Thanksgiving 2011

We had a great vacation this year to Utah!! It started with an adults-only date with my brothers and sisters and parents! We got Japanese, then went to Airborn sports arena, where they have trampolines and a foam pit, and dodgeball. I did my best to get my brothers back for all the years of bullying they gave me!! heehee!

SNOW!! Maren and Lauren experienced snow this time. It entertained them like sand and water do. Their favorite thing to do was to eat it. (I remember doing that...mmmm!)

Here's these 3 cuties. Mckell and Ivy are one year older than Maren, and they all were best buddies this trip!!

My mom and Lauren. Who doesn't love 1 on 1 Grandma time?

We visited the Treehouse museum again. Teacher Maren was in her element. (This is the COOLEST children's museum I've been to.)

I surprised Andy one night and walked out in my wedding dress. Maren was staring for a few seconds, and then wanted her fancy dress on too.

Here's our view as we drove to visit my sister in Logan. In college, this was a regular sight...the 'Inversion'. But we're glad our Aggies still know how to play b-ball:)

Thanksgiving cont.

We had such a great time with Andy's side of the family. The girls are used to going to the park year round, so the Halls were kind to humor us-even in the cold!

We walked around Temple Square with ALL of Andy's family. He has 1 brother and 1 sister. There are 17 of us total! The lights were incredible as always.

On a different day, we got to see the Church History museum in SLC. They have an awesome exhibit for kids right now. Grandpa and Grandma and Maren are looking at a huge mirror, while trying to copy the latino dancers on the screen behind them. Maren liked this..and so did Grandpa!!

We went to the aquarium in Sandy. Unique sea creatures are really cool to see everytime at an aquarium-this time it was the stick-fish.

I got to have breakfast with my good friend from college. She and her family are in Utah, and we don't see her much, so it was a blast getting together!

Other than each one of us in our little family each taking a turn to get sick, we had a blast in Utah! Maren is already asking when we can visit again.

One last time...

We decided to go to the beach and soak up the sun one last time before cold, dreary, (but family-filled) Utah! hehe!

We'd never been to Mother's beach before. It had an awesome playground, and just a few yards away, it met up with the bay which leads to the ocean. The girls loved this set-up!

Empty lifeguard chair was waiting for a photo shoot. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

The backyard...

We spend a lot of time in our back yard. Each day, at least for a little while, we see what's out there. Sometimes it's the grubs in the compost pile that entertain, or other times it's the barking dog in the neighboring yard, or sometimes the sidewalk chalk that somehow still writes-even after being left out in the rain\sunshine.

Yesterday it was the avocado tree. If you're unfamiliar with an avocado tree(like we were), you need 2 items to be successful: #1-an avocado picker. This resembles a pool pole! And #2- A rake. Those trees shed millions of leaves a day. (not really, but still a lot.) But yesterday, I would pick, and the girls would place the fruit on the stairs of the slide. It's a lot of fun to find simple activities like this that entertain a child for a long time!

Andy has moved to the backyard now to put in sprinklers. Lauren enjoyed the dirt, even enough to eat it for lunch-gross!

Here's Maren pruning the small palm tree. This was fun for her to 'give it a haircut.' Happy Veteran's Day!

The pretenders..

We've had some fun lately!  Here's Maren and I trying on some glasses in the store. 

Here's a dark pic of Maren as Repunzel.  I didn't know Rapunzel had brown hair, but Maren told me she did:) 

Here's our sheep.

They all had fun holding hands and trick or treating!  It was really cute to see how brave Maren can be when there's candy involved!!