Thanksgiving and beyond

Have you ever had a vacation so long that it took you at least a week to recover after coming home?  Well I just did!  The Wednesday before Thanksgiving we headed to Idaho to spend the holiday with my family.  Kade and I have been married for more than 11 years and he has never had Thanksgiving with my family.  My Mom is a fantastic cook and she did not disappoint, the food was fantastic.

And the company wasn't bad either.

After we left my parents house we headed to Park City for the week.  And while Park City was our home base for the week, we did manage to go a lot of places while we were there.

We started with the zoo.

This woman just happened to be walking by with a Peregrine Falcon.  McKinna had a smile on her face but really couldn't wait to put a little distance between her and that bird.

There were also some really cute new additions to the zoo.
When we walked up to the first elephant McKinna said "Mom that is a boy elephant."  When I asked her how she knew that she told me that she "could see his stuff", then after a brief pause she turned to me and said "or does his stuff fall off in the winter?"  And as far as I know, only squirrels hide their nuts for the winter!

I think that this guy may have been sending me a message and I don't think that it was very nice!

Here are some rhinos and some whinos.

Other inmates.

I really do think this guy wanted to eat us!

My kids are allergic to cats of all kinds.

My monkeys are getting big.

Another of the many activities was ping pong.  Liam became quickly obsessed and would recruit anyone that he could.  Luckily my Dad has always been quite a ping pong player himself so Liam was in heaven.

They had a real competition going and I didn't find out until the day my parents left that Liam and my Dad were also racing down the long halls to get to the ping pong area.  I think that Liam probably thought that he would have a better chance at beating "Poppie" at a foot race than at ping pong.

We rode the Gondola up and down the Mountain from our hotel and I am not sure how my kids can be smiling at this point because it was soooo cold I was miserable!

We went and saw the Christmas lights at Temple Square.

They were fantastic as usual.

( I must admit that credit for this picture goes to Kade but I loved it so much that I had to add it to my post.  Thanks Kade!)

Well these are just a few of the things that we did while on our trip.  I, of course managed to squeeze in some shopping.  But the best part was that we got to spend time with family and friends that we love and miss.  And there are a few that we are still missing and hope to see next time!

We cut the trip a day short because we were trying to beat some bad weather that was coming.  We drove through a storm for the first few hours but then thought that we were home free.  Well, we were wrong,  we were a half hour from home when the traffic came to a complete stop!  We sat there without moving for more than two hours.  The kids watched an entire movie and when it was over Liam looked out the window and said "Are we still here?!"  Oh to be a kid and get so engrossed in something that you are oblivious to what is going on around you!  (I guess maybe you don't have to be a kid,  their Dad does the same thing!)

I have a super rude friend.  You may be thinking that she doesn't look rude at all.  You may be thinking that she looks fun and simply delightful.   Well you would be wrong and you know why you would be wrong?  Because she brought me a birthday cake on my birthday!  Now before you think that that was an extremely thoughtful thing for her to do, take a look at the cake.

 You need a closer look?

Now do you agree with me?

For a minute I wasn't sure what I was going to do with that knife.  Turn it on myself or her,  but then I decided since I am really only 29 that I would just use it to cut the cake so we could all enjoy it.

I hope you all know that I am just kidding (not about being 29) about having a rude friend.  Thank you Nancy  for being so thoughtful on a rather difficult day.  You are as fun and delightful as you appear.  And to be honest that is by far NOT the rudest cake I have ever received but I can't show pictures of that cake because children may see this.

Vegas Livin'

This child is always saying crazy things.  Maybe it is just the age.  Liam said so many crazy things when he was her age and younger I could have written a book.  As a matter of fact my dad was always bugging me to write them all down and I didn't.  I should have started blogging years ago.  I guess someday I need to sit down and write all of the things that I can remember but with old age setting in I am not sure how many I could remember.  And truthfully Liam has said a lot of things that should not be told in public.  Anyway back to McKinna,  the other day we were driving and she informed me that when she grows up she wants to live in Las Vegas and when I asked her why she said " because it is near America,  the sun shines a lot, and it has lots of police!"

SYTYCD

I have to tell you something about my husband,  he HATES dancing!  If you suggest that he even think about dancing he will break out in a cold sweat!  Consequently he is not a fan of the shows like So You Think You Can Dance.  I on the other hand LOVE the show.  But luckily for me, Kade loves me more than he hates the show.  So for my Birthday he took me to see the SYTYCD show.

These pictures aren't great because they were taken with Kade's phone but you get the idea.

Does he look like he is being tortured for my Birthday?  I mean really in Vegas you can be entertained just sitting and watching the freak show walk by.

The dancing was fantastic and I loved every minute of it.  As we were leaving Kade informed me that that night was as close to "dinner and dancing"  as we were ever going to get!

Thanks Kade it was a great night!!

Mini vacation

I am behind again on my blogging because I have been out of commission this week with a hurt neck but before I hurt my neck we took a really fun trip to St. George.  Some friends from the Law School days have a house in St. George so we went there for a visit.

McKinna and baby Burke (I refer to him as "baby" because his Dad is Burke and it gets a little confusing sometimes, like when Burke's wife Jamie says things like "come here Burke so I can change your diaper!")

Kade and Burke taking in a beautiful cool morning in the dessert.  It was chilly enough to start that fire in front of their feet,  a few minutes after it was lit I was yelling at Burke because his socks were on fire and he didn't even notice.

This character wasn't invited for the weekend but he joined the party anyway.

Burke and Jaime also invited some friends from SLC and they brought this darling little baby.

My kids couldn't get enough of her.  She was an absolute doll and the only time I saw her even look a moment cross was when my kids were mauling her.

This is Jaime and baby Burke.  Jaime is a gem,  we were all so happy when Burke chose her from his vast dating pool in Law School!

Thanks guys for inviting us for a fun weekend,  the only downside was that Burke beat me at my own game and I hate losing to Burke!  So I demand a rematch!!!  Which really just means another fun weekend!

Liam's big day

Liam had a lot of people come to support him on his big day.  My parents, aunt Nan and uncle Mike came on Wednesday and then my sister Nicole came on Thursday.  I hope that they enjoyed being here as much as we enjoyed having them here.

My kids do their best to jump on and wrestle every adult that enters our home.

But I think that uncle Mike won this round!

Most of Kade's family made it for the big day (which happened to also be Halloween, if you couldn't tell by Liam's costume).  We were missing Kindal, Santino and Josh but we did get to have Kade's uncle Ryan, whom I had never met, so that was fun.  (Ryan is a photographer and probably horrified by the quality of this picture,  sorry Ryan!)

Liam and Kade before the baptism.  I am wondering if someone could design a more flattering baptismal outfit?  I guess I am grateful that I didn't have to wear it.

This is Liam and his friend Bradley.  They were excited to be getting baptized on the same day.

It was a really great day for our family and we were all very proud of Liam for making the choice to be baptized.

What a month

This month has been so crazy that I am sure that it will take me at least two posts to catch up and even then I am sure that things will go forgotten because I could not keep up.  This month was going to be a crazy one under the best of conditions but to add to the craziness I hurt my back,  McKinna was sick for a week and just as she got better, Liam got sick.

Liam was sick on his birthday so he was home from school.  I thought that I would take the kids for a picnic in the park on his birthday but as you can see from McKinna's hair it was quite windy plus it was COLD.  Living in Las Vegas I hate to ever use the term cold but it really was.  When we got to the park we were immediately swarmed by pigeons,  for a moment there it looked like a scene from "The Birds"!

I think that we lasted at the park for about 5 minutes!

In lieu of a birthday party this year we took the kids to see the Lion King.  We told Liam that he could pick where he wanted to go for dinner and before the words finished coming out of my mouth he yelled "McDonald's"!  I guess we should be grateful because it helped offset the price of the tickets.  We all really enjoyed The Lion King and two of us really enjoyed McDonald's.

Liam is always happy to get Legos for any occasion.

Liam's birthday cake always seem to have a Halloween theme.  This year we left off the candles because we didn't want him blowing his germs all over the cake.

Happy Birthday Liam!  We love you and are so happy to have you in our family!

McKinna said...

Today while we were having dinner, we were all talking and Liam said, "what the heck?!"  and McKinna looked at him and said "don't you mean "what the hell?"".

I am sure that she learned that from her father!

Has he been beaten?

This is another stolen picture from Kade's phone.

Liam had quite a day on Thursday.  First he had a soccer game and I think that he got a black eye within the first five minutes of the game.  Then before he went to bed he asked Kade to flick his tooth out.  I think that we are lucky that his teacher didn't call CPS when he showed up at school the next day.

The Melting Pot

I stole this picture from Kade's phone.   We took the kids to the Melting Pot for dinner the other night and they were thinking that they were looking sophisticated.

Our plan was to take the kids with us and get the same amount of food for just two.  I thought by doing it that way we might actually leave having eaten the right amount rather than being so full you're sick.  I was wrong, next time I want to go with two extra people that actually eat more than just dessert.

Found some pics

These are pictures for my previous post.  I took them on Kade's phone and then forgot about them, they aren't that great but you get the idea.  Kade isn't really in skating attire and one piece of advice to future skaters don't let your daughters wear a skirt to go skating.

Liam and Alex had a great time!

By the time we left McKinna managed to get herself grounded for three days but I guess she looked cute doing it and I think by now she would tell you that she had a great time.  I am hoping that Ali would think she had fun too.

Roller Skating

The picture for this post is in my head but trust me it is a good one!  The other day I thought it would be a good idea to take the kids roller skating.  They had never been before and I can't skate for a whole list of reasons( I am sure that I could be the real patient in the "I've fallen and can't get up!" commercials).  So I recruited some friends to join us and we went over Kade's lunch so he could also come for awhile.  I was impressed by how willing all the kids were to get out there and try it,  they all seemed to have a good time. Throughout our time there, the announcer would come on and say that they were going to have a game or dance or a race.  Well when they announced the race Liam said that he wanted to be in it.  I didn't want to discourage him from challenging himself so I told him to go ahead.  This was the point where I would have paid to have a video camera because I was laughing so hard tears were pouring down my face.  It looked like a scene from a cartoon, when the character runs in place and never goes anywhere.  Although Liam did go somewhere it was usually down!  Then he would get up and run again (in place) then fall.  He somehow finally got going and made it to the end but far behind the other kids.  When he got to me (I had wiped my eyes and pretended that I had not been laughing hysterically)  he said "what was I thinking?!!  and the worst part is I got in the wrong group, that was the 5 and 6yr olds!!"

Not her finest moment

I had to start this post with a sweet, smiling picture of McKinna to remind myself that she really is a sweet girl(most of the time).  Anyway, the other morning I woke up to the kids fighting,  which isn't fun to wake up to on a good day but this day I was also sick.  So I took a deep breath and went in to see if I could help them work things out.  McKinna started out looking like the victim because Liam was being rude to her but as the story unfolded I realized that she had started the conflict.  Well, by the time we got to this point I was loosing my patience because I felt like I had been lied to and I said "okay well you are grounded".  And then I had a moment when I realized that my child does not fear death because she proceeded to scream and then picked up the nearest thing to her (which ironically was the "Friend" magazine)  and throw it at me!  It was as if in slow motion the magazine held tightly together and flew end over end until it hit me.  Let me just say that I am not a morning person and I was sick, so this did not set well with me.  Before it was all over there was a lot more screaming, crying, thrashing and the grounding became a lot more extensive.  Surprisingly it was all over in probably fifteen minutes but it seemed at the time to be hours.  Now if I were McKinna I would never bring up the incident again because I would never want to remind me mom of such terrible behavior  but apparently I am not McKinna.  About three days later I was working at the computer and I said "McKinna what is the date today?"  and she said "I don't know, let me get my calendar."  A few moments later she showed up by my side with a big wall calendar opened up to September  and said "now let's see,  what day did I throw something at you?" and that is how she was going to calculate what the day's date was.  Sometimes I worry that she may have more balls than brains!

Liam said...

A few Sundays ago Kade and I took seperate cars to church because I needed to stay after.  When I got home we were having lunch and Liam told me that when they were on their way home they saw some policemen that had pulled a guy over.  Then he said "...and the guy was sitting criss-cross applesauce on the sidewalk.  What do the policeman say?  Do they say get out of your car and sit right here criss-cross applesauce?!"  I couldn't stop laughing about it,  when we were growing up that was called sitting Indian style, which is probably not politically correct anymore but at least it sounds tougher.  Who came up with criss-cross applesauce?  When Liam first said it to me after he had started pre-school I had no idea what he was talking about.  Are they now making all the bad guys sit in that style to humiliate them,  it probably wouldn't be humiliating to say sit down Indian style but no man wants to sit criss-cross applesauce!

Disneyland

  Kade has been traveling A LOT  lately!  So the other day he said that he had to go to Anaheim and that maybe the kids and I should join him.  Since he has been gone so much I thought that it would be fun.  We made all the arraingments and decided to keep it a secret from the kids.  So at 5:30 am we got the kids up and headed to the airport.  They were tired, confused and excited but maybe more tired and confused.  Disneyland was one of their guesses but we would neither confirm nor deny their guesses.

The sad thing was, that by the time we got to Disneyland they had spent way too much time fighting and bugging each other so just before we got there they both got into trouble and neither of them was very happy.  We had pictures of their overjoyed faces NOT as we got there but because of problems I will not go in to all our trip pictures got deleted!  So I found a picture from a previous and happier Disneyland trip to post instead.

Don't get me wrong, we did end up having a really fun trip but I think that we may not be taking our kids on any fun vacations for awhile and then maybe they will appreciate it more when it does happen.