Steve's New Truck

Today, after Katie and Becky got picked up for school, Steve and I went to lunch at Mimi's Cafe. We have enjoyed have the afternoons to sneak off and have lunch and good conversation (essentially a date) together and not having to pay for a babysitter. After we were through with lunch we asked eachother what we should do next. I gave him 2 possibilities:

1. We could goto Target (my fav store) to walk around
2. We could go and buy
a truck (and I only said this half joking)

He chose to go and look for a truck. We have done this several times and just not found what we wanted at the price we were willing to pay. And then we went to Riverton Motors and fond the truck. This turned out to be an expensive lunch, but I am glad Steve finally got his new truck. Now we want to go on a trip so we can use it. An new problem is where will we park the vehicles in the garage?

Happy Valentine's Day!!

This morning the kidlets woke up to little stuffed animals and candy hearts lined up in the kitchen. They were tickled. I enjoy doing something special for the kids on Valentine's Day. I think it is something I remember from when I was a little girl. My mom would have a card or a small figurine set out on the counter for us to find before we left for school. I had the best of intentions to make a big breakfast this morning, but decided I wanted to sleep in a little bit. I'll have to make it up to the family at dinner time. My first Valentine was a homemade card from Ysabelle. It was cute: construction paper and hearts cut out by hand and then lace glued around the edge. The Steve came down and gave me a card. My big gift for Valentine Day is tickets to the Michael Buble concert in March. I am just tickled more than I can say. I love his voice and the fact that Steve is willing to sit through this concert all night is one of the sweetest things he has ever done for me. I did not buy antigen quite so nice for Steve, just a reader for his laptop. I am hoping tomight Steve and I will have some alone time later on and be able to have our "romantic time" then.

7 Days of Valentines

For 12 years Steve and I have done the "14 Days of Valentines". It starts on the 1st of February and then ends on Valentine's Day. It has been so much fun. Steve usually comes up with some fun theme to make all of his Valentines. We have done something as simple as the children's Valentines that you buy at the drugstore to wooden hearts that he had cut out and painted and drilled holes in so they could be hung from a rope. Last year he had built me a desk to keep bills and such in for my main gift and gave me different office supplies that had a cute message attached. Well, this year because we had been so busy in January our planning and prepping for the 14 Days got put on the back burner. This year we are doing the "7 Days of Valentines" I got some fortune cookies and took out the standard message and put ones that I wrote for Steve and then dipped them in chocolate and added heart sprinkles. Then I put one out every night so Steve will find it in the morning when he sits down to read his newspaper. I love this time of the year. I think it is kind of neat for the kids to see mommy and daddy doing these special things for eachother.

California Trip Part 4: Disneyland

Our final adventure during our California trip was going to Disneyland. We got up and put on our matching t-shirts that "Santa" had brought to us for Christmas. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky and temperatures were predicted to be 70. We got to Disney, parked and took the tram to the park. We had to wait a few minutes for Mabel to get there, but once she arrived the adventure began. As soon as we walked through the gates we saw Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter. We stood by as Alice began to flirt with Zack and the Mad Hatter tried to find a partner to dance with. Everyone was pretty shy except for Katie who took his had and began a little "soft shoe" It was too cute. The all began to skip around the square. We took our pictures with Alice and received her autograph and proceed on to Fantasyland, but were side tracked when we found out Snow White was on her way. We lined up to meet Snow White (this is Mommies favorite character) After we did the picture/autograph thing we tried to get into Fantasyland again, but was again hijacked when we saw Cinderella walking by. Becky was anxious to show her the autograph book she had made for the trip. It was covered with stickers of Cinderella. We finally made it into Fantasyland after we left Cinderella and got to ride:Pinocchio, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and Snow White and then we got to the Dumbo Ride. The kids were in heaven.

Katie said "weeee" as the she made the flying elephant move up and down. I just giggled. The kids were pretty excited to try the TeaCups. We split into groups of who wanted to go FAST (Steve's group) and the ones that wanted to go slowly (my group). Zack, Mabel and I managed to get the gold teacup. This made Becky a little pouty, but OH WELL!!!


After Dumbo and the Teacups we did the Matterhorn and then went onto It's a Small World. I love that one except for the fact that the rest of the day you have that song in your brain. Next we headed to Toon Town and saw Pluto, Goofy and then Minnie Mouse. We took a family picture with Minnie and then Steve had his little flirtation with the pretty mouse. After lunch, which was nothing too exciting, we headed to Splash Mountain and after getting off got a Fast Pass so we could return later and ride again. That was by far the whole families favorite ride.
The best part was getting off the ride and laughing at the funny expressions on everyone's faces. While waiting to ride Splash Mountain a second time we rode The Jungle Cruise. The kids enjoyed that one too. The off to Splash Mountain again. In the evening we did Star Tours. The children were sure that we had actually taken off. That was pretty cool. Then one of my favorites was the Buzz Lightyear ride. I love games!!! By 8:00 we were all pretty tired and the park was going to be closing so we headed out to our car. The was the funniest trip I think we have ever done as a family. The best part for me was looking at the kid's faces as we road these rides. The excitement and twinkle that is in their eyes. I wanted to hold on to that feeling so badly, but before I knew it it was Tuesday morning and we were driving back to Utah. I am so grateful for ALL the pictures we took and that I can go back and see that magical look in the kids eyes anytime I want.

California Trip Part 3: The Tidepools

After lunch at Shin Sun Gumhi, we dropped Uncle Chip off at home and Mabel directed us to some pretty cool tidepools in Corona Del Mar. The tide had been in that day and dropped tons of neat little critters into the pools. Steve and the kids ventured out to find the good stuff. They saw some neat star fish. Zack found a sea slug and was shocked by what it felt like. Steve said there was even a pool with just regular fish in it. There were also tons of hermit crabs and sea aneomes.

Mabel and I stood on the shore and counted children to make sure no one wandered off too far. As the sun began to, engaged couples came out with photographers for photos. It was fun to watch the pictures being taken. The girls tried to make dribble sand castles. Even after being warned not to get all wet, Belle headed right into the water.

Zack spent a lot of his time just peering into the different pools and watching what was happening. He is my little science boy (next to his dad) . He probably could have stayed there all day. It was such a perfect day...Good weather...Great kids...Fabulous tidepools.

The kids began to get cold and needed to go potty so Mabel offered to walk the children back up the hill to go potty as I waited for Steve to work his way back into me. We decided to take some pictures just of us. The last shot was the best one...A silhouette photo of us kissing as the sun is setting into the ocean.

California Trip Part 2:Shin Sun Gumhi

On Sunday we drove to Laguna to pick up my brother Chip and his wife Mabel. They took us to the Swap Meet in Costa Mesa. There was so much STUFF. I bought a cute backpack purse and the kids got some $1.00 toys. It was amazing. Anything you could possibly be in need of was there. Even cars. There was a white truck that Steve would probably have bought if it was 4x4. We had a great time there sampling food in the market area. Once we got a little food into our stomachs we realized just how hungry we were.


Chip wanted to take us to a Japanese Noodle house that he and Mabel frequent often named Shin Sun Gumhi. We had to wait a while to get into the restaurant. We were hoping to get to sit at one of the the traditional Japanese table where you take off your shoes and sit on the pillows on the floor, but there was another large party ahead of us that snagged the table. The noodle come in a bowl with some pork, green onions and ginger on top. All of it sits in a pool of broth. We also had these mini pot stickers that were really yummy. The whole this was kind of fun and exciting. The kids even seemed to enjoy the experience. The most surprising was Steve. He is not one to want to just eat noodles. He has even teased me about wanting to eat at Nothing But Noodles and how silly that sounds. But he was a good sport as we had lunch with Chip and Mabel.

California Trip Part 1: Knott's Berry Farm

We are back from our trip to California...

LET THE BLOGGING BEGIN!!!

We drove all day on Friday. I was suppose to see my friend Shawna and her family, but had learned that her son had the stomach flu and decided it would be best not to risk spreading that around. So we got to Anaheim about 7:00 pm. We ordered a pizza and hung out in our hotel room. The kids and Steve went out to the pool and tried to work out some of the wiggles from being confined in the car for so long.

We woke up on Saturday morning, got dressed and headed out to Knott's Berry Farm. The weather was fabulous: clear skies, 68 degrees. We headed straight to Camp Snoopy. The kids were excited by every ride we went to. The twins and Belle rode a "slow" scrambler and giggled the whole time. Steve decided that he and Zack would go and try to ride a roller coaster while the girls and I hit the more mellow rides. We rode Lucy's Tugboat boat which was fun and then a beginner roller coaster that the girls had a ball on.

Steve and Zack still had not come back so we headed over to the Jaguar Coaster to see if they were there. I just happened to look up at Montezuma's Revenge over my head and saw Steve and Zack on the very top!!! HOLY COW!!!. So we waited as they got off that one and I asked Steve what happened. The whole time Steve and I are talking Zack is going on about how great it was and that he wasn't even scared a bit. So Steve tells me his story that as they got off the Jaguar he saw the top of Montezuma's revenge and it seemed pretty tame. He had no idea what the ride was. So they get into their seat and before he knew it he was upside down.

We rode the log ride 3 times. The kids loved that one and I was determined to get a perfect picture of us all as we headed down the big drop. Steve took Belle and Zack to ride some of the bigger rides while Katie and Becky and I hit the kiddie rides (these are more my speed anyway) As the girls and I wandered around Camp Snoopy we found Snoopy himself and got a photo taken with him.
We had a great time and left the park about 6:00 pm and had dinner at Mrs. Knott's Fried Chicken. When we got back to the hotel Steve and the kids went swimming and I got in my jammies and proceeded to fall asleep. I was completely exhausted.