Las Vegas Baby!

Sam and I and some of our friends went to see the USA basketball team play against Canada at the Thomas & Mack arena in Las Vegas. Our friend Keri found out about the game and called to see if we wanted to go too. Since Sam loves basketball I knew we had to go. For those who read this and live in places where it doesn't get hot/sunny (Why Seattle? Why have you taken this from me?) it was a chilly 128 when we got out of our car that afternoon. It was so hot that our car was starting to overheat just doing normal driving which meant the air conditioner wasn't working quite as well as normal. Yikes, but seriously from small town to big, dirty, nasty Las Vegas it was a fun adventure.

There were lots of big name players and Sam's favorite boy, Deron Williams of the Utah Jazz. We ate, we cheered, we (meaning the USA team) rocked the Canucks big time! It was so much fun remembering what life was like outside of my small town.
After the game we followed our friends back their hotel, the Stratosphere, and decided to have a little fun. We all went to the top of the Stratosphere but then for some of us, like me, the fun was checking out the sites and watching people scream. For others, like Sam, the fun was riding super scary roller coaster rides and not being the least bit scared.

Sam and I are trying really hard to save money despite paying the $50 to go to the game and $40 for the Stratospher adventure so we left Vegas and our wild friends behind. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right Laguna Hills girls? Sam and I had our own fun trying to not fall asleep as we drove back to Mesquite at midnight. When we got to his parents house we decided to have a little swim in their pool and probably didn't make it to bed until 1:30am (2:30am MST). For a mom that is one incredibly late night.

Overall it was so much fun! Next time though we would definately spend the night in Vegas.

Pioneer Day

For the Pioneer Day Parade we finally, after 4 years of living in here, figured out how to get seats in the shade. Originally we were going to have Officer Zufelt put the seats out during his nightshift but he didn't have time. Sam woke up and put the seats out at 8am and we had perfect seats in the shade and we didn't even care that we had to wait an hour for the parade to start.

We had lots of friends to share the fun with again this year. After the parade we went to Main Street Park and Porter got to go on three inflatables. After the park we made the mistake of trying to go out to lunch with kids. The restaurant was hawaiian food and from what we know the staff runs on hawaiian time and it took forever to get our food. It was so embarassing because the kids couldn't handle waiting so long but if the owners were embarassed/mad they should have hurried and got us food. Next time I go to the hawaiian place I will do a call ahead to go order.

That night we didn't really plan anything. I am a mean Mom cause I didn't even tell Porter there were fireworks that night. When I told Porter it was time for bed Sam reminded me we had sparklers. We went outside and lit smoke bombs and sparklers. Sam's new camera has a fireworks setting so I took some fun pictures of Porter playing with sparklers and they turned out really well.

Carri's Wedding

Carri and Trisha came down this week and we got to go shopping for her wedding dress!!! Carri is extremely picky and we have had a lot of trouble getting wedding things picked out I was a little stressed about her being able to find the perfect dress. We went to the first store and found tons of dresses and she had a hard time deciding which dress she liked the most. The second store was a total bust and it felt like they didn't even want to help us. The third store was okay but it was hard to compare to all these dresses that she had loved at the third store.


The next day she went back and decided on the perfect dress. I can't really show you the dress since Palmer might find his way to my blog, I doubt it though. I photoshoped this picture which I thought would be really funny because it makes her dress look totally different then it really is.

We went to Taipan to look for flowers. I warned her ahead of time that she would end up loving the store and she sure did. We found some flowers but we had a really hard time deciding whether or not to buy them so we left without any flowers.


During the shopping weekend we looked and looked for bridesmaid dresses with no luck. Carri now wants someone to make the dresses so friends who sew give me some estimates on how much you would charge just to sew cause Carri would have to mail me the material, 3 dresses, maybe more if you could handle it.


I made Carri stay at my house and ride Hail Harry back to Trisha so I could help her work on wedding things. We made pompoms that were fun and really cute. We tried to make Ruby's flower girl dress but only finished half, and we found a pattern for a dress for bridesmaid which she wants me to sew but I dont think I am good enough for that.


She caught the cold I had and got pretty sick which really sucked for her last two days here. On Tuesday we took her to the shuttle and said goodbye. Carri doesn't get to come very often so it is always sad to see her leave ;-( Ruby cried when Carri left because she thought Carri was getting her out of the car but only gave her a hug & kiss and said goodbye.

Super Pink Sweet Sixteen

My cousin Dacy was super nice this weekend and watched my kids while the rest of us shopped for wedding dresses. Dacy's 16th birthday is at the end of the month so we had the wild idea to throw her a Super Pink Sweet Sixteen mini party. We bought her pink flip-flops, pink candy, and pink gatorade.


Everyone at the party wore pink and we ate pink cupcakes with pink frosting and drank pink punch. Of course we decorated in pink too! We got my Grandpa and Uncle Chris in pink shirts and got them downstairs (for those who know that was a feat in its self). I had made the mistake of telling my Grandpa that we were having a surprise party for Dacy even though I made it clear not to tell Dacy. About 15 mins before the party he told Dacy and she started to ask what Grandpa was talking about.



After eating we played Sweet Sixteen Pictionary. Carri had made up all the words to draw and they were all realated to the MTV show Sweet Sixteen. It was way fun to try to draw words like convertible, party dress and shopping. My sisters and I know it was kind of lame to have a sweet sixteen party with your cousins, grandpa, uncle, sister and mom but we really hope that she knows we really appreciate her helping us out this weekend.

Rancho Cucamonga Quakes

The Quakes are a Triple A baseball team and ever since they Quakes built their stadium, The Epicenter, my family has been going to games. For the last 10 years my dad's company has had a Quakes Day and for as long as I can remember we have been going. Since I moved away I have even happened to make it back to the games 3 or 4 times. The last time we went to the game I was pregnant with Porter so this was official his first time going to a game. Since my sister Lacy and her family live in CA now we had a big group this year.


When we first got there we were taking lots of pictures of everyone so we could blog and scrapbook the event. Sam hates getting his picture taken so everytime the camera pointed in his direction he would make this Elvis face. This is my new favorite picture of Sam, it really shows his personality and dislike for pictures.








There are two dinosaur mascots, Tremor and Aftershock (everything is very well themed). Porter and Ruby loved the dinosaurs and Porter wanted to meet them so I tracked the dinosaurs down for him. After getting his picture taken with both dinosaurs he decided that Aftershock (the younger looking dinosaur) was his favorite. Poor gentle giant Parker was terrified of the dinosaurs and didn't even want me yelling at them as I tried to get them to come to us.

After the game their were fireworks and I took lots of pictures trying to mess with the camera to get the best possible pictures. The fireworks were better then our city's 4th of July fireworks. They were so close that they were much bigger. Our city shoots their fireworks from far away and tries to get everyone as far away as possible. My house is closer to the fireworks then where the city tells everyone to go to watch, anyway back to the game.



We had a ton of fun again this year! I was so glad that it worked out that I was in town for the game.

Polar Bears

We stayed at my parents house after the cruise to help work on things for Carri's wedding and for me to get to spend time with my family. Saturday morning my Mom always works hard in the yard and gets very hot. Recently my parents cleaned out their jacuzzi (it has been empty with a cover to keep kids, bugs, rodents and lizards out) so my Mom got in to cool down. The jacuzzi hasn't been filled for very long and they haven't tried the heater so the water is very cold and it was still really early in the day, 9am, so the air wasn't that warm eaither. Since the jacuzzi is in the ground it stays at about 65 degrees but my Mom was sweating so she didn't care. Well if grandma is in the jacuzzi all the grandkids want to be in the jacuzzi. Parker and Ruby are crazy water kids and they literally just got in and not once flinched at the cold water. I have to admit I hoped Ruby wouldn't like the cold water so I didn't bother getting her bathingsuit but she loved it so she got to wear her birthday suit. Porter stuck his feet in at first and said it was too chilly, but after his best buddy was in having tons of fun he made his way in. I couldn't believe they would all be in the cold water so we had to memorialize it with pictures and a blog.

Cruise Part Three

Our third and final stop on our cruise was Ensenada, Mexico. I was really worried about this leg of the trip because I hadn't gotten a passport and the cruise line said that a birth certificate and drivers license was enough but I was still stressed. I had also heard that Ensenada was ghetto and nasty so that worried me a little bit too. We got off the boat and really didn't have any plans and didn't know what to do so we kept walking back and forth in the terminal. The only thing we could think of was riding four wheelers so we signed up. They took us to their shop and we headed to the sand dunes. We drove past some pretty ghetto neighborhoods and some really nice looking neighborhoods and ended up in the dunes. Sam rode around for about 10 mins and said the dunes were wimpy and he could ride a four wheeler anytime so we headed to the main shopping area of Ensenada. We forgot to make one turn and went a little out of the way which made me nervous but finally ended up right where we wanted to be.

We parked the four wheeler and did some shopping. Sam loves bargaining with people so he had a lot of fun shopping for once in his life. We got sunglasses for $5 and some other souvenirs. We decided our best plan was to return the four wheeler and go back to the boat for lunch. I had told Sam no matter what I was not eating in Mexico, I had made that mistake once before and tried to eat chicken tacos in Tijuana and it grossed me out for life.

After our buffet lunch we just walked back to the shopping area to get the more souvenirs. In retrospect we wouldn't have rode the four wheeler because as Sam said "I can ride a four wheeler whenever I want," and we really just needed someone to tell us that the shopping was within walking distance. We got lots of cool stuff because most of the tourists had gone back to the boat and the vendors where getting desperate to get rid of their stuff. We found out that the best bargaining is the vendors on the sidewalk because most of the shops don't negotiate.

We stood in a really long line to get back on the boat and watched drunk teenagers, whose parents where no where to be found, make fools of themselves.

Dinner was good that night and I got the absolute best dessert, pavlova, yummy yummy meringue that is crisp on the outside and soft in the center with strawberries on top.

We watched our last show and then decided to go to The Quest. We totally didn't know what we were getting ourselves into but we wanted to watch. The Quest is a game with groups of 5-6 people and each group has a card with their team number on it. The host calls out for something and calls for a male team leader or a female team to bring or do what he said and the first team get like 3 points and every team after that for 30 seconds gets 1 point and then there is a winner. We weren't going to play but this nice Asian family with two daughters that were late teens early twenties were sitting next to us and asked us to join their group because their dad was too embarrassed or laid back to be a male team leader. The game started fine and Sam was a real trooper but when things got to be too much or too nasty he said no way. This sweet Asian family turned out to be quite wild, amazing what alcohol does to people. By the end of the game the mom had taken off her bra and panties and the dad was wearing them over his clothing as they tried to dress him as a woman with high heels and everything. We didn't win the game but it was probably the craziest night on the boat. Unfortunately it was too dark to take pictures.

After all this we went to the midnight chocolate buffet with high hopes. They had watermelons that were cut with amazing designs like boats, fish and flowers. The desserts where okay but they were out of chocolate covered strawberries but they time we got to the front of the line!

Our towel design for the evening was a dog:

Next stop: Los Angeles/Customs and getting to see my kids

Cruise Part Two - Catalina

Our second stop was Catalina Island. I haven't been to Catalina since I was in sixth grade and even then we went straight to the camp/school so I really had no idea what to do on the island. We had planned on snorkeling but the day was very overcast and cold so we didn't want to go. We wandered around for awhile hoping to find a cheap rate on a golf cart but instead settled on a tandem bike, what a mistake. Sam and I got into a huge argument trying to work together on this stupid bike. I was freaked out that we were going to go where bikes weren't allowed and Sam wanted to go much faster and not stop at stop signs so I was yelling at him. Sam was yelling at me that I wasn't peddling and we both got very tired trying to ride to Wrigley's mansion, a slight but constant uphill ride. It didn't help that the first bike we got had a shifter on the handle grip and we didn't know it and Sam didn't know when he was shifting gears so as it got harder to peddle he thought I wasn't peddling. We took that bike back and got another one with a regular shifting mechanism but by then Sam and I were already frustrated. We tried to go to Wrigley's mansion but gave up and decided to try something fun.
We were going to go on a boat ride but the timing didn't work out so we ate lunch and had buffalo burgers. We watched some kids on the pier fish, ate a frozen banana, sat and enjoyed the pier, and walked around. I know my complaining seems a lot longer then not but this part was nice.
We got on the tender at 3pm because the last one was at 4:30pm and we didn't want to get caught when everyone else was coming back. When we got in line there was already a ton of people and it took over and hour waiting for the tender to come, waiting for it to go back to the boat, and waiting in line to get off the tender and back on the boat.
Overall Catalina was okay but boy would we do things differently next time.
Once we were on the boat we went to our room to take a nap. When I started feeling the boat leaving Catalina I went to the back deck (the only place I could get receptions) to call and check up on my kids because the next day was going to be the only day I couldn't call them. As I was standing on the deck watching Catalina get smaller and smaller I looked down in the water and saw a big old shark! Not like a Jaws great white or anything but it had a huge mouth and it was just sitting there probably 5-10 ft below the surface. It totally freaked me out that we were really on a boat in the ocean and if it sank then I would possibly be in that water with a shark. I grew up in CA and have been in the ocean many many times and have swam out pretty far out but I have never thought there were sharks there.
Our third night on the boat was one of the best. My mom had told me that when she was on her cruise she asked for a taste of all the desserts which I assumed was a taster plate. I asked my waiting if I could try all the desserts and after a bit of hesitation he said he could do that for Sam and I. When he brought us five full plates of dessert I was a bit embarrassed but the desserts were all really good. After dinner we found my favorite towel animal, the hanging monkey. Very creative and cute but it was scary walking into a dark room and seeing something right at eye level. That night we watched some people make fool's of themselves singing karaoke, went to a really funny love & marriage show and just enjoyed the activities of the boat.

Next stop: Ensenada, Mexico

Cruise - Part 1 (Long Post, Lots of Journaling)

We drove to CA on Saturday night and suprisingly it wasn't a bad drive. We stopped a few times but we weren't in a rush so everything worked out fine and the kids slept most of the time.


When we got to my parents house we were standing outside chatting when we heard what sounded like a bunch of animals yelping, my parents informed us it was the neighborhood pack of coyotes and they were probably eating someones dog. From that night on Sam was obsessed with the coyotes and wanted nothing more then to kill them but gun laws in CA are very strict so he doesn't even try to bring any gun down there so he was out of luck, but that didn't stop him from searching online for crossbows. Sam's birthday wish (July 6th) was for a huge piece of meat to stick in my parents front yard so he could watch the coyotes tear it apart.

Sam didn't get his birthday wish but he did get a great roast dinner and peach cobbler for dessert.


On Monday we left the kids with my parents (& Lacy, Stephen, Josie and Parker) and headed to LA harbor. We enjoyed our first day of excitement with the mustering drill and our first dinner. Our tablemates were two couples that were both unmarried and both in college, boy did we feel old.


On Tuesday we landed in San Diego and bought day passes for the public transportation. I had forgotten quite a few things for our trip and needed shoes so we found our way to a Target, and found a bus to take us back to old town San Diego. We had a great lunch there but got way too much food so we gave our doggie back to a bum. I got a cool vase from old town and we went back to the boat. We were tired from our first day of travelling so we slept the afternoon away. Tuesday night was formal dinner and French night. Two people at our table seriously ordered escargo for their appetizer. The food was okay but it was really hard to pick because most of the food was really weird.

After dinner we went back to our room to watch Vantage Point. I ended up watching most of the movie while Sam slept. The first and second day we slept a lot. I dont know whether it was the dramamine patch or whether we were just exhausted and ready for a relaxing vacation.

So cruises are supposedly famous for the folded towels. This was our first folded towels, a swan in case you can't tell. I love that the stateroom attendants make your bed in the morning and then turn down the sheets before bed. They also pick up dirty towels whenever they come in the rooms so there was never a dirty towel in the bathroom when I would go to take a shower, gotta love it!

Happy 4th!

This year a bunch of friends and my family all met at the parade. I love the 4th so I go all out and I made white flower clips for Ruby's hair and red flower clips for my hair. The parade was long and had lots of spaces as usual but we had a lot of fun getting Porter to be competitive about the candy. This was the first year we didn't have to help him so it was fun to see him out their fending for himself.

After the parade a few friends came over and we went swimming in our above ground pool. It was a nice cool way to spend the afternoon. I forgot sunscreen on all of us but luckily my kids dont burn so I was the only one who ended up with a sunburn, a really painful sunburn.

Since we all had been together for most of the day we ended it together with a fun barbeque and fireworks at the Henefers. Sam and the other pyros lit fireworks and luckily there was only two close calls, one that almost shot all the bystanders and one that shot into the empty field and almost started a brush fire.

The day was really great, just a nice day spent with friends!

FYI-thanks to everyone (Keri & Leilani) who took pictures hope you dont mind that I copied them from your blogs

More Swimming Lessons

I had signed Porter up for the next set of swim lessons before he even started the first and before I realized how hard it is to schedule life around a 30 min swim lesson every day.

Porter had another great teacher this time. Luckily she had a ton of patience because she was trying to convince the kids in his class to just put their ears in the water and he was diving for rings. It was completely embarassing that he never listened to his teacher but I could tell he was so bored. Regardless the kid loves water and we both had a lot of fun making friends at the pool.

FYI - My camera is still broken but luckily my cell phone has a decent (not good by any means) camera.

Broken Camera

My camera is completely dead, I can't even get it to turn on anymore. Porter broke the lens cover and zooming about 6 months ago but yesterday I took it out of my purse to take pictures at Porter's swimming lesson and it was dead. I went home and put in new batteries and it still did nothing. Sam says I can't have a new camera because I "have to live with the consequences of my actions". So dont hold your breath for too many blog updates with cute pictures!