth, mediaRAIN and Alfred were buddies over this conference, we brought quite a few people over to their booth, and they brought a bunch of their clients over to ours. We are excited about a deal that we are doing with them to sell their sheet music using our player.



For those of you who may have played Guitar Hero, you might recognize this next pic. This is actually Guitar Hero III, to be released later this year. They had a demo that I was able to play, it was pretty much the same thing as II, still really fun, just better graphics and more songs.



Here is Tyler holding the Wii remote for GH for the Wii. I'm excited about this, it is such a fun game. Anyone know the release date?



This is the John Lennon recording-studio/touring bus. They had performances everyday during lunch. My favorite was Ben Rector, shown here. I talked to him after his performance and he was a very nice guy.



While driving over the Colorado river leaving downtown Austin everyday around sunset, we noticed hundreds of people lining the bridge. It occurred to Andrew that he had seen a discovery channel special on how millions of bats flew out of this bridge everyday at around sunset. So we stopped and watched the bats, which was a very interesting experience.



Here is an 8 string bass.

Hello Pravin, Goodbye Pravin

Pravin, who has been in Fiji with the peace corps for the last 2 years, had one month back home in Colorado before heading back down again for his year extension. Since it had been so long since we had seen him last, we were excited to travel over to Colorado to say hello, and catch up before having to say goodbye again.

Last Friday morning, Mom and Dad, skipped out of work so we could go to Water World. We had a blast, and little Sam loved everything expect the "journey to the center of the earth" ride, where we descended into a dark tunnel and floated past robotronic dinosaurs. It was a little too much for him.



Then on Saturday, we went to the zoo with Shawn(who also drove out from Utah) and Pravin. It was a blast. Marcia got a wheelchair because it was so hot, she thought she was going to faint. But that is a pretty normal thing for Barrands to do at airports, amusement parks and places like that. It wouldn't even be abnormal to have 2 of us in wheelchairs.

Here are some pics of the crazy animals at the zoo. HEY SHAWN WATCH OUT FOR THAT SNAKE! Here are my best friends. I really love the people in this picture.



Sam loved hanging out with Pravin. He always helped Sam get a good view of the animals, and pushed his umbrella stroller. I love this pic of Sam and Pravin running on the grass at the zoo.



After the zoo, we got to see some other old friends, Tweedo and his fiancée Sarah, as well as Bob Martin and his wife Teresa. Tweedo made a killer BBQ, and then we played some cards. Teresa was a natural, and killed us all at "up and down the river". Sam watched Lilo and Stitch.





After church on Sunday, we had lunch at Pravin's Parent's house. This is must for our family. Every time we go to Colorado, whether Pravin is there or not, we go to his parents house for some amazing authentic Indian food. Its always nice to see his parents, who have been good friends of mine since high school.



After our stomachs were full the time came to say goodbye again. I'm so proud of Pravin and his willingness to serve others. One of his crowing achivements while there was to create a fish pond and a bee hive for a local school, to help teach Fijians learn some life skills and provide substance as well. When he goes back, he will be doing more office work and training new peace corp volunteers. Basically helping to make the world a better place. I'll miss you P!

4th of July

This 4th of July was a blast!! We had tons of fun and were all exhausted by the time we finally made it into bed. We were lucky enough to have Danica, Dave, Jensen, Mom and Dad in town for the festivities.

It started with the hot air balloons down in provo. There were a bunch of theses flying around. My only question is: where do they land?


The next thing we did was to go to the scout breakfast for our old ward down in provo. We had some good pancakes, and got to see some old friends, like the men and women we worked closely with in our callings and got to know quite well.



After the breakfast we went to the big Provo parade. Some friends gave us some great seats on the grass in front of their business, but that wasn't good enough for dad. He took a blanket and Sam and went down and sat in front of everybody else right on the street, even though we got there long after everyone else. Here are some pics of the parade




Here is the float that Marcia was going to be part of, but since she is expecting, and walking for 4 hours in 100 degree weather isn't the best thing for her, she decided that is was best to participate in the parade from the side.



I love seeing the missionaries, this made me want to cry when they walked by. I thought of Aussie and Tiana, and how proud I was of them.



Of course, then came the army guys, and I thought of Don, and that made me want to cry too. I'm really proud of him too. He gets deployed to Iraq in 3 weeks!! He will definitely be in our prayers.



The next thing we did (after taking a nap) was to go to the lake. Jake invited us for a bbq and boating. Here are some pics from Utah Lake. This tube is a blast. We took Josh and Sam on it really slow and they loved it. Then the grown men got on and Jamie pulled the boat top speed swerving back and forth trying to flip us off the tube. We screamed like little girls and Jamie and the waves won, knocking us off a few times.



Sam and I love to jump off the boat and just swim around the lake, the water is like 80 degrees, so it feels great. This is a nice view of how beautiful the valley is where we call home. For as much as I wanted to leave Utah when I was at BYU, I sure enjoy living here.



Last but not least we laid down on some blankets close to the Stadium of Fire and watched the fireworks. I have to say it was the most I've every enjoyed a fireworks show. Maybe it was because of our proximity to the show, or the advances in technology, either way, it was wonderful. (I don't have any pics of the show, but Marcia did take some from the little fireworks our neighbor lit off the night before:) So just image this little guy, times 1,000)

Water Babies

In the Barrand family we love the water. So here are some pics of us enjoying ourselves in the water.

The first ones are a great pool near our house in Lehi where we have gone a few times. Marcia likes to lay out in the sun, while the boys play around in the lazy river, the big slides, and getting in trouble with the lifeguards telling us not to throw Sam so high up in the air :)




These next pictures were taken the last time we went boating with Jake and Jamie. Their boat is a blast! We love being on the lake on a hot summer day, its a perfect way to enjoy friends, family, and the wonderful world we live in. Not to mention that when Marcia gets in the sun, her skin just soaks in all those rays into a beautiful dark color. We would have had some pics of Marcia wakeboarding, but our photographer had to go. (We didn't know it at the time but she was pregnant, so maybe it is better that there is no proof of her going wakeboarding while pregnant)




This last picture is of Sam "helping" me mow the lawn. He really loves to lend a hand!

Sei What!?!?

This year for Christmas my in-laws decided to go to Costa Rica. Since we've been trying to get pregnant, when I was just about to pay for Sam's ticket, I wondered if it might not be safe to fly if I was late in pregnancy. I talked to the travel agent and she said that I wouldn't be able to go anytime in the 3rd trimester. But since I wasn't sure if I was pregnant or not, she told me that I needed to get a pregnancy test as soon as possible. (Kind of a funny advice to get from a travel agent that I never met) I got a pregnancy test as soon as I got done talking to her and then test came out POSITIVE!!

We are so excited! We've been trying to get pregnant for the last 2 months. I know that it didn't take too long but for us it felt like it took forever. Even though it would be very hard in about 8 months, we'd be happy with twins this time... At least it feels like it could be twins because I'm twice as sick as the first time.

But, if it isn't twins, we are thinking that it will be a girl.(we won't find out for a few months). And as opposed to last time when we decided Sam's name just a few weeks before he was born, we have already picked out a name. We like "Sei". It is a Japanese name meaning "pure", pronounced like the English word "Say that you love me." The Japanese character looks like this 清 (if you browser supports Japanese symbols).

We like this name a lot and are excited about giving something representative of her Japanese heritage. When we ask Sam if he wants a sister or brother, he tells us that he wants a sister. It's an exciting time for our family! Keep Marcia and baby Sei in your prayers.