Texas Christmas

I bet you thought you were going to see Christmas morning pictures...well we forgot to take any and now have to sweet talk my mom into sending us copies of hers! We were having so much fun opening presents that I didn't even think about it (plus I knew my dad was snapping shots). We were lucky enough to spend the week in Texas with my family which is always such a treat for us, and while there we went to the Childrens museum. The kids had such a good time and since it was raining most of the time we were there, it was a great way to stay in for the day.

I love Zach's tongue sticking out while driving. He seems to do this a lot when he is concentrating. There were lots of cars to play with so he was one happy boy. And dress up for Gracie, so very fun.

Christmas was great. This kids are still young enough that they don't get up early so we didn't get started with presents until after 9am. Very good kids!! Both the kids got lots of fun new toys and it was a good thing we drove to take home all our new booty. My parents were so kind to find a sitter for my kids on 3 seperate occasions so we could go shooting, the temple and out for a night out. We are so spoiled. I just need to get better at taking out my camera to catch these special moments!

A few nights before Christmas

It's the most wonderful time of the year!!

Isn't Christmas great? I goes for over a month and there is so much to do we never have to be bored.

Good old Florida offers A LOT to do. Our neighbor had this lovely Santa pig that made me laugh every time I saw it. It even lit up at night. What more could you ask for? We went to downtown Disney a few times because they had very cute decorations and trees. Even some fake bubble snow (Gracie loved dancing in it).

Our kids did surprisingly well with Santa this year, but it really helps that Santa is in our ward, so they see him all year round. It is a good thing Gracie is not old enough to be at school telling kids that Santa goes to her church. And who would want to forget out visit with Santa cow, oh the things we do for our kids' amusement. Love it!!

Sea lions, tiger sharks and polar bears, oh my!

We LOVE Sea World! Every year they let active duty military into their parks for free one day. I had heard that they do a very fun Christmas time so we took full advantage of our free day there. The shows are so much fun and the kids really liked seeing the live animals.

They had a snow wall by the polar bears and walrus tanks, my kids first chance at touching ice!
Zach got a kick out of the manta rays petting tank. He really liked playing in the water, but getting flipped with a ray fin was exciting too. Gracie was too scared to pet them. They are so smooth and they were very friendly.

The merry-go-round is all sea animals, we had to ride it a couple of times so we could ride all the different fish.

They also had a Polar Express display, Zach could have stayed by the train all day. It was only for pictures though, but they did have a big boat the kids could play on and we spent a lot of time on that. They also had a huge net play structure that they kids just had to go on, so Stuart and I were crawling all around, I'm sure we looked pretty funny. The grown ups also took a time out to do the big roller coasters they have. Wow, they were really fun!! It was such a fun day and let me just say again that we are so lucky to live where there is so much to do! And I am so impressed with the Busch Gardens group for honoring the military, Stuart works so hard for our family and loves serving his country and it was so fun sharing this together as a family.

Thanksgiving

We had an uneventful Thanksgiving dinner, but we were lucky enough to have Stuart's family close enough to come share the day with us. We also took the kids to Tangled after dinner and they loved it! Even Zach sat thru the whole thing, although a bag of M&M's helped a little with that. But we highly recommend this movie!

It was so fun having Stuart home for 4 days straight so we took advantage of this time and took a little trip up to Blue Springs, Florida. It was a really nice day and the water stays at a constant temp of 73 degrees and we were planning on swimming. But we found out that it is the manatee migrating season so no one is allowed in the water for their protection, and to make matters worse we didn't even get to see any manatees. But it was still a very fun trip and the kids loved the wooden walking trails. We are so lucky to live somewhere that we can still travel and explore new places in November with nice weather.

Happy Halloween

Halloween fun! Gracie helped Daddy carve pumpkins this year. Poor Zach missed it...next year he can help. Gracie really liked helping but we could not convince her to eat a seed.

We had the chance to go to the Disney World Halloween party again, and it was great! We always have so much fun, and even got to go with some friends this year! Gracie was very excited to be a princess this year, Ariel to be exact. Zach was Buzz Lightyear, very fun.

You get the chance to stay late into the night at the Halloween party and trick or treat all over the park, so we went home with tons of candy. Zach was so hocked up on candy he was just running around wild til about 11pm and then crashed. Gracie took a quick nap and got a second wind so we ended up staying til midnight. Fun times. I actually end up having too much fun and forget to take more pictures.
We had a very fun night at a friends house on Halloween night, so the kids got to dress up one more time. We trick or treated from room to room in the house and the kids loved it. The also loved helping to answer the door all night. We were over at this friends house yesterday and the doorbell rang and Gracie ran to the door asking "I wonder what they will be dressed up as". It is hard to explain that Halloween does actually end after celebrating it for a couple of weeks straight.

I'm spoiled...

I finally got my computer back so I promised myself that when I did I would update the blog, so...

I am very spoiled. Back in January my high school friends started toying with the idea of having a mini high school reunion and I jumped on the idea. This not only gave me an opportunity to see some people that I haven't seen in years but also was an excuse to get back to California for a few days. So as I was planning my wonderful husband volunteered to take the kids and let me go by myself! I was in heaven...5 days to go and play with my very best friends with no kids are you kidding me. I think I floated on board the plane that morning.

I got to eat at all my favorite California places which includes this ice cream, which I actaully have dreams about.

I pretended I was still a kid and we spent the day 6 flags going on all the big roller coasters over and over. And had a sleep over, do you know how long it has been since I had a sleep over? It was great!

And then I talked Abby into going to Santa Cruz so I could remember what a west coast beach was like. The water was so cold!

And this is our mini reunion. One of the best nights of my life. I have the coolest, bestest friends. Thanks for all for going and planning and putting me up!

Texas part 2

If you don't feel like reading the earlier post...we went to Texas again for a few weeks. Fun times! My kids love the big house to run around in and my parents have a nice big yard they could play in. Although the mosquito's thought that Zach was an open buffet everyday, they still had fun.

We went to the children's museum, which is very hands on. We didn't even get to half of the stuff before the kids were exhausted. I would be here every other day if we had one in Orlando!

And we went swimming! My kids love swimming. The pool was like bath water because it was so hot, so not very refreshing, but at least we didn't have to worry about cold kiddos. I even got my mom to go off the diving board! It was a sad day when we headed back home, but we are finding more and more fun stuff to do there every time we go, so it gives us something to look forward to for our next trip!