Fun in the Sun

The kids and I headed to Vegas a couple of days before Thanksgiving.  My mom picked us up and we went right to Ethel M. to see the lights.  I love this picture!  I have such a cute mom!  And kids.  :)

 The kids just love being at my mom's and playing with her little closet of toys, and Maggie.

 We headed to town center to see Santa (picture to be inserted here).  He was AWESOME!  And the kids rode the train.

 Marty joined us on Tuesday night, and we headed up to St. George on Wednesday.  We got to swim at Marty's parents pool, and the kids all tried to gang up on Marty.  He always wins.

 Love just hanging out with family!  My brother Jeff and sister-in-law Lesa hosted us all (both of their families, Marty's family, and a few others).  I think there was 35 of us!

 I love this picture of Carter!  He played so hard the whole week

 The Jones' drove down from West Jordan and Addison and Katie were so excited to be back together again for a couple of days!!

 Love this of Carter and Brielle...they said a quick hello and started running and climbing (we met up to do a little hiking on the Dixie hill).

 Marty's niece Tyler is always fun!  We love having her around!

  The day after Thanksgiving we headed to the St. George temple to see the lights.

 The girls were able to have a sleepover, and of course put a little show on for us.

 On Saturday we went out to Tuachan to see the live Nativity and Santa.  And this picture makes me laugh. 

 Saying Good-bye to the Jones'.  I think Brie does NOT want Carter's kiss!  :)

 Group hug!

Pier 39 Tree Lighting

We went into the city a couple weeks ago for the Tree Lighting at Pier 39.  It was a lot of fun, beautiful weather, and lots to see and do.

 We even found Mickey and Minnie (funny Minnie has her eyes closed in this picture!)  :)

 When they finished with the "tree lighting ceremony", the tree wasn't lit.  They didn't say a word about it, just thanked everyone for coming and left the stage.  Then about 10-15 minutes later it just came on.  Not sure if it was a glitch or what, kind of funny though!

Happy Halloween!

another surprise visitor!

Well, this is what our house looks like.  If only Marty could be in two places at once, or didn't need any sleep!  His work is cra-aaaa-zy.  He loves it and things are going great!  This is our dining room which actually now has about half of a floor, so it's coming along slowly.  

 We had stake conference a couple of weeks ago.  It is held at the temple auditorium, and, they make up these cute little books for the kids to color.  Obviously we are not in Utah where they would possibly go bankrupt printing books for all the kids.  :)

 I had to add this picture, because Carter waves in almost every single picture that I take and it's so cute!

 Super attractive, huh?  I had a little surgery done on my mouth last week and it was awesome.  :-/  Feeling much better now though.

 Addison is growing up right before my eyes.  She loves 4th grade, gymnastics, activity days and Girl Scouts.    Last week she had an at school "field trip" where they learned a bunch about California and had to memorize some facts and compete in a little friendly competition.  She wore this cute little pioneer dress and helped her team come in first place!  And then she went to Girl Scouts with her brand new vest.

 My mom decided to come visit for the weekend so we didn't tell the kids and she came and picked them up from school with me.  To say they were excited is an understatement.  So, so cute!!

Go GIANTS!  World Series Fever is in the air!

Surprise!

Marty's parents drove out and surprised the kids last week!  We had so much fun with them!
This is the only picture I got of all of us together.  Of course we are EATING!  We did way too much of that!

We spent the day on Saturday in San Francisco at the pier for a boat parade in the bay,
and an air show...in the air.  These are the Blue Angels.  Totally amazing!  They should not be able to fly that close, right?  Crazy!

The kids thought it was pretty fun for the first couple of hours, but after a while they looked like this (they are playing on our phones):

 hahaha!

 On Sunday we went to Muir Woods

 and saw a couple of these awesome caterpillars walking around.

At first she was kind of scared of them but once she was able to pet it she wanted to bring it home.  We did not...pretty sure that would be discouraged, since you're not even allowed to take sticks out, but they were fun to visit!  (See,it's in her hand).

 And then we headed to the beach to spend time at/in the ocean.

Marty and the kids were throwing jelly fish back into the ocean and ended up losing our bucket in the process.  Somehow it made it's way back to the shore! 

 On Monday after school, we took the kids to a pumpkin patch with a cute little petting zoo.

We loved having them visit!  It was a great week that went by super fast!  Thanks for coming Grandma and Papa!

October already!

We did some fun stuff in September, just thought I'd update with a bunch of pictures.  We did not work on the house enough...most of our stuff is still in storage.  But I keep telling myself it will get done eventually.  Right?

We went to a Poison/Def Leppard concert.  Marty loved it.  ;)

I watch Celebrity Apprentice so I did like seeing Brett Michaels.  

 We went to two parades in one day.  One for the Walnut Festival, and one for two Olympic medalists who live by us.

 Carter loves Kindergarten, and even got to bring his class mascot, Alfredo Buzzito, home for a whole weekend!  We took him on a little hike where we found this giant tree stump.

 Addison joined Girl Scouts and went to a really fun Twilight Camp one evening.  She had SO MUCH FUN.  I'm really proud of her since she didn't know a single person and we weren't allowed to stay.

 This is Carter doing his show and tell in front of the class.

 I've been on a lot of walks and everything is super beautiful!  This is looking down into my neighborhood from a little trail I like to take.

 This is the park right by our house. Click on the picture so you can see all the stuff in it a little better.

 Santa Cruz, again.  It has been so hot here that we decided to go out there on Saturday.

 and then Marty and the kids slept outside in a tent Saturday night.

 Of course lots of time in the pool and hot tub.

 And Carter is a budding artist.  He is always drawing or making things out of paper.  They talked about talents at church and this was what he did to take to show his class.  It's a picture of Marty.

Happy October!  We have some fun stuff planned this month.  Stay tuned.  And know that if you are reading this blog, WE MISS YOU!