Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving morning we got up and took family pictures and then headed to Sacramento to spend time

with Jason's side of the family at Danale's house.

I love the holidays and getting together with family!

Stephen and Danale carving the turkey

Austin, Danny, Jason, Justin, Mike relaxing and enjoying each other's company.

Cheryl, Colton, Jessica, Ashlyn and Lauren coloring Thanksgiving pictures.

Paige playing with one of the million toys at Danale's house. :-)

Danny with Paige and Carter.  He is loving being a Grandpa!  (It's really cute how excited he is about it!)

Lily, Mindy, and Sam letting the Thanksgiving feast settle in.  Such a cute family.  I love how sweet they are and how perfectly matched they are for each other.

A VERY FIRST!!!  Paige fell asleep on my shoulder!!!  Yeah!  It only lasted about 5 minutes, but it was so sweet!  It was a great day!  I have so much to be thankful for!

Pismo

For the last 15 years (wow that sounds like a long time when I actually write it down) one of my best friends, John Blatter, and I have been riding motorcycles. We started in Provo buying used motorcycles out of the Thrifty Nickle for $250. Our first bikes were barely ridable and we spent most of our time working on them rather than riding them. We would be out in front of our student apartment buildings with a socket set, a phillips screwdriver, and a Clymer's repair manual that we checked out from the BYU library, deep into the night wrenching away on our machines. The Saturday riding trips to South Mountain or American Fork Canyon only lasted about 2 hours because that's about how long it would take for someone to crash and break a clutch lever or some other catastrophic mechancial failure to occur.

Life has changed alot since those early days. We've both gotten married and have 9 kids between us. We have gone through about 20 different motorcyles, ridden in places as far as Tennessee, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. We've ridden on the beach and in the desert, in the mountains, and in the swamp. It's been something that John and I do together as friends. It's as much a part of my life's history as anything else. We have so many "war" stories that we can sit around a camp fire and go on for hours, laughing until it hurts.

This year John and I were talking about how we were needing a riding trip and he said "Well what about this weekend?" It was Tuesday. But that's kind of how these trips happen, and after a quick look at the calender and a phone call to Tara, I was in. We were headed to Pismo Beach for a weekend of camping (in a fifth wheel RV, because John and I both decided we are too old for tent camping.)

This trip was going to be a little different. We were going to bring our boys. John has three and I have Austin. Austin thought it would be fun to bring his good friend Caleb, and Caleb is always welcome with our family, so he was in too. Over the next several days, John and I shared dozend of phone calls, emails and text messages getting this whole thing put together. We were so excited to share this part of ourselves with the next generation. Don't get me wrong, Tara and I have taken the kids on riding trips in the past and we have even taken them to Pismo before, but this was a "boys' riding trip" and things were going to be a little different, haha.

We got there in the pouring rain, and quickly set up camp. We rode until it got dark and then made our way into town to eat at Round Table Pizza and to dry off a little. We were all soaking and chilled to the bone. Round Table never tasted so good.

We got back to camp and Austin asked if he and Caleb could ride some more in the dark. I said "Sure." He looked at me like "really?", and I said, "have at it." I told him that if he gets lost, to head toward the ocean and then ride up and down the beach until he finds us. His face was priceless. I am very dry and sarcastic (in a good way) with the kids sometimes, so they will find themselves in a situation where they can't tell if I am serious or joking. I convinced him that I was serious and he and Caleb scampered off on the quads and I watched until I saw their taillights disappear over a dune.

We did everything that is Pismo to me, we had a huge campfire, let off fireworks, ate a bag of dorritos for breakfast, listened to John pass gas, worked on bikes, and RODE until our bums got sore, and slept in our riding gear. John and I have been doing this forever and are forever refining the experience with lessons learned from past trips. I could go on forever here, but we have had tents literally floating as the tide came because we set up too close to the water when we set up camp in the middle of the night at low tide. We learned that canned food is easier to eat if you bring a can opener, to check the gas in your bike or quad before EVERY ride, because it's a long walk out, and list goes on.

Our boys were the direct beneficiaries of our years of collective knowledge regarding the ingredients for a successful Pismo trip. John and I have it pretty down pat and even threw in a new one with renting a 40 foot fifth wheel trailer from a local that set it all up at the beach for us before we arrived. We just showed up and "moved in." It was a long way from sleeping in cars and tents with no toilets or showers.

I loved seing Austin's and Caleb's faces when John and I were telling our stories as we stood/sat around the campfire. I loved to see their smiles when they would come back from a ride and listen to their excited chatter about a jump they went off or a cool riding spot they found. I know the feeling that they were enjoying and I was enjoying it too, one of those moments that you wish could last forever.

We came home tired, dirty, and happy vowing to go back soon. I loved having John and his boys there, and letting Austin get to know him too. I just wish I would have taken more pictures, next time I guess....

For a Moment

Paige has never been a snuggler.  When she is tired, she wants to be layed down in her bed.  That's great most of the time, but hard when we aren't home and I wish she would just fall asleep in my arms AND really sad for me, who loves babies all snuggled up with me!!  So, when I got her to let me hold her in the rocker in her room, I was so excited!  It had to be documented! 

 I can't tell you how much I will miss having a baby!

The moment was short lived, but I LOVED every second of it!!

October Overview

Life is WAY too busy!!  It's January and I'm finally posting the rest of October!  Here are a few highlights from the month.

Jason took the kids (I was home sick) to watch a reenactment of the Civil War.  They said it was pretty cool and they both got extra credit at school for going.

Lauren was busy cheer leading for the football season at school.

Here is Lauren and Drew (my nephew)

My mom, me and Paige at the game

Carter came for a visit.

Paige turned 7 months.  Her bottom teeth came the rest of the way in. She is crawling really fast and is in to everything.  She still has such an easy going personality.  We fall more in love with her every day.

Billy and Jen came to visit. (And I didn't take any pictures!)  We had a picnic at the park with them and Paige LOVED the swing!

Lauren was a devil for Halloween (and sometimes I think that suits her well. Haha!), Jessica was a pirate, Paige was a strawberry, Ashlyn was Rapunzel, and Austin thought if he put on a beanie and brought his skateboard, people just might still give him candy.  Somehow, it worked!

All that, plus 2 birthdays, a wedding, a trip to Magic Mountain and the Mud Run, along with all the usual- work, school, dance, music class, church...  Whew!

Down and Dirty Mud Run

At the end of October, I went to Folsom with a bunch of girl friends for a day of shopping, laughing, silliness and MUD!  Jen had done the Warrior Dash with some friends last year, and had so much fun that I couldn't wait to not be pregnant and go this year!  BUT, it had sold out before we had a chance to register.  My aunt Michelle came across the Down and Dirty Mud Run in Folsom and we decided it was close enough and registered for the night run!

Of course, the only way to travel with this group of girls, was in Miss B Haven!  We got window paint and let the world know that we were on our way and ready to play!

Jason was worried that I would miss out on all the fun girl time if I was stuck up front driving, so he offered to come along as our chauffeur.  He was amazing!  He dropped us off where ever we needed to be and was right back to pick us up when I would call or text him.  He also acted as our photographer, well, more like paparazzi.  We got so much attention all day!  A big group of girls spilling out of our own bus and being followed around by a photographer-- everyone wondered who we were and why they weren't they having as much fun as us!

Ashley picked up material for us to make tutus to wear in our "race".  We made the tutus while we rode up there.  It was a party as soon as we left the driveway!

This picture makes me laugh!  This is me and one of Jason's old college girl friends that is a friend of ours. :-O  He says he never had a type.  Hmmmm.  Is it just me or do we look alike?! 

We stopped in Elk Grove and picked up my mom and Diane.

We made a quick Target stop and had lunch in Folsom before we headed over to register for our race.

All the buzz at registration and a little caffeine had us partying like rock stars and a little silly for the rest of the day!

We got these neck/face warmers at registration and had way to much fun being big dorks with them in front of everyone at the Folsom Outlets!

Danale and Shauna met us at the Outlets.  It's always so good to see Danale!  I just love her!  She looked at me and said, "Wait!  Are you wearing make up to go run in the mud?!"  Of course!!  Haha!

 After we shopped, we went over to Michelle's house to get ready for the Mud Run.

All ready to go!

One of the best things about the day was seeing my mom in a TUTU!!!  What a great sport!

Me, my mom and my sister.  How fun that we can all play together!

LOVE this guy!

WAY too much fun on our way to RUN!

Here is a picture of our course map.  We have WAY TOO MANY pictures and picking a few to help you get the idea is WAY too hard!!  They had a costume contest.  We were introduced as the Tutu Girls and somehow the announcer knew we came in our "very own bus"!

We danced to the music while we waited for the race to start.

We laughed A LOT and took a TON of pictures!  We even took pictures with random strangers who wanted to have their picture taken with us- after all, we were practically famous! ;-)

Soon, it was totally dark, we turned our head lamps on and off we went!

The run was a little over 3 miles, with obstacles a long the way.  Here are pictures of a few obstacles:

A slippery wall

A "low crawl" under a net (on really gravely ground! ouch!)

A water crossing (where a couple of us ran right into a huge rock that left battle wounds for the next few weeks.)

Mud (Kristie)

Mud (Jen)

And more MUD! (Tara, Ashley, Brandi)

It was SO FUN!  We all finished with smiles (and mud!) on our faces.

They had a rinsing station set up with sprinkler pipe and hoses to get most of the mud off.  It was FREEZING!!

We went back to Michelle's house to get in a hot shower and get in our cozies before we headed back home.

It was such a fun day with fun friends!!