Eventful October

Let's pretend for a moment shall we?

Close your eyes..... it is October. Picture the leaves outside.... feel the cool breeze.... think of the pumpkins on your porch.... wasn't General Conference last week really good? I LOVED Elder Holland's talk about the Book of Mormon. He is such an incredible man! I loved that talk.

Have you convinced yourself that it is last October? Good. Now let me tell you about our crazy week this past week!!

Dallin turned 8! I can't believe he is that old! He is so tall and skinny and cute. I love his beautiful blue eyes and that adorable dimple he has when he smiles. (he is going to be SO annoyed that I wrote that on our blog!) So what did Dallin want for his birthday?

Um, no. No flipping way will he be getting a tarantula for his birthday!

He did get an ant farm and some bug stuff, which you can see he loved.

I've told my kids they can have a birthday party when they turn 5 and 8. I really despise doing birthday parties! I hate spending tons of money to entertain other people's kids and then having the stress of pulling it off! Ugh. Maybe I'm a bad, mean mom. Somehow I am sure they will live. So we had his party and invited a crud-load of kids from the neighborhood. It was pure chaos, but it ended up being pretty fun! I let them decorate their own cupcakes and I forgot to get candles. So here is the end result:


Sick sick sick!! Notice the fake teeth that are stuck in the side! And then the 8 "candles". Poor kid...I guess I am just giving him things to tell a shrink someday. :)

(fun photo fact: I had commented on how many people were holding up bunny ears in the previous picture. So note smiley little Ian holding bunny ears on himself. Cute little monkey!)

Next was General Conference. Amazing as always. I love listening to all our leaders speak to us. Unfortunately I swear I have adult attention span problems sometimes! I just seem to listen better if I am doing something with my hands. So I learned how to make balloon animals! :)

Scorpion

Spider
You try putting 2 more legs in there. Doesn't work.

Dallin was then baptized on October 10th. It was such a neat thing to see him take that step and make that choice. I am so proud of him and I hope he remembers how special that day was to him. He got to sing with the 3 girls who were baptized on the same day. They sang "I'm trying to be like Jesus" and it was so cute. He acts so cool sometimes, it was nice to see him want to sing and be a part of that. Uncle Matt gave a talk.

He was all nervous for his bishop's interview. He survived it, and I heard him telling his little buddy, "Don't worry about your interview. It was a piece of cake." :) It was so amazing seeing how grown up he was that day, but at the same time, I loved seeing that he is still my sweet little Dallin. The pictures make him look so young and sweet!



So, we have been sitting here watching TV while I have been doing this. Joel finally asked what I was doing. I told him blogging. He was just staring at me, "Huh? Blogging? What?" :) Ok! I know honey! I will try to do better! There is more to catch up, but alas, I must sleep at some point. More tomorrow. :)

Catching up!

Since I have been such a slacker on the blog lately, it's time to catch it up. Why? Why not just put things on Facebook? Because someone told me the other day that she has her blog printed out in a little book from time to time...and it's way easier then scrapbooking. So since I quit scrapbooking long ago, I love this idea!

Noticing the Ladies

I have to laugh my head off at some of the things these boys say. Since I have neglected my blog so completely lately, here are some fun stories. More for my benefit then anyone else's. This is as close to a journal as it gets. Sad, but true.

Nathan got a big bike for his 6th birthday. He is getting better at riding it, but he just can't seem to master the brake thing. So when he needs to stop he heads toward the curb and just crashes into it.

Poor kid needs a cup.

It makes me hurt and I don't even have any!!

So today we are in the car and we get talking about how Nathan needs to practice on his bike more because Dallin wants a bigger one for his birthday. So then Dallin pipes up, "You have to quit crashing your bike like that and smashing your nuts! Your nachos! Your going to break your nachos!!"

I was totally in the front seat crying laughing!!

Another funny one:

I went on the field trip with Dallin's class the other day. We were sitting in the bus and I asked Dallin, "So, which girls do you like this year?" He smiled like he wanted to talk about it, but didn't want to say any names. So I started saying some of the, oh like 3 girls that I know in his class. I said one girl's name and he totally did this "No way Mom" look. He was all, "No Mom, I only go for younger girls. She's 8!"

Eye roll.



I truly do LOVE having boys. I just don't see how girls can be this entertaining!

This post will never be finished. So here....

Vacation to Paradise

Joel and I are coming up on 1o years of marriage this year! We figured we would do something great for it and decided that somewhere tropical was in order. We talked about it forever, I was beginning to think that it would never turn into action. So one day, I just booked it! We were on our way to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico!!

On the news like 2 weeks later they start talking about swine flu and how it may affect travel plans to Mexico...so we didn't want to risk having troubles with our travel...so we switched it! Now we were on our way to Maui!! Still way exciting, and in the good ol' USA!

We decided to go with another couple...totally the way to travel! They were dropping kids off to family in Boise, ID and then flying out of there, so we decided to tag along. (the $300 + we saved in airfare had a lot to do with it too!) So we found child care for the kids, took the dogs grandparents, and headed out! It was actually a really fun road trip...we were singing at the top of our lungs for most of it, and had a great time! Then we came across one of the worst storms I have ever been in, bar none.


The picture really doesn't do it justice, but that cloud was so big and low and eerie, and then there was this blank wall under it...you couldn't see anything but gray, filled with lightning streaks every few seconds. We were very excited that the road went right under it. We got dumped on, hailed on, and blown around like crazy. It took me awhile for it to dawn on me, but I realized, "Oh yah, this is what happens before tornadoes!" So I started looking around for funnel clouds! Very freaky, but we found daylight on the other side and we had the knowledge of going to paradise soon!


So enough of that crappy part of the story huh?!?! We flew to Maui the next day and WOW!!! You could literally just point the camera at the dirt and have an amazing picture! However, we did sit in an airplane at the gate in San Fransico for an extra hour and 45 minutes! Crappy start, but we FINALLY got in the air. Landed in Maui, got our car, and then headed to Costco to stock up on food for everyone during the trip. We were laughing so hard at Costco because we had used so much of our luggage room to pack some really nice snorkel gear....that we bought at Costco....(do you see where this is going?) Yep, they have all of it at the Maui Costco. But who cares?! We were in Hawaii!! Nothing could get us down!

Checked in to the our hotel and then hit the beach for the evening! My first time in the ocean, I got schooled by a wave and it totally filled my sinuses and stole my sunglasses. Who cares though...still in paradise! (that is a reoccuring theme of this trip!!) Our first full day in Maui, we decided to drive the infamous Road to Hana. It is a drive that goes all the way around the island, and there are tons of spots you can stop along the way to hike or swim. So fun. So we loaded up the convertible....only way to do it!


This was our rental, a Chrysler Sebring. No offense to anyone, but there is a reason that Chrystler is so in trouble, every one that I have driven STINKS!! But then again, who care?! It is a convertible in Maui for crying out loud!!! :)

Note the bare shoulders...this is key to the sunburn later. Joel was driving and Ryan was navigating, so Tara and I got to sit in the back like two little kids. We left early in the morning and it was pretty cool, so we were freezing for the first half of the day. We stopped at a gas station to fill up the car, and they had one of those hot chocolate machines...sweet! So I got one to warm myself up...started drinking it....it was coffee. :( Some sort of vanilla latte whatever...like I know the difference! So got rid of that and kept freezing for awhile.

The drive is an all-day trip, but it is absolutely amazing. I swear you could point your camera at the dirt on the road and it would be an amazing picture! We hiked to a few waterfalls, did some boulder hopping to get to some of the them...in flip flops...wouldn't recommend this method. We also found this place called "The Garden of Eden" that you can walk all around....it is probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The entire island is!!

I hate how blogger makes you put in the picture and it sticks it at the top of your post, so then you have to move each picture down to the bottom. I am going to save myself huge headaches and just start a new post. :)