Austin and Dad's Hike

This Saturday my Dad and I went to go hike Mount Charleston. At first we got on the wrong trail but we soon found the right one. This trail was a lot of fun. Even though it kicked our butts. There were tons of switch backs and very steep hills. In the end it was very rewarding.

While my dad and I were hiking we came really close to three deer. They looked right at us but kept going about their business.

This me in front of an awesome view of mountains that were in the back ground the whole time.

This is my Dad in front of Mount Charleston. We were not able to get there because of the rain storm that was coming.

That"s Las Vegas from our view.

Open House At Middle School

Today was Austin's open house at his middle school. It is always fun to go and meet his teachers. It looks like he has a good group this year. It was a busy day for Austin. He is also on Student Council as a representative, so he had to go and help set up for the open house, direct parents where to go, and make sure all the teachers got some cookies. He is also in advance band, and they played before the open house started. Here is the bad part. They had the band, choir, and guitar class play outside in the court yard. It was 108 degrees today! It feels like we get the worse of the heat at 5:00 pm. This started at 6:00 pm. I love watching my son play, but I was really looking forward to getting in some air conditioned classrooms!! Here are some pictures of Austin playing the drums.

Here are some of the boys waiting to play, and sweating! Don't they look hot. (In the "It is hot outside way!")

Austin was so excited that I got a picture of him playing drums in normal clothes!

First Day Of School

Today was the first day of school. This was a hard one for me. They are all in school full time! I really don't know how I feel about it. Everyone in my neighborhood is so happy that the kids are gone to school, but I love the summer and having everyone around. I love relaxing and vacationing. The kids were ready to go back. They were ready to be with friends and get the year started.

Here is Aubrey and Ian. Aubrey is in 5th grade and Ian is in 1st. Don't they look good in their back to school clothes? All Ian wanted was Hurley shorts and shirt. Well, he got the shorts. Those are guitars on his shirt. Who do you think helped him pick that out? They love their teachers this year. Ian says his teacher has a beautiful smile.
Going to school.

These are the moments a parent treasures. I caught Austin reading his scriptures before school. You have to love it!

I know, he looks thrilled! Austin started 8th grade this year. It's hard to believe he is in his last year of Jr. High. He got his broadcast journalism class. He is excited about that.

Please don't take this seriously. Zachery is just joking around. The kids get so sick of me taking pictures of them so they get all goofy. Zach is a junior this year. He has a challenging year ahead of him, but he says he can do it.

There they all are.

They wouldn't be Brasier kids if they didn't have a goofy picture.

Beijing Olympics

The Olympics are done, the Olympic flame is out. It is time to get more sleep at night and our lives to get back to normal. It was fun. We love staying up and watching all the events. We even watched the "Today Show" in the morning to learn more about China. I am proud to announce that Austin can say, "Will you take my picture with my umbrella in front of the Bird's Nest" in Chinese. We love the Olympics and here are some of the things we learned and witnessed.
We watched great athletes make history and achieve their goals.

We learned that behind every great athlete there is a great Mother (or Dad). We loved Phelp's Mom! She should go to every Olympics and be a reporter!

We learned that sometimes you can win by just a fingertip! Thank heavens for technology!

We learned that it doesn't matter how old you are, if you have dreams and goals you can achieve them! There were so many women who are moms competing in the games! Awesome!

Some Moms compete to save their child's life! She was 33 years old and competing so her child could get treatment for cancer. She won an individual medal in the vault.

We loved watching gymnastics even though the judging made us mad sometimes. Actually we liked the girl who got 2nd better (Johnson). She was so cute and had a great attitude!

We learned that even though you loose, you can still handle it with class. Poor Lolo Jones! We wanted her to win so bad. She hit a hurdle and stumbled, but gave the best interviews later on. What a classy lady!

We learned that even though you are the fasted man in the world, you can't gloat. Not cool.

We learned there are still people who are "bad sports" in the Olympics!

We learned to love Beach Volleyball! We have such respect for these guys. It was fun to watch. No, we didn't watch this sport to see the beach volleyball cheerleaders!

We also learned that even though a tragedy can come, you can rise above it and win.

We had a great time watching the games, and we could go on and on with all the great moments! There are so many. These are just a few that we loved. We look forward to London, but first in two years, Canada!!!!!

My Dad Date

Yesterday my Dad took me on my Dad date. First we went to Dairy Queen and got some ice cream. Then we went to the game store to trade in some games and get a new game to play. I reserved Lego Batman. It comes in next month. Then we went to see the movie "Clone Wars." It was very good. After that we went to Chuck E. Cheese. It was fun playing all the games with Dad. I played Star Wars and I played in the big ball. It was a great night.
Written by: Ian, with a little help

Stake Primary Activity Day

This week we had our Stake Primary Activity Day for girls ages 8-11. It was quite a day, and once again we had about 150 girls attend. That was about 90% of the girls. Our theme was Hide and Seek...D&C 89:19. It was amazing. These girls had so much fun and everything went perfect. I loved all of their tye-dye shirts. I was worried they wouldn't work out, but they did. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. I will let Aubrey blog about her experience.

Hi! This is Aubrey. Activity Day Camp was so fun. Better than last year. I liked doing the Hide and seek thing. We had to search for people in the past. When we found them we had to ask ''how did the Gospel help you in your life?''It was fun. Then Jeanna and I went to a ''Spa Class.'' I learned lots of stuff such as, how to shampoo your hair, condition it, and how to do a spa treatment. It felt good. We went to the friendship class and made friendship bracelets. It was hard. Then we had lunch. It was so good, better than last year. Then we went to the self-esteem class and painted treasure chests. Mine was green and purple. Then we wrote our testimonies and put them in it. Then I went to B-B gun shooting. I dented a water jug filled with colored water. This was my favorite class. It was hard to load the gun and pump the air in. It was a really fun day.

Wrote By: The Awesome, Amazing, Cool, Princess Aubrey

Want to Live Longer? Start Running.

Don is always telling me that I will be in a wheel chair when I get older because of all the running and training I do. I just laugh! I am always going to run, and if I don't run, I will find some other way to work out! Then I came across this study! Hmmm, maybe Don should rethink what he has been saying! (Even though Don does say that, he is always supportive and excited for the next race or marathon.)

Reuters
WASHINGTON (Aug. 11) - People who want to live a long and healthy life might want to take up running. A study published on Monday shows middle-aged members of a runner's club were half as likely to die over a 20-year period as people who did not run.
Running reduced the risk not only of heart disease, but of cancer and neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's, researchers at Stanford University in California found.
The Benefits of Running
A new study that tracked middle-aged runners for two decades found that runners were half as likely to die as people who didn't run. Running also reduced the risk of a range of health problems, including heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's.

"At 19 years, 15 percent of runners had died compared with 34 percent of controls," Dr. Eliza Chakravarty and colleagues wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Any type of vigorous exercise will likely do the trick, said Stanford's Dr. James Fries, who worked on the study.
"Both common sense and background science support the idea that there is nothing magical about running per se," Fries said in a telephone interview. "It is the regular physical vigorous activity that is important."
The team surveyed 284 members of a nationwide running club and 156 similar, healthy people as controls. They all came from the university's faculty and staff and had similar social and economic backgrounds, and all were 50 or older.
Starting in 1984, each volunteer filled out an annual survey on exercise frequency, weight and disability for eight activities -- rising, dressing and grooming, hygiene, eating, walking, reach, hand grip and routine physical activities.
Most of the volunteers did some exercise, but runners exercised as much as 200 minutes a week, compared to 20 minutes for the non-runners.
At the beginning, the runners were leaner and less likely to smoke compared with the controls. And they exercised more over the whole study period in general.
"Over time, all groups decreased running activity, but the runners groups continued to accumulate more minutes per week of vigorous activity of all kinds," the researchers wrote.
"Members of the running groups had significantly lower mean disability levels at all time points," they added.
The team also set out to answer whether taking up running late in life would benefit, and whether people who stopped exercising began to pay a price as they aged.
Most of the runners have stopped running as they reached their 70s, Fries said. But it was difficult to find people who totally stopped exercising. "Almost all of them did something else. They continued their vigorous exercise," he said.
People who took up exercise when they were older also improved their health, he said.
The study also showed that people cannot use the risk of injury as an excuse not to run -- the runners had fewer injuries of all kinds, including to their knees.
Copyright 2008, Reuters

Blessings from Attending the Temple???

Don and I went to the temple last night. When we got home we asked Austin how things went. He told us everything was fine. Then when I woke up the next day I noticed that Ian had a black eye. It doesn't look too bad in the picture. I asked Ian what happened and he said that they decided to play their version of "Wipe Out". I have seen the boys make their obstacle course, but I never really thought about it. It seemed innocent enough. Well last night, Austin hit Ian in the face with his version of the big ball, and knocked Ian into the staircase. This is the result! Ian says that the boys did comfort him and say they are sorry. I told the boys that maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to play Wipe Out while Dad and I are out. Ian says he needs big sunglasses tomorrow for church.

So You Think You Can Dance!

*Before you watch this, click on the pause button of our playlist so you can hear it.

Hi! This is me Aubrey. Your probably wondering why this dance. Well, this is my FAVORITE dance choreographed by Tabatha and Napoleon. They used to be at Bunker Dance Center. They were my favorite choreographers. They always had a story to their dance which I loved. I was SOOOO mad that Chelsea and Mark got voted off. I thought America was stupid. Josh won "So You Think You Can Dance". I wanted Twitch to win but I know Twitch will have a great future. I saw this dance at the Sneeds. Everybody watching it LOVED it. We made lots of fun of Mary [a judge] because she always screams REALLY loud and screams '' YOU HAVE TWO FIRST CLASS TICKETS ON THE HOT TAMALE TRAIN!'' We wondered if they turn her mic down really low. My family says this had to be the best season. So, ENJOY my family's favorite dance. written by: the Amazing Awesome Cool Princess Aubrey. Video found on the internet by:Mom

Olympics

We are excited. Good thing the Olympics come every two years. (We watch the winter games too.) If they came every year, we would get nothing done around here. We love watching the events. Of course track, swimming, and gymnastics are our favorites. We are already checking out the events on-line!!!!

Clam Chowder Anyone?

I forgot to add this picture! While we were in San Francisco Don had to have clam chowder in a bread bowl everyday for lunch. He had this and clam strips. Everyday! Look how happy he is. I make clam chowder all winter long, but Don could eat it everyday. Also, see his Uconn sweatshirt? That caused quite a stir. Everywhere we went people stopped him and wanted to talk about Uconn. One day five people stopped him on the street. Four of them from Connecticut. You know how that goes. They really want to see if you are really from there, so they would ask where I was from. That is how you know if they are really from Connecticut. If they know where Cheshire is, they are from Connecticut. One guy called Don his brother and gave him a big hug. This happened where ever we went, and all because of this sweatshirt. Sometimes they wouldn't come up to us, they would just shout, "Go Huskies!" It was funny.

Happy 20th Anniversary!

Yes, we have been married for 20 years! It really doesn't seem that long, but maybe Don would say that it does feel that long! Like an eternity! So for this anniversary, Don planned a trip to San Francisco, California. He went there with his school on a field trip and he was sure I would love it. I have to give Don credit, he planned a wonderful trip. He thought of everything!

San Francisco We stayed at the Fairmont on Nob Hill. It was a wonderful hotel. Just great!

The lobby of our hotel. It was a very historic hotel. We just loved all of the old fixtures and decor. We got around on the cable cars. It was the easiest way to get around the city and fun too!
Check out the hill! The whole city is like this. When we weren't in cable cars or other transportation we walked up these hills. It was crazy! People who live in this city must be in great shape.

On the first day we went to Pier 39. I loved it there. It did remind me of walking around Mystic. These sea lions were everywhere. We could watch them forever.

We also went to Alcatraz. It was very fascinating in a sick way. I mean, you are touring a prison and learning about prison life. The conditions there were not good, but it is a prison. What do you expect? It was very educational.

Don in solitary confinement. These cells were so small and they would put the most violent criminals in there and then turn off the lights. They would only be aloud out once a week for exercise. Yes, Al Capone was there.

Guard tower.

We also went to Coit Tower. It was built to honor the firemen of the city. There is a great view of the city. We got some great pictures.

Famous Lombard Street! Check out those curves. The homes are just beautiful here.

The Trans America Building. O.k., Don was totally obsessed with this building. I have a ton of pictures of it. I guess he used this building when he taught the chapter on triangles to his students. Ever the geometry teacher, I had a lecture on how this building is totally made of triangles!

This is China Town. Don and I walked around there. We found a great dragon t-shirt for Austin.

Don also planned a bike ride for us. He wanted to bike across the Golden Gate Bridge. I do not like heights, but I was willing to give it a try. I have to admit it was so fun and relaxing. I really loved it. The only problem is, I always view everything as a race. If I am not sweating and working hard, what is the point? A couple of times Don had to tell me to slow down and relax. He kept telling me that I am not training for a marathon, and this isn't a workout!

The Golden Gate Bridge. Look how foggy it was. It was like that everyday. We froze. It was only in the low 60's. We are from Vegas. That is like winter to us. We stayed three days, but it looks like we only had one thing to wear. We only took these sweatshirts with us, we didn't think it would be that cold! Oh well!

After our bike ride we ate at the Stinking Rose. It is an Italian Restaurant. Everything is garlic, garlic, and more garlic. It was so good!

This was a picture of the city from Alamo Square. These homes are so pretty. I guess they have survived earthquakes and fires. They are just perfect. I think they really show off the Victorian style of the city.

We also went to a Japanese Tea Garden. It was so pretty. We just had a wonderful time. It was great to get away and just relax together. Thanks to all of my friends who watched the kids. We appreciated it. Don, thanks for the wonderful trip. It has been a great 20 years, and I look forward to the next 20. I love you!