Snow in Mt. Charleston

We decided today to go up to Mt. Charleston to play around. We didn't realize that we would actually get to the snow, because we didn't know it had snowed down so far. The kids had a great time...at first. But, guess what! Snow is Cold! Who would have thought. Since we were so prepared with our desert cheap tennis shoes, "heavy" jackets, and no gloves...our hands and feet got pretty cold pretty fast! Shocker! The kids were troopers, though, because they knew that I wanted to get a family picture done. Corey brought the tripod and remote so we could pose and take the picture ourselves. You can tell our kids are used to getting their pictures taken, because they had no problem looking at the camera like pros.Of course, to try to keep spirits high, we had to do some funny face pictures. Can you guess who had the attitude still in this photo?

I found a link with a coupon code to get 50 free photo cards through Fuji film. I ordered our Christmas cards with photos from today. I don't know how to make links in a post, but if you go to my blogs that I follow and go the The Budgeteer, you will see a post on this. It will link you to another blog and just follow the information. The coupon code is freebies4mom-1109. I already ordered the cards, and just like it said, the total came to $0.00. Love it! I don't usually do the photo Christmas cards, but if they are free...you bet I will!

We Got to see our Friends!

Last year, our friend Rhonda and her family moved to Pennsylvania. Her boys and ours are best friends. Cayden, Owen, Tanner, and Kyle were the foursome until they moved. Griffin was Ryan's bestest friend in the whole wide world. We have missed them tremendously so we were so excited to hear that they were moving to Utah! Crystal and I decided to surprise them and drive up on Veteran's Day with our kids. It was soooooo much fun, but too short. We only got to spend the day. Can't wait to go up when we can be there longer!The whole troop back together again! It didn't matter that Abby was the only girl, she loved every minute of it. I missed the picture of Owen jumping in the car to hug the boys once he realized we were there! It was great!

We went to Chuck a Rama for lunch. Yep, there was a whopping 11 of us...8 kids! They all had fun getting to eat whatever they wanted, including ice cream. It was a little rowdy (ok mostly my kids were rowdy...ok mostly Ryan) but for the most part they did great.


Sniff, time to say good bye. Sniff, we'll miss them, but at least it is easier to see them now!

Ode to Stubby

We are sorry to report, that we have had a family tragedy. Our beloved Stubby passed away. We aren't sure when, he was pretty flat when we found him. A few weeks ago when it was really cold here, Corey found another gecko just like Stubby outside trying to stay warm. As an excellent lizard catcher, he was able to get this one too. We were all excited that Stubby would have a friend. We started buying extra crickets to feed the two little mouths. We don't know if the new lizard bullied Stubby out of some crickets or what. We still haven't named this one. His name has been "What's his name" since we got him. He is a little bigger than Stubby, but in good Duncan fashion, someone was able to chop off part of his tail as well. Poor little Stubby got his chopped twice. That did help tell the difference between the two, though.

Please do not send flowers or cards. We all are doing okay. Cayden took it the worst. He was a bit emotional after the discovery. I tried to help him understand that it's okay, and we just need to try a little harder to remember to get the crickets. Plus, it could be that "What's his name" was a bully and did something to him. I then told him that we need to figure out a name for him.....maybe "Killer." I thought it was funny, but oh boy, Cayden did not! He started to cry and told me I was mean because I was making fun! Sorry, but I giggled.

Happy Halloween

This week was Halloween! Oooh, Spooky! Actually not really. Here are two little princesses that had their Halloween party at preschool. They had lots of fun, and Abby particularly liked her sparkly hair. You can't see it very well in the picture, but it really was sparkly.And here is our little toot. I bought this costume for Corey last year after Halloween. Cayden got a hold of it about 30 minutes before we left for a Halloween carnival at Springs Preserve, and we thought it was great! He was going to wear his baseball uniform, because I told the kids they had to wear something we already had. Once he put this on, we were in love! Lots of people at the carnival made comments on how great it was that he was a whoopie cushion. Poor Corey didn't get to wear it, but that is a sacrifice he made.
Look out Cowboys, here comes a new and improved Troy Aikman! We bulked him up with some pillows under his jersey. How cute is he? He was so bulky it was hilarious! He was such a sport and kept the pillows on for quite a while at the carnival, until we were playing games and he couldn't quite throw properly! Everyone got a kick out of him though. One of the places we trick or treated at the carnival was a Raven's cheerleader ( a real one I guess ) and she said she was having a hard time giving candy to a Cowboy!
And, here is the little princess. We bought some sparkly tights for her to wear. She hasn't had tights before that she can remember, and wore them for 4 days straight. She wore them under shorts, pants, skirts, everything. Grandma Covey bought her this princess dress along with a dress up box for Christmas last year. Another great costume we already had! Love it!
We took our friend Tanner with us to the Springs Preserve carnival. He has a membership there with our family. He was a hunter. What a cute bunch of kids!


On Halloween night, our ward had a trunk or treat/small carnival. Here is our kids with some kids from the ward. We have some cute kids in our ward. Ryan decided he didn't want to be stuffed that night, he'd had enough of the pillows the night before.
Our trunk or treat ended kind of early, so we drove out to Grandma and Grandpa's house to trick or treat there and surprise them. They had fun showing off bounty to Grandma and Grandpa. Ryan swiped some of their candy they were handing out, because they just didn't get enough. What cracked me up was that at the trunk or treat, we were about half way through our second trip around the cars and Abby said she had enough candy and it was time to stop. How funny was that! What kid on Halloween says they have enough candy?

"Sunny" Day at the Beach

So, on the Saturday of our Disneyland vacation, we had planned on spending the day at the beach. Now, anyone who knows what it's like to find a beach when you aren't really familiar with the area knows that it can sometimes be quite a feat. That was what it was for us. We all got in our beach garb and started the trek to the beach. We followed the directions from the hotel and found a cove type "beach" but there were no waves or anything. We really wanted the kids to see what a beach is really like since it was our kid's first time. Oh, by the way, San Diego got covered in the hugest fog I've ever seen. We couldn't even see a half a mile into the ocean. We decided to try our luck on finding something else. We found "something" that looked like it would lead to a beach and asked a surfer girl if there was a beach somewhere. She said yes just to take the stairs down, go across the rocks for a ways, and we should find the beach. Yes, I said rocks. So, ignoring the sign posted that said, "Danger-unstable cliffs" we took all our touristy beach stuff and headed in the direction she told us. We can't see very far ahead to even look to see what she was talking about. It stunk. Literally. We walked across rocks, fly infested old sea weed, and finally came to some sand. We decided that it must have been what she was talking about. Now we know, we needed to revise our search criteria to ask for a "nice beach." After walking back and loading back up the car, we went to a beach that Corey's sister-in-law's uncle lives near. Finally, at 2:00 in the afternoon, after having wandered San Diego for a while, we landed on a real beach. As Abby said Dora the Explorer said, it was covered in a "Foggy Fog" hence the greyish color. But, we had waves, sand, and fun. The water was cold, the sand was sandy, and fun was had by all!


The boys were able to catch a few waves and body board back in. It took quite a few tries but they started getting the hang of it.

Grandma Shirlee took the boys exploring in the sea wead and rocks. They liked to "pop" the pods on the sea weed. They found sand crabs among lots of muscle shells in the rocks. Very cool.

Sea World

After we went to Disneyland, we drove to San Diego and went to Sea World. The kids and I have never been there before. It was really fun. The Shamu show was amazing. The biggest whale they have is over 40 years old. They call her the trainer of trainers. When they have a new trainer, the whale will adjust her speed and tricks to fit the comfortability of the trainer. It really was a beautiful show. We sat in the "Soak Zone" but could only get at the top of that zone. That is where you have a great possibility of getting soaked! At the end of the show, the whales swim along the edges and swipe there huge tails to spray water up into the audience. I do have to say that we were lucky to not have sat any closer. When they say Soak Zone, they mean it!





The have a really fun roller coaster ride called Big Atlantis (I think) and of course the boys talked Grandma into going on it. At Sea World it's fun, because at the water rides, the bystanders can insert a quarter into a fountain thing and spray water at the people on the rides. At the river run (I don't have a picture), Corey did it at a group of people on the ride. Let's just say that one of the men on the ride didn't quite appreciate it and was a little upset. He showed Corey that he is "number 1" with his middle finger! Ha Ha! We had a great laugh at that one!

The Sea Lion show was absolutely hilarious! They did it to a Halloween theme and the trainers were dressed up. They did little movie bits from "scary" movies and the Sea Lions were cracking us all up. It really was a fun show if anyone ever goes to Sea World, you really need to go to this show.

Grandma Shirlee loves and collects anything pink flamingo. She was really looking forward to seeing the flamingos. We bought some flamingo food (don't know exactly what it was!) and got to feed the flamingos. Happy Birthday, Grandma!


There is a big pool thing that you can feed and touch the sting rays. They are very slimy feeling! We didn't buy any fish to feed them, but they say they just suck it right out of your hand and it is crazy feeling. Cayden took a while, but I think he finally touched one. Abby and Ryan were all over it!


We really had a great time at Sea World. I can't wait until we can go again and spend more time to see everything. They have so many animals to see. We saw tropical fish, crazy looking sea creatures, penguins, beluga whales, polar bears, flamingos, the Budweiser Clydesdales, dolphins, sea lions, walruses, etc.

Last week we went to Disneyland for a family trip with Corey's family. His mom, Shirlee sponsored all of us to go. Corey's brother, Huddy, and his family had a chance to go years ago when he was on leave from Iraq, but turned around half way there when Ryan went into the hospital when he was a baby. So, they haven't ever been able to go. It was a fun trip with the whole family. I decided that when we do it again, I won't be in charge of tickets! I left my adult ticket for Huddy's son and I had his child ticket! Since they weren't going to get to Disneyland until around noon the first day, I ended up having to upgrade the child ticket so I could get in! Then the next day, I tried to use Shirlee's birthday pass that she had used the day before! I forgot that I had already given her the right ticket to hold on to, and she forgot too. That led to some fun that day when we were trying to figure out what in the world we were doing! The first day we lost Ryan for about 15 minutes. We had broken up our group after dinner and some were waiting while others went to the bathroom. Ryan followed the group going to the bathroom, but they didn't know. Each group thought he was with the other. When they came back, I noticed they didn't have Ryan. Corey and I started backtracking where they went calling his name. After a few stores, a Disney worker and he came out and we found him! He did exactly what he was supposed to do and when he realized he was lost, he found a Disney worker and told her he couldn't find his mom and dad. Right after we got to him, the security guard came. Ryan had told him his name and home phone number, but didn't know the area code. The rest of the trip, we practiced our CELL phone numbers! Needless to say, we were freaked out and sooooo relieved. It wasn't a long ordeal, but it was a scary one. We had lots of fun going on rides, and Ryan was big enough for all of them. He even went on the California Screamer roller coaster and loved it. He wasn't afraid to go on anything. Abby's favorite rides were in A Bugs Life where they have rides for little kiddies. She thought they were really cool. Cayden, of course, went on everything and his favorite I think was Tower of Terror! He loved laughing at me on the scary ones that he made me go on, because I would scream really loud!




Happy Birthday, Grandma Shirlee! We got to go to Disneyland on her birthday. She had a button that she wore the whole time that said "Happy Birthday, Shirlee"








Abby got to go to Pixie Hollow to see Tinkerbell. Although, Tinkerbell had to go tinker on something, she wasn't there. But, we did get to see these two fairies! I can't remember their names!






TURKEY LEGS! We got one, or two, or three! It was our dinner!

We went on Mark Twain's River Boat ride going around Tom Sawyer's Island. Lots of fun.

The kids stumbled upon this guy who was doing chalk drawings for people. He didn't have anyone there at that time, so he started drawing Santa Claus. He was so cute with the kids all crowded around him explaining what he was doing. They stayed there for about 20 minutes. It was great.