Team Jacob

I only wish I could enlarge this picture!!! I have always been a Jacob fan. Never once did I think you should change who you are in order to be with someone. I know a lot of you are jumping ship now that he is 1000 times hotter than Edward.....but I have always been team captain for Jacob!!! The only time Bella smiled in New Moon was when she was with Jacob.......and for all of you claiming you married your best friend.....then you obviously should be a Jacob fan.

Happy Halloween!!!

Chase had lots of options that he could have been for Halloween....I was not going to buy anything he refused to wear....so since Woody was the ONLY thing he would put on that was it! He sure loved it! Thanks to my sista for hookin us up!

Chase's new best friend Aydan. They play well together and fight together too....just what a good friend does. They were little hams cheesin it up all night long!

Since Amberly is expecting in a week....there were no trips out of the house incase someone caught something so we decided to celebrate before the trunk or treating to be festive and carve pumpkins!

Chad said this was the first time in like 15 years he has carved a pumpkin.....boring! I am all about getting into the holiday spirit, no matter what the holiday is!

When Chase decided to be Woody, he immediately asked his favorite girl to be his Jesse. This is my sorry excuse at being a cowboy-girl (as Chase puts it). He was sold with the hat. FYI:Chad was Andy. He wore a baseball cap :)

Would you think he'd be exstatic about all the candy he just got....? It's crazy how fast they learn and pick up on the gist of the holiday.... once around the parking lot was NOT enough for our 2 year old! He kept asking to go around again-he was loving it! Except for the scary masks....but who likes being breathed on by a face covered in hair? Chase would tell everyone to 'stick em up...and give me all your candy'.



I've had a lot of requests for pictures of the race car bed. This is Chase's new race car big boy bed. He plays pit crew and takes the tires on and off and stacks them....its kind of funny to watch. They end up in the garage and who knows where....but whatever works. It seems like they grow out of their little phases so much that you just have to let them have their fun! So this is the aftermath of the big holiday....He slept over 3 hours after and during Church.....which is rare. Hope you all had a great Halloween!!

ALOHA!!!

Doesn't this just look like I stole it from a postcard?? Nope. This is where we stayed in Maui. I absolutely loved this picture...not sure why some of them came up small....but you get the idea.

In Maui we had the best hotel with the best poolside resteraunt with the best garlic fries. I have really tried to not brag on my blog...but this one I have to a little. You can see the man in the hat is Dr. Price, hugging his wife. He is the best person to work for. I have such an amazing boss that takes us on these fun trips atleast once a year. (There are smaller ones inbetween). Everything is paid for plus we get a substantial amount of spending money, and we are paid our reg. wage (not vacation) to attend classes.

These little penguins were in the lobby of our hotel in Maui. They had a whole bunch of birds that talked and whistled at you when you walked by...it was very cute.

Just another dreamy picture right?

Dondi my single lady roomie & I after snorkeling...we did NOT want to get back in the boat. Thanks to the wet suit tops they had us wear we were totally comfortable in the water.

Also on our snorkeling cruise we were guaranteed a dolphin encounter. I didn't really care too much to see them until they were right in front of us...That was pretty cool! I called Chad & Chase that night and told them I rode on a boat and saw dolphins. When I picked Chase up from the sitters that day he was asking me about the dolphins and the boat and he wanted to see proof. I was surprised that he remembered that phone conversation. I missed them a lot while I was gone...but tried to drown myself in ocean water, sand and a good book, while soaking up the me time in the sunshine!

The boat crew said the dolphins like catching a 'free ride'. They actually see them all the time and this really wasn't that uncommon to see on their snorkel excursions.

This was the morning of the snorkel excursion....and we woke up to pouring rain....I thought for sure the camera was broken because those pictures turned out so foggy...but it was jus soooo humid. Perfect day on the water though and we got away from all the rain.

Before we got too far into our trip I decided I wanted my hair in braids so it would be easier to take care of. I had it done when we were in Jamaica so I was really looking for someone to do it for me. Little did she know how much long hair I had :)

This night was one of the highlights of the trip. The ADA sponsored an event one of the nights that was put on by the polynesian cultural center. So there were booths from each polynesian island where you could make your own lei (sp?) which we used as a headdress since they gave us fresh flower lei's when we got there. We made palm leave headbands that are kind of hard to see in that picture and they gave us bamboo mats for our rumps.

Beating the tongan drums that night.

This was Samoa where they weaved all sorts of things out of the palm leaves.

I think since our hair was braided we had cameras following us all over. They kept saying can we take a picture for the ADA website? Then they gave us cards with numbers on it so we knew where to look us up....we got over a dozen pictures of us that night...which I'm sure they followed a lot of the families around that were there also.

While we were in Maui we did the famous road to Hana. This was a little market on the side of the street that had fresh fruits, coconuts, huge avocadoes you name it! They sliced up a fresh coconut right there for us, we drank the water and they gave us the meat. The guy was really cool and informative. They had the best coconut candy there and I was dying to find more the rest of the trip!

You wouldn't think that 52 miles of highway would take you 6 hours to drive....but when you pull over and take pictures every 5 mins. and only drive 10 mph there is a lot to take in!

The view from above the black sand beach....I was the only one to get in the water there because the sand was really coarse and rocky....but I felt like I was walking in Oreo cookies.

Isn't it amazing how blue the water looks compared to the black?? Very neat scenery everywhere!

Up close picture of the beach.

We felt like we were in Tarzan's jungle part of the time. It was really fun to see how things grow....the vines are really cool and grow right up along the trees.

We never really got a group shot of us all but it was a fun road trip! We felt like we were on a family vacation since a lady I work with Loraine and her husband John could be our parents, and Dondi & I could have been sisters we felt like we were our own little family.

Special thanks to my hubby who sacrificed his time to stay home and be Mr. Mom, for all of those who watched Chase while daddy was at work in the daytime, and for a great office that makes these trips possible! We had so much fresh pineapple, guava and this POG (pineapple orange guava) juice that I am still craving. Its a great place to visit...although I'm not sure I would want to live there, but it is one of God's most beautiful creations!!!

Always on the GO-GO-GO!!!

There was more on my memory card then I thought when I went to post....so this is a long one. We have been nothing but busy this summer, so here is a short re-cap 1st off: FIESTA DAYS!! We did the parade, rodeo, and a quick trip to the cabin we rarely see anymore. I was even lucky enough to meet up with a few old friends and their kids...Thank goodness for air-conditioned fastfood playlands!

You gotta love Utah parades. Complete with missionaries, tractors & rock crawling jeeps. This was pretty cool.

Chase totally loved the rodeo. He can tell you if you are a cowboy, or a cowboy-girl. He has to get bucked off (and me included when he makes me ride on back) of his rocking horse.

Next on our summer trip was our youth temple trip to Twin Falls, Idaho. Unfortunately I was released from Young Womens a few weeks before, but begged to go. Here is a group shot of our youth group. They started the trip out spiritually, as we all should.

Since Chase & I weren't able to go inside to help with baptisms for the dead, we went shopping and hung outside the temple (which Chase called Chad's temple) since we dropped him off. He loved Moroni's horn. He also picked 1/2 dozen flowers, which I tried to re-plant unsuccessfully.

Chad will probably kill me for posting this picture, but the next place we stopped after the temple was a service project to the cannery. They got a tour of the Bishop's Warehouse and how that all works, and then fulfilled a bunch of orders. The youth were surprised they actually had fun doing it!

We camped that night on the snake river. This is a place called 1000 Springs because on the opposite side of the canyon was probably 1000 little waterfalls. It was gorgeous!! Despite the mosquitoes we swam and had some great BBQ.

Saturday morning came the fun!! River Rafting. This must have been at the beginning of the runs because everyone is still dry!! As usual the water fighting & pulling people off the boats were the highlights!

Most recently was our trip to St. George and a trip to St. George is never complete without seeing my girlies: Julie & Dayna. But this time I was extra excited to see Julie's new baby Marcus! He is so so so adorable! I even got to hold him for a minute until he realized I wasn't mommy.

Besides Chase trying to feed & share his goldfish crackers with Marcus he loved to tickle & kiss his toes. He really liked being around the baby....he even got a hold of the pacifier, I held my breath that he wouldn't want his own back!


Besides swimming several times we also hit the county fair. I lived in St. George for 5+ years and never went to the county fair once. But it wouldn't have been as fun without kids. Chase had fun, especially with his good buddy Damian....we call "D". 1st stop was the Bear Show. Pretty cool they can train these big animals!!

I don't know why I thought he'd be scared of the big slide, but he kept going on it, and I was relieved he could walk up on his own!


What you can barely see is Jeremy (D's daddy) sliding down and launching the boys head over feet at the bottom. They had so much fun playing together...it really makes me sad we don't A. live in St. George anymore B. have friends like that here...and that C. St. George is so darn far away! They were good buddies.

Who doesn't love a race car right? Chase just wondered where Mater was.


Of course there is a petting zoo at the fair. D-loving feeding the popcorn to the chickens. Chase-keeping his distance and throwing the popcorn, hoping it makes it through the holes.

The debut of the fake laugh made its first appearance this weekend. Maybe D is just a comedian in the making :) Chase loved to laugh at everyone and anymore....just realize it was fake.

The fair had its share of vendors...this was a pediatric dental office. You could do anything you wanted to Chase as long as he gets to ride in the cars!

I snapped this picture a second too late cuz D sat up. They were both laying down, and just looked exhausted!! Like they had had their fill of the fair!!! It was a great trip to St. George and a great summer so far with all of our mini-vacations. What to do when work is a full 4 days a week again??

New Family Pictures

Summer has been super busy for us, it seems like we are always on the go go go!! But come January we will look back on these days with fondness!!! :) One of the highlights of our Family Reunion trip to Utah in June was a Family Photo Session. Let me just put a plug out there for our photographer, Kristina Ruiz. She also did our wedding pictures. Chad especially loved that she was quick, fast, etc. She takes great shots in a short amount of time. If only Chase would have had a nap that day they would have been way cuter....but you deal with what you get.

For all my facebook friends I posted a ton more pictures on there....or if you would like to see that album here is a link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=109957&id=663201779&l=b2331d4312 (just my little family)

Group link: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2714766&l=3163bc1d17&id=663201779

Did this one look familiar? Yeah its our new header picture on our blog, and really the best one.

We just had to go with what Chase was doing since he was nap deprived that day....as he usually is in Utah with family :)

I was really loving the rock, it was so hot that day I'm surprised you can't see pit stains and sweaty faces!!!!

Our package deal came with mom & dad pictures also....took me back to the engagement picture days.

What a cutie!! He wasn't that happy that day so this is especially a good one!

The next few pictures are from our group pictures, and why not start it off with who got the family started right? I sure love these guys!

Big family eh? Not to mention one more on the way! It's Tricia.

Lovin the rock steps!! Seems like with that many people there is always an eye closed somewhere :)

Chad inspired this photo by being patient and waiting for this big clan to finish!! Why not throw all the men in there and get a photo op out of it right?

No need to make us look at a camera and smile....we were all more than willing!

All the Grandkids.....13 total. 9 Boys, 4 Girls 1 ?????on the way

I've always loved the close up face scrunch shots. We really all do love eacother....and even the inlaws get along well with the bunch of us! How are we so amazingly lucky?