Halloween

Hope everyone enjoyed a Happy Halloween!! Our Daddy did not dress up this year because I had class Halloween night and couldn't dress up or participate in the holiday festivities...boo-hoo. So Chad decided he was going to support the kiddos in their fun but not put up the graveyard or fog machine or any of that fun stuff and he certainly wasn't going to dress up without me. Andrew stayed home and handed out the treats. Samantha was a devil.

Braeden was a cowboy....specifically John Marston from Red Dead Redemption (a video game)-an old west, killing zombies type of game ;).

Westin was a zombie. It's a standard gruesome costume we have going on around here. Daddy does the best bloody mess make up effects around. He can create a nasty, morbid wound anywhere you want. This year Wes wanted a slit throat.

Gabe was Mario! He was Mario all day long!
Here he is eating lunch as Mario.......
Here he is giggling hysterically as Mario and not eating his lunch.....I even have a picture of him asleep in the car as Mario but unfortunately it's on my phone. We eventually got the mustache on him and he wore it all night long...it was precious!! But the final picture was taken on Chad's phone so you have to refer to my FB page to see Mario's final reveal.

Do zombies eat popcorn with their fingers? No, they eat the fingers seperately .. ... hehehe

Happy Holidays!!!

Birthday Weekend

We celebrated Samantha's 13th birthday this past weekend. Since her birthday falls near Halloween she usually gets a Halloween party but this year we decided no birthday parties just family outings. The birthday child gets to decide the destination. Samantha chose Disneyland, har har that wasn't going to happen. Her next choice was to go to CSI: The Experience, unfortunately the little guys couldn't enjoy it so we opted for her last choice which was mini golf. We love to mini golf as a family and it's something even the littlest guy can enjoy.

It was a little toasty and really, really crowded which made for a less than ideal experience. Here the kiddos are waiting for Gabe to take his turn.

The golf clubs made handy weapons and shovels for the sand pits. Luckily no one got whacked in the head with one, so we call that success!!

Getting ready for Halloween

We've decorated the house and made the cookies. We've started on a few of our costumes. The weather is cooling in Vegas to a balmy 85-86'. We're getting ready to travel up North to visit family. This year, sadly, we'll miss Trunk-or-Treating opting to see family. This is almost a deal breaker for the kids. We'll be back just in time to Trick-or-Treat our neighborhood so no worries! Hope you all are enjoying the cooling weather and the feeling of something magical in the air.

Happy Fall to you all!!

4th of July weekend

We spent the 4th of July weekend at home in Vegas. We BBQed and swam and lit fireworks like we do. We got to enjoy Mike & Tracy Roundy's family, my parents and little brother Emerson, and sister Taryn and her family. Chad grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, polish dogs and ribs. We usually play pool volleyball all day long but this year after a rainy Sunday, the pool was only 86 degrees for the 4th and that's just too cold for some of us =). So we hung out in the hot tub.

The kids and doggers playing in the rain storm we had on Sunday. The rain was pouring for several hours.
Once again thanks to our drunk neighbors and their illegal fireworks, we saw quite a show! Plus we could see most of the highschools fireworks as well, it was 2 hours with a variety and range in fireworks and entertainment.

Bahamas 2011

Chad and I returned from a week long trip to the Bahamas. We stayed on the island of Grand Bahama where we snorkled, kayaked, shopped and played for 7 blissful days!

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The snorkling was amazing at Paradise Cove's Deadman's Reef. We swam with giant Parrotfish, Barracuda, and Sea Turtles. There were also Stingray's but I only saw one close to the shore as I was putting my snorkling gear on. Last summer I was finally able to pop my ears underwater, so now I can dive under the water and stir up the fish at about 15-20 feet below. If the reef was deeper I would've been able to go deeper :).

Chad and I are posing here on one of our first shopping trips to Port Lacaya. You can tell because we are so white!

Here I am sunning myself after snorkling Deadman's Reef. The water was about 80 degrees and made for a couple chilly spots. We snorkled for a couple hours the first time we went out and after regrouping went out for another hour until time to get a ride back to the resort.

Group shot, resting after snorkling.

Eating....always eating on vacation. The main staple on Grand Bahama is Conch. It is served raw, fried, in soup, in salads, in burger form, almost anyway you can think of. It's a molusk type creature that lives inside conch shells. On the island you can buy a huge, polished conch shell for $8. But as Chad and I walked the beaches and streets of the neighborhoods around us we found piles and piles of conch shells disgarded like garbage along the roads. All of a sudden these giant, beautiful shells seemed worthless ;).

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One of the excursions Chad wanted to do was sea kayaking to the Mangrove's of the islands. This is where the island and plants naturally create more land and expand the island's size. It was a fascinating walk to Gold's Beach, Ben's Caves and the national forest on the island.

Cave diving is a big draw to this part of the Bahamas and after being down in Ben's caves we can see why. Chad is scuba certified but didn't think to bring his card with him and go diving. After seeing what amazing diving opportunities we missed I'm getting certified this year, so I can join Chad on our next tropical get-away.

Here we are posing on Gold Beach near the national forest on the island. The beaches were gorgeous everywhere we went. The sand was powdery soft and fine.

Relaxing in a hammock on the beach! Our trip was all about enjoying each other and our precious time. We planned a couple fun excursions to take advantage of the tropical paradise but we also made sure to plan days of relaxation, laughter and maximum couple-time. We felt truly rejuvinated and ready for the trip back to reality and the demands of life.

Yard Work

We've lived in our current home almost 5 years......this coming August. We have a 'Home Owner's Wish List' we created years ago when we first moved in. We listed everything, even the things that probably will never happen in this lifetime, because it's a wish list and on those kind of lists anything goes!

Even though our house is worth much, much less than we owe we originally bought it to grow in with our little family. We continue to make the improvements we want and hope to recoup the value loss 20 years from now ;).
We have made a few changes around here and are working on more. Chad finally finished building a playset in the backyard for the kids. His plan of slow and steady paid off and now the kids have a playset befitting any lucky group of hooligans.

We had concrete poured (shout out to Andrew Covington!!!!). Now the kids play outside shooting hoops, playing four square, racing around on scooters, trikes, or legs ALL day long. They play outside before school, I'm talking 6 am!! And after school until bedtime. They're a noisy bunch and add the dog barking while he plays with them and our neighbors probably hate us. There's a space for the firepit and the outdoor covered patio...coming much later (refer to the above mentioned Home Owner's Wish List).

My favorite part of the project is the new driveway for us to park "The Chad" and my gorgeous steps that I plan on accenting with pots and plants. It's my work in progress and as of now I don't have a to-be-completed-day in mind. Maybe this fall, maybe next year, maybe when I'm 50...who knows. We just know we're excited for the little changes we've made to homify our house.

Spring!

Spring Break was a wonderful break from school and the rut of daily life. We started out our Easter weekend with a hike to the old Boulder City train tunnels. These tunnels were built into the mountain side to move materials up to Hoover Dam during it's construction. The train tracks are gone now but the tunnels are still entact and safe to walk through. If you're quiet in the tunnels you can hear the bats who live in them, you can certainly smell them. It's a very popular hike that even little kids can make, so even on the warm Friday morning the trail was packed with travelers. After our long, hot hike we went to CiCi's Pizza and pigged out on their yummy pizza and cinnamon buns.


This is the beginning of the trail.
Of course we stopped along the way to throw rocks over the hillside and enjoy the gorgeous lake views.

There are 5 or 6 tunnels but we only made it to 3 before kids started to get really cranky and tired.

The Easter Bunny hid all our eggs around the pool to keep them from our puppy, who would've eaten them all and not shared.
The kids modeling their new Easter clothes.

Our little family.
And of course our silly faces....we can never get away without having a silly faced picture in our family. In reality this is what we all look like.