Oops! I did it again...

So this is the 2nd year in a row I have merrily sent my poor unsuspecting kids off to school without a stitch of green on them! Not on purpose, mind you. It might stem from some bad childhood memory that I've suppressed when I was pinched all day for forgetting to wear green myself, or it could just be that I think the holiday is ridiculous so it usually just slips my mind. Hard to tell. Whatever the reason, I am feeling bad again this year, hoping my children are not scarred for life.

St. George Road Trip

Paul had a winter golf tournament and PGA meetings to go to in St. George in Feb. It happened to be on a week when the boys were off track, so I thought we should take full advantage of that and go with him just to enjoy a nice little break and hopefully find some sunny weather! Well, it definitely was a great break! The kids were all really well behaved, and we had a great time!

We had several things planned for the week, but first and most important was the swimming pool! Isn't that every kid's most favorite thing to do when staying in a hotel? The kids wanted to hit that first thing Monday morning, despite the cloudy weather and slightly chilly temperature. Good thing the pool was heated and the hot tub super hot! We swam in the pool every day, sometimes more than once--rain or shine! Yes, we really were out swimming on the second day when it started sprinkling. These pictures were taken a few days into the trip when the sun actually came out, but it was still only about 45 degrees outside! Notice the steam coming off the water?

Despite being slowed down by a quick trip to the Urgent Care to check Eric's ears (sure enough, he had an infection), we made the most of the rest of the 1st day with a stop at the Dinosaur Tracks museum in Washington City. It was a huge display of dinosaur footprints, swimming drags, and other cool fossils. We got back just in time to grab dinner with Dad at The Brick Oven (Ahhh, the memories of college days in Provo!) before heading out to meet up with one of Paul's roommates from college. He was the best man at our wedding, but it's probably been almost since then that we've seen him! We had a fantastic visit with he and his wife and kids. All the kids had a great time getting to know each other, and we had a great time catching up! They have 3 beautiful teenage daughters, and when Justin found out we were going to visit them, he was completely bummed about staying here for school for the week! He's seen their pictures on Christmas cards. Anyway, what a fun first day!

The rest of the week was spent swimming, watching videos, going out to eat, going to Jumping Jacks, going to the Rec Center to (you guessed it) swim some more (they had water slides!), going to the wildlife museum, and finally making a stop at the temple and visitor's center.

We ended the week by stopping at my aunt and uncle's in Richfield on the way home. We had dinner with them Thurs. night and played a ton of games. After spending the night and enjoying one last delicious meal that I didn't have to prepare, we headed home. What a fun time we had! It was so nice to do some new and different things with the kids and get them out of the house and away from the Wii while they were off track! A favorite memory from the trip will be Eric calling our hotel home every time we talked about it or passed it on the road or whenever it was time to return after any activity! We stayed at the brand new La Quinta down there, and it was surprisingly really nice! But now anytime we pass a La Quinta, Eric always shouts out, "There's La Quinta!!"

From Paradise to Snow....Reality Stinks Sometimes!

Just two of the many amazing, beautiful, and WARM ports and beaches we had the pleasure of spending time at last week on our vacation. (Don't look too closely as I'm pretty sure this beach shot if from Happy Bay in St. Martin and there were total nude sunbathers at the far end of the beach!! By the end of the day, the beach was covered with them--good thing we took a shot of the beach before it got crowded!) Anyway, for my birthday week, Paul and I spent 10 glorious days in the Caribbean, 7 of them sailing on Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Seas.

But before you get too jealous, here is how the first 3 days began in San Juan:

Yes, he really is bracing against the wind and rain!

This is us completely drenched sightseeing in Old San Juan at El Morro, a Spanish fort built in the 1500's to protect the harbor.

This was our only stop at the beach in San Juan (we had hoped to spend all of Friday there, but alas, Mother Nature had other ideas!). We only stopped by long enough to see it and wish we were laying in the warm sun instead of standing soaking wet in the pouring rain. Notice the rain drops on the lense?

We decided to make the most of it anyway and enjoyed our tour of old San Juan before heading out for our night kayaking excursion to the bio luminescent bay. It was amazing and so fun!

Saturday was still rainy, so we decided to skip any more sightseeing, sleep in a little, and head over to the port early. We got on the ship with no problem a little after 1, even though all our info gave our boarding time at 5:30 p.m. and everyone told us the port wouldn't even be open until 2! Our ship was amazing! We loved it! We've never sailed on Royal Caribbean before, and we were really pleased with it and are sure to sail with them again. Our cabin was tiny, as usual, but the beds were so comfortable! That's really the only thing that matters as you are never in your room except to sleep and change! Here are a few highlights of the super fun things we did during the week:

Exploring The Baths in Virgin Gorda (the huge boulder formations in the first 2 pictures below) before enjoying some amazing snorkeling at Devil's Bay. Yes, it did rain on Sunday off and on, but that was the last we saw of it!


Hiking the hidden trail to Happy Bay from Friar's Bay in St. Martin. Happy Bay was supposedly a quiet, beautiful, little known beach with good snorkeling and swimming. I guess it was little known to everyone but the nudists and a few brave souls like us! Happy birthday to me! Not quite the "present" I was hoping for! We made the best of it, swimming and snorkeling far from everyone else, and laying on the beach in a spot that had some greenery blocking most of them!


Golfing in Antigua!! Super hot, but really fun! You'll have to imagine the photo as I realize it is still in the camera that Paul has in Florida at the moment!

Zip lining in St. Lucia!! Can you believe we did it? Two people that are afraid of heights? It was soooo much fun, and yes, Kim, there is screaming video footage!!

Driving our little speed boat all over the shoreline of Grenada before making 2 different stops to snorkel and swim at beautiful beaches there.

And last, but not least, our wonderful dining room waiters for the week and my hilarious and memorable birthday dinner which included our waiter giving away my birthday cake and singing to the lady at the table next to us! Funny story which I will share with anyone who asks. I figure this post is long enough as it is!

So, as you can see, it was a wonderful week in paradise which always makes the return back to reality so difficult, especially when it is cold and snowy! But it is always worth it!!! Already looking forward to next year! Who wants to join us? It will be the year of the 40th birthday and our 20th anniversary, so it better be a good one! Everyone should start saving now so we can all go and party together!

Happy Birthday, Eric!

It's hard to believe my baby is now 5! What a fun little guy! We sure love him and are glad he is part of our family! Having a December birthday is pretty hard. Not sure WHAT we were thinking that March, 5 years ago!! The pour kids will probably never get a really cute decorated birthday cake like all his brothers did. Luckily, when I asked him this year what kind of a cake he wanted, he just said a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles. Whew! That was doable on the Monday before Christmas.

I decided that even though I still had a million things to do, I'd better take some time to do something fun with him for his birthday, so I took he and his buddy, Tysen, to Jumpin' Jacks for some fun and exercise. They ran and bounced and slid for a good hour and a half before coming home to continue playing.

We had Grandma and Aunt Barbara over for birthday dinner, presents, cake and ice cream. He loved every present he got and has played constantly with them all!

5 Great Things About Eric:

1. He is the world best snuggler.
2. He loves to be a big boy and help with everything.
3. He is a smart kid.
4. He loves his family.
5. He makes me laugh!

Thanks for always making our days full of laughter and surprises!

Redemption!

Not the best pictures as they were taken with my phone, but you can see the excitement on our faces at the end of the game, and the beginning of pandemonium on the field! We went to the BYU vs. Utah game (of course), and with the exception of the mean and hostile men in front of us, had a fabulous time! As usual, it was an exciting game with a last minute play in overtime to cinch the win! This is one game every year that never fails to surprise us in some way and nearly puts us in cardiac arrest at some point! What a great game!! Way to go cougs!

Congratulations, Jordan!

See that proud smile? That's my Jordan accepting the Award of Excellence for the song he composed and played on his violin for the Reflections contest at his school. Way to go, buddy! He worked really hard on his song, practicing it and writing it out all by himself! He was so excited when he won! He very proudly showed off his medal to all the Grandparents and family members he could and is now anxiously awaiting the next round of competition in January.

Here he is, showing off his certificates, ribbon, and medal. We are so proud of you, Jordan!

The Happiest Place On Earth

Our fabulous family vacation started out with a stop at my Aunt and Uncle's house down in Richfield. They are like a second mom and dad to me, and the boys just love them. We ate yummy food and played games with them. We slept there Sunday night, and set out for Disneyland, 2 1/2 hours closer the following morning. The road trip was great, and we got into town with plenty of time to swim and eat a good dinner.

We spent two fun filled days in Disneyland and California Adventure. We LOVE both of them and have been lucky to visit them several times in the last few years. This year was a lot of fun as there was no throwing up (refer to humorous stories of our last visit to the happiest place on earth! If you haven't heard the story, feel free to ask anytime!) In fact, every time we passed the lovely restaurant where we all got food poisoning last time, at least one of the boys would say, "This is where we got sick last time! DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!" It was pretty funny, especially when Eric yelled it out loud while passing several diners at said restaurant! I'm sure they really appreciated us. Other reasons why this year's trip was so fun: We took Grandma Barfuss with us; the weather was fantastic; everyone got along; there were practically NO lines and we rode all the big rides at least 5 or 6 times; and we finally convinced Jordan to try rollercoasters again--he rode all of them, including California Screamin' for our very last ride of the trip! Way to go Jordan!!! After traumatizing him when he was quite young by forcing him to ride the Matterhorn with his dad, he has refused to ride any of them. Like I said, he rode them all this year, and even said that Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain were his favorite rides. Eric was also very brave, riding all of them but California Screamin'. I love that my kids are all old enough and big enough to ride everything together. It is really a fun way to experience Disneyland. It's fun when they are little too, but oh so much more exhausting and very limited to what they can and want to ride when they are little. Here are a few photos of the trip.

One of the super fun bonuses of the trip this year was running into one of my best friends, Jocelyn. We went to high school together, and we still keep in touch now. It was so fun to see her so unexpectedly, and it was really fun to meet her kids. She has met mine when she has come to town for our high school girlfriend reunion weekends, but I had yet to meet hers.

I love this picture because it just says it all. It's the end of the first day in the parks, and we are all exhausted and starving, waiting for our food. I think Eric is actually asleep in this shot. We had to wake him up to eat.

Another fun thing about the time we went this year was that it was right when they were switching over the Halloween decorations to the Christmas decorations. The first day we were there, everything was still Halloween. The next day, there were several Christmas things up as the transformation had begun.

The trip continued the next day at Legoland. We have tried several times to take the boys there when they were younger, but everytime we had a free day when we were in town, it was one of the days Legoland was closed during the week. The boys still had a good time, but it is definitely geared to younger kids, and it was a little bit of a let down after Disneyland, in my opinion. However, it was a fun day, and I'm glad we got the kids there finally. Eric was in heaven with all of the Thomas and Handy Manny models in the park. Everyone loved Miniland with all of the amazing models there. The model of the capitol below is from that part of the park.

This is, unfortunately, all we saw of the ocean this trip. We made a quick stop there after Legoland, but it was already just past sunset. The boys were a little sad, but that just gives us a good reason to go back!

We finished up our visit at Paul's brother's house. We had such a great time with them. The kids love to see their cousins and play with them. Justin got to go to a high school football game and tail gate party with his cousin, and the little ones just played and played. We had Alisha do a few quick family and kid photos for a yearly update. Some of them turned out hilarious. You've got to love kids when you are trying to take family photos! Anyway...a few of them turned out great, and I'll post them later. We are so grateful to have been able to take this trip! We had a great time, and everyone is looking forward to the next one!