::more st george pt 1::

Here's some more fun from our St George weekend.

First, a photo of Sandy on the way there. He's such a good sport. He and Max (and Sultan) all do a great job in the car. And poor Sandy has nothing to entertain him really, except the mirror and whatever toys I think to hand him. At least Max has movies and books and stuff.
Anyway, he's a great little guy.


One of the beloved things about staying in St. George is the pool. And the fact that it's usually warm enough for swimming to be tolerable. Sadly, the day we took Sandy to the pool it seemed way colder than usual, so he had to get into the hot tub, which was also cooler than usual. Still too hot for him to stay in for long. Too bad because he was having a blast.

He was splashing and giggling and getting very startled when he accidentally splashed himself right in the face.

He's not a serious as he looks.

But the bigger kids, of course, got to have the best time. They don't have to quit and go home for nap because the pool is too warm/cold. They play and play and play.
Here's Max and Parker comparing heights. We're not exactly sure how Max is suddenly a head taller.



These guys basically have WAY too much fun together.
And KC looks on, as usual. I'm sure he'll get over there and start pinching somebody at any minute.

And some launching:


What else are dads good for really?

In other news, we got to eat at In & Out Burger and Cafe Rio. We went to a movie with all six of the kids and survived. We put them all to bed every night and they stayed and there was actually some grownup time had. It was rather amazing--probably a blessing that we all needed!

More to follow--the drive home has some rather interesting events worth reporting!

::the rest of halloween::

Last sunday was so nice. Our chapel is being remodeled, so for now the sunday school hour is eliminated. Church was only two hours and it started at 10AM instead of 11AM. So after church we felt like we had all day long to do stuff.

We always make delicious fabulous halloween sugar cookies every year--sometime around halloween. Sometimes after. So we went to work making those. And while we were doing that Kris and Max started working on Jack'O'Laterns.
Lots of pictures:



Are those TEETH or what?! He looks a little like a snaggle-toothed pumpkin face himself.


Lots 'o guts in those big pumpkins. Can't you just smell the slimy smell?

Not sure if Kris is giving commands or about to sneeze here.

Max picked out a very cool pumpkin, and luckily for him it wasn't especially hard to carve. I was afraid it would be for sure.



Yes, Kris is making the best pumpkin ever.

And my work. It was a ton of cookies becuase we gave some away. I got pretty tired by the end.


Sandy was sleeping for most of our escapades, but eventually he woke up and was HUNGRY as usual. He wanted cookies. Instead he got cheerios.


Cheerios and water. Mmmmmmm.
More of my finished product:

And some of the boys' finished products:

All of them:

Sandy's on the far right--Kris made it. Awesome, right?
Mine is next. Kris cleaned it for me and I carved the face.
Then Kris's of course. Love it!
Max's is on the far right but you can't see it in the picture. It was almost impossible to get a candle to work in there because the gourd was so short!
So here's a photo of the huge candle from my pumpkin trying to light up his adorable one.

And there you go. That was the rest of our halloween--besides the eating dozens of cookies and lots of candy part.
We were pretty proud of ourselves for getting it all done. Happy Halloween!

::pinata::

In my family, we always broke a pinata on my birthday--that was the only time we ever did it, and let me tell you what, it was awesome. Our friends the Williams always came over and we sometimes made the thing by hand and it was impossible to break. Joel (the oldest kid) always hit it way too hard and broke it off the string or sent something flying somewhere, and since my birthday is in the middle of winter, we were always inside trying not to break something.

Anyway, awesome memories inspired by a recent pinata experience--one more report on when the Wildes visited.

When we were buying the chiles we went into the little latin market there. And there (along with cokes from Mexico) were a bunch of great big pinatas, all different sizes and colors and characters.
So Kris and Blake chose Woody to bring home and beat the heck out of. I guess it was just too fun to resist.


I love the above pictures with the dads preparing the pinata. They look so serious and earnest. The funniest part is that I had to step in and redo all of the packing in the end because they didn't pull all the newspaper out of Woody's insides, so there wasn't a lot of candy getting stuck in there.

So anyway, the kids waited very impatiently.


We BBQ'd some hamburgers too--though I can't remember if it was before or after. Sandy is amazed and perplexed by all the crazy kid action going on all around him.


Of course, as usual we had to use some bizarre thing to hit at the pinata with. This time it was the gross stinky machete that Kris brought back from his dental mission to Nicaragua forever ago. Sheathed of course--it's not very sharp anyway.


Sandy thought it was all very interesting and fun until people started whacking Woody in earnest. Then he didn't like it at all and screamed!

Annie didn't ever make the baby scream though, she's way too gentle!


I took a bunch of fun video and then sadly I deleted it in getting to know my new camera. Don't tell Max, he'll be much too bummed. But anyway, Max sliced off Woody's body and released all the candy and then the dads took turns going at the rest of him.
And that's all the fun for now. We had a blast with the Wildes and the kids had so much fun playing together. Wish they could come every weekend!

::morning buddies::

Kris and I have been trying to train ourselves into runners. It's not that easy. We're training for DisneyWorld's marathon weekend in early Jan. I'm going to do the half marathon and Kris will do the full. We're hoping that next Sept we'll get to do the Berlin Marathon with Kris's Uncle Richard, if all goes well. (I'm still not committing to ever really running a marathon, but I can at least train for it!)

So this entails running (or run/walking in my case) at least three times a week. Most times Kris and I end up switching off days and going out first thing in the morning--about 6:15 is when we have to go in order to get kids to school and people to work on time.

The other morning Max happened to be awake when Kris was getting ready to go. This is so very unusual, most of the time we're dragging him kicking and screaming (figuratively--usually) out of bed at seven or later.

But he was awake, and he begged Kris to let him ride along on his bike. Kris is already a good dad and has been taking Sultan along. Poor Sultan is just dying for exercise and fun and loves to go. It makes things way too complicated for me, but Kris is sweet and takes him along.
So there he was, with a boy on a bike and a dog on a leash, both ready for fun and adventure. And he was supposed to be actually getting a workout in.

It went alright, so I hear. It's happened three times since I think. Today Max had a rough time getting up, but he still did it. And Kris took some documentary style pictures as they trundled along.

(It's cold and dark in the morning!!)

(Fabulous cactus flowers.)

I think they make look a bit speedier than they truly are in this photo. They look like they're just zooming along the trails.

Kris says he's not really getting too good of a work out, but the guys are way too excited and enthused about it and he would feel terrible just sneaking out without them.
Isn't he a sweet dad?
I love that Max is excited to go with him and work hard, and I love that he's seeing how we're working and trying hard to be fit and have fun. Hopefully it'll all rub off well on him and he'll be able to see that anything (well, almost anything) is possible if you work hard enough!

::another day in san diego::

We went to Sea World on friday morning and it was pretty fun. We did have a problem though. They've added a bunch of rides, probably 5 or 6 big ones and some smaller ones. This was all Max could think about. I made the mistake of looking at the website with him before the trip to get him excited, and he spied the rides. That was all he could think about from that moment on--and this did not change when we actually got to the park.
We had "breakfast with Shamu" in which you have a breakfast buffet, eat right next to one of the whale tanks and see a few cool whale tricks up close. That was fun and I'm glad we did it because it was the only whale exposure we got the whole day.
After breakfast I was ready to head to the Shamu show, but Max was dying to go on the big roller coaster, so we went over there. Kris and Max went on that, and Max loved it, so I got in line with him to do it again. But of course the ride broke down, so we were stuck in line for quite a while for no reason--these Sea World guys are not too good at their ride management it turns out.

Anyway, after that we got stuck heading over to another ride, and it got hotter and more crowded. We finally made it to the Sea Lion and Seal show which was fun. Then when we tried to see the actual seals afterwards the area was so crowded it was impossible and we just had to push on. Finally Kris and I got tired of the crowds and after seeing the sharks and a few other things we hauled our boys out and took them back to the condo for some rest.

It was not great management of the Sea World trip, I'd do it differently if I was doing it again. And the Manta Ray area was closed because (of course) they're adding a big ride to it.
I think Sea World should stick with the animal stuff. It's what they do best.

But anyway, we liked this cool Shamu car.


The best part of the day happened after everybody get a little rest. We were able to get together with Kris's old roommate/mission companion Blake and his wife Brooke for dinner. It was just a weird coincidence that we both happened to be out here at the same time. They recommended a delicious Thai restaurant that we really enjoyed (all of us with refined tastes, anyway.)
Kris got fried rice that actually came inside half a pineapple. Pretty fancy, right?


After we ate Blake & Brooke took us down to a beautiful park on the coast to look at tidepools and seals. There were quite a few sea anemones in the little pools, but Max wasn't quite brave enough to stick his finger in them to make the them close.

Baby Evie was though.

Max however, was brave enough to go out to the very tip of the rocks we were out and wish that a wave would carry him out to sea. Weird kid.

It was an amazing view and a lovely sunset. And Max did not get carried away, happily.

It was prettymuch too dark to see the seals by the time we got to them, but the good company and fun conversation made up for it.
It was a really fun night--thanks Blake & Brooke for taking the trouble to meet up with us!
And Blake has a reputation in our family for taking good pictures (he took the photo that ended up being in our wedding invitation) so he took one of all of us on the rocks. I like it.

::new toy::

Sandy got a new toy today--I think his big brother might be more interested in it than he is. If only Sand would listen better he'd know exactly how to play with it right.

These guys get along so well. I love seeing them together. Hopefully this kind of relationship can continue for them forever!