LAST DINNER WITH THE LIGHTSEYS (gonna miss this)

When we first moved to Spokane, a lady in Relief Society raised her hand to answer some question and her answer included the words "yeast infection" and made everyone laugh.

I KNEW she had to be my friend.

So, I started stalking her. We were both back rowers - me with Joseph as a baby. Her, with Peyton, just walking and a daughter, Ben's age - Kaiya. I talked to her husband, Mark, in Sunday School. He made me laugh. He told me that if black people were supposed to swim, they would have jumped off the ship and swam back to Africa, that is why he doesn't swim. Also, we both like to sit near doors. He said, "If there's a fire, I'm first out and I don't want to hurt anyone running them over!" HAHA! You can see why we are friends. Eventually, I won Amee over.

It was hard work! She isn't very open, but she's very loyal. She is a lifer of a friend. And the kind of girl you want with you when you are walking a dark street. They used to come over periodically when they lived in our ward, but then they jumped ship and moved to the next ward over (and who cares if she is happier, blah blah blah) and we just didn't hang out as much. The above picture has their family now.

After the BBQ we played Tripoly. Which may be our current favorite game. (Thanks to the O'Donnals for teaching us!)

Rachel, Mateo, and Kaiya. Isn't Kaiya beautiful? So is Rachel, of course. But seriously, Blender Babies are so beautiful.

Brace yourselves, people. I have a RARE picture of Mark Lightsey actually LAUGHING out loud. Yes, we went past chuckling to full out laughter!

He laughs all the time (around us anyway) but it is hard to catch it on film. Most of the time he says, "this is my smile". (See the top picture for a demonstration of that.) I am honored to share this photo with you.

Gosh, I was so determined to remember what was so funny that made Mark laugh like that, but I just can't remember! I love that the girls are laughing with Mark and Mateo is looking at me.

After the games, Amee gave us a short performance of her karaoke skills. She LOVES to sing karaoke and she does it once a week. She has only missed three times in three years. That must be when she had a baby!

Then Kaiya and Amy sang to us.

Then the Sant girls joined the Lightsey girls for a little song from "Hairspray".

I love that Kaiya and Peyton are holding hands.

While the girls sang, Mateo boogied on his dad's lap.

I interrupt this post to place some pictures of Mateo on my blog. He is one of the cutest babies I have EVER seen. It is my gift to you to gratutiously show off my friend's baby:

See, you feel better, right? I know I do. Like I said, Blender Babies get all the good genes!

Here is Regan combing Sari's hair while Joseph watches. Regan was born on Larry's birthday. He went to the hospital earlier that day because Amee asked for a blessing. Miss Regan was trying to be born butt first. It all worked out!

Sari and Regan were fast friends.

So were Joseph and Regan.

Now I'm thinking that Regan isn't that picky, because here she is attacking Daniel. Miss Peyton, next to Joseph is a sweetie. When she was little Amee called her the devil. Daniel used to hide from her because she would pick on him (he is three years OLDER than her).

Looks like she's still teasing him! Don't be fooled by Daniel's expression. He loves it!

Goodbye to our friends, Mark and Amee Lightsey! We are going to miss you!