Twas the Night before Thanksgiving!

Twas the night before Thanksgiving and all through the kitchen

There was pouring, and grilling, and cooking and mixin!

We all had our aprons on, from our necks to our feet,

And everyone was cooking for the big thanksgiving day feast!

The food was prepared with precision and care,

Then placed in the fridge to set over night there.

After all was prepared a great joy filled the air,

As games were played, giggles shared and family was everywhere!

The night was over, time to turn off the lights,

As we all yelled, "Happy Thanksgiving! and to all a Good Night!"

Thanksgiving 5K

We Ran, and Ran, and Ran! It was Awesome!

Ray finished in 21 minutes! Wow!

Michelle and Alexis finished in 41 and 47 minutes.

Brandon finished in 46.5 minutes.

Domenic finished in 48 minutes (with a little help from Ray at the end!)

I finished in 51 minutes! Under an hour, I am pretty proud of myself. I was no 20 minutes and under, but I finished and that is all that matters!
Maybe it will be a new family tradition!?!

5K here we come!

Alright all you marathoners! Thanks a lot for giving the running bug to my husband, daughter, son... now we all are running the 5 K on Thanksgiving morning!

Pictures of victory to come later!

He's Official!

After 2 1/2 years, Skyler is now an official member of our family! I finished his Christmas stocking today!

Why so long? Laziness...procrastination...not sure??? But it is done, cute, and so him!

Grandma! Thank you for this wonderful legacy. I feel love through you every time I look at each stocking! Add this one to your list of wonderful creations!

You Meddling Kids!

For Halloween we went as the Scooby Doo gang! Before you ask it, No, we did not have a Shaggy! Sorry, sometimes there just aren't enough people!

Domenic went as Fred, and we have been blonding his hair out for the last month in preparation! It turned out great!

Alexis was Daphne! This girl is totally Daphne in every way. We really only had to add a red wig!

Skyler got to be the famous pup! He was such a great puppy! He would walk on all fours, run around like a happy little guy, and candy really is his food of choice. He was in heaven!

Brandon was Captain Cutler! This deep sea diving dude is one of the original Scooby bad guys! He looked Awesome! We added glowing sea weed (silly string, and glow sticks) just like in the cartoon! Too much fun!

I added this picture, because it is funny! What is up with my head? Weird lighting effects!

Lost but not forgotten

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, nor have I given up on blogging. My Internet is on the fritz again and I only periodically have access at home. Also, new callings, school starting, and work have overwhelmed my time! That being said, I am happy ,healthy and hanging in there! Look forward to more adventures in the near future!

Day 4 ~ Fresno and Vegas

Day 4 brought on more driving! We stopped by old Sacramento on the way out of town to pick up some pressed pennies. On the way there we took a wrong exit and got to drive by the State Capital where "Arnold" works! We didn't see him, but got a photo of the building! We also took a picture by the floating hotel that is on the river! There were some huge fish in that river. We had hoped to spend a little time at the beach, but then remembered that rivers don't have beaches. Oh well!

About 3 hours from Sacramento is Fresno! We had downloaded a map to get to the temple, but it was vague and it took us an hour and a half of driving through the town to even come close to it. We even had Brandon's dad on the phone guiding us with his GPS. It was not fun. But we finally made it there.




Domenic and Alexis are sporting their China Town treasures!

The driving continued! The drive through Fresno took so long that we got into Vegas much later than originally planned. Driving into Nevada there was this hillside covered in windmill generators. It was truly a nifty sight as they were all spinning rapidly!


We stayed at the Excalibur hotel! Since Vegas is really a night town we decided to head out and walk the strip for a bit. The kids were so excited to be staying in a castle!



The strip is deceiving. You start at one place and go, look that isn't very far. Very far is not a term you can use when walking the strip...it is very far! The kids look excited here at the M & M factory (which we won't go into until tomorrow), but this was at approx. 11:30 p.m. We got lost between Planet Hollywood and the Paris hotel (not between, but in). These next pictures are taken about 12:45 a.m. hence the reason everyone looks beat!



Was it crazy to have the little ones up so late, probably, but on the flip side they had slept for about 3 hours in the car on the way to Vegas. Brandon wanted to recreate the Race to Witch Mountain sign at Planet Hollywood with him as the "Rock", and Alexis and Domenic as the aliens, so here is one of the better attempts!



It was fun to get our shot by the Eiffel Tower too. Where else in the world can you visit the Sphinx, a castle, the Eiffel tower, pirate ships, a volcano, the statue of liberty, and downtown New York all in the matter of minutes? Vegas Baby!

It was 2 a.m. when we got back to the hotel and crashed! And to make things even more exciting we knew we would be up by 9 the next morning to get in swimming before check-out time! That comes tomorrow though!

Day 3 ~ San Fransisco!

Our 3rd day didn't start out as early as we wanted it to, due to the fact that we slept in a bit, and we had to go and find a pharmacy. Yep, I had to go and spend 1 hour 1/2 getting my prescription transferred to California and fixed. What a pain in the butt! Oh well, we do what we have to. Onto the great part of the day!

We started at the Oakland Temple! Beautiful! This temple was the best show of California ever! The design was so unique; I have never seen anything like it. The gold twisted spires were so neat, and the landscaping was magnificent! Rows of palm trees, a flowing rocky river and fountains. It was nearly impossible to get shots of Oakland and Sacramento without people in them. There were people everywhere! We just took a couple of shots with people in them (hence the fun bridal party shot).

This shot is funny! After I had took it I looked and thought, "I don't remember a helicopter in the sky when I took this??" It is not a helicopter. Look carefully and you can see the fly that invaded my shot!

We drove into San Fransisco across the Bay Bridge. It took FOREVER! Oakland is 11 miles from San Fran, 11 miles. It took us 2 1/2 hours to drive there. It was so depressing to be able to see the town and all the things we wanted to do and to watch the clock tick tock away. We got into San Fran at 3:30 in the afternoon. Bummer!!

The weather was bringing in a tropical storm at the same time. Here are the kids in front of San Fransisco! What a fun and unique town!

As we were heading to the parking we drove by a cable car and a 2 decker tour bus! Awesome!

We had lunch at the famous "Bubba Gumps". Yummy! The food was fabulous, the best seafood I have ever had! The view was spectacular too! We had a perfect view of Alcatraz and the bay. Because it was so windy there were plenty of sailboats to watch come into the harbor while we ate.

This princess liner behind us was HUGE! The boat is actually quite a distance away, it was unbelievably big. The kids liked watching the tour cruises come in and out of the pier too.

Here is a shot of Alcatraz and the sea lions at Pier 39. The kids thought they were so cool. They even spent time picking out the little baby ones. There really is nothing like the sea lions basking on the pier.






Here is the only view that we had of the Golden Gate Bridge. That storm was ruining our pictures! Even so, it was spectacular to visit again. We loved taking pictures in front of the big cable. I remembered doing this when I was 12 (the last time that I came to San Fran). It got so cold about this time though. The time between Alexis and the boys was about 20 minutes and you can see the difference in the light. We also learned that you must have lots of quarters when you visit San Fran. All parking requires feeding the meter.

As we were getting ready to leave we come to the other side of the bridge, where there was a little more visibility. We also saw this wonderful beach. The sign said it was only a 0.9 mile walk. No problem right. The kids desperately wanted to play on the beach so we headed out on the trek. Little did we know the path was snaking straight down the cliff side, hundreds of wooden stairs. The beach looked so close, we could hear the crash of the waves, feel the spray of the water. Keep moving everyone. As it got darker and darker, and the beach didn't get any closer we realized that there was no way we would make it before it got dark, and no way we would be able to head back up the stairs in the dark. We heavy hearts we made the decision to turn around and go back. So sad. Of course as we turned and started back up we noticed the the tide was coming in as well. Our beach got smaller and smaller. The biggest bummer of our trip was that we missed the beach. But there will be another time I am sure.

We closed the day out by going to China Town. It was lots of fun to wander through the stores and look at all the great deals. Alexis choose to get a Japanese dress and a little purple parasol. Domenic choose a wooden Samurai sword. Skyler slept through all of China Town, it had been a long day! We also collected a large number of pressed pennies, another good reason to have lots of quarters on hand!