Fall Leaves

I usually rake up leaves every fall and get pictures of the kids in them. Somehow, the time to do that slipped right by me this year. I'm still not sure what happened.

Leah must have noticed the void because she tried to pick up where I was slacking. Now there are two of us who know what a big job that is!

Leah got a nice shot of Rebekah sitting in a small pile of leaves. Cute! I especially like that Nightmare is in the background scratching himself.

Next, we add Sarah to the shot. I think it was a little cool out there at this time and of course, neither girl has even a long-sleeved shirt on. Sarah may not be real clued in to the importance of these traditional pictures! Or maybe she is just waving. (I doubt it.)

Uh oh. I think the photo shoot is falling apart; the subjects are walking off the set!

A nice back shot of Rebekah. I think Leah is trying different perspectives.

Yeah...this photo session is over. Sarah is looking on the edge of miserable. Get the poor girl a jacket!

On to new photography subjects. We have several cats. Here are half of them. Meets Stripes, Trouble and Nightmare. They are waiting to be fed. They are always waiting to be fed. I have noticed a marked decrease in mouse evidence since we've had cats. I'm grateful for that! But we have a few large fields around us. There should be plenty of mice out there. Why are these lazy cats just sitting there??!

And that is the end of the photo shoot. Darn. It's now November 16th. Is it too late?

Idaho Falls Temple

It was a nice, fall, Sunday afternoon (once the snow melted) and we decided to go to the Idaho Falls Temple Visitor's Center to see a display of sculptures. We were hoping to get a chance to walk around the newly redesigned temple grounds. But all of the gates were locked up tight. Darn! (Maybe that was because they weren't actually done with the final touches and there was still construction equipment there.)

So we took some pictures, despite the fact that there was a big, black iron fence behind us. It's hard to take pictures of kids when the sun is in their eyes. But it sure makes the temple look bright!

What beautiful trees! Those are some of our kids way down there.

Most of the time, all the kids love to have their picture taken. Sarah wasn't feeling it at this time. I think she was a little cold. But we had to trick her into this one. She does love her daddy!

We live in such a beautiful area!

First Snow of the Season

Look. I know we live in Eastern Idaho and not in Southern Arizona, where there is rarely snow, but even I think October 6th is a little early for something like this. After all, we don't live in Minnesota!

Is this an indication of the winter ahead of us? Or are we just experiencing a random snow storm? It's hard to believe that we were just in Southern California the week before this one!

But it is pretty.


Daniel got out a sled and tried it on our ever slight sloping sideyard. He's obviously not going very fast if he can stand up like that.


The kids made sure to get out and enjoy the anomaly while it lasted. Only poor Sarah was left out of the fun. Next year, I won't be able to keep her in!


It melted over the next couple of days. Since then, we've had a little more snow here and there, but not as much as this. Maybe it won't be a really snowy winter after all. Personally, I don't mind if it does snow a ton as long as I don't have to go anywhere, we have have plenty of food and the power doesn't go out. That's not too much to ask for, is it?

Disneyland Vacation - Days Six, Seven & Eight

OK...let's wrap up this marathon on pictures and memories in one last post.

Friday morning found us sleeping in...blessedly sleeping in. Sarah found her way to our bed and went back to sleep. I'm sure it was much more comfortable than the blanket on the floor she was sharing with Joseph.


And since Joseph stole her blanket, what was the reason to stay? But he does look like he's enjoying it.


The girls had a bed to themselves. Rebekah seems to have abandoned her pillow in favor of Leah's rear. Can you see how tired everyone was? They are all still in their yellow shirts and Rebekah still has her flower barrettes in her hair!


Yeah, Nathan wanted to know who the crazy person flashing pictures all over the room was. I am shamelessly guilty.


We took advantage of one last breakfast at the hotel. It felt strange to eat with the kids without their yellow shirts on. Were we a "normal" family again?

We stopped at Downtown Disney on our way out of the area. Daniel still had some money to spend and we found a Lego store to take care of business. The kids were very impressed with the Lego sculptures!




I was grateful for this play table to keep the kids busy while Daniel (guided by his value-conscious mother) shopped the store. Too bad Sarah can't actually see what she's building.



It was here that I learned we'd run out of money. Yikes! They rejected my debit card...how embarrassing. I don't have overdraft on the card on purpose, but I didn't expect it to hit at such a moment (and on my birthday, no less). That prompted a trip to the bank to transfer a little more money over to get us home.

After a trip to our bank, we headed for the beach before starting our journey back to Idaho.

We were the only group on the beach that was crazy enough to go into the water on the last day of September. And Daniel was the only one in our group crazy enough to get completely wet. (But if it was going to be anyone, it was going to be him.)



If Daniel is one to play in the water, Nathan is one to play in the sand. He really got involved with his digging and building here.


Joseph is 100% Idaho boy. Maybe that explains why he doesn't seem to know what to do with all this sand and water. ;)


Rebekah's emotions got the better of her when I wanted to take some pictures before helping her into a bathing suit. But she couldn't wait to get wet. Well, once she was wet, I didn't see any reason to get the bathing suit out. So she threw a tantrum and spent the rest of the time at the beach like this.


Sarah is also 100% Idaho. She got her feet/legs wet a time or two, but the resorted to repeating, "No beach." I think it was one of her first two-word combos!


I tried to create a unique memory photo in the sand while I waited for everyone to get done playing. It's kind of hard to keep your balance in the sand while walking barefoot. So here you go: 20H! What a year it was.


So we finally got done playing at the beach (we were at Huntington Beach) and used another 30 minutes changing into dry clothes and vainly trying to shake sand from wet ones. We climbed into the van and wasted more time trying to find a Verizon store to get some help with my phone. When that didn't work, we decided to head for the interstate and get the heck out of California!

We left the westest (I made up that word) point on the map and started for home at 3 PM MDT. Yeah...that was not a good time to start a long trip. Luckily, we had that map to look at! We drove as far as we could stand (and then a little farther) and ended up in Santa Clara, UT at 11:20 PM. We stayed with my step-dad's parents and were so grateful for their hospitality.

The next morning, we had a very generous breakfast and finally got going again at 10 AM. We found General Conference on the radio and listened as we drove north. Just as the first session ended, we got to Beaver and made an important stop at the cheese factory there for some delicious ice cream cones, then stopped at the grocery store for some lunch. We drove more, while listening to conference and finished it just as we got to my mom's house (4 PM).

Chad went to the Priesthood session by himself and treated me to a belated birthday cake after the meeting. As far as birthdays go, this one ranked near the bottom. Of course, I haven't spent very many birthdays driving for endless hours with 6 tired children (thank goodness). But the days before it were awesome! Besides, it's only "38". That's not a major milestone. ;)

We spent the night with Grandma and got on the road at 10 AM again...more Conference in the car. We arrived home about 1 PM which gave us just enough time to unload the car and prepare for the final session of Conference. We were so glad to be home!

Over a month later, Joseph is still bringing up Disneyland in many of his comments.

Here is the map we used on our trip. Black cars are the trip down and red cars are the trip back. I think we will definitely use this idea again!

Disneyland Vacation - Day Five

On our third day to play in the park we had Magic Morning entrance passes. This meant we could get in an hour early (without a pocket knife). This sounds impressive, but not much is open that early.

We started by getting our family picture in the traditional spot. (Thanks, Kellie!)

We first headed for the Finding Nemo submarine ride. We had been unable to ride it the first day, so we made sure to get to it right off. It was longer than I thought it would be...that's a good thing.
Rebekah was intrigued by the bubbles. :)


We had skipped a lot of the rides in Fantasyland on the first day and we went back to them. Along with Snow White's Scary Adventures, Peter Pan's Flight, and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, we made sure to hit Dumbo the Flying Elephant. I went on this with purely for sentiment's sake. I have a movie/picture of my mom riding this ride with me. Now I was going to ride with my children!



Well, I didn't ride with all my children. Chad went to the carousel with Leah, Sarah and Nathan. Now they are waiting for us to get done flying around in circles.


When we asked Leah what her favorite part of Disneyland was, she said it was the carousel...because it had horses. (I can think of a few carousels closer to home!)

We eventually got done with Fantasyland and headed to Frontierland (which had been closed during the Magic Morning). We rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (Chad stayed behind with the Joseph and Sarah...a common practice). The line wasn't horrendous, but still felt kind of long.

As we boarded the train, Daniel found a cell phone left behind by a previous rider. He turned into one of the employees and when we got off the ride, the guy gave Daniel a ride pass for his honesty. There was never any question that Daniel would do the right, but it was great to see the effect the reward had on him.

We at another over-priced lunch in New Orleans Square and then rode the raft across the river to Tom Sawyer Island. We had grabbed some Fast Passes for the Haunted Mansion ride, so after a bit, I took Daniel and Nathan back across the river for that and let the rest of the family explore the island. I felt bad that Daniel and Nathan couldn't play on the island more because I know they would have loved it. Darn it! There just wasn't time to do everything!

I loved the Fast Pass when we did use it. So much less wasting time in lines! The Haunted Mansion wasn't too scary, which was good because the boys were a little apprehensive about it. We aren't much of a scary things family. The ride was decorated for Halloween with the Nightmare Before Christmas theme. That's not my favorite movie, but oh well.

We got done with the ride just as Chad was loading the kids onto the raft to come back.

We were all getting tired and melting in the sun.

We didn't get to ride Pirates of the Caribbean because it was closed. That was a little disappointing - that's a Disneyland classic!

We walked down and got some Fast Passes for Splash Mountain. We got some ice cream to share while we waited for the time to expire. When it was time, Chad took the boys on the wet ride and I took the littler kids on the Winnie the Pooh ride. Leah even shut her eyes in that ride! Silly girl.

Our day was getting late again and we were running out of time. We wanted to catch the parade at 7 PM, but we still had Daniel's free ride pass to use and wanted it to be something the whole family could enjoy together. We were misled by the fact that the pass said "re admittance" and thought it could only be used to ride again. So we decided to ride the Jungle Cruise boat ride and then reride it. Then we could sit longer! ;) Wow. That was a really long line! And then we found out that we could have just presented that pass at the exit to just get on the ride an hour ago. While we were waiting to reboard, the guy that had driven the boat we first rode saw us and took an interest. He brought the kids each a special map of the ride and prepared us to get on a 2nd boat. The employees there decided to have some fun with the kids' shirts and made sure they were all in order before them let them on. :) As we boarded, I tried to give them the pass, but they guy said to keep it and use it somewhere else. After all that, we still had to figure out how to use the pass and it was getting close to parade time!

We did get to see the Enchanted Tiki Room show. :) I'm not sure that my 21st century kids were all that impressed, but it was another sentimental thing for me.

We weren't able to ride the Indiana Jones ride because of time. I didn't even point out Tarzan's Treehouse because my feet hurt so badly that I wanted to cry and I didn't think I was up for climbing around in that tree house! There are these and many other rides that we will have to enjoy another time...years down the road.

It was about 6:30 so we headed for the parade route and picked out a spot. While Chad waited with the smaller kids (have you noticed a pattern?) I took Daniel, Nathan and Rebekah back to the Matterhorn to use that free ride pass. Wow. Those things are BIG time-savers! We made it back to watch the parade in plenty of time

All lined up and ready for some action!

We'd had a long three days. Can you tell?

We finally started hearing some music and the parade came into view. The kids looked for characters they knew and questioned us on the unfamiliar ones. It was during the parade that I learned the kids haven't seen Mary Poppins...at least not in the last 6 years.



These pictures don't do the energy of the parade justice! The music was so loud and peppy that even I felt excited!



Ah, yes...there must be princesses.


Lots of interesting characters!

Several of the characters came up to the kids or waved or winked or blew kisses, etc at the kids. Leah started to notice it and remarked over it. I think the matching shirts the kids had on really caught a lot of attention and it spilled over into the parade.

Truthfully, I was surprised that the shirts got as much attention as they did over the 3 days. I expected a lot, but I didn't expect that much! Seriously, we heard it, we saw it and it came in many different languages. If I had the time and means, I would make a ton of money making matching shirts for Disneyland and other vacations! (Someone asked if we'd had them made there at the park.)

So there's an idea for some of you more ambitious folks!

We slept so well that night. After 3 days of walking mile after mile, my feet were done in. Surprisingly, the new shoes helped a TON. But one toe got a blister anyway. I was so very grateful that we were not going back the next day!

We had a lot of fun and have some great memories. We have way more pictures than I've shared here (shocking, I know) and I should be able to make some great scrapbook pages with them! We will return someday, but not for a long time, and not until everyone is tall enough to enjoy every ride (which could be an eternity for some of us)!