Alexis & Mark Breyer

Part 3 of 3: The Airplane Ride

By Alexis Breyer on February 27, 2009

Sitting in front of me on the plane was a guy wearing a suit, who looked very professional. Well, at least he looked professional at first. Some of that professionalism somehow got lost as the flight progressed. Not sure what it was, but it might have been attributable to the fact that he kept picking his nose! At least I was in a different row. As for the person sitting next to him? I’m not sure what she thought! At least he was consistent, as he did this several times throughout the plane ride.

At one point, the plane ride became very bumpy. I thought I was going to die and so did my mom. I told my mom, “don’t worry you won’t care once you die.” She said, “Yeah but I feel bad for you and the kids!” I then began to text Mark (I know you aren’t supposed to do this and my phone wasn’t really working) about all the cases and clients he needed to make sure he called and took care of for me if the plane crashed. I also prayed! (Editor’s Note from Mark: Nice to see that in times of desperation, my wife is able to keep her priorities straight.)

Toward the end of the flight, Ariella’s ears were hurting her. The guy in back of  us had offered Ariella some gum to try to stop her ears from hurting.  Of course, this is not a surprise, since by the time the flight was getting ready to land he and Ariella had become best of friends. Of course, Ariella had managed to meet and have conversations with about half the passengers on board. When I went to go to the restroom, the flight attendant asked me if I was “Ariella’s mom.” In any event, I was more than happy to accept the gum for Ariella. When Ariella did not want the gum, I split it in half and had half the gum for myself and gave Pierce the other half. I told Pierce to have the gum because it would make his ears feel better. After a second of processing that information, he stuck the gum in his ear and told me it didn’t make his ear feel any better. I wonder if Mark would have done that as a kid. (Editor’s Note from Mark: Yeah, probably) Pierce is supposed to be one of my smart kids too! After taking the gum out of his ear, he stuck it in his mouth and chewed it. I still have no idea whatever happened to that piece of gum, but I never saw it again.

That was the plane ride going to the Bat Mitzvah. The plane ride back was just as eventful in that I tried to sleep and got Pierce’s water bottle spilled on me 5 different times, Ariella was setting up her marriage to one of the flight attendant’s sons, and Pierce “had” to go to the bathroom about 10 different times on a 5 1/2 hour flight. Next time, I might consider using some people’s suggestions of giving the kids medicine to put them to sleep on the plane… isn’t that cheating though?

Part 2 of 3: The Airplane Ride

By Alexis Breyer on February 26, 2009

Prior to boarding the plane, I bought the kids a bunch of snacks. They would have bought everything in the store but I scared them by telling them that they would miss the flight, which they did not want to do as they were very excited to spend the weekend away from their Dad who yells a lot. (Just kidding Mark)

(Editor’s Note from Mark: As for me, I was minding my own business taking the deposition of an expert witness who was charging me about $275/hour to ask him questions while he tried to avoid simply admitting that the defendant that hired him was at fault. While I was trying to keep him from avoiding the truth, I get not one, but two text messages from Alexis. Assuming it was something important – she did know I had spent many hours preparing for this key deposition – I stopped the deposition to read it. I knew Alexis was traveling and thought it must be something that was very important for her to send me a text message during this deposition. Something that needed my help, and only my help. A text message that would undoubtedly need me to come through for her quickly so she could travel. What was this vital text message? “Plane taking off now. Kick some expert butt.” Maybe, just maybe, that one could have waited until later?)

Anyways, we all settled into our seats. Pierce sat next to my Dad in one row while my mom, Ariella, and I sat in the row across the aisle. I think my dad fell asleep before we even took off. Of course, my dad’s sleep only lasted a second because Pierce woke him up to play cards. After cards with Pierce, my Dad was reading our book, The 13 Biggest Mistakes that Can Destroy your Arizona Injury Case. (Yes, I had to put a plug in for our book – we are very excited about our first book and are having an interview with a reporter on Wednesday about the book.) My Dad then started to get a little dizzy. I told him that maybe he was dizzy because the book had too much information for him to handle, but he assured me that was not the case. Pierce didn’t care about his grandfather’s health, though. Pierce insisted that my Dad - dizzy or not - still had to play cards with him. My poor Dad continued to play cards with Pierce. My dad even tried to bribe Pierce to let him take a nap, offering to give Pierce a dollar, but Pierce turned him down, flat. Apparently, Pierce would rather play cards with the Dizzy Grandfather and keep waking him up as opposed to just taking a dollar. Of course, I was not surprised my dad had been able to fall asleep as soon as we got on the plane, as I think my Dad can fall asleep anywhere – even standing up. The only other person I know who can do that is my husband. (Editor’s Note from Mark: zzzzzzzzzzzzz)

When I sat down, I purposely situated myself in the window seat furthest from my Dad so I had planned to have very little communication with the kids. Well, that plan worked for only a short while before the kids actually wanted my attention. To make the flight a little more hectic, Pierce eventually figured out he could go to the bathroom and that would give him an excuse to get up. The child showed excellent self-control, however, getting up to go the bathroom only about, say, 70 times or so. Luckily, my mom got up with him 90% of the time. She offered to help, so I figured I might as well let her! (I think she was very tired at the end of the plane ride!)

Part 3 continued until tomorrow….

Part 1 of 3: The Airplane Ride

By Alexis Breyer on February 25, 2009

I was going to a Bat Mitzvah of a cousin in Washington D.C. on Friday. Since Zev had a basketball tournament, Kailey had dance, and Tate had a chess tournament, we had to decide who was going to go on the trip. We originally decided I would fly from Phoenix to D.C. with my parents (who were in Arizona visiting) along with Ariella (6) and Pierce (3). We had also planned to take Talia (4, almost 5) but she got a very bad ear infection the day before we left. Luckily we have a pediatrician next door to our office so we were able to get Talia a doctor’s appointment very quickly to diagnose the problem. I think we were able to get such a quick appointment, in part, because the pediatrician feels bad for us since she sees us always working and running around with the kids during the week. While I was in Washington, Mark was at home lounging around with the kids. (Editor’s Note from Mark: Absolutely, that is what I was doing. Nothing more relaxing than watching five kids, ages 12, 11, 8, 4, and 1 while taking the three older kids to their competitions and practices, all while 4 of the 5 had come down with various combinations of coughs, stomach flu, and fever. Yup, a relaxing time it was!)

Here is a recap of my flight. First, I got a late start in the morning since I was so tired from working late at night and having the lights on in my room as Mark prepared for a deposition the next day so we were a bit rushed. (Editor’s Note from Mark: Interesting how my preparation until 2:30am for a deposition the next day made Alexis too tired to get up.)

On the way to the airport when I was looking for the parking I got lost. Of course, I was talking to a client on the phone while I was driving so that probably didn’t help in my search for the parking lot. (Editor’s Note from Mark: driving and talking on cell phones should be illegal.) Luckily, I was able to swing around real quick and got a parking spot. But, in my haste to get the kids (and my parents) out of the car, I forgot where I had parked. Before we got in the elevators, though, I went back out to the parking lot to look, so I was all set.

By the time we got through the security screening I was very upset because I realized I was not rushed. In fact, I was an hour early for this flight… I could have gotten a lot more calls made to clients in if my parents had not rushed me so much. (Editor’s Note from Mark: I agree with Alexis on this one. As I once read somewhere, if you don’t miss at least a couple flights a year, you spend too much time sitting in airports. About 75% of all running I have done since graduating high school has been in an airport while trying to catch a plan.) …. To be continued… check in tomorrow….

Welcome to the Husband and Wife Law Team Blog - Our First Post!

By Alexis Breyer on February 23, 2009

Welcome to the Husband and Wife Law Team Blog! This is our first blog post. As many of you know who read our monthly newsletters, we are the “Husband and Wife Law Team.” This blog will be the same format as our newsletters, A Little About the Law… A Lot About Everything Else. Of course, a good amount of the “everything else” is about our 7 kids… and for those that do not know us, the answers to your questions are, first, yes, they are all mine and second, yes, they are all ours! This blog will give us an opportunity to write more frequently than our newsletter each month. If you want to be on our newsletter list, please e-mail lucia@breyerlaw.com.

Usually, we talk about each child in our newsletter and Mark comments about how he thinks everything I (Alexis) say is wrong. Although, I thought about having this as my exclusive forum, Mark wants to still have his chance at letting everyone know how he thinks he’s always right, which we all know he isn’t. In any case, we will be keeping the same format in our blog, I write (i.e. I do all the work) and he writes his comments (i.e. he criticizes what I‘ve written)!

So it is only fitting that our first blog article is going to be about Zev. Zev is our oldest child. He is 12 years old now. He is exactly like his father (please help me!) Not that his father isn’t the greatest, but it’s like living with two of them and it’s hard enough to live with one of Mark. Although I have to say Mark is finally starting to take out the garbage and bring down the laundry to the laundry room. I mean, is it asking for that much to bring down the laundry to the laundry room? (Editor’s Note from Mark: What is it in the brain of a smart, beautiful, awesome wife that makes her go crazy over the garbage. It’s the garbage I forgot to take out, I didn’t forget to bring a kid on the family vacation. Get a grip.)

So back to Zev, he’s in 6th grade this year. He tried out for a play and he has been faithfully going to rehearsals so we are very proud of him. Zev’s biggest thing right now is video games. I asked him the other day in front of my father if he’d like to go home and play video games or if he’d like to spend more time with his grandfather and grandmother who were visiting from Boston. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I knew I shouldn’t have asked Zev the question. (Editor’s Note from Mark: I mean after all, in the law you always learn, never ask that one extra question when you can only lose ground. Once you have the people where you want them, just leave it at that. Never sell what has already been sold.) While I was holding my breath and praying he would say “spend time with Peepa and Meema,” Zev was silent for a few seconds and finally blurted out, “Meema and Peepa.” Thank goodness! I breathed a sign of relief. My father was probably wondering why I was so red from holding my breath!

Zev is also very smart, like his Dad. I tell Zev he’s really lucky- he got my looks and his Dad’s brain. Zev doesn’t seem to like that – maybe he thinks I’m telling him he looks like a girl. Although, I have a picture of myself when I was 12 years old and Zev looks exactly like me…. especially since his hair is longer than mine at age 12. I am still not quite sure about the long hair styles of the boys these days. There’s not much you can do though as a parent… I’ve learned just pick my battles… and pick them slowly…. with a lot of thought! Similar to how you deal with your husband!

The other day when I came home from work, Zev had put on gym clothes getting ready to go to basketball practice. I said to Zev that his clothes don’t match and he told me, “Why not Mom. Orange and Black match.” To which I responded to him, “Zev that’s not black it’s green!” To which he signed, “Awwww, Mom.” I’m willing to bet Mark had a similar conversation when he was younger… but it probably was with his sister Sheri, not his Mom. I don’t know… I’m just guessing! (Editor’s Note from Mark: Never happened for me. My sister just picked my clothes out so I would not embarrass her by trying to dress well without her guidance.)