Family Weekend Getaway

It's been feeling like we need even more togetherness lately, so we all took a road trip to L.A. over the long weekend. When the kids showed up after school Friday we surprised them with our plan to pack for the weekend and leave town before dinner. We stayed at Sal & Kellie's house (Evon's brother), visited Knott's Berry Farm, the Kodak Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, Roy Rogers Beach, the L.A. Temple, Beverly Hills, the PCH, Evon's old place in Agoura, and had a good dinner and lots of fun visiting our friends, the Cook family.

Aside from Evon's two-day rollercoaster hangover, the weekend was totally perfect! The weather couldn't have been better, the lines at the park were very short, and we had quality time with some family and friends. But best of all, our family enjoyed the time we spent together.

A million thanks to Evon, who hatched the whole idea! I love you!

Click the picture to enlarge or click here for the photo album.

My worst fear

I hate mice, rats and any other thing that resembles a rodent (hamsters and guinea pigs included). I am truly terrified of them. Two weeks ago we were moving some stuff around in the garage and Seth noticed mouse poop, my heart started racing and my body started shaking I was freaking out! He cleaned up the poop found out where the mouse was living and assured me that our uninvited house guest was LONG GONE. And I assured my husband that if I EVER find a mouse in our house that I would be LONG GONE.

Well today it happened. Seth was bringing a box in from the garage and our uninvited house guest jumped out of the box ran across my living room floor and under the Christmas tree. I screamed so loud, "Mouse, mouse, went under tree". I ran into the kitchen jumped on top of the kitchen table I was shaking and freaking out, literally on the verge of tears. The front door happened to be open and Seth grabbed a broom and was able to chase it out of the house. I couldn't get off the table for a least 5 minutes after the ordeal was over. The hair on my body is standing up as I relive this horrible nightmare.

You might be wandering where the cat was during all this...my screaming scared her and she ran and hid, she missed out on a yummy snack!

Guess what Seth will be doing on Monday? Cleaning out the garage!! I assured him if that happens again I will be MOVING OUT!!

PS..thanks honey for thinking so quickly on your feet and getting that thing out of our house in a matter of minutes. This is another good reason why I need to keep you around to protect me from my worst fear. As I said before you are a keeper! PSS --I'm not joking, I will leave if we ever find one in the house!! oxoxox.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Food, Family & Friends

The End.

Daddy Daughter Camp Out, part 2

Looks like they had fun – they came home smiling and smelling like a camp fire!

I was so happy last night to have the bed all to my self and not have to sleep with earplugs (Seth snores really loud). I slept in the middle of the bed and woke up this morning with absolutely nothing to do for anyone. I laid in bed for abut 30 minutes got up, took a shower, lounged on the couch for awhile looking at my Pampered Chef magazine. Sounds fabulous doesn't it? Are you jealous? It was fabulous for about an hour. Then I got really bored and I missed my family.

Welcome home guys, I missed ya!

Food Storage

I wanted to show off my nice organized pantry it took me almost 2 hours to clean out last night. I found 2 boxes of cake mix that were about to expire so I guess my family will be forced to eat cake for a couple of weeks. I wonder how long my pantry will stay this clean? Anyone willing to place a wager?

And a big thank you to my friend Lucinda for letting me tag along last Friday when she went grocery shopping, Fry's was having a case lot sale and we both did some damage. I think I bought to much tomato sauce/tomato soup, can you have to much of that stuff? I do know you can never have enough cream of chicken soup, I have 30 cans and I'm proud of it!

Scared Silly

Alex's birthday celebration tonight was pretty scary. First, Grandma and Rachel and a few friends came to the house for supper and cake. Then we took the whole party to Rawhide, and into a haunted house called Asylum. Mind you, the six girls with us tonight range from eight to eleven years.
Through practical experiment, we discovered that eight-, nine-, and ten-year-olds can handle no more than two minutes of such a frightful production, swiftly rising to an ear piercing crescendo of screaming, crying, and pleading for an exit. We stayed inside less than five minutes and saw less than half the exhibit before rushing outside to relative peace and safety in the old-west main street.
One of the girls stayed outside with Grandma, to which another girl said afterward, "She's a smart girl."
We walked around Rawhide for a short while, saw an arrest, an execution, and a headless horseman.
After taking everyone home, Alex, Evon and I watched the 1968 version of The Fly with Vincent Price.
I suppose that's what you get if you're birthday falls in October. I'll see what David thinks of that idea Sunday, as we celebrate his thirty-ninth.

FHE-Funnies

We had Family Home Evening the other night and Seth talked to the kids about prayer and what kinds of things we should pray for. I decided to share an experience that I just recently had with prayer. I told the kids that I was having bad feelings about someone and that this person was annoying me and I felt bad about these feelings I was having cause I knew they were wrong. I decided to say a prayer and ask Heavenly Father to help take these bad feelings away and twenty minutes later I felt better and by the end of the day I wasn't even thinking about that person. While I'm trying to be spiritual and share my experience during FHE and teach them by example I get these responses: Alex looks at me and says: "Mom, was it me?" No it wasn't you. Rachel: "Was it me?" No it wasn't you. Seth: "Was it me?" No it wasn't you. Seth: "Oh, I know who it was" (Jeremy wasn't here that night but it wasn't him, either! And for anyone reading this right now, NO it wasn't you either!!! Seriously. Especially if you're related or in a Ray ward! It's not you.)

Memories…

I've always had a weakness for peer pressure! Leave a comment on our blog of a MEMORY that you and I/our family have had together. It doesn't matter if you've known me/us for a short time, or a long time, anything you remember...next, re-post these instructions on your blog and let people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty fun to see the responses. Let's hear them...

Wedding Photos by Chea Lamb

Our photographer, Chea, posted our proofs to her web site this morning. They're gorgeous!

So we'll start our wedding announcements and order some prints. And while the album remains online, it's also a convenient place for you to browse and admire the whole collection.

Seth + Evon

The wedding was great; a perfect day and a lot of fun.

I'm posting the photos we took at the wedding events. When our photographer posts her shots I'll link to them from here.

If you took any photos, please upload them to me and I'll post them here, too.




For a sneak peek at our wedding photos, go to our photographer's blog.

We only have a few pictures from the barbecue so far. Click here to see the album.

The girls' stylist did a fantastic job for the photos we took the previous Wednesday. But when she was ill on the wedding day, Grandpa & Grandma came to the rescue! Click here for just a couple pictures.

Family style Italian dinner, where Jeremy whispered in my ear, "When are they going to stop bringing out more food?"

Click here for the photos.