My Favorite Day

Our annual tree hunt is one of my most favorite days of the year. We had to move the date up a week earlier this year since we will be out of town for Thanksgiving. Saturday was the day. I was so worried we would have to cancel because of a storm, but it ended up being the most perfect day. It was very cold, but I was toasty warm the whole time. The sun was shining and the area was beautiful.

Jonah and Marles

Me and my perfect tree (one of them, I got two this year and I am sooooo excited!)

Bryan not so happy about hauling many trees out of

the woods.

Aliska warming her frostbit toes.

Hauling the many many trees home!

Smuggling one of the trees home since Nate left his permit at home.

The day exceeded all my expectations. I loved it! I probably hiked around the mountain side the equivalent of running 6 miles. It is so fun to just tromp through the snow, stepping over logs, stepping in streams, not having a clue what is under my feet and then chopping down the tree and dragging it to the car. Lot of fun for me.

Family

About a month or so ago we had an impromptu family service night at Nate and Aliska’s house.  It was so great.  Everyone was there helping prepare their backyard for sod.

Nothing spectacular happening except the feeling of being together and helping out.  We always have fun when we are together.  I kind of like hanging out with these people!

Fun Filled Weekend

For Tiffany’s birthday I gave her a weekend with no children.  She could choose to go somewhere or just be at home without them.  She chose this past weekend and so we had a fun time with 5 friends over.  As usual we wish we could say our kids were cousins or something that doesn’t sound as odd as “my best friend’s kids”.  One of Brandon’s friends had called Friday afternoon to see if he could hang out.  He replied, “My cousin is here for the weekend so I can’t.”  He hung up the phone, looked at me and said, “That is much easier than saying, my Mom’s best friends daughter is here.”  I completely agreed.  They all act like cousins and actually are the only kids my kids are allowed to have a sleepover with.  Anyways, we had a wonderful two days with them.

Friday night, Megan played nail parlor and taught Ellie and I how to properly make our nails look their best.

Saturday morning shot after everyone survived their night of sleep (yes my basement still looks like the 70’s)

And a much more formal “family” photo

An extra table set up to fit everyone at dinner time!  Jacob and Luke called this their news spot….they felt like they were on the news in front of the window.

Sledding in the daylight and then again in the pitch dark.

Ellie really wanted to sleep with Jonah in his bed.  She finally agreed to let Joshua sleep in the room as well…on the floor.

We all had a great time and as I kept telling Tiffany, it was no big deal having an extra 5 kids around.  They are very good kids and a lot of fun to be around.  No drama, besides Megan’s pranks and trying to get she, Jacob and Luke to go to bed at night!

They left this morning a bit after we went to church and once we got home this is what my kids did

I didn’t get a picture of Brandon and Bryan doing the same thing!

Tonight as Jonah was getting into bed he said, “can Joshua and Drew come over to play tomorrow because I haven’t seen them in a yong time.”

Pajama Day

Yesterday was pajama day at Jonah’s preschool.  He was so looking forward to the day.  They had pancakes for snack and I guess enjoyed the day in their pajamas.  I asked Jonah which pajamas he wanted to wear and he picked these.

I am probably the only person who got such a kick out of the way he looked.  His little toothpick body with shoes, a jacket and backpack.

Pretty cute little boy.  If I could freeze his age I would!  Actually I would have frozen it when he was 18 months old.

Happy Halloween 2011

I LOVE Halloween! I love dressing up, I love going around visiting with all my neighbors, I love eating homemade donuts, I love the thought of kit kats and almond joys being in my house, I just love it.

I always want to go to a Halloween party and so I decided next year I am having a party! Don’t let me forget.

I spent a long time wrapping Jacob up like a mummy, it lasted about 5 seconds.

Jonah saw this monkey costume at Costco and fell in love with it. He carried it around the store hugging it. The largest size they had was 24 months…..thank goodness it fit him. And yes he wanted to carry around the giraffe halloween bag.

Brandon broke my rule and made me mad. My kids can go trick or treating every year of their life……as long as they really dress up. He was all set to be a certain NBA player and then he comes running in the door and says, “Me, Sam and Davis are all being football fans”. I said, “that is not dressing up! That is who you really are”. I let him go, but was mad all night. I won’t ever let that happen again!

I am very proud to say that I made that skirt. Yes, me all by myself (with lots of walking me through it help from Tiffany) made it. I was very proud of it. I spent so much time and thought on the skirt, I forgot to get a cute shirt to go with. Oh well, maybe next year.

It must run in the family. Here is Nate and Aliska dressed up like characters from the movie Labyrinth. I was so jealous of them going to a party.

And the sight last night as the boys were trading candy. Jonah didn’t really understand what they were doing and kept giving all his candy away. He was mad when I had him put it all back in his grocery sack, he really wanted the bag!

Oh until next year……..I will have to be thinking about my party all year long!

I almost forgot to add pics of our pumpkins! I spent a LONG time on this scooby doo one for Jonah. Next year we are sticking with traditional jack o lanterns!

Brandon and Jacob did nice jobs on theirs, although I think I did most of Jacob's.

Vegas Ragnar 2011

I am sure everyone is sick of hearing about Ragnar, but I need this for my record! I am sad to say that I was not excited for this race. I was dreading the time we had to wake up Friday morning and dreading leaving my kids over their UEA break. I even went as far as to say, “I am not going to do a Ragnar next year.” Well that lasted about a few hours!

Thursday afternoon I met up with my van and we drove to St. George, took us about 7 1/2 hours due to all the UEA and deer hunt travelers. We got there late which made us all a bit anxious for our early start time. We stayed at someone’s vacation home that night. Our whole team got together for pizza, salad and bonding that night.

Friday morning we were up at 4:40 getting ready to get out of there. I know, I know, this is so not my normal behavior!

Beautiful sight to start out!

We never got a complete photo of our van. Me, Chris, Whitney, Maralee, Mike and Jeff. These photos together was who I spent 3 days with.

I didn’t really look at my legs of the race, I just picked the shortest distance leg because I was worn out when I had to choose. So I knew my first leg was 4 miles. What I didn’t know was that it was all uphill. I was fine though, slow and steady. No stopping for me. The run felt good and got me into the spirit of things!

Second run was at about 8:00 p.m. It was 5 miles and almost all downhill. How great was that? I ran through Henderson and had the prettiest view of the strip and the city at night. I only saw 2 runners on that whole leg, that was strange!

Last run was 4 miles on a steady uphill dirt road. I did fine. I don’t push myself, but just set out and run. The hard part about this leg was all the rocks I kept tripping over and the dust from the vans driving by. It was fun. I believe I ran at about 6:30 a.m. for that one. I had more kills (passing another runner) at this race then ever before….they must have had a bunch of slow people running! Our team’s night time break was from 10:00 p.m. until 1:50 a.m. Not a lot of time! Jen was a lifesaver and walked her last leg so that we could sleep a little bit more.

Super fun memories all along the way. I am sure I say this about every Ragnar I do, but this may have been my favorite one yet! I loved pretty much everything about it, well maybe not the 2 hours of sleep, but everything else! Random memories from the trip: drunk with tiredness at the New York New York hotel, laughing hysterically in hotel room, Whitney’s awesome $4000+ camera, peanut butter pretzels, popcorn from whole foods, baked goods stand at exchange, picking up Chris at one mile line and going to have dinner so as to not get penalized for arriving too early, always have to love those scouts, I’ve got a feeling rendition in Jean, NV, creating our own dirt sleeping area, sooner or later song, eating junk food at 3 a.m, listening to the same 7 songs on the radio over and over and over, me trying to move up our name on the list at Hash House a Go Go, the team that took 2nd inviting Whitty and I to be on their team……I could go on an on.

Bottom line….I will be doing another one soon!

Chris, Maralee, Breanne, Steve, George, Jen, Harrison, Jeff, Mike ,Kylie, Me, Whitty woo.

Part 2

Din-ee-yand!!!!!!

This post is making me recall my days of scrapbooking too much. And I should mention I strongly dislike scrapbooking. I am not creative and I don’t know which pictures to use! Since this is my journal and scrapbook, I am feeling the same way.

Bryan had a microsoft conference in Anaheim which is why we went in the first place. An odd time to take the kids out of school for a week, but I am so glad we did. The boys and I got 3 day park hoppers. We stayed at the Residence Inn just a few blocks from the park and walked back and forth everyday. Brandon and Jacob mentioned they were glad we go on walks as a family so much because it made the walk back and forth and through the whole park not a big deal.

Monday was the first day we went. We got in and headed to Space Mountain, but stopped at the Buzz Lightyear ride on the way.

Can you see the fear and tears in his eyes? I guess I should have prepared him for what rides were like. He spent the whole first day a little unsure of everything.

Waiting to go on Autopia made him much happier.

Small World….happy.

Haunted Mansion…not so much.

Parade….LOVED it.

See, now I am stuck. There are hundreds of pictures I want to post, but I don’t know which ones to chose. O.K. this may take awhile.

Monday night Brandon, Jacob and I went back to the parks while Jonah stayed with Bryan. I wanted to be able to go on some of the big rides. We had a BLAST on Tower of Terror and Grizzly Rapids or something like that. I was a wimp after one time on the rapids and wouldn’t go again with the boys…it was late, cold and I was wet. I instantly regretted that decision. (I had to throw in a picture of Jacob with the Hollywood sign behind him.) The pictures on tower of terror are hard to see, but Jacob’s face in them will forever be ingrained in my mind……so so funny.

Tuesday morning started out raining. Luckily I had an umbrella in the car and we all had brought sweatshirts. It dampened our day for a bit and then was awesome. We went on Splash Mountain, the best ride ever created, over and over. One of the times Brandon and I were on it and when the ride ended the operator said, “One more time?” It was like a dream come true. There were people waiting, but he let us just go again. Brandon and Jacob took turns waiting at the end of the ride with Jonah. Well and I took my turn waiting also.

Jonah could have ridden on Dumbo, the carousel and autopia over and over and over and over again. I couldn’t have.

Tuesday night Bryan got to go to a private microsoft party at Disneyland, ya they had rented it out. Plus being there after hours he also got all the churros, popcorn and mickey mouse ice cream bars he wanted! We were so jealous. That was the only time he got to spend at D-land, not fair for him.

Wednesday we got RAINED out. When I say it was raining, I mean it was pouring and pouring and it was so so cold! I went out searching for ponchos to buy and after not being able to get any and realizing it was going to rain all day I texted Bryan and asked if we could please stay longer the next day. I finally convinced him we could make it work. So we spent Wednesday roaming around a mall, taking naps and playing UNO over and over again.

Thursday was beautiful, sunny and warm. I started getting texts from friends at home telling me it was snowing. I was glad to be where I was! We crammed as much as we could in our short day. Tricking Jonah into going on the Matterhorn, autopia to make up for it, Toy Story Mania, every kids ride we could find at California Adventure, one last time on Tower of Terror…..so sad to see it go.

That evening we loaded into the car and drove to St. George. Luckily our great friends the Bingham’s let us sneak into their house late at night, sleep in warm comfortable beds and then sneak out early in the morning. Then drive and drive on home watching the temperature get colder and colder!

We had such a great time. The best part of the whole trip was not having to follow any kind of schedule. The only thing I had to think about was what ride should we go on next………….