GNO Christmas Dinner

Michele, Brooke, Gretel, Margaret, Mary and me!

I had to get a picture this year of all these fabulous girls who I have known basically my whole life. Every year I forget my camera and so happy I didn't this time. We started a tradition a number of years back where we have a nice sit down dinner during the holidays. It is alway's so much fun. I am so thankful for these girls. We always have a lot of good laughs. Lots of fun memories......especially because we have all been great buddies since we were like 5 years old. Before we know it we will be sitting around the table with wrinkled faces and gray hair talking about how we remember having conversations about kid's who spill bottles of honey on recently cleaned carpet! :-) Good times!!

Mr. C's Birthday

Mr. "C" turned 7 last week! He was off track so we got him for the whole day. The night before his birthday we told him he could pick any restaurant to go eat at and he picked Tepanyaki. He loves, loves, loves the noodles there. His meal consisted of soup, salad, and noodles and he was in heaven. He opened his presents that evening and got a skateboard, PS3 Madden 2010 NFL game, and a puzzle. He was one happy kid!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUBBA!!!! WE LOVE YOU!!

A couple day's after his birthday we had his party with friends. He was so excited for this day as he has only had one other birthday party. He really wanted a Star Wars party so we did a little "Jedi Training", had chocolate donuts, opened presents and did a Darth Vader pinata. He had tons of fun being with his friends.

"C" blowing out his candles.

The whole gang!!

Trick-or-Treating

"W" as a Skeleton Bride, "C" as a Skeleton Pirate, and "B" as a Race Car Driver.

The whole Trick-or-Treating Gang!!!

Halloween Fun at Preschool

"B" as Jeff Gordon the Nascar Driver

Pumpkin Carving

Girl's Trip to San Antonio

A couple weeks ago I got to spend 5 day's with two of my favorite people!!! A third favorite person was unable to be with us and has already been warned that she MAY NOT miss another girl's trip in the future.....right Mar? We had a terrific time and can't wait to do it again!!!!
The reason for this trip unfortunately has to do with our age and the fact that one of these gals lives out of state which means we don't get to see her very often. We said a number of years back that when we turned a certain age we would take a girls trip. It was exciting that the time finally arrived but depressing that we reached this particular age soooooo fast. But hey.....we definitely made the most of it!!!


Had to get a picture in front of the Alamo. It was smokin' hot and humid on this particular day and we were sweating like pigs.....and frankly quite miserable. I don't know how people stand the humidity!!! Thankfully we had 3 great days with hardly any humidity at the end of our trip. The two older folks in the picture are my hubby's uncle and aunt. They were kind enough to let us stay in their home and drive us around all day everyday. They were incredibly generous!!!!

Standing at the Riverwalk. We took the little boat ride and went in a few of the shops.

San Antonio Temple

Do we look like we are in highschool or what???? Uncle "J" loves cars and took tons of photo's and video of us posing and sitting in them. We definitely had a good laugh and thought I had better share at least one of the pictures. I'm a bit nervous as to what he plan's to do with the video.

I wish I had taken more pictures of our trip but the Alamo, Riverwalk and the Temple is pretty much all we did other than shopped, shopped, shopped!! I didn't really want to carry my camera around while we did that.....then I wouldn't be able to carry as many bags. :-) We went to an outlet mall that had 300 stores....so between all of us we had a trunk full of stuff. We were literally there all day. We also spent an afternoon in a quaint town called Fredrichsberg. We also took a day and got massages and pedicures and then saw a movie. We needed a day like that after all the shopping. :-) Thanks to my awesome hubby for being mom for a few days!!!

California

"R" and I were able to spend a few days in California a couple weeks ago. He was there for a business meeting so I met up with him a day later. It was the first time I had ever flown anywhere by myself. I was very glad everything ran smoothly.....especially the flight there:-) We had such a great time! Here are a few pictures from the weekend. Thank you "B's" for letting us crash at your place. You guys are awesome!!!!

Breakfast on Manhattan Beach.

Manhattan Beach Pier

Laguna Beach

Dodger's Game......"R" was on cloud 9.

Lake Powell September 2009

We had a great time in Lake Powell a couple weeks ago with some awesome friends in our ward. We had such a fun time boating, playing in the sand, jumping off the houseboat, sliding down the slide, jumping on the water trampoline, playing games, watching movies, face painting and just hanging out with friends. The weather was perfect!! And the kids loved it!!!

Don't know why it say's the year 2004. Ignore!

This is "R" in the back of the boat paddling us out.......proceed to the following story.

Lake Powell isn't Lake Powell without an adventure, right? One day 3 adults (myself and "R" being 2 of the adults) and 10 kids ranging from ages 3-12 went on a boat ride to hike some Indian ruins. It is about a 30 minute boat ride and about 15 minutes into it the boat overheated. We sat in the middle of the channel for about 15 minutes to let the boat's engine cool off and then we headed back to the houseboat. We were approx 5 minutes away from the houseboat and the boat was running great so we turned back around and headed back to the Indian ruins. The boat did great and we got there with no other problems. We hiked to the top looked around for a bit and then headed back down. When we got to the boat we were hot and very thirsty and pretty much downed all the water and gatorade we had on the boat. We all got ready to head back and the boat wouldn't start......it was completely dead! Ummmmmm.......what to do? The two men on the boat ("R" being one of them who I might add had a cracked rib at the time) started paddling us out. The poor guys were just sweating like pigs and had very little water left at this point. We eventually got more out in the open and started having other boaters stopping to see if we needed help......which obviously we did. One boat had an extra battery which wasn't what our boat needed, one boat just went right by video tapping us ......guess we did look kind of weird. 2 men, one woman (me) and 10 freakin kids! Another boat went by and called us Jon and Kate plus 8. Nice!!! Anyway's long story short a very nice family from Kaysville, Ut told us they could at least tow us to the marina. 3 broken ropes and 3 hours later we finally made it to the marina at about 8:30 at night. I forgot to add that not only did we not have enough water, we had no food and no cell phones. Dah!! We thankfully had a group of incredible kids with us who remained calm and didn't complain even though we know they were a bit frightened and starving. I also might add that because we had no cell phone so we knew that the other parents at the houseboat were probably in a major panic. I would have been, not knowing what was going on, if we were safe, etc. We had left at 2:00 and by now it is 8:30 and its dark. We walked the docks trying to find someone who could help us and we found a couple different people who were willing to help. People really are amazing! We all piled in to this man's boat and headed out in the pitch dark, lightening all around and the other "R" who thankfully knew how to get us back to the houseboat. A 20 minute boat ride took us almost 2 hours in the dark. We finally arrived back at 10:30 to moms, dads, kids balling their eyes. They told us they had done everything they could back at the houseboat to help us but kept running into problems. Everyone was definitely relieved! Like I said always an adventure......we are just glad nobody was hurt.

This is "W" with a couple of her friends still smiling as the men are paddling us out. They didn't know at this point how long they were actually going to be sitting in this boat:-)

"W" and "H" after their tube ride!

"C" and "K" getting ready for their tube ride!

Me and "B" getting ready for our tube ride!

Building a sphinx and pyramid out of sand.

It really turned out amazing. Wish I had a better pic.

The mummy!

Kid's having fun on the water trampoline.

First Day of School

The big 4th and 1st grader!!!

Can you say.......Girls Camp!

I had the opportunity to spend five days with the best Young Women leaders and the BEST Young Women ever.......I know I'm biased but SERIOUSLY.....they are incredible people. We went to the Heber Valley Camp which was an amazing place, not to mention my kind of camping......cabins, bathrooms, showers, cooking equipment, crushed ice and beautiful scenery. I was called to be the Assistant Camp Director and was really excited about it but also a bit nervous because I don't know the first thing about "camping," and I knew I would have to leave my kids (not very good at that) but knew there was a great Director that would tell me what to do. BUT..... then she had to be released because her husband got a new job out of state. AHHHHH......NOW WHAT!!! Turned out that I became a "Co-Camp Director along with the Young Womens President (not like she had anything better to do.) We had seven weeks to basically plan camp but we did it along with the all the Young Women Leaders who never complained for a second!! Thank you Thank you!! It was an incredible week......but glad it is over too :-) The only downfall of being at camp was the fact that my sister had her baby while I was gone! Oh, well!

Funny story! Found out at camp that my friend (the one at the end on the left) and I both have family from Whitney, Idaho. Her Grandmother is a Weaver.....well my Grandmother is also a Weaver. WHAT! We did a little research and found out that her grandma and my grandma are cousins.......that we both have the same great great grandfather.....which means my great grandpa and her great grandpa were brothers. I have known this friend for 4 years. Who would have known. My grandma has passed away but her grandma is 92 and is still alive. She knew all about my sweet grandma. My mom couldn't believe it when I told her. Such a small world!

Last Day of School

"C" getting his High Flying Hawk Award.

This is what "C" calls girl trapped......doesn't look like he minds:-) The little gal on the right is our next door neighbor and one of his best friends.

Unfortunately these two pics of "W" turned out so dark. This is her getting her High Flying Hawk Award. At the beginning of each year their elementary school has different items/goals that each grade has to pass off to earn an award. To be honest its not the easiest thing in the world to do......they really do have to work at it. So way to go kiddos!!!!!

St. George Trip

We decided in June kind of last minute to head down to St. George. We swam, saw the movie Up, ate at Pizza Factory twice and walked around the St. George temple. It was nice to get away with just our little family.


"C" was so proud of this picture. We are sitting inside the play area by the pool. Hate close-ups but too funny not to add it:-)

Mr. Farmer Tan

"W" helping her little brother get used to swimming on his own with a life jacket.

At the St. George Temple

Mom's 60th Birthday

We celebrated by going to the Cowboy Grub......it's pretty much a family favorite. Good times!! This is the whole gang except for one sister-in-law who was at home with some sick kiddo's. We were planning on going miniture golfing afterwards but the weather wasn't cooperating so we ended up at my parents house for a night of games. It ended up being a ton of fun.......and we even got my dad to play which is usually unheard of (not a fan of games)......thanks DAD!!

My sister and I took my mom (hooray she took the day off) out to lunch at Rumbi Grill on her big day. There were big thunderstorms going on during lunch and we left just before a huge down pour hit. Parts of I-15 were like a river. It was a crazy drive home.

Our First Flaming Gorge Weekend for 2009

Grandpa B with the boys roasting hotdogs. This was just about one of the only moments the whole weekend where it wasn't raining. It was cold and wet the whole time. We still had fun playing games inside (sorry no pictures) and watching TV.......which is only fun to some:)

Grandpa B taking little "B" on a lawn mower ride. It was great fun for a 3 year old......he was offered a motorcyle ride but turned that down along with the rest of our kids. Whimps :-) I grew up riding motorcyles and my dad would take me on rides all the time. Maybe eventually they will give it a try.