so mummy insists I post these pictures. the first one is the trailer that my friend kristen and I pulled across the country while moving to vegas. I got lucky that a girl in my ward was randomly moving to las vegas at the same time I was. once I figured that out, I sold my car and we rented that trailer so I could stick my motorcycle and junk all in it. the long drive continually wore through the tarps that covered the top of our trailer. the one in the picture is the 3rd one. this picture is as soon as we arrived in vegas after basically driving straight through in 2 days.

the 2nd picture is my halloween costume, and if you can't tell what we were, then you didn't watch the olympics. anyways, finals started this week for me, so I'm gonna get back to studying.

Who are Those Girls?

Guess who I was able to attend the Oakland Temple with?
Look at the pictures and see if you can guess who that beautiful young girl is? That is grown up gorgeous Brooklyn Grant- soon to be "Sister Grant" cuz she is leaving on a mission to the Phillippines in January. Frances works for the airlines and with her free passes Frances and Brooklyn wanted to do a temple session in Oakland. I loved it- a great day in the temple and lots of fun visiting as well! Hard to believe that little Brooklyn (remember Brooklyn and Tiffany always changing clothes, bathing suits etc in our Missouri days?) is old enough to go on a mission. What an awesome missionary Sister Grant will be!

Ode to My Triple Jogging Stroller

The big 3-0 is coming up next week so I thought I would give tribute to one of my favorite presents of all time. Thanks to my dear husband for letting me buy this present. I think I've gotten my monies worth!

Ode to My Triple Jogging Stroller

Oh how I love thee.

You set me free.

I could run like the wind

though I had 3 under 3.

Many have stopped

to give us a stare.

To them I would say,

How else could we go anywhere?

4 trusty wheels 

and 40 inches wide

This is one very stylish

rockin' red ride!

Me and my buddy Andrew. Andrew is from Cape Coral, Florida and he went met last year at the BC and i went to North Carolina with him this past summer. He has just been working in Colorado for this past semester and he came up to visit me a couple of times before he headed off to Florida for School.

This is me and my roomate CJ from Nigeria.
He liked my tuxedo from Mr. LDSBC and wanted a picture with me in it after i had worn it to church.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday mommy!
Hope you had a fun cruise with dad.

Happy Birthday to the Best Mom Ever!

Back then (with the awesome hair!) and today (still nice hair:) I'm so glad I get to call you Mummy. Thanks for devoting your life to each one of your kids. I am the woman and mother I am today because of you.  I like to call when I'm in trouble and when I'm excited. I love to share it all with you. Hope today is a fabulous birthday. Happy, Happy Birthday. Love, Tess

Happy Birthday

.We made a birthday gift this year. We had a book printed at blurb.com. It is a an ABC Book. Steve took the pictures in the garage, and then we uploaded the pictures to blurb.com, and 10 days later we received a 26 page book. We are excited to give it to you when you arrive. Here is a little teaser of what you can expect:



If you want to see better quality photos of what is in the book, go to stevewatson.smugmug.com. Hopefully after you read it, you will be able to recite all of your ABCs.

Feliz Cumpleaños

Birthday Present - Caribbean Cruise

We returned last night from our fabulous Birthday Cruise and now back to regular life. "Floating on a Boat" in the Caribbean was the best thing for Dad - all work and stake business put on hold cuz of lack of internet connections, phone, etc. (When dad got to his email after our float, he had 400 emails needing his attention!) We loved all the fun photo opps on board and I'll share some with ya. We are now getting excited about our next trip - Thanksgiving in ARIZONA with FAMILY! November is certainly shaping up to be a wonderful month!

Happy Birthday Gramma! (Which Grandbaby is it?)

Hint - It's the only granddaughter:)

Photo-shoot!

It was a fun weekend in Arizona! Just a short trip, but managed to fit in a few haircuts, a baptism, a new transmission, and a full photo-shoot with the Brights while I was babysitting!

This Crib Has Been Through A Lot!

It's me Brighton. (My Mom's helping). This is a picture of me in my old crib. (It's Ellis' now). I dropped a picture I colored with markers down the side of my bed (also pictured) and I didn't want the marker to smear when I was bouncing around so I moved all my soft, cushy animals over to my old crib. It's comfy and I surprised my Mom. She didn't know I was sleeping in it last night.

Mr. LDSBS Info

This is the paper with the requirements of what i had to do for Mr. LDSBC.

Taylor Fletcher MR LDSBC Competition

Taylor was a nominee for the MR LDSBC Competition at his college. The various parts of this stellar competition were:
Cake Baking
Showcasing a Talent
Fielding Questions from a panel of judges
Modeling Tuxedo Wear
Tiffany Fletcher, the champion personal assistant of Mr Taylor Fletcher helped with the details and reported that TAYLOR DID GOOD!!!
Cake Competition - chocolate cake with what other than the "Fletcher Family Favorite Frosting" ( you know the 7 minute variety)
His unique and never done before talent - POGO STICKING (Taylor always was the LONGEST pogo stick jumper) with various pogo tricks and for the finale a back flip off of the pogo stick. Tiffany said it was a crowd pleaser!
(A good idea don't you think for the upcoming Miss America pageant)
Taylor's skill testing question - What would be a great way to propose to a girl?
You can tell by the pictures that he would have scored high in the tuxedo wearing segment - so handsome and don't ya just love that missionary haircut he is sporting?? His escort for the evening was Lizzy Weidemann and Tiff and Jordan were part of his enthusiastic fan base.
What a winner Taylor is to all of us!

Eric's Update

So I'm sitting in my property class right now, and you would be amazed at just how boring this (my favorite subject) can be made. We read endless amounts of court cases, and it seems like most questions of the law all started out when someone was angry at another person, and then went looking for a way to get them. Long story short, don't make people made and they won't sue you, hopefully.

I'm still living in Las Vegas Nevada and I really like it. There are casinos everywhere, but the thing that surprises me most, is the slot machines in the gas stations. Well, I guess the part that is more surprising is the fact that there are peopel lined up at all the slot machines in these gas stations. Seriously, people are so addicted that they can't even make it into the casinos.

So, in my life, I spend a lot of time studying and watching sprots. The Florida Gators football team is doing great. If we win our last 3 games, we are going to have an opportunity to play for the National Championship. Even though I'm attending a different university now, I'm still a Gator fan.

Over all, life in Vegas is great. I study a lot, work out, and watch sports.

PAPERS SENT OFF TONIGHT!

Leave a comment of where you think Taylor will be spending the next 2 years of his life. He'll be serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in ????

Two Scary Vampires - Skyler and Bauer

Grampa Fletcher was sooo lucky cuz he was able to spend Halloween with Skyler, Brendan and Ally in Tampa, Florida. Grampa said that not only was Skyler's vampire costume adorable but so was Bauer's - they were matching vampires! Doesn't Skyler's Widow's peak perfectly complete the outfit? (Ally sent back with Grampa some hard copies of Skyler's latest Halloween photo shoot - I will send them to each of you.)

Father's Blessings

A neat tradition we have established in our family is the giving of father's blessings at the beginning of something - school, jobs, travels, missions, marriages etc. This pic was taken September 2008 - blessings given for Eric's 1st year law school (UNLV) and Taylor heading back to LDS Business College in Salt Lake. It was neat cuz Gramma and Grampa Bateman were visiting us in San Francisco so we got to share this special time with them. One thing that everyone may not know is that Dad records them on his hand held medical recording machine and Tessa types out a hard copy of the blessings for future perusal. Thanx Tessa for doing that!
(Study Taylor's face - he had had all 4 of his wisdom teeth out only 4 days earlier - Taylor barely looked like a chipmunk - lucky him!)

Tiffany & Terri College Students Fall 2008

You know what? It wasn't just Tiffany, Taylor and Eric that went back to college in the fall but me too! Don and I are "empty nesters" and we decided a good plan would be for me to join him in all of his work related travels. To actually be able to help in Don's field, I need to have some current college science courses so that is what I am working on. One of my classes right now is basic college biology - I am back into mitosis, meiosis, Mendallian genetics, glycoloysis, cellular respiration etc etc - all those things that I knew I would NEVER need again! (Hmmmmm - guess never say never.) At least I live with the best biology tutor around- unbelievable the details that Don/Dad can remember in ALL those areas and he NEVER even looks at my textbook! (I am working on the prerequs to get into an occupational therapy assistant program - the same degree that Tessa has.) This time round, I am actually finding biology interesting!

Pedicures Together

You know what ladies? I need a pedicure and sure wish you all were here so that we could go do it together like we did last summer! Wasn't that a fun ladies' day out just down the street at my San Francisco salon? (Fun to have Brightie there too for her 1st pedicure.)

Tiffany celebrating with Us in San Francisco

Tiffany graduated from Paul Mitchell Cosmetology School in June and flew to San Francisco to have a graduation party with all of us. You can see the graduation hats that Brighton made for Tiffany and all party attendees. (Brighton is like her mom- when Tessa was little she created and made all sorts of neat things just like Brighton does now.) Steve also designed this special graduation announcement for Tiffany - I loved sending them out to people. (Steve is a great photographer and designer!)

The Watsons came to visit San Francisco in July

You can't visit San Francisco without walking across part of the Golden Gate Bridge which we did with the Watsons. We were all admiring the beautiful view from the bridge until 6 year old Brighton told us her brother Ben's head was stuck between the Golden Gate railings. Picture taken just after Ben's head was dislodged!

Time to Move

The time came for us to move out of our beautiful Victorian home in San Francisco. It was FREE HOUSING for a year which was provided by the research institute that Don works with. Our totally free accomodation was big enough to house alot of company and we were so glad that many family members came this past summer to visit us in San Francisco. The home was pre 1906 earthquake and was in the historic Pacific Heights district.

Rookie Mom Mistake

OK based on these pictures you are going to think my rookie mom mistake was letting the kids play with the BLACK skull and crossbones stamp but that is not the case. I saw it come in the house in a Halloween treat bag and threw it away as soon as no one was looking. The rookie mistake was not throwing it away well enough. 

If someone were to be digging in the kitchen garbage looking for interesting things, that someone could run across it, and then those someones could in turn decide to stamp every surface of the house while mom was snoozing after her 5am feeding with the baby. Those someones (Fletch and Ben) managed to get every wall (covered in our non washable builder paint), every piece of furniture, the tile, every white appliance, the baby's car seat, and each other of course - hands, feet, arms, stomachs, ears, faces etc. 

Just look at those sweet faces though. It was not a fun scene to wake to Monday morning but how can one stay mad? In an attempt to be a more fun mom I snapped some pics and laughed with them (while we all scrubbed.) Ellis watched from his highchair and Brighton didn't make the pictures because we were rushing around trying to get her on the school bus. Just a day in the life; it's crazy but it is never boring:)

PS Steve and I just got out our ballots to be ready for tomorrow. They got that too. What's a ballot without a couple skulls and crossbones, right?