Benjy's tribute to Jonny at the memorial service in Anaheim, CA

One of my favorite memories of Jonny, happened when he was about 7 years old. My parents went to the redwood forest and had brought home a souvenir. It was a solid redwood paddle. On the face of the paddle were the words, “board of education.” Well, one day Jonny and I had just received an “education” and my backside was still stinging a little. I went down to my room and I passed our basement door and noticed that the door was open with the light on. I popped my head inside and heard a digging noise interspersed with some crying. I looked to the far back of the basement where there was nothing but hard dirt and I saw Jonny squatting down and digging a hole with a small hand shovel. I said, “Jonny what are you doing?” and he held up the paddle and said, “I’m burying this thing once and for all.” As any good brother should have done, I managed to keep that secret and to this day it is probably still buried there.

3 ½ years ago he became “Uncle Jonny” to our little boy Gavin . Jonny is “Uncle Jonny” to 3 nieces and 3 nephews: Jesse and Shawna’s 4 kids (Kylee 11yrs, Tyler 9 yrs, Katie 7 yrs and Hannah 5 years) and our 2 boys (Gavin 3 ½ and Brody 1 year). They all adore him. He was absolutely made for this role because he was such a big kid at heart. He loved toys and cartoons and Count Dracula cereal. Anytime he came to visit he found time and an excuse to take Gavin to Toys R Us. When Gavin was 2 he brought him his first G.I. Joes and Jonny (and myself for that matter) were so excited to teach him the names of each character. Snake Eyes and Roadblock became new terms in our house. Then, when Jonny and I saw Gavin’s excitement we somehow ended up back at Toys R Us to pick out even more GI Joes. Jonny would get so excited about giving the kids their Christmas and birthday presents- the foot long plastic dinosaurs, the Batman car and figurine, the Elmo guitar. You could see by the twinkle in his eye that he was reliving his childhood all over again. One of his best friends and roommates, Jeremy, just told me that Jonny would pick out the gift he wanted to get Gavin, bring it home to show Jeremy and then go back the next day to get the same thing for himself. It was so special as a dad to have someone so excited to play with my boys.

We loved our visits and always wished we had more time whenever we parted ways.

Just this past Thursday (five days after Jonny passed) Erin and I came back from Medford where we said goodbye to Jonny. We were so sad. We haven’t told Gavin what is going on. He’s just so young to deal with this yet. We hadn’t even said anything about Uncle Jonny that day but he was on Gavin’s mind none the less.
Gavin and I were playing Chutes and Ladders. He loves to start by divi-ing out the game pieces. Gavin is always the yellow haired boy. The yellow haired girl is always reserved for mommy and I am usually assigned to be the African American boy--we both have dark hair. As he held up the one game piece left he said “Uncle Jonny can be this girl” Then, without missing a beat he said, “But he’s not here, but that’s OK-we can play FOR him”.

He’ll never know the depth of what that statement meant to Erin and I.
So, Jonny, even though you aren’t here, we will always play for you until we see you again. I will do everything I can to keep your memory alive and teach my boys about who you were every chance I get. I will make sure to teach them the three things that you really excelled at: laughter, loyalty, and always choosing to love first. Thank you for all the fun memories.

Dragon week

This past week was "Dragon Week" at the Rench home. We decided to do themes each week in order to make the summer fun and exciting for all of us since we are all home. Dragon week was a great way to start! We started off by going to the public library and getting some fun Dragon storybooks. Gavin was so excited and we all love to read so it was super fun to have new books around. We went to see "How To Train your Dragon" for the 3rd time in the theaters. If you haven't yet seen it, it is sooo good! Gavin is a huge dragon fan now! He loves to ask people (even strangers) "what is your favorite dragon?" It throws them off a bit at first...Anyway, we also watched "Dragon Tales", and made dragon crafts. The final event was to go on a treasure hunt. Suddenly daddy came rushing in and said he had seen some dragon scales outside. Gavin was so excited as he found a trail of dragon scales on trees. Underneath the final scale he found a package and in it were two "How to train your dragon" books. He loved it! Now we are well into our second theme: Camping/cowboys and Indians. I'll blog about that later :)

Elias ave share

A couple of funny stories...

Just thought I'd share a couple of cute stories that happened today. First off we were at the grocery store about 11:00am, which is too close for comfort to Gavin's nap. In times like these it takes some well portioned out treats (fruit snacks, lolipop) to keep him happy for the time I need to get what we came for and get outta there!! It's usually very much a roller coaster experience at the grocery store at this time because he is excited about all there is to see (it's a BIG, warehouse type store) yet he is also tired and when he's tired he gets loud! OK-so the scene is set. We were almost done with the trip, which I had kept to about 25 minutes, and I thought I'd get some fresh bagels since it's something daddy and Gavin love to share in the mornings. So, I parked the cart about 2 feet away from the bagels so as not to crowd the old man and the worker who were using the bagel station. Gavin was happily sorting through things in the cart when he looked up and noticed that I was filling a bag full of bagels. At the top of his voice he shouted, "OH , MOMMY GETTING BAGELS! YEAAAAAAA! MOMMY! GOOD JOB MOMMY!" And ended with an applause. I busted out laughing and thanked him for cheering me on! Spend just a little time with Gavin and you'll find this enthusiasm for many things in life! He is a passionate one, be it positive or negative!
The other story is that last week Gavin spent three days with my mom and dad at their beach condo. He loves to go to "Grandpa's beach house" (not sure how g-pa got all the credit). However, we soon found that when we got there and took him inside he got upset and ran for the door shouting, "NO, GO GRANDPA'S BEACH HOUSE!" "We are in grandpa's beach house." we'd try to tell him, but he was insistent that he wanted to go outside the house. After some time we finally realized that "Grandpa's beach house" referred to the great outdoors and apparently grandpa owns the whole beach-that's where he wants to go-not inside some condo. Sooooo...anyway, while he was there, Grandpa taught him to say (in the most Italian accent) "Me, I don't know!" Picture my dad gesturing with those Italian hands and laying on the accent thick. So, Gavin thought it was funny and loved to imitate that. OK-so here's the story from today...It was bed time, Gavin was beside himself tired. I suggested a bath and he flipped out during the short bath, I suggested a diaper and he flipped out because his tummy hurt, I gave him gas drops and he finally let me put the diaper on but we are talking BIG huge tears and a red- scrunched up face-just screaming of tiredness. Finally I said, over Gavin's loud cries, "OK, where are your jammies, didn't I bring them in here?" He stopped crying and with the breathless sobs still in his chest exclaimed, "Me, I don't know!" Again, I bust out laughing (as my grandma would say!) He, of course, after the statement, and a brief look around went back to his fit and didn't ever realize just how funny he'd been. I laughed all the way to bed!

Our Dancing with the Stars experience!

OK- Dancing with the Stars is my favorite show and Tuesday night Benjy and I sat in the front row of the audience and got to watch the taping.  It was such an awesome experience.  I signed up on line on the abc website about 6 months ago and just got an email last Saturday.  Benjy and I dropped Gavin off in Oceanside with my parents and headed for Hollywood.  We weren't sure exactly what to expect.  They say to be there no later than 3:00 but we were sure that people line up earlier so we got there at 12:00 and were numbers 8 and 9 in line!!!  We were all dressed up-Benjy in a shirt and tie and me in a very nice dress and heels.  We stood on the sidewalk in line for 4 hours and didn't even read our books.  It was so fun to talk to the people in line around us since we automatically had this crazy experience in common already.  As we waited we saw Ryan Seacrest and Simon from American Idol pull in to the studio in their convertibles and waving and smiling at fans.  At 4:00 they told us there would be a pretaping and then they'd go live at 6:00 on the east coast.  Once we got in the studio it was magical I was like a kid in a candy store!  It was so sparkley!  I couldn't believe how SMALL the dance floor was!  It looks so much bigger on camera.  Anyway, once we got inside they start placing people where they want them in the audience.  They started to send people up to the back rows.  When they got to us the lady said, "OK-let me have you two step over here"  I was so excited and thinking, "Oh, I hope they put us in the front b/c we are all dressed up" (some people who were in line in front of us weren't dressed up as much and got stuck in the back.  

Then the girl walked us right behind the judges booth and sat us right down behind Carrie Ann's seat.  I was so giddy!  A lady behind us told us we wouldn't see the dancing b/c the  judges were going to be in front of us but I didn't care what she said, I was so excited to be on the front row and right behind the judges. 

They got us all pumped up with cheering and then Big Bad Voodoo Daddy came out with some of the pro dancers.  My favorite, Julianne caught my eye and we smiled at each other!  Bruno came out and winked at us!  Len Goodman told us we weren't going to be able to see anything.  I still didn't care-it was so much fun!  During the dance w/ Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, the pro dancers (Julianne, Derrick, Marc, Lacy, Tony, Cheryl etc.) had to run behind the judges and wait to go back on the floor right in front of us!  Then the girls kept playing to the judges and sitting on their table so we got the best view of that!  They did that performance two times. 

If you heard about what happened on The Bachelor-we got to see Melissa (the girl who got dumped after he proposed to her) and her new boyfriend-she looked so happy!  Chris Harrison, the host of the Bachelor was there and we watched after the show as he came up to say Hi to Melissa and you could tell it was a little awkward for her, then she proudly introduced him to her new boyfriend.  I know it's shameful to be this involved but I was so starstruck.  Jewel performed as well and they did a really pretty dance to that and we could still see a lot of it even if we were blocked by the judges a bit.

We were only 2 out of like 8 people in the front row who were NOT VIP so we sat across the floor from Mickey Rooney and Wynona Judd.  Benjy sat next to a former Playmate who was there to support Holly Madison (Girls Next Door) and this girl Amber is now on Kendra's new show.  Again...it is shameful I know all of this but if you watch The Soup you see how I know all of this.  We talked to her a lot about what it's like to film a reality TV show like that with cameras in your apartment.  That was kind of interesting.

Our row was dismissed last at the end so we got to linger and enjoy watching what happens afterwards, families mingling, dancers saying Hi to their friends etc.  Then we went out to the Grove for dinner and Derrick and Marc's band played-Maxim and Tony were there to watch so we saw them again.  

It was so much fun and even though Benjy laughed during the guy's dance numbers (he'll never adapt to the high, tight pants and hip shaking) he had a great time too, just getting to see what the behind the scenes was like.

If you watch it, or have it on your DVR, you can totally see me behind Carrie Ann every time she talks.  You can see Benjy too but not as much.

While we were there waiting in line, people were there lined up for American Idol as well.  One girl got to see the dress rehearsal and said it was so incredible to hear them in person because they sound so good!  So...that's my next conquest!

We couldn't take cameras or cell phones so sorry, no pics!

More recent pictures

Gavin's 2nd b-day and Erin's 32nd :)

Saturday February 28th was Gavin's 2nd birthday and his party too.  It was so fun this year because he was really looking forward to it and could list off everyone that was coming-family and a couple of friends.  It was a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme since that is pretty much the main show he watches these days other than the Planet Earth series.  We opened up our french doors and our garage and just let the kids play.  It was just right for Gavin and all that I read about keeping 2 year old b-day parties simple was right on.  This year I made his cake as it is getting to be a new interest/hobby for me and it was a lot of fun!  It was so fun to watch him open presents too because he was so excited about each and every gift!

The next day was my birthday and consequently the day my parents moved into their Oceanside beach condo.  My whole family headed out there for dinner at Joe's Crab Shack, where they announced that it was my 21st birthday and had me get up and hula hoop to some song I can't remember right now.  While sitting and overlooking the water we all saw Sea Lions playing in the harbor.  After sunset we headed back to the condo for ice cream cake.  It was a perfect birthday weekend for both of us!