My Birthday Post from Kristen

This is a post that my sister, Kristen did for me on her blog on My birthday! It was so nice of her to do that and I just wanted to be able to remember it, so I copied it over to my blog.

This picture is from Dave's b-day party.

Today is a great day cause its the birthday of two of my faves in my life. My OLDER sister :) Shawna, and my awesome husband (also older, ha ha) Dave. This post will be in honor of my sister, Shawna!

I totally wrecked this picture back in the day.... should have put those on me, I suppose :)

Shawna is 6 years older than me, so most of my pictures of her start at about, well, 6! I don't even have many of those. I remember my whole life looking up to Shawna. She was beautiful, talented, popular, had tons of boyfriends, etc. etc. I just thought I wanted to be just like Shawna. My greatest memories, of which I've already shared but will again..... are cruising in her car. Shawna was always great to take me cruising around in her camero, in Lehi, listening to Pat Benetar, REO Speedwagon, Olivia Newton-John, Billy Idol, and then soon came Bon Jovi!!!.... Of which her love was strong and has stayed that way since!
This is Shawna and her daughter, Courtney, and husbannd Chris,at the latest concert, just a few weeks ago, she had like front row seats!! The picture of her hand up is right after being able to "touch" Jon's hand.... ooohhhh!!!

Shawna had the coolest of cars, why I don't have pictures, I'm not sure, but wish I did!!! She had a Camero that she and my brother shared that had a crazy paint job that was sooooo cool back in the day (I guess, ha ha), then she got a ZX. This is the car that she let me borrow to get my drivers license. I LOVED driving this car and if she was ever leaving somewhere I'd beg to borrow it and always promise to bring it back washed. She'd always let me, and I felt so dang cool in that car. I loved hanging out with Shawna and her "boy" friends. I was such a red-headed, freckled, chubby, tag-along.... (bless my heart) but she always let me. Two's company, three's a party they'd say.

She always had the coolest hair!!!

Give me a break!!! Just look at that hair!!! She's got an awesome husband and the cutest family!
Happy Birthday Shawna!!!
Love ya tons and hope you have the best day EVER!!!

THE GRAZIANO GRIZZLY GALS

Courtney's 6th grade class had science camp up on the Tonto Rim. I went along as a cabin counselor/volunteer. We had a great time. The first day there, we hiked up to these caves. There were some so small Courtney had to get down on her belly and army crawl! I did not go in that one! Courtney and her friends got filthy as you can see! The next day, they had classes all day. Some of there were stream studies, fossil digs, archery, and orienteering. We slept in cabins on bunk beds (if you can call that sleep!). We had a lot of fun together, but I have to admit by the third day, I could not wait to get out of there and left before her last hike, which was to the fish hatchery.

Thanks for inviting me to go along on your sixth grade science camp with you Courtney!This is the group of girls in our cabin, which was called "Graziano"

Rebecca, Kelley, Lexi, Courtney, Hailey, Elley,

Brecken, Te'ia and Alma.

We had four mothers in cabin also; Me, Nicole,

Linda and Elizabeth...crowded, but fun!On the hike up to the caves!At the top - with a great view of the Rim! Inside one of the caves -

the only one I was brave enough to go in!

Here they are, after the "army crawl".

That jacket will never look the same!"Stream Studies"

"The Fossil Dig""Orienteering" Using a compass

Ok - so I'm definately not fast enough

with a digital camera to catch her shooting the arrow -

this is right after the release,

and I even clicked before!

She was very accurate too - maybe

she will be a hunter!! haha

Our Very Own Little Drummer Boy

About a month ago, Dillon asked me if he could join the band at school. At first, I was like, school is almost over, how can you join the band now, and what instrument do you want to play? He said he already talked to the band teacher, he wanted to play the drums, and he said he could join if we would get him some drum sticks! Well, off we went to get the sticks and the next thing we know, Dillon has a band concert! I missed it - I was off at science camp with Courtney - and that was the last concert of the year... but, Chris took some pictures for me, so that I could see that he REALLY did join the band! He even took a video of one of the songs. He has also learned the cadence for a flag ceremony and I think he will be playing it at Dillon's last cub scout pack meeting in May. He will be receiving his Arrow of Light and moving on to 11 year old scouts! Good job Dillon learning the drums so fast and doing so well at your concert. Maybe we'll have to start calling you "Tico"!

Check out the video here...

Shake It Jon!

I HAD THE TIME OF MY LIFE!

One word.....AMAZING!

We had such an awesome time last night at the Bon Jovi concert.

It started out with Daughtry as the warm up band.

He did a great job and I'm sure he is going to make it super big.

After about 45 minutes of Daughtry it was time for the boys.

Towards the end of Daughtry's songs, Chris came up with this

great idea to go get one of the kids at a time and let them come

down by us to see the concert up close. He first brought Dillon down for a song, then went and got Courtney. As he was getting ready to takeher back and get Page or Matty, we figured out that if he just left them and brought them each one at a time, they could all be down

by us. All four of them (Courtney, Dillon, Page & Matty Roberts)

watched the whole concert from the 3rd row on the floor!

We went to dinner with Kelly and Marci Roberts & Lee and Jenny Davis and the kids, before the concert. Then walked over to the arena and had time for a couple of pictures before going in to get our seats. Courtney and I had on our "Blingy" Bon Jovi shirts so we got a picture out front before going in to the dark. We ran into our friend Shelli Richardson and got her in our picture too!

The Barney's and the McCook's were also at the concert. Nicole and I had these cute JoviGirl shirts made, she made her way down by us for a minute - long enough to take a picture!

Bon Jovi fan in training....

Jon and Richie singing together...
Livin' On A Prayer

Daughtry came back out to sing

"Blaze of Glory"with Jon and it
was really awesome. I think it's
so cool how he is kinda mentoring
him - taking him on this world
tour with him.

This is when we were up in the pit on the side of the stage. Chris and I had special "fan club" tickets with wrist bands that let us go to the pit for 3 songs. It was so much fun. I've been wondering just how close we would be able to get. HE HELD MY HAND! Chris was so nice helping me to get right up close to him. He even got in a high five. Then Jon went down the catwalk on the side and on his way back stopped and held my hand again and he looked right at me! It was so fun - one of those once in a lifetime kind of things. In the next picture, is where he was touching our hands - he was so nice! We were sooooo close!



This picture is after I held his hand the first time - I turned around and Chris was right there with the camera to catch the exciting moment.

That's my hand with the "bling" bracelet!

This lady by the kids has this

license plate - not fair!

Chris and I didn't think to take a picture early on in the night - I don't know why, but after we went in the pit, we had someone take our picture. We were so sweaty by then - DRIPPING - so we look kind of crazy, but at least you can tell that we were having fun!

Jon and Richie after the 3rd encore song!
They all ran out the back after this and Jon
turned back and threw his Rattlers jersey
into the crowd. And that was it!

It was over - but we "Made a Memory"

IT'S TODAY! IT'S TODAY!

It's Today! It's Today!

To quote Stuart Little, if I may...

So, I've been waiting since mid-November

and the day is finally here!

Tonight, I'll be singing along with Jon.

It might seem a little strange

to some people, but his songs just make me feel good!

Dating back to 1986, when Colleen, Camille

and I jammed out to his songs at BYU,

and we had that awesome poster of him on the wall!

Holy Cow!

22 years and still a huge fan.

http://www.backstagejbj.com/ for FANCLUB!

http://www.bonjovi.com/

I've given Marci the Numero Uno spot, that's only

because she has a couple more years of being his fan

than me, I am happy to be Numero Dos,

but only because it's Marci!

The pics are from earlier this week in Los Angeles,

looks good!

DISNEYLAND - THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH

CHEER NATIONALS AT JAMFEST IN LOS ANGELES

We had a really great time in Los Angeles for Nationals and now the cheer season is over! Can you hear me crying??

We did cheer all weekend long, but got in a couple trips to Hollywood to the Wax Museum and Guiness Book of World Records. Oh and we can't forget the Alley's! Such fun shopping!
Awesome arabesque Courtney!
Brekyn, Rachel, Alyssa, Courtney, Calli, Jordan...even Dillon and Bennett got in on the picture!
"Star-struck" and they're only WAX!
Some fun stunting in the Kyoto Gardens! Great picture taking skills Dillon.