Thanksgiving in Arkansas

For Thanksgiving this year we took a road trip to Arkansas to be with Chet's sister and her family. It was a pretty easy drive (besides the wind) since we broke it up with an overnight stop in Oklahoma. We are becoming quite the road-trippers with all the visits to Utah and now Arkansas. :) I actually enjoy looking out the windows at all the new sights there is to see. Like the cotton fields in Texas and the dead cow, on the freeway mind you, in Oklahoma. It's fun to see this beautiful land we live in.

When we arrived in Arkansas it was a fabulous 70 degrees! So the kids immediately headed for the trampoline. They jumped until it was dark and time for a tasty dinner of ham and potato soup. After dinner Liv, Chels and I made a dash to Wally World for a few last minute things for Thanksgiving dinner then it was home to bed. Liv was a little nervous about going to bed because while the weather was great when we got there there was a giant storm rolling through the area and there were tornado warnings in effect. She was kinda freaking out about it. After lots of reassuring that there wouldn't be a tornado she went to bed. While the kids were asleep the adults just sat around and caught up before we headed to bed ourselves.

I had only been asleep for about 30 minutes when the storm arrived. It was crazy! There was freezing rain pounding on the windows, thunder, lightning and  of course wind! I just knew that any minute Liv would come running in afraid of a tornado. She never did though. So after about an hour of listening to the storm I went back to sleep.

Thanksgiving morning the temps had dropped about 40 degrees and there was ice on everything! The kids couldn't understand that the weather wasn't as nice as it was when we got there so they were begging to go outside and jump. We finally relented and dressed them up in their winter gear and sent them out the door to jump on the frozen tramp. They had a blast!




Weeee! Ice! ;)

When the kids were sufficiently frozen they came inside to have a quick bite to eat and then back to playing. This time they played hide-and-seek. This consisted of all the boys counting and Liv hiding and then when they found her there was lots of screaming and running around and then they would start over. I wish I would have gotten some video of it...

When Liv wasn't playing with the boys she was holding Rudy, the Molines' GIANT cat that is almost as big as Liv in length and weight! Love him!

RUDY!

When the kids got bored and thought there wasn't anything to do Chelsie would pull some sort of cool craft out for the kids to make. We made paper bag turkeys, cakes with play dough, and the boys favorite paper airplanes.

The boys would wait in line for Chet to make them a plane



Painting feathers for their paper bag turkeys 



Liv working on her cake

After lots of playing, football watching and cooking it was dinnertime. We had so much food--turkey, jello, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, 2 kinds of sweet potatoes, homemade rolls and 3 pies! It was awesome!

Mmmmmmm pie.

We all slept very well in our tryptophan and pie coma that night. :)

On Friday we went to see "Tangled". It was soooo cute! It is one of my new favorite Disney Movies. I think that the kids really liked it too. They all sat through the whole movie. When it was done though they were all ready to go home and jump and play. The kids all wanted to be together so they all piled into Chelsies' van while Chet and I sneaked away for a "date". All it was was us stopping at the pretzel shop on the way to our car. It was nice to have a moment to ourselves though. :) It was a great day!

When we were planning our trip out there Chels had asked Liv what she wanted her to make while we were there and Liv said bagels. So on Saturday, our last day there, Chels showed Liv how to make them. 

They were so yummy!

Saturday was our last day there. Fortunately the weather had warmed up again so we spent the rest of our time there playing football outside.

Chet showing Ty how to throw the ball

Harris throwing a touchdown pass to Chet

Liv making the tackle while the Moline boys look on wondering if they should jump in too

Chet being attacked by Diz. I love Chets face!

Jackson holding Chet while Caleb and Harris make a dash for the end zone

When all of the kids energy was used up we loaded into the car and headed home. We had a wonderful time! It was hard to leave. Both Liv and Harris cried for quite a while in the car. I guess we will have to add a few more road trips to Arkansas on our calendar. :)

Thank you Molines, we love you!!! 

Road Trip

On July 29th we packed up Chet's car and headed out for Cali, road trip style. Since I hate to drive we made sure to make lots of stops along the way. Our first stop was in Beaver at the DFA store for some squeaky cheese and ice cream. (I remember stopping there with my family when I was a kid.) We continued on to Fillmore and went to the original state capitol. It was actually not as boring as I thought it would be. There were lots of really cool pictures of the locals that helped build the building and lots of antiques that family's who have lived in the area since the beginning have donated. After we had our fill of Utah history we made our way to Las Vegas where we spent the night at the Golden Nugget. Yep the Golden Nugget. We stayed there because they recently did a 30 million dollar renovation on the pool and built a shark tank with a pool around it and a slide through it. The tank went all the way down to the bottom of the pool so when you were under water you couldn't tell that there was a tank there! It freaked Harris out. He would go under and then pop back up as soon as a shark swam by and say "too close, too close!". We had a great time at the pool and got a good nights sleep before we finished our journey to San Diego. (You can click on the pictures to make them bigger.)



7/31
Solana Beach was our first stop in Cali. We spent the day with my dad playing in the waves, boogie boarding and building sand castles. Harris and Liv both did great on the boogie boards! They both got slammed at least once but got right back on the board ready for more. That night however both the kids had sand scratches on their tummy's. Liv said the cutest thing to me when she got out of the shower, she said "Mom, I have sand scratches on my nibbles.". Suppressing a laugh, I just smiled and said "I'm sorry, do you want the Neosporin?" Could she be any cuter?!





8/1
We went to Sea World two years ago for the first time as a family. While we were there we bought Harris a small stuffed Shamu that he fell in love with.(He's holding it in the picture with the Shamu character and it's in his shirt at the show. He had to show Shamu to Shamu.) He has slept with that Shamu every night for the last two years! He was so excited when we got to the Shamu show that he was shaking! (Sea World is like Christmas to him.) We went to both Shamu shows that day and got there an hour early for the second show. It was worth it! We were right next to Shamu! He was hanging out right in front of us for the whole hour before the show started. Harris was in Shamu heaven! It more fun to watch Harris than the show. His eyes would just light up every time Shamu would jump out of the water. Needless to say it was hard to leave. Harris was so sad he cried. It broke my heart, but I promised him that we will go back next year.



8/2
The San Diego Zoo is awesome! When we got there is was already lunch time and they were doing some of the animal feedings. We jumped right in line to feed the giraffes. The kids thought it was great and a little gross. The giraffes would stick their long blue tongues out and take the biscuits from the kids hands leaving behind a trail of slime. When we were done with that we made our way through the zoo with our map in hand. The next stop we made was to see the new elephant exhibit. It was awesome. It did a history of ancient animals in California. Like the Woolly Mammoths, and Saber Tooth Cats. (Which the kids are sitting on a statue of.) Which lead to the big cats and the elephants, obviously. We made our way to the Pandas and then the hippos which Harris had to sit on the ground and watch swim. That was cute because last time he was terrified of the hippos and wouldn't even look at them. I really wanted to see the Okapi. They are a giraffe and zebra mix. They are beautiful! Well, the San Diego Zoo is ginormous and we got lost trying to find it! When we did finally find it it was way in the very back of the cage eating! Lame. Oh well. All in all it was a fabulous day.





These are some pictures we took of the animals that we got to see. It was the Panda's 4th birthday that day. He was so cute! The Okapi is in the next picture. Can you see him? The Capybaras are giant rodents that love the water and were swimming around the whole time we watched them. And finally, the most awesome lion I have ever seen! He was gorgeous and knew it!



Chet's grandparents and great-grandparents (Liv and Harris' great and great-great-grandparents!) live in the San Diego area so we were fortunate to spend two nights hanging out with them. The first night we went to dinner at the Fish Market, it was wonderful. The next night we got together they were kind enough to invite us over to their house for a home cooked meal. Chet's grandma Cheryl is a wonderful cook! It was such a nice break from eating out. After dinner, Harris played ball with Papa Jay, his great-grandpa, and Liv learned a little bit of guitar from her great-aunt Lauren. (Who just turned 24.) I am so glad that we had the opportunity to spend time with them and look forward to spending more time with them on our various trips to Disneyland.



8/3
We never go to Disneyland in the summer (too busy!) but since we were in California and we have annual passes we had to go see the new "Summer Nightastic" . I really wanted to see all of the things that they were doing for it but some of them overlaped, so we chose the parade and the fireworks. The parade was kind of lame. I was very disappointed. It was just some dancers and some characters dancing around in the street and then riding around in these little chariot things. The fireworks, on the other hand, were amazing! They were the coolest fireworks I have ever seen. I did wish that they would have played more songs though. We also spent some time in California Adventure where Harris got to do Grizzly River Run and Mulholland Madness for the first time. He has been wanting to do GRR forever and he finally got to do it. Yay! Chet and Liv did Screamin and sat in the front which is their fave. I was happy walking around and looking at all the renovations they are doing. It is going to be so much better when its done! I can't wait!



It was a wonderful week! I am so grateful for the many opportunities that we get to go on vacations together. I look forward to every single moment I get to spend with my family.