Training and playing!

This past week, Monica and I had a conference in Long Beach for work, so I packed up Jude and took him along. It was so close to Disneyland that we couldn't resist! Summer and her kids came with us, and helped with Jude while I was at the conference. Tish and Peyton came down from Portland too! Monica and I spent a lot of time at the conference, so Summer took the kids swimming at the hotel the first day we were there, then Tish and Peyton came the second day. Here is a picture after we picked them up from the airport.

Peyton was a little freaked by the huge Mickey Mouse, as was Kai. They were both calmed down in this picture. As you can see the weather was great! It was 80-85 degrees the whole time that we were there.

Jude was much more adventurous this year and I made him try a lot of rides this time. He is so cautious and worries about the unknown, but we have been trying to help him not be scared of everything. I'm so glad that Monica and Summer were there to ride with the kids on the TeaCups, beacuse they all wanted to go on them, but I get super sick on the spinning rides, so normally Jude would have to skip those. Thank goodness for Aunts with steel stomaches!

Here is a picture with all of us that were there. Peyton lost the battle to stay awake, but it was 11pm by that time and we had to get as much in our last day as we could.

We missed Gordon and he will have to go next time!

The Best White Trash Thanksgiving Ever!

Ok, first we really didn't have a white trash thanksgiving, but I'm sure that's what all our neighbors thought when they saw our front lawn and the BBQ trailer parked on it. (I just realized how fabulous our grass looks! If only it looked like this in the summer too!)

Gordon cooked two turkeys on the BBQ (yes this is the one that he built) and they were delicious. Here is a picture of half of the grill with one turkey and a pan of wood chips for flavor. Each knob is it's own individual burner...8 burners in total, so he adjusted the heat as needed. When he built this BBQ he put thermometers on the lids to help control the temperature and they worked perfect.

We had a great Thanksgiving with Gordon's family here at our house!

The Great Fright Night...or Week

Superwoman Maile, Superman Kai, Batman Jude, Ninja Brock, Cinderella Kenna, Piggy Aubrey, Little Bear Brody.

I have a combination of pictures from the Ashland Ward Halloween Carnival that the Youth set up for the kids and families in the ward and pictures from Trick or Treating last night. We went around Ty and Tori's neighborhood and it was perfect! We did a total of almost 2 blocks and the kids were done. Ty drove his Rhino with Tori and Brody in the front and Summer and Kai sat in the back. We started at about 6pm and it was just starting to get dark, so the kids could see everything really well and didn't get freaked out too badly by people's decorations. Maile was most timid at the house where the people were sitting in their garage and one of the ladies was wearing a "Cinco de Mayo" big feather glasses mask. Otherwise she was ringing the doorbells with Jude (mind you neither of them can ring a doorbell only once) and yelling Trick or Treat! The first few houses they did the full rendition of the "Trick or treat pledge, including Maile's favorite part "...I don't care, I'll pull down your underwear!" followed by her and Jude's hysterical laughter. We told them it wasn't nice to say that, so they needed to stop, Maile said it made her laugh, but she wouldn't tell it to anyone else. It was great fun though!

The Mistress has been sold!

This post is very upsetting for me. We purchased the mistress when Gordon turned 25 and had what I called his "quarter life crisis". He so badly wanted a little British car that he could fix up and he found this little 1956 MGA that was in some one's side year that looked like a pile of rust, actually I felt that $500 for it was way too much, but Gordon convinced me that they were rare and this way a good deal. Well Gordon worked countless hours on her and spent oodles (yes, easily in the thousands) of money (hence her name "The Mistress") and this is what she looks like today. The MG is super fun to drive even though is doesn't have any kind of top at all, no A/C, no power steering, but it does have a Chevy V6 that pushes it right along! It's been a while since she has been driven and Gordon hates to see it just sitting and getting dinged in the garage by brooms and tools, so he decided to sell. Dad's little tiny red car (as Jude calls it, since we have 2 other red cars...yes, the Magnum and Expedition are both red) will be picked up today by the shipping company that is taking it to it's new owner on the east coast. We hope he enjoys it and takes good care of it! We will miss her! Goodbye little Mistress!

It's the Great Pumpkin!

We had a great time carving pumpkins, first just as our little family and then last night with the rest of our family! We missed Tish, John and Peyton! Mom and Dad got back from their cruise to the Bahamas on Sunday, so they wanted to have a family home evening and tell us all about it and give us some little treasures that they got for each of us. It was lot of fun. Mom moved her car out of the garage and we all carved pumpkin in there. Kai especially loved being in the garage in his walker running into all the pumpkins and people!

Saturday slides

Since Gordon is working on saturdays now, Jude and I have been trying to find things to do outdoors before the weather won't let us any more, and we found another farm to visit just down the street from our house. Gordon came for a lunch break and joined us for a little while. Jude loves the big dragon slide and played on it for a long time before Gordon got there, and then we went to the pumpkin patch and picked a family pumpkin. We had another first for Jude, he actually let a lady paint a dragon on his face! We've tried to talk him into letting people paint his face before, but he never would let anyone.

Weekend at Hotel Maughan!

I actually already typed out this whole long explanation and had pictures in it and everything, and then I posted it and realized that it had posted onto our Gorgeous Georges trailer blog instead of this one! AAAAHHH! So annoying!

Anyway, Summer and I took Jude, Maile and Kai to visit Uncle John, Aunt Tishi, and Peyton this past weekend and we took the kids to a working farm just outside of Woodburn. We went to the same farm last fall and the kids loved the hay slide and the pig races, so we figured we would take them back there again. Saturday was a little cloudy and had some showers, and we ended up being the only ones on the farm for about the first 30 minutes that we were there. Jude and Maile went straight to the hay slide and had a great time climbing up and sliding down. Summer, Tish and I went a few times too! Kai loved standing at the bottom and watching the kids slide past him. He is such a happy cute little boy and loves his sister and cousins! Peyton liked sliding too, but he really liked stomping in the mud puddles in his boots a whole lot more! The hay maze was really fun too and Jude actually was daring and took the lead, usually he is more regarded and a little shy, but not that day. We chose pumpkins in the pumpkin patch and then got a ride back on the hay trailer with the tractor. Jude and Maile rode the pig train, slide down the tube slide, fed the llamas and goats and had a great time on the hay obstacle course.