Trip to San Diego!

There were so many great memories and pictures, that this will be a long blog, I just can't leave anything out! It started last Saturday, December 6th at 6am we left for our cruise to Mexico. We flew to San Diego and pulled everyone out of bed really early. We decided to leave Brock at home so everyone could enjoy this week, including him. We are so blessed to have Aunt Robbin here and she came over to the house to watch him for the week! THANKS ROBBIN!! So these first pictures are us in the Wichita airport and then the Denver airport. Frontier charges to check bags so much to Derek's dissapointment, I made everyone squeeze a weeks worth of clothes into a small under 30 lb. bag and we all pulled that with a backpack on our backs throughout our vacation! We were quite the specticle everywhere we went!



When we arrived in San Diego we rented a van and met our great friends the Helmers, who used to live in Wichita. Brigette and I have always had similar hair cuts and colors and so I was excited to show off my dark hair and see if she would recognize me, to my surprise...I didn't recognize her, she too had gone dark about a week before I had! We are still soul sisters! We took our families to Ocean Beach and what a culture shock it is there! It's a tiny little surfer town with all kinds of funny and strange people! We got some great food and ate right by the ocean! we then let the kids run in the water and on the sand. It was actually a pretty nice day, although the water was cold, that didn't stop the kids from getting in the water! Jaxson and Braden even dragged what they thought was a Christmas tree (really large sea weed)
out of the ocean onto the beach! Jaxson is meant to live on the beach...it was so natural for him! Garrett left his food to come and talk to us by the water and within 2 mintues, the seagulls had attacked his food...it was pretty funny and he ran after them trying to save his food and scare away the birds! It was too late. Upon leaving, we also noticed a sign and we had been swimming in the surf only zone..opps! We had a great afternoon and all loved playing there and being back with the Helmers again! It was like we had never been apart!









My Mom, Dad, Jan, Matt, Jenny and Maisey all drove in from Utah and Idaho and picked up Stacie and Jess at the airport and met us at our timeshare where we were all staying at in San Diego. We then decided to go to a festival celebrating Christmas that brings in 300,000 people over the two days. It was about 2 miles away and took us over an hour just to drive there, we then waited in a very long line just to get a shuttle to take us to the park! It was definately worth the wait! Ok, maybe not... but had we stayed a little longer, I'm sure we wouldn't have found something great there! Here is our picture standing in line for the shuttle(we had already lost most of our enthusiasm by this point however...). Grace did get a picture with Cinderella!


Then on Sunday, we found a sacrament to attend, it was a small singles ward and others stayed back and watched the Broncos beat the Chiefs...it was not a happy day for Jaxson! Then we drove to my cousin, Afton's house to see her and her daughter Maddie and reunite Grace with Oreo, who moved out of our house when Brock was born and went to live in Cali. with Beach! It was a lot of fun, Grace and Maddie did dress ups with the dog and we took lots of pictures! Then we all went to Moonlight beach. It was as the sun was setting and getting a little cool. There were lots of bon fires with people sitting around and we just let the waves hit our feet and took some pictures.








Then we went to visit the San Diego temple grounds! It was beautiful! It was a great sabbath day! We ended the night with some good ol' In and Out Burger!






Ok, this took all morning, and we haven't even started the cruise...I'll have to finish posting later!! Just wait...it starts to get really good!

Bella sings again!

For one of my personal project goals, I have been learning a song on the piano. Isabella now knows the song by heart and LOVES to sing it with her cute little nasally voice and head flips! Love it!

All for Grandpa!

Ok, have you ever tried to take the perfect portrait of a 1 year old? My dad called up saying that on the "grandchild wall of fame" they have lining their hall....Brock's picture is a little outdated(um...ya, he was 4 months old-first and last professional picture). So today Brock and I had an agreement that we were going to take a really nice picture to send to Grandpa and then we would play with his fisher-price nativity set as a reward for good behavior! Well, first few pictures he was happy, but the shot just wansn't right...from there on out, it got worse. He wouldn't still still, he would scream and growl, jump up and slide down the couch, hide his face, cry, but finally we were done and got to play! Maybe not the "perfect" picture..but they capture his real soul! Love you Brockie!
Just getting started...

getting bored...

so not into it any more...

but...sliding down the couch is pretty fun!

please don't cry Brockie...just a few more...

few more tries...



AND...the winners...help me pick the best one for Grandpa

Like I said!

Here is cute little Bella...loves her outfit she picked out today! I am such a good mom to let her out of the house like this and let her explore her independance! Right?

Thanksgiving!

As we sat around the Thanksgiving dinner table...here are a few of the things we were thankful for this year...employment, family, friends, food, psp's, cheap gas, testimony of the Savior, vacations...to name a few!

This was definately one of my favorite Thanksgivings I have had!! Stacie and Jess live in Mississippi and so we are the closest family to them so we decided to get together and meet at our timeshare in Branson, Missouri! We were able to get the penthouse which had 2 bedrooms, 2 baths down and a bedroom and bath up, kitchen, washer/dryer and our favorite part was a hot tub on the deck that overlooked the golf coarse and city! It was awesome! We met on Wed. night and did some last minute shopping for our big Thanksgiving meal. I wanted to be really traditional since it was Sophi's first Thanksgiving so we had a fresh turkey(second turkey we had to buy, since the first one thawed out in my garage and was declaired "unsafe" by 1800turkey), real mashed potatoes, yams with marshmallows, stuffing, rolls, jello, greenbean casserole, and pumpkin cheesecake and chocolate baked pie for dessert! This may seem like no big deal, but Stacie and I being the youngest girls out of 6...we are usually given the assignment of stirring the gravy and "DON'T LET IT BURN" type of duties...so a whole meal with no older sisters or moms to help...is a big deal! We did fabulous and everyone, including ourselves, were so proud of us! Stacie even brought us cute little aprons! WAY TO GO STACIE!! Ok, I guess I have to give props to Jess for carving the turkey and the chocolate pie(homemade...his grandmother's recipe) and Derek for stirring the gravy and not letting it burn!! Good job boys!









Then we had fun playing outside, it was a gorgeous day. We played at park and the tennis court and basketball court and then inside for some run around ping pong! I think I was the champ...right Jess?? You can see me on the phone...this is where we heard the exciting new news that Matt and Jenny are having another baby!! Congrats guys!





Thursday night we relaxed, watched basketball, and played hot tub games;)...in my defense, Brock was underneath my robe(yes, that is right...each room came 2 Worldmark robes)...hence the wideness!!
href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitUOyjC2E3ResQpVJqkfz1-DoWjXn8ABs-Be_s13RhJ8aqeVMj44F0mYuZ1NIYVzytG7414M_RsEPEGQPMn1d8rlZdwYzjjdCh6Hsc-V25XauWIhesPrzlsN9jSzgEzO4T3qrpXYXtPWY/s1600-h/November+2008+157.jpg">




Black Friday, we went to the outdoor mall and after lots of traffic were able to find parking. We got pictures with Santa and did a little shopping, but mostly window shopping! We then headed over to Branson's hot spot...the Buffet which has the largest banjo and violin in the world!
It was a GREAT holiday and we are so thankful to have Stacie and Jess close by so they can come and experience a few of our favorite vacation spots. We hope to plan many more vacations in the next three years they are here!