Our Newest Fashionista

Parker has decided that Zac is not going to be the only well dressed man in our family. He has taken a new interest in looking sharp. He knows what he likes and is not afraid of showing his own personal style. You have to admit, he is a sharp dressed man.

Christmas 2010

Christmas is always such a great time to spend together. It is so nice to still have everyone in the house. On Christmas Eve, Zac and Alisha went to a Christmas Party at her aunt's house. The rest of us had a nice dinner together. Parker had made a request for hashbrown breakfast casserole for Christmas morning, so I made it the day before and popped it in the oven on Christmas morning. We opened gifts and hung out most of the day. We made some of our favorite foods to snack on all day; bacon wrapped water chestnuts, little smokies, cheese dip and chips etc. Mom and dad came up later in the day after visiting Jeremy and Quinn, and the
Harris'. It was a great day and I think everyone was happy with the gifts given and received.

Christmas at Temple Square

Colby, Allen, and I met the Harris family at Temple Square just before Christmas. There was not much snow, it was cool, but it was a beautiful night. The lights looked fantastic. It was nice to see all the exhibits in the visitors centers. The model of the temple was awesome. After walking around Temple Square, we went over to The Pantry and had treats. It was a great evening and a nice way to spend time with family getting in the true spirit of Christmas.

Family Christmas Party

This year we went to my parents house for our family Christmas party. We had a delicious dinner, cafe rio style salads and/or burritos, chips and salsa, rice and lots of homemade candy and desserts.

As usual, Jeremy and Jessica were the life of the party. Love them!













After dinner the cousins played the gift exchange game. Everyone brought 2 gifts and left with 2 gifts. It was a lot of fun. No one ended up crying.

After the game, mom wanted a picture with all the guys in the family and one with all the girls. Some turned out better than others. Okay, let's be honest, none of them turned out very good, but they really show who we are. We love being together and always have a great time.

The End of Another Season

Football is over for another year. This always makes us sad. Colby's team was invited to a tournament in Mesquite so we got another week to play. Parker couldn't miss school so we took Kaden with us. I think he had fun .?? The field was so cool. It is right against the red rocks at the top of a hill. It is a very large sports complex for soccer, lacrosse, and football. Our first game was Friday night and as usual, they were running behind so we didn't get started until almost 10:00 pm. It was freezing. The wind blew, which blew sand all over. It rained and snowed. Allen was sick, so he was totally miserable. We played another game on Saturday, and again, freezing weather, pouring rain, snow, you name it, we saw it. It did stop by the time we played but it was cold. Colby's team took 2nd place. Not alot to do down there, the boys went bowling and we went for late night treats at Jack in the Box.

Thanksgiving

This year we enjoyed having Thanksgiving at our house. It was a lot of fun as usual. Allen had to work the night before and go in on Thanksgiving night, so he was very tired. It was so nice to be able to eat and visit with the entire family. I always appreciate all the help with food and clean up. No pictures, because I was too busy cooking.

Family Vacation!

It all started with 18 people in 4 cars. 18 suitcases, 3 garment bags (containing 9 suits), 10 sets of snorkeling gear, and more sunglasses and flip flops than we could count. We left Saturday afternoon (Oct. 9th) and drove to Las Vegas. After spending the night in Vegas, we headed out Sunday morning for Los Angeles and to the Marniner of the Seas. We were cutting it pretty close, we were able to check in and board the ship with about 1/2 hour to spare. Good thing we didn't run into any problems or we might not have made it.

The Mariner of the Seas is a beautiful ship. We spent all day at sea on Monday. The kids loved exploring everything on the ship.

Tuesday we were in beautiful Cabo San Lucas. We had to take a tender to the shore. Once on shore we negotiated for a ride to Chileno Bay to snorkel. This is quite a feat when you are traveling with such a large group. We paid 2 vans to drive us. One of the drivers asked us where we were from, when we told him 'Utah', he asked us if we were Mormons, then he showed us his temple recommend and said how excited everyone was to know that a temple was going to be built in Tijuanna. The beach was beautiful, about 90 degrees that day, everyone loved snorkeling.

In the afternoon we hit some of the shops near the port. Everyone did a little shopping. We bought lots of cold drinks!


























                                               Good bye Cabo! Hope to see you again soon!





On to Mazatlan... The dock in Mazatlan is an interesting place. On one side of the boat you have a beautiful view of the water and coastline and the other side...as Zac put it is like a bad view from a very bad, cheap motel room.



















Outside the port we found a van to carry all of us to the Golden Zone. It was a tight squeeze. Apparently in Mexico you don't have to worry about seat belts or vehicle capacity. Once we got downtown we found someone to show us to the beach where we could para sail and jet ski. It was another hot day! The beach area was nice and we must have been approached by every vender on the beach. (And there were lots of them!) Hats, shirts, sunglasses, jewelry, hair braiding, temporary tattoos, horses...We really helped out the economy on the beach that day. 11 of the 18 of us tried para sailing. Zac and Josh rented jet skis. It was amazing.

















Of course we had to do some more shopping on the way back to the boat. We also experienced some more of the local transportation. They are very creative. I wonder if they laugh at all the tourists.
















Thursday was our final port, Puerto Vallarta. We were able to do some shopping, of course, at the dock. It was super hot again so it was a good thing we were close to the ship. After a browsing through all the little shops at port, we took our loot back to the boat, ate some lunch and changed so that we could go to the beach. We traveled by van to Mismaloya Beach. We wanted to do some snorkeling but it was high tide, (didn't even think about that) there was virtually no beach and the waves were getting pretty big. Some got in the water, and some rode jet skis again. This area is beautiful, you can see the rain forest from the beach. The hotels on the beach are lovely and the mountains and greenery behind is really awesome.




























The next few days we were all tired and it was nice just to relax on the ship. The kids took full advantage of the ice cream machine, averaging about 7 per day, per kid. We went to some of the shows and activities, got a little more sun, and some even ice skated.




















This was an amazing adventure. We had a wonderful time. It was so nice to be able to spend so much time together as a family. I am so grateful that we had this opportunity and that everyone was able to go! I have the best family ever. It was hard to get off the ship knowing that I would once again be cooking and cleaning - not to mention the loads and loads of laundry that I knew I would have to face. In the end... 18 people returned (yes, we brought everyone home) in 4 cars. We brought back 18 suitcases, 3 garment bags (containing 9 suits), 10 sets of snorkeling gear, more flip flops than we could count, 7 t- shirts, 5 mexican hoodies, 10 bracelets, 5 rings, 6 hats, 1 backpack, and 3 nacho libre masks, and 37 pairs of sunglasses.