Fairy Tale Town

My good friend Janessa and I decided to get together and take the kids to Fairy Tale Town a few weeks ago. Side note: Janessa, who at the time of this little trip, was two days away from her due date, gave birth last Thursday the 26th to a beautiful little girl named Colbie. Montana and I got the chance to go visit them on Saturday-yet, lame me didn't take pictures. Colbie is every bit as adorable as her older brother Alan, pictured below.
Check out the fun that was had at Fairy Tale Town:

I decided while we were there, that Fairy Tale Town should be renamed, "Slide Town" because that's pretty much what it is. A bunch of slides themed around Fairy Tales and nothing else. Needless to say, we did a lot of sliding.

Here they are sliding out of a shoe:

This video is kind of long, but pretty funny and worth the watch. Please excuse my loud commentary and smacking of my gum-geez, I forget how good the sound picks up the person recording.

Montana practicing her weightlifting skills in the tee-pee...

Driving her tractor-what a girl, look her nails match the tractor.

Sliding (what else??) down Jack's Beanstalk...

Pumping water and sliding

Here Montana is with Jack's Candlestick. Janessa and I were telling the kids that it was a candle, like on a cake. So when we weren't looking, they both decided they would taste the "cake" that the candle sat on. EWWWWW-yeah, they licked the freakin' thing at Fairy Tale Town. That's two year olds for ya.

Alan has a nickname about a turtle I believe, right Janessa? Here's the shot I got.

Thanks J...we always have a blast with you guys! We are excited to play more with you guys and with new baby Colbie!

Fancy

Spoiled??? Who me??? No......

How can you not help but give this little princess everything she wants??

St. Patty's

There is something really fun about seeing everyone unite in one color. Like back in elementary school when we all wore our school color on Fridays. For some reason, I really got into St. Patrick's Day this year. For a festive dinner, I made cornbeef on rye (get it, irish?) panini sandwiches, with an artichoke (get it, green? Plus, we don't like cabbage), and I made my on concotion of a mint julip. I also tried to make Montana green eggs for breakfast-but she wanted an Eggo waffle. Can't make that green.

Also, we had Andalyn, Ryan and Aunt Courtney come over to make some St. Patrick's day sugar cookies. In order to speed up the process, I bought pre-made cookie dough. Oh, the shame from someone who loves to make cookies like me. I regret my purchase as the dough was worthless to shape. We tried anyway.

We ended up with some funky shapes, but with the buttercream frosting and green sprinkles, they tasted great nonetheless.

When I say I went all out...I mean it. The green eye shadow even made its spring debut.

I immaturely and without really thinking about it, taught Montana to pinch when she saw Grandma who wasn't wearing green. What the heck was I thinking? Sorry, Mom. You should have worn green. :) So, basically Iwas telling a two year old, "You can pinch only today because its a special occasion...". Rookie move.

Hope everyone had a fun St. Patrick's Day...and I apologize in advance if my daughter pinches you the next time you see us.

Logan's Monumental Day

Last Saturday, my youngest brother Logan shared a wonderful day with all of us as he went through the temple for the first time. It's such a sanctuary to be in the temple, especially surrounded by those you love. I'm so grateful that we have such a place of simple, sacred worship to remind us why we endure the craziness of this life.





Logan is preparing to leave to preach the Gospel as a full-time missionary, in Calgary Canada. Saturday was just the first of many big steps and leaps of faith that he will take over the next two years, but I know that it will be something cherished for the rest of his life. That kind of sacrifice and devotion, especially as a 19 year old guy...is inspirational to me. I'm grateful for a wonderful family who are daily examples to me.


Some pictures from the day...

He's one good-lookin' kid!

Logan and I share some special bonds. Out of the five biological kids, we are the only two that have similar physical looks. Courtney, David and Whitney match...and Logan and I match. We also match in our passion, dramatics and emotion. I love this kid and am grateful that someone can understand the love of telling a story with a million more words than necessary, as much as I do.

I'm so grateful that they not only feel like brothers, but that they are friends.

My eternity.

Logan had many supporters come to be with him that day. Including his boss and his wife, some of his close friends, Sam's (Logan's sweet girlfriend) wonderful parents and sister, two of our Aunts and some dear family friends. We got pictures with some of his friends afterwards. My dad is a temple worker and had a shift immediately following the session, therefore he didn't make the photo shoot afterwards.

Just cuz he's David and he's silly...

Couldn't get everyone to focus at the same time

My and my dear sista-friend,

Mama with her two oldest girls...

Mama with her two boys...

Mom with 4 out of 7

Brothas

Mom with her 3rd missionary

The picture Marc insisted on...me alone in front of the temple.

It was a beautiful day...inside AND out.

Skow-boarding

Grandma: "Montana, where did Mommy and Daddy go?"

Montana: "They went skow-boarding..."

Yes, we did. We finally took the much needed trip for just the two of us. It came close to not happening...

...here Montana and I were the day Daddy called Mommy to say he requested Friday off from work!!! Yipee...

...here Marc and I were that night after I got in a car accident and we were wondering if we should even go...

But, we decided we HAD to. We both NEEDED it. And so, we went.

Because of our somewhat last minute reservations, the hotel we stayed at was not one we knew much about...it had nice pictures. And the hot tub looked nice, so we booked it. We got there and the lobby looked great...just like the pictures! :) Then we got the key to our room....

TWO DOUBLE BEDS and 1970's Tahoe decor. I said, "This sucks." Marc said, "Yeah, this sucks!"

So we went back to ask if there was anyway we could pay to upgrade because we didn't want to spend our romantic getaway in an ugly room with double beds and a combo shower and tub. SO not what the pictures promised. They showed us the honeymoon sweet which was a bit more "upgraded" with a heart shaped tub in the floor and mirrors on the walls. Ummm...still no. Too cheesy and not worth an extra $150 bucks a night. So, we agreed to stay in the double bed room for one night and switch the next night to a pool side sweet that was featured in the online pictures.

Other than a little room mishap, our trip was great. We walked around shops all day on Friday, had a sushi dinner (that didn't even come CLOSE to comparing to our beloved Mikuni) and saw a movie. "Taken"--ahhh, see it...it's great, but don't see it, you'll be scared.

Getting ready to walk around Heavenly Village in South Lake Tahoe

Standing in front of the ice rink

After cruisin' around we came back to shoot some pool in the lobby and then sat in the huge hot tub. We were then joined by about 7 annoying drunk guys and we proceeded to the lobby for some hot chocolate and back to our lovely double bed. (We made it romantic. Don't worry. wink wink)

The next morning, it was time to hit the slopes...and oh yes, we sure looked the part...(you can see a little bit of our first room with the double beds in these shots-definitely not what the pictures had suggested on the website. I'll post later pictures of what the second room looked like.)

And hit the slopes, we did. In fact I hit them a few times....on my face, on my butt, on my knees...but overall, I think I did great for a girl that goes once a year.

Marc on the other hand, is an amazing snowboarder. Luckily for me, he hung around with me on the blue square mountains for most of the day. When some snowboarder dudes from Colorado rode the lift and asked to hang out with us for a little while, I sent Marc off to ride with them to some snowboard parks to play.

Marc took lots of video and pictures of me, but never wanted to hand me the camera. He was probably afraid to let me try and multitask. :)


On the lift-oh dear goggles, the wonders you do for my chubby cheeks...

Look at this GORGEOUS view! Ahh, it was heavenly...no wonder they call it Heavenly.


Speaking of heavenly, we had our first ever (and hopefully not last) couples massage following our day of snowboarding. It was delightful. Marc was skeptical when he saw his masseuse Monica--who looked more like MAN-ica, if you know what I'm saying, but by the time she worked him over with her insanely large arms, I thought Marc was going to propose to her. If she wasn't in South Lake Tahoe, he'd be back there on a weekly basis.

To continue with the "heavenly" theme, we got our upgraded room that night.

Ahhh, yes, that's much more like it! If we ever go back to this hotel, we will for SURE request the poolside suite.

That night, we didn't take pictures but we went out to dinner at Hard Rock Cafe in one of the Casino's. We walked everywhere we went and so it was nice to just spend that time together holding hands, keeping each other warm and just talking.

We sat in our in room jacuzzi and stayed up late-it felt like a honeymoon! Not only that, we slept in until 9am!!! What? That never happens. Thank heavens for heavy curtains on the window.

We had breakfast and packed up to head home. The weather was perfect the entire weekend and as we drove away, snow started to fall; it was beautiful timing.

We had some camera fun on the way home, I went to take a shot of Marc and he stuck his finger in his nose. I told him I was going to post it....

...so apparently, he decided to get me back. You'd think since I slept in until 9 I wouldn't have been tired, but I couldn't help it. Hey, at least I'm not drooling.

I think I am going to have a new addiction to weekend getaways. It was so wonderful and even though we missed our baby, she had a blast at Grandma and Grandpa's house getting the love and attention of eight people.

Romantic weekend in Tahoe-just what the doctor ordered.