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!!! 

Scootin'

You know how I said that on Saturday "we loaded up the family including the dog and headed to the park." Well what I didn't mention was that while we were playing football Disney was at the far end of the field chasing the cottontail rabbits. I was watching her and taking some pictures of her when all of a sudden she just stopped running and sat down. I thought maybe she was tired but when she tried to get up she just sat back down. I hollered at Chet that she was hurt and he walked over to take a look. We thought it was probably just a thorn since she was in the weeds but when we couldn't find a thorn we figured she had just twisted her foot. We decided we better take her back to the car to keep her from hurting it further. She made it almost to the car before she sat back down and Chet had to carry her the rest of the way.

Chet and the kids going to see what is wrong

Sunday morning she wasn't any better but Chet still taking a wait and see approach. As the day progressed she was getting worse. She wasn't even trying to walk on it anymore. Instead she was scooting around on her bum. We were a bit confused because she wasn't acting like she was in any pain and even when we would try and find where she was hurt we couldn't. We were starting to become very concerned that she had done something to her spine and had cause nerve damage or even worse, paralysis!

First thing Monday morning we called the vet and made an appointment for that morning. I was scared to death that I would be leaving the vet without my dog because she was hurt so bad we would have to put her down. Chet was even so worried about her he worked from home that morning in case I needed him at the vet. When I got to see the vet she was just as puzzled as we were because, like I said, she wasn't acting like she was in pain. The vet started making a list of what she thought it could be; Hernia? Nope. Nerve damage? Nope. Paralysis? Nope. Finally she started working her joints. Hips? Yep! When she tried to rotate her hips she growled. She then took Diz back for some x-rays. When she came back she had good news and bad news. The good news: nothing was broken. The bad news: she had hip dysplasia and had dislocated her back left hip. Fortunately the hip had already popped back into place but the problem now is will it ever fully heal. Probably not and the only course of treatment, for now, is pain killers and anti-inflammatorys. Eventually, however, she will need a hip replacement. Right now we are doing everything we can to promote healing. We are giving her her pain killers in addition to glucosamine chondroitin tablets. We bought her a special orthopedic bed and we are keeping her from running or jumping up. The doctor said it will take about a week before she is feeling like she can walk on it again. So for now she is getting around by us carrying her or her scooting around on her bum. Poor Bean-o!

Ice, Rocks and Grass

Saturday was a wonderful day! It was filled with all things family and fun. We started the day by going to Disney on Ice. I was really excited to go since this is something Disney that we have never done. When we got there we of course had to head to the souvenir kiosks and have a look. There wasn't a whole lot that we were really interested in except for a program and some sno-cones in light up glasses. :) When we were all souvenired up we headed to our awesome 4th row seats!

The show started out with the Fab 5 plus Daisy talking about going on a trip around the world and the first place they wanted to go was Africa. Which Disney character lives in Africa?

The Lion King


Simba, Timon and Pumba skating to Hakuna Matata. I was fascinated by Pumba. That is a person skating on all fours! How uncomfortable would that be?!

 They went through the whole movie ice skating to the most popular songs. There were really fun props and scene changes between the songs. It was awesome!

After Africa they wanted to go "Under the Sea"...


Under the Sea was awesome! The whole rink was filled with skaters dressed up as all different kinds of fish with bubbles falling from the ceiling.



Ursula was sooo cool!

The Little Mermaid, Chet and Liv go waaaay back. When Liv was about 3 she looooved this show. Her favorite scene was when Ariel saves Prince Eric. Since we lived in an apartment with a pool whenever we would go swimming she would make Chet act out this scene with her. Chet would lay floating by the stairs and Liv would rescue him the rest of the way to the stairs and then she would hurry and dive away mermaid style with her feet together to make a tail. Such a Daddy's girl!

From the ocean we went to Hawaii to see Lilo and Stitch. This is actually one of the few Disney movies that we have never seen so we had no idea what was going on. It was still fun to watch.



The final stop was London to see the Darling family.



Harris was so excited when Peter Pan flew in!

It was hard to get a good picture because of all the spotlights on him.

During the song "You Can Fly" Peter and the Darling children "flew" around the arena heading to Neverland.

After their flight to Neverland, Captain Hook and Smee came out. With the crocodile close on Captain Hooks heels. :)

They cut a lot out of the movie and headed right to the ending. The pirate ship was huge! It took up about half of the rink.

To tell the story on the ship they broke it into three parts to make it like the whole rink area was the ship.

A Pirates Life for Me

Capin' Hook telling Wendy to walk the plank

Of course Peter and the croc defeat Hook





They made it back to London to be with their parents and Nana.

The show ended with Mickey and friends heading back to Disneyland...

It was such a fun show and I can't wait to see another one!

After the show we had to rush to the other side of ABQ to get Liv to her friends rock climbing birthday party. She was really nervous about rock climbing because she had never done it before. I think she ended up really liking it since she hasn't stopped asking when we can go back!

When we got there to pick her up the party wasn't quite over so Chet took some video of her climbing. She's pretty good. :)

When we got home from the party Harris was wanting to play football and since we don't have grass we packed up the fam including the dog and headed to the park. Chet was also dying to be outside since it was 75 and sunny. :)

All the fields were filled with soccer games so we made our way to the grass on the baseball field to play football.

Harris showing me how far he can kick the ball...

Liv is a big tease and stole the ball from Harris and took off. Well Harris took off after her and they both tripped and fell at the same time! It was so funny! Chet said, "man my kids are coordinated."

Liv got up and took off again with the ball and now Harris was really mad...


When Harris finally got the ball back he decided it would be more fun to throw the ball at Chet.

Chet took it right in the head...



After that they went back to tackle football...

When we were all done with football we went to the pond on the other side of the park to feed the ducks. I told Chet they probably wouldn't be hungry because of all the people that had been there. I was wrong. They swarmed us!

They just kept coming and coming even flying in from somewhere and landing in front of us. There were probably about 30 or 40 ducks there.

Eventually there was so many in the water they ran out of room and had to came up on the dirt next to us.

When we ran out of bread and they decided to seek more from the people on the other side of the pond.

It was the most wonderful day! I am so grateful for all the family time we get to spend together here in New Mexico and all the wonderful memories we are making. I can't wait to make another one.

All Hallows Eve

This year Halloween was on a Sunday so we did our celebrating on Saturday. It was an absolutely beautiful day! It was mid 70's and  sunny, which is very different from all the cold and rainy Halloweens that we had in Utah. It was such a gorgeous day that Chet just had to be outside. So while I made cookies for the ward trunk-or-treat Chet and the kids headed to the park.

The kids love the particular park that Chet took them to. It's a very unique park. With "futuristic" equipment, as Olivia calls it. I can't really explain it but it's a lot of ropes and bars for climbing on and through. It's also next to a wooded area that the kids and dog love to go exploring in. They have come home many times telling me about all the bunnies, roadrunners and lizards they have seen.

After the park it was time to get ready for the ward trunk-or-treat. Liv was a "candy corn witch" and Harris was "Jack" again.

When we got to the church there were so many cars there we had to drive around to find a spot to park! It was great! The kids buckets were overflowing with candy when they finished. Since they couldn't fit another piece of candy in their buckets we headed inside to the carnival the Young Men had made in the cultural hall. Harris was particularly excited for the game that Chet was in charge of, bowling. I don't think he even tried any of the other games.

Harris takes his bowling seriously.

Liv was in charge of setting up the bottles when the young men went to have their turn at the carnival.

One of the other games was "donut on a string". Liv was eager to play that game. Our friend was holding her donut and was purposely getting it all over her face and making it quite difficult to get the donut in her mouth. It was super funny!

One messy but cute face!

 When we were done at the ward party we headed home to get to the best part of Halloween... sorting and eating the candy!

Happy Halloween!

Pickin' Punkins

On Saturday we went to a pumpkin patch called McCall's Haunted Farm to pick out our pumpkins. It it pretty much like a smaller version of Thanksgiving Point. We saved getting pumpkins for last though, so we didn't have to carry them around all afternoon, and headed to the game area. On the way to the games there was a whole bunch of animals that you could stop and pet. Our favorite of those animals were the bunnies in their little bunny town.

I just love how the bunnies are all hanging out in front of the little buildings! Too cute!

The first game that we played was racing rubber duckys.

After that game we headed to the pumpkin pillow. It's like a giant pillow filled with air that you jump on like a trampoline. It seems really dangerous to me but the kids love it!

Liv had to sit down because her bounces kept getting stolen.

Harris could have stayed on this the whole time we were there!

When our time was up on the pillow pumpkin we went to the 'mine shaft'. Which was a slide that went through a giant hill. It was super fast!

 The kids go to do it several times before everyone else figured out there wasn't a line for it. When a giant line formed for the slide we headed to the pumpkin sling shot. It wasn't actually a pumpkin sling shot. It was a pieces of cut up gourd sling shot. It was ok though, they still had fun doing it.

 Liv's turn.

 Harris' turn.

Chet's turn.

When we were done playing we made our way to the hayride to the pumpkin patch. It was a fun ride through the whole farm and out to a giant field of pumpkins.

On the hayride to the pumpkins. Such a cute family I have!

Even though there were hundreds of pumpkins to choose from there weren't very many good ones left. However, we did manage to find a couple that we thought would make cool jack-o-lanterns.

Chet trying to find his perfect pumpkin. He takes his pumpkin carving very seriously therefore the picking of the pumpkin is of the utmost importance.

Every pumpkin that Harris passed he had to check out and then declare it was perfect and better than the previous one he had picked.

Liv making sure that her pumpkin is a good one.

Despite the wind and the cold day we had a really fun time. I think that next year, however, we will go a little earlier in the season. :)