Thanksgiving 2014

This year we were very blessed to have the opportunity to go to Disneyland/CA for very little cost to us. THANK YOU FOREVER! to those who made this possible. It was a BLAST! We loved the company, and the weather was perfection.
We got to Cali Wednesday night and immediately went swimming in the hotel’s pool/hot tub. The sun was setting, baby was napping, and it was just. perfect; absolute relaxation.
Thursday we spent at Disneyland. Morgan had a little bit of a hard time, but the rest of us loved it. At one point we were in a little sit-down area called..,.I can’t remember, but it was Arabia something. Anyway. We were about the only ones there, and Genie was there. He played duck, duck goose with the kids. It was awesome! We also got front row seats to the parade. whoo-hoo!!!! So cool! A couple of our party needed to use the restroom, and the rest of us happened to stop and wait by for them by some people who were saving a bench but changed plans. They said “take it”, and we did…along with some cotton candy and lemonade freezies. Yum! We left in the early evening to take a little break and get some Thanksgiving dinner at our restaurant- haha! As seen in the movie below.- We came back for a submarine Nemo ride (note: I could NEVER really live in a submarine) and watch the firework show.
Friday we met up at the beach in Oceanside. The weather was gorgeous; the beach was pretty empty; there were some good waves and we could watch surfers. The beach went out forever in to the ocean so was perfect for the little kids. I could have honestly stayed there all day. At one point Rob and I ditched the kids on the beach and took our fat selves out a ways to do some body surfing…hahaha! Just he and I. It was so much fun. It was probably my favorite part of the vacation…well, one of a couple…
Saturday was California Adventure Park. If you ask my kids, this was their favorite part of the vacation. They LOVED Cars Land. It was so much less crowded; not as overwhelming as Disneyland; and was just a lot more accessible. There were a lot of rides the entire family could go on, where as in Disney (at least the rides we did) somebody always had to stay behind with Morgan and the baby. The entire park is just so well done. Especially Cars land and the Midway with the ferris wheel; arcade rides, and rollercoaster. Our family treated us to dinner at “Ariel’s Grotto” which is a restaurant right on the water. The lights came on after it got dark and the place was just fantastic! I LOVED it! And I got to eat the best fish…and crème brulee. To die for.  Plus we got to meet a lot of princesses This dinner was my other favorite part of the trip.
Unfortunately Sunday was not so magical. After spending an hour in Vegas to let the kids run around, eat some lunch, and GO TO THE BATHROOM; we weren’t twenty minutes up the road and the kids say they need to go again. So we had to stop at the scary Indian Reservation place just off the freeway. Another twenty minutes later we were on the road again; only to get stopped just north of Mesquite. The holiday traffic was so bad it took 2.5 hrs to get from there to St. George! And then there were more bathroom stops and…good grief! haha! But that’s ok. Nothing could break our spirits after the fun we’d had. Plus the weather was good
Now, if you take the time to watch the movie, please note a few things:
1) I am not a movie maker. I have no idea how to use the program I used to put this together and so the songs kinda just cut off randomly and… ya…keeps you on your toes..heh heh
2) Many people contributed to the picture pile- thank you!
3) I had to just use what music Rob had on the computer…which was a lot of random stuff to weed through, and quite frankly it was just taking too long. And yes, I realize that Christmas music would have gone much better with the Parade part of the video than “Footloose”, but we just didn’t have one single Christmas song in the ba-jillion songs. Plus I am a little special, so I had already re-done all the music several times, and I still didn’t love it, but…it was all just taking too long. (sigh)
4) You get what you pay for. Pretty much this is the worst movie ever made, but it was the most fun way to put all the pictures together.
Anyway- it was fun. I want to do it again…but not until Cam is about 4; so he can remember it and so he is tall enough to go on all the rides. Also, when we go again I want to take more days to do it in.  Again, thank you for the vacation-SUCH A BLAST!!!!

Halloween Week!

First of all, since the beautiful Indian Summer is coming to a close, we decided to try and get one last hike in (well, and we’ll probably try again tomorrow, but anyway). Hike of choice was the Rainbow Trail up Ogden Canyon. We went about 3pm and the lighting through the trees was BEAUTIFUL! I wish I were a pro so I could capture the way it was. Instead, you should all just go hike it tomorrow about that same time of day.

We also did some pumpkin carving:

Tuesday was the ward/neighborhood trunk-or-treat. It is so much fun living in an area that is SO FULL of kids all about the same age! After the trunk-or-treating we all came in to the stake center to eat chili dinner, and then the kids hopped on the stage and started bustin’ some moves

And finally, Halloween itself. This morning the elementary school had a fun costume parade, followed by parties in each grade:

And…here is Halloween night. Rob was a stud as always and took the older boys out…and I honestly have no idea what Morgan is doing here…

Happy Halloween from our pumpkin patch to yours!

10/14-10/21

Most of them time when I am bored, my children get the brunt of it… On our way to taking the monkey suit pictures, Mason said to me, “Mom, I will give you $10 and two gold coins if you will never take my picture again!”. Poor little boy…he’ll never be able to afford the disappearance of my camera.

 

Don’t feel too badly for them though; their Nana Strong took them up to the cabin where they played outdoors for two full days. (Pictures taken by Nana)

And they’ve been playing outside at our house, too.

We also blessed baby Cameron this weekend. It was so fun to see so much of our family. I just want to note since they are not in the picture that Cam’s Uncle Aaron, and Aunty Arlene and Jackie were also there for the blessing. We ate chicken tamales, beef enchiladas, and sweet pork burritos with sides of black beans and green salad. Thank you grandmas for making the food!