Thankful

Over the river and through the woods to Heaffy's house we go! We were able to go to Utah for Thanksgiving this year and were so spoiled. Heather and Andy are always wonderful hosts in their beautiful house. We feel so welcomed and loved while we're there. The food is ALWAYS amazing (as you can tell by the pictures) and we're all a good 5-10 pounds heaver when we leave.

(Amber brought stuff for gingerbread houses, that is Ellie with her "Animal Hospital". Greg is next to her with their amazing salad. The last picture on the bottom was all the pies. Heather and Jesica spoiled us all with 18 pies! The food was AMAZING!)

Top L: Andy and Heather Top R: Lee and Carter working on the gingerbread houses.

Bottom L: Gordon and Brandon Bottom R: Grandma Trujillo and Ellie

Brandon returned from his mission from the Philippines exactly 4 days before this trip to Utah. We were all so excited to have all the cousins together for the first time in years. It's amazing to me how quickly time has flown and it's evident seeing them all together. Unfortunately I didn't ever get a group shot of them together but they are all grown up now! (Except my kids and Revis, of course. But now the smallest one is my GRAND NEPHEW AND NIECE! How did I get old enough for that?! I am so proud of them all, though. It is so great to see the adults they have grown into.)

Brian, Ben, Dee, Brandon and Gordon heading out the door skiing.

We had enough snow to play in for one day. Just right for me but I think the kids wanted more. Ah well, at least we had that!

This is my grand-nephew Bert and my grand-niece Marley (with her parents).

I also took some "time off" and went to dinner with some girlfriends. I hadn't seen a couple of them since High School and it was so good to catch up. Laughed a lot!

We were able to go to the Powell's for my dad's birthday (see him plugging his ears? We're great birthday singers!) and to decorate the tree. I also got to meet my new nephew Dax - SOOOOOO cute! He let me hold him a ton and was such a sweet baby. All my siblings came out too and mom had cinnamon bread. Loved it!

I am so thankful for family. I am thankful we are able to see them. I am thankful for a safe car and a safe trip. I am thankful to feel so incredibly loved!

Happy Halloween

Halloween is tomorrow, but we celebrated starting Friday at a party. I know the pictures leave something to be desired. My camera is still broken and all I have is my phone. Use your imagination, these ARE the good pictures...

Tyler wanted to use his Batman costume he got for his birthday. Once he decided that he told Carter, "You should be Robin!" So I pulled together a Robin costume. Turned out pretty darn cute I must say.

Ellie wanted to be a skunk. That's right. Her idea. She's totally into animals right now, and why she chose skunk I don't know, but this one also turned out pretty cute!

Now that McKenna is 12 she no longer gets to trick-or-treat. I have a thing about kids getting to do that and teenagers just being greedy. Since she's in Young Women's now she no longer gets to be a kid at Halloween. However, she get's to decorate and scare people which still sounds pretty fun. She threw this costume together last minute. She said she survived Army after Boot Camp.

Dee found a Blue's Brother's mask and I, of course, threw together this costume last minute.

Trying to get 4 kids in a picture with a slow camera before a party when they're super excited is no easy task, hence the faces and motion blurs.

Tyler did the Angry Bird and I did the pig king. Both turned out awesome I might add!

Happy Halloween!

Surprise and we love Fall

My mom had a birthday. It was a big one (but she will forever remain 29), definatly one worth celebrating. The trouble is she is about 700 miles away from where I am. My other siblings were all getting together to celebrate and with a healthy dose of celebrating mom and I'll admit a little bit of homesickness and jealousy I flew out. All by myself. (This is where I throw in a huge thank you to my wonderful husband who convinced me I should and made it possible with the kids et. al. to do so. THANKS BABE!)

Being by myself is not something I get to do very often. With kids this age it means day and night I am on duty. Even getting a shower without a little one saying, "Mom! 5 minutes!" or "Mom! Carter has no pants on and is outside!" or "Mom! Tyler won't stop chasing me with his Light Saber!" you get the idea. It was awesome!

I flew out Thursday night and Suzanne picked me up at the airport. She was the only one who knew for sure I was flying in. I got to see her beautiful new house and play with her boys. Being the fun Aunt instead of the mean mom was such a fun break! Aisea loves food. A lot. So cute!
Back to the birthday, mom was surprised to see me and I had a great time hanging out with the adults and not chasing kids around the whole time. James and Amber were staying at my parent's so once the kids went to bed we got to hang out and philosophies the issues of the world, or at least debate the smaller things of life.

**Another side note, Amber was very pregnant when I saw her and am proud to say I have a new nephew as of two days ago! Congrats guys!**

We had a birthday get together with all the siblings at Suzanne's and had an amazing cake she had made. Happy birthday mom!

The next day was Conference Sunday. We headed up the hills to see some fall foilage and I am so glad we did. I had forgotten just how much I miss seeing ALL the leaves turn. We have trees that change here but not like that. WOW!

My nephew Enos had his 4th birthday. Did I mention Zan makes awesome cakes?!

I loved being there. I loved seeing my family. I loved getting the much needed time-off. I loved playing with the kids and talking with the adults. I loved coming home and seeing these cute faces again.

My Garden

I hope this one doesn't bore you. I thought I'd give a shout-out to my garden. First: the background. I've tried gardens on and off through out the years. I learned with my first one I am great at planting and picking, but stinky at the maintaining part. That means pretty much the weeds always took over. Talk about joy-kill.

Then a couple years ago a man in our ward (who is a Master Gardner for fun) started a class. It was the basics and just some things he's learned over the years. I learned SO much! It gave me the hope and encouragement to try again. The last two gardens have been successes! So here we are now...

First, we have awesome soil. We are on a prior river bed so we have rock, but I credit great soil for most of the success. This is Dee plowing our garden to get it started. We also have lots of space, which also helps.

This year we built some seed shelves to try and grow everything by seed. Again, the Master Gardner's suggestion and idea. I'll admit I became a major geek this year with plant starts. I loved doing it and was so excited to see them all come up! Next year I'm going to start even earlier, and more. This is a shot of Ellie in front of the new shelves. To the right is with the lights and plastic covering on.

This is the first seedling that came up for me. Like a proud parent, I tell ya. The picture on the right is when we went to plant them outside and the roots were 2 feet long! Amazing!

The thing I had the most success with were sunflowers. I planted them around our pool, in the garden, across the fence. I planted a variety of colors and sizes and they all were amazing! The one Ellie is in front of were 12 feet high, but my tallest one was 13 1/2 feet!

So the moral of the story is don't give up. Have fun. Don't get discouraged. My tomatoes were pretty pathetic this year, but I had strawberries, onions, garlic, cukes, pumpkins and zucchini. I'm getting ready to plant my fall garden (first time for me). Apparently here you can grown an over-winter garden which was pretty mind blowing to a gal from colder climates. Broccoli, garlic, onions, califlower, basil, cilantro... we'll have to see how it goes.

Oh, and don't forget to water...

1st Day of School

I'm not really sure where this summer flew to, but suddenly school is back! The kids were so excited and the first week went well. Here's hoping the whole year is AWESOME! (Keeping my fingers crossed and a prayer in my heart!)

McKenna is a big 7th grader...WHAT?! Jr. High... did I mention I'm praying?!

Ty is onto 5th Grade. His glasses were lost sometime this summer and we're working on replacing them, but this was his first day. Cool guy is here this year... And check out his awesome kicks! Love the orange laces.

Ellie is a happy 2nd Grader who loves her teacher and her friends. Pretty much all of school. She makes her own lunch everyday. She lost her front tooth on the 3rd day of school.

Big changes for a little guy...

Being the last kid, Carter gets to do things the others didn't. This can either be a good thing or bad, depending on the situation, but one of the best was he didn't get a haircut until he was three. He has curls that are to die for and so fit his larger than life personality.

We reached the point where too many people called him a girl, though, so it was time!

Carter's first haircut.

He also had his tonsils out this summer. He has never been a good sleeper. I can count on two hands how many times he actually made it through the night without waking up (and in turn, waking us up.) Remember, he's 3! That wasn't the only reason he got his tonsils out but I am here to tell you once he recovered from his surgery he has slept through the night EVERY NIGHT! (Do you hear the angels singing?!) The Dr. came out after surgery and said he had never seen tonsils that large on a 3 year old EVER. Carter had only been 3 for a few days so they were huge!

The biggest change for him is he needed glasses. He had a lazy eye so we took him in and found out his vision is terrible. *Sigh* A lifetime of glasses and contacts. Kids picking on him at school. Having to wear glasses all the time. I know it's no big deal most of the time, it's just the whole mom guilt that goes with it. He looks stinking cute in them, though!

*Disclaimer* Remember, my camera is broken so all the pictures I have posted were stolen from other people. That means, I am still waiting for other people to post pictures from the other half of the family.

The annual "Treadway Treck" was held last weekend. The guys all went camping and the girls played. It seemed like a quick trip, 6 days total, 2 were in the car, but we squeezed as much as we could in. We went to a water play park, up the canyon for s'mores, shopped, out to dinner, stayed up late gabbing (EVERY NIGHT!) and ate too much and laughed a lot. Love those ladies!

On the actual 24th we had a party at the Powell side. All three of my siblings and their families were able to come - love that they are all closer now - and a few volunteer relatives. My favorite cousin Teresa and her kids were in town and came over also. I haven't seen her for about 8 years so it was awesome to be able to catch up with her, too.

The 24th is a hoiday in Utah (Pioneer Day) which is like the 4th in that you get to blow stuff up. Dad obliged with a box of fireworks and a blow-torch to light them all with. Amazingly nobody lost their fingers, noses or hair - but there were a couple of "AHHHHH" moments for us mom's.

Teresa and Diantha

Carter, Marybeth (back), Savannah and Ivy

Dad (holding a blow-torch), James and Porter's head

Suzanne, Sea (in arms), Amber (pregnant with young Padawan Jedi Yoda Blaster Solo. They're not set on a name yet but there's a suggestion for you Amber), Marybeth, Diantha and mom (Rose)

On our last day there we planned to go to Logan. We haven't been up there for ages and I realized we have no pictures of us at the Logan Temple where we were sealed. We got lunch at Papa Kelsey's YUM and headed to 1st Dam for old time sake. We ran into some friends from our Ward here in CA, ironically. How's that for a small world?!

Anyway, we met up with some old friends and had a great visit with them. Drove around Logan and remembered a million things we had forgotten, then got our pictures done. I am really excited to see them and will post when they come in.

After pictures (which were way to long for Carter) we headed to the Bluebird for some ice cream. This is a shot of all of us in the mirror. It was a great family day and we all left there feeling very blessed.

After our Logan trip we spent the night at Dee's parent's house where they put on a spectacular fireworks show for us.

We made it home safe and sound and realized while we were away our zucchini plants had gone to play. Love my garden! From the one zucchini I got 12 cups shredded zucchini! WOW! (The fork and child in the pictures are for size reference... :)

And last, but not least, if you're reading this - please drop me a comment! I'd like to know if anybody is actually reading this blog!

Happy 15th Anniversary!

4th of July/Summer Fun!

So it's been a while since I posted. There has been so much going on, I'm not even going to try to catch up right now. Instead, I'm going to tell you what has happened recently and if I get time later I'll post about earlier events.

Summer is here in full swing. Going way to fast for my taste, too. We counted up the other day and there are only 30 something days left until school starts. Bleh, not ready for that yet!

Don't mind all the junk food! That's the best part of camping, right?!

The latest and greatest thing we did was went camping. When we sat down to schedule time off the 4th of July week was the ONLY time the entire summer we had to camp for more than just one night. McKenna and I were still at girls camp (another story) so Dee grabbed the kids on a Friday, packed all the stuff and went to camp. He got our favorite camping spot (YES!) and set up camp. I really have to give him full props for this, there was only one or two things he forgot to grab and he got it all together, set it up and still had a good time with just the three younger ones. No easy task!

McKenna and I got up there Sunday morning (because I truly needed a night in my own bed), and it was such a fun experience for all of us. It was awesome after being apart for a full week to not have any distractions (TV, video games, housework, friends, etc). We were able to spend quality family time that is so precious in this busy world.

Carter had a birthday on the 3rd. We had ding-dongs with candles to celebrate and made ice cream in a bag. He got to eat a giant sucker (which he so kindly shared with everyone.) He also got a flashlight which was also a great present. He LOVED camping. Dirt, water, sleeping in a tent. Favorite things for a 3 year old!

Ellie also had a great time. She collected rocks from the river (this one was her favorite.) She rode her bike pretty much all the time. If it wasn't swimming, eating or sleeping time she was riding her bike around. She was so happy to have our family back together, too. Sweet sweet girl! She also loved to do the dishes which pretty much rocks.

Tyler was a stud. He had grown since I saw him last (only a week!) and was even funnier than before. I think hanging with his older cousins increased his sense of humor. He was looking for his glasses in my car. I asked if he found them and he said, "Nope, but I found these sweet bad boys." Nice. He was a huge help to Dee and really stepped up. He watched out for his younger siblings and helped set up camp and start fires. He did get a stomach ache from eating all the junk food the first night, hard to believe, I know.

McKenna was a trooper after a week at girls camp being willing to spend another four days camping. We were all so happy to be back together there was very little fighting. Carter was SO happy to see McKenna - I love their relationship!

These are some random pictures from the river.

Finally, 4th of July. We went to Mt. Shasta (town) for the day. They had a small town parade (bottom center) complete with firemen who knew everybody's name, people handing out Pepsi (bottling company up there), clowns on bikes and knife jugglers. After that we went to lunch and to the lake. No pictures from the lake, but WOW is that a beautiful lake! We totally red-necked it and blew up our air mattress to float on. Carter kept saying, "I like this swimming bed!" After we went to camp for a nap and back up to Mt. Shasta's golf course. The whole town goes there to watch the fireworks and it was amazing. Not so much the fireworks, but the feeling of community and the running barefoot all over the fine golf course grass! There was even a statue that was actually a guy to welcome us there (top-right).

The last picture is Carter in a bunch of sweet-pea flowers, after I dropped my camera. *Sigh* Don't think I can handle a broken camera. The trip was remarkable, though! Happy Independence Day!