Grandpa John's

This was my favorite thing about visiting my Grandpa's. The boys found this wagon outside and started playing with it. I noticed some little exhaust pipes on the back and started thinking it looked familiar. I realized it is the same wagon that I played in as a little girl! My dad added those exhaust pipes years ago! I love having a picture of my boys playing with it too.



My grandpa made the boys some stilts to have fun with.





Dallin of course was too small to use his so Brian gave them a try.


My dad came down from Oregon to visit too. So of course they were doing the guy thing of standing around a car and chatting.



He brought his huge dog, a great dane, too. That dog thinks he is a kid. So he jumped in and rode around the back of the mowers just like my kids.



One of the things Blake was most excited about was playing poker. My grandpa had been saving up his coins, and the boys played poker with Grandpa John. They loved it! And luckily it didn't really matter who won. It was just about playing and having fun.



On our last day there, we went to a fish hatchery. It was neat to see these big pools of water with so many fish in them! There were so many you couldn't see the bottom.



When the boys threw a handful of food in, the water churned up so much from all the fish.





It was a great visit and I know the boys will remember this for a long time!

Off to California

My grandpa decided to have us come on out and visit him. I am not much of a fan of flying (like I have panic attacks), but we packed up and off we went. He lives in Northern California, so we flew to the Sacramento airport.

Understatement alert, it is not easy to travel with kids.

We had so much luggage! All necessary stuff. We left super early on a Friday morning and were doing so good on time when we pulled into the long term parking. We started to kind of relax, got the kids some snacks, got our baggage out really slow and sauntered on over to the shuttle. Then the shuttle took forever! 45 minutes went by from the time we got on, to when we got to the Southwest check in. By the time we made it through that line, we were getting warned that due to our late check in, our bags were not guaranteed to get on our flight.

The kids were already getting restless since we had woke them at 4am, Dallin was asking to pee, and we still had to get though the security line. I looked over at that line and realized it wound around all the way down to the baggage claim area. There was no way we were going to make it. But southwest had alerted them that we were coming and a security officer was waiting for us. They pulled us to the front of the line and had us scanned in no time at all. Miraculously, we made it to our flight.

We flew from SLC to Las Vegas, then on the Sacramento. When we landed in Vegas, the plane cleared out almost entirely. So we moved to the front of the plane for more leg room. The stewards and pilot were taking their break and chatting there at the front too. They saw our boys and invited all 3 of them to the cock pit to sit in the pilots seat. They let them push all sorts of buttons. They were awesome and the kids loved it!

A second take off and landing later, we made it to California. I was feeling a little nostalgic seeing all the agriculture of that area. After a couple hours of driving, we pulled into my Grandpa's place.

He got a bunch of lawn mowers ready for the boys to drive around his property.





The boys loved it! They loved the space, and seeing my Grandpa. Brian really liked being so far out in the boonies that there was no cell phone coverage and no internet. I liked the no cable TV thing. It was also kind of fun to see this:



When I was 15, just shortly after my grandpa bought this property, he poured some concrete and let me write my name in it. It was still there! Along with my handprint. More to come....

Trick or Treating

We have been so busy lately, I am finally getting around to posting these.

Kyle and Blake were originally going to be Star Wars themed this year so I got Dallin a Yoda to match. Then they changed their minds and were both super heroes. So I got him a Captain America instead.

Dallin had a cute little Halloween party at his preschool where he got to be dressed up. He was sure cute!







Kyle and Blake's school always does a parade for the parents so I headed on down for that.



Finally, the moment the boys had been waiting for! CANDY TIME! :)





At the last minute, I decided to dress up too. I got on pinterest to get some fast/easy/cheap ideas. And one idea from pinterest stuck out. I was pinterest.



Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Carving!

Halloween is so fun with the boys. Earlier this week we got our pumpkins carved. Wow, that was a mess! We grew our own pumpkins this year. Last year, when we carved pumpkins, we did most of it outside on the porch to save on clean up. The seeds got tossed out into the flower bed and a pumpkin plant grew there! I also grew some intentionally in the backyard.

One of the pumpkins was so hard it was like cutting wood. Brian used his dremel tool for cutting it. It turned out pretty good!



Here is Blake, showing me the guts! :)



Dallin had a great time poking the pumpkin with the carving tool. He wanted a moon, and he wanted a scary face. Then he wanted a happy face. Though he kept changing his mind, he ended up happy with what he got.



Kyle picked out the largest pumpkin of all, it was huge! I am surprised that it stood upright. It turned out amazing! And Blake wanted to do Frankenstein. Everybody's turned out pretty good.