Thanksgiving in Vegas

We went to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving. Hannah and I were able to fly and Derek David and Koda drove. We were so excited to be able to bring Koda with us.

This is Derek and Jon enjoying some time together.

Just about everyone together enjoying family time together.

Now we have everyone together. The meal was so good and the company was great! I got a great recipe from Dixie for stuffing.

Helping a ward member take of their animals while they were gone for the holidays.

Derek having fun on the horse swing. Derek is one of the best I know at having fun and spreading fun to others. The quote of giving someone an ounce of fun and being able to convert that ounce of fun to a mile would definitely apply to him

We all having fun together

Hannah looks so cute riding this small bike. I love how she loves to be silly and enjoy her life. She loves to share her enjoyment of her life with others and I am so lucky to be one of those that she shares her wonderful, silly life with.

Hannah helping to feed the cows.

Yes that is Mom, even Mom getting into the farming thing, well sort of. . .

Derek doing his thing on the trampoline.

OK, I know what this looks like, but it's not what you think, I swear!

Ninja, mission Impossible, spy Mom and daughter

Calling all Charlie's Angels, Ninja, Secret agents

My sweet perfect boy. I love every picture of him. He makes me happy just looking at him.

This was the awesome vehicle we rode in to go to the Valley of Fire together. Yes we changed the earth's climate with our road trip but we were able to all ride together and enjoy each other's company

Hannah and Caitlin together with Koda. Koda LOVED this trip. We were so blessed to be able to have this experience together as a family. I love families

Our first family picture together with Koda, so darn cute!

More awesome Koda included family pictures

Koda loved her adventure but I had a hard time not being nervous at her hiking areas

Great places to look out at the scenery

More nervous hiking

Sean, Jon, and Derek enjoying the view

Hannah and her buddy cousin, Caitlin

Beautiful place with my beautiful family

The explorers, Hannah and Koda

Sean and Derek helping Jon

Playing with Koda

I love this picture. I love time with Derek

One of my favorite pictures of Derek and Hannah. This was such a great day together. Our time together seeing such incredible views and together, being able to share this.

Great shot of the dudes

I can't believe how fast my Goldie is growing up, and how beautifully.

Hiding out in some amazing places. we are so blessed to see so many beautiful places together as a family that Heavenly Father created for us.

These two people have given me so much, so so much. They have been with me and helped me with so much.

More adventure togetherness AND with our Koda

Hannah and Derek really are great friends. I am so grateful. I hope they can get closer and closer as they get older.

Hold on Derek!

Big jump Derek

Yahoo!

I think this was our first petroglifs. (I have no idea how to spell that)

It's great to see Derek on an adventure

Derek and Dad

Faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound

Dash, running through the wilderness, we were lucky to have caught this high speed race

Derek checking out the great scenery

I love Hannah and Koda

Mom, Koda and Hannah

The explorers, Hannah, Breanna, Koda and Sean

My brave adventure boy sharing a day with his family

I love seeing my boy on his adventures

Strong guy holding up the world, rock, super hero

Koda, our dog the explorer

Hannah showing Mom how it's done, how to have fun. I LOVE it!

Hannah having a great time.

Derek showing Dad how it's done, having fun

Derek and Dad

Derek, Jon, and Sean

We loved our moments together. This was a safe day even through the rocks and cliffs, we loved our moments together today.

Another great family picture. We had an amazing day together. These moments are so precious, their value is so much more than any luxury sports car, mansion, anything that moth and dust corrupt. Things don't last but memories do. This is a one of the big things that I want to teach my kids, memories are so important, time with families. Making sure that our family is a place of refuge and safety, no matter where we are.

Trying to get all the sand out of our shoes, cuffs of our pant legs, socks, fur, etc.

Part of being a Mom is fear. Fear enters in every mother's life the day her child is born and never leaves. There are many different reasons for fear and this is number 745612 out of 456134543245745632154876313 that could possibly happen to your child. And that number is conservative.

O.k. yes, yes, I was a bit nervous, o.k. more than a little nervous.

The view was great this day from every angle, I'm so glad we had the chance to see the beauty form so many angles.

The colors there that day were so pretty. The difference between the colors were so broad, it was good to appreciate differences the different colors were pretty and worked well together and complimented each other through their differences. There is so much we can learn through the the start differences of nature that Heavenly Father gives us if we will let Him teach us.

My wonderful boy. Having a wonderful day, and we are blessed to share it together.

First snow day

Derek had rolled a pretty big snow ball. Koda wanted to come out and play SO bad. Hannah is recording this, thanks Hannah. I came out without my shoes on, sacrifice the feet for some great pictures!

Koda had so much fun eating the snow

Here is the start of the destroying of the snow ball. Soon she had it totally destroyed with her digging, she loved it though. Now you know why Derek had her stay inside while he made the enormous snow ball.

Checking out how to best destroy Derek's work. . .

The beginning of the destruction!

Derek is having such a great day! He just had Dad get out the sled for him. What a great day!

Plans change for the weekend

Derek and I at the Ward/Neighborhood Halloween party. We are so blessed, our neighborhood is so close. There is always such a good turn out for get together. I am so thankful for this, we miss our family and our neighbors are a type of family. You cannot buy a neighborhood, although our home is not fancy I think our neighbors are very fancy in their friendship and love and kindness and happiness and down-to-earthness. This is the kind of fancy that I crave and want. I am so lucky to have it.

Derek went as Benjamin Franklin and I went as a . . . Ghostbuster. Derek's costume was SO incredibly fabulous! David got most of it with him at a thrift store here. I love the imagination Derek has for his costume. I simply LOVE sharing his life with him and getting the benefits of his incredible personality.

David and Hannah are enjoying themselves together in their utopia, Diamond Mountain. I love that they love this place. It is really in their soul and helps to create a bond between them.

Derek and I were invited to Uncle Daniel's for this weekend and were going to go to Las Vegas to share our nephew, Jon's 12th birthday and Priesthood ordination. We were all ready to go to the airport. I asked Hannah to text Uncle Daniel to let him know what time we would be there at the airport. We got a very surprising text back saying they were out of town and would not be able to pick us up from the airport unless we could wait for 5 hours. Needless to say we did NOT want to wait at the airport for 5 plus hours so we decided to stay home and have our own fun time together. I guess we had a communication misunderstanding. We were so sad we couldn't be there but can't wait til we can see them again.

Fun at work

My job is never the same from day to day, that is one of the many reasons why I love it so much. I went to Austin Texas and back today. On our leg back to Salt Lake City the gate agent came and asked if we would accept a baby leopard on board in the cabin. It would be in an animal cage that are used for cats that could fit under the seat. I would have LOVED to have had it on board. I was already planning on getting a picture to show Hannah & Derek. What an experience! The captain went out to the boarding area to check the situation out like the caring case, the size of the leopard etc. This was a very rare request so he wanted to place a call to the company. Unfortunately we got the word that we cannot transport any exotic animals in the cabin. I can of course see their side but I was still disappointed. But I still love those kind of stories I get from my work. They are usually stories that I could never have even dreamed of.

I had to work on my birthday, well, not that I "had" to, I am lucky and blessed that I love my job so it was ok, more than ok that I worked on my birthday. Plus, I had a very interesting passenger, two in fact. The first was an actor that has been in a TON of movies. I can't remember his name (which is significant) but he was in one of the kid's favorite movies, "Spy Kids". He was the uncle. It is significant that I can't remember his name because he has been in over 200 movies/t.v. shows and is recognizable but not overly so. I have had some "movie stars" from time to time. Most of them (almost all of them) have a hard time being real, not taking them selves too seriously and being able to talk with people who aren't movie stars. This man did not have this problem. He just talked with me just like I was a regular person and he was a regular person. He was not trying to avoid people, he just talked, not overly so but he was able to have a normal conversation without always looking on how to get out of it but and treating others like we weren't there or not worthy of talking to. I was quite impressed with him and his "realness" he seemed very grounded which most (almost all) of the others certainly did not.


The next interesting person was a passenger that wanted gingerale and spicy tomato juice . . . mixed, combined, together, to drink! He seemed very normal and together. Hmmm. Some other passengers smiled when they heard his request and enjoyed teasing him about his unique drink choice. I told him that he was going to make it into my "flight journal", he and the other passengers got a kick out of this and laughed some more. I love my job!

Visiting Uncle Eric's family in Sioux City and a visit to the Mall of America in Minneappolis

We made it out to Minneapolis!!!! We really did not think we would make it. (We were SO blessed to make it home, I was quite nervous, we were so grateful to Heavenly Father to help us)

We love to visit the Mall of America. This is one of Derek's favorite cartoon characters, Sponge Bob!

Another one of Derek's favorite cartoon characters, Avitar.

One of Derek's FAVORITE places ever! This was the first, original Lego store. This was so much fun to watch him so happy.

Hannah and I with Derek (he took the picture) in the new Disney store in the Mall of America. We all love to dress up in the Disney outfits, we did a lot of that in Disney Land.

Here is a great shot of the outside of the princess castle.

Hannah and some of her favorite childhood friends, Minnie, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy

Here are some of Derek's best childhood friends, Lotso, Stitch, and Agent P (Perry).

More great childhood friends (the great thing about childhood friends are that they are the best). This is Lotso (from Toy Story 3), Nala, and Sully

Derek and his great buddy, Stitch. This is his favorite Disney movie.

Derek and more of his buddy, Stitch

More buddies, Minnie, Pluto, and Mickey

Here we are in a candy store that is about 100 years old, it was great, we went there last April. This is (from the left) Hannah, Derek, Brandt, Asher, Eli, Kelly, Finely, and Eric. The candy was of course amazing. It was a great store. They kept a lot of the old equipment and had great displays with some history information next to it.

Buddies playing Monopoly together, Brandt, Derek, Hannah, Asher, and Eli

Brandt, Derek, Hannah, Asher, and Eli

Hannah, Finley and Uncle Eric.

Derek and Eli and Brandt sure did get along so well they are always like long lost best buddies when they get together. It is so great to see them. Hannah and Asher had a fabulous time together. She had an Asher magnet on her. It was so cute.

Great Fort Day

Some days are just like this. I think that every kid has days like this. I certainly remember days of making elaborate forts with my brothers and sister, these were some of the best days. Hannah and Derek loved to have Koda help with the forts although she broke most of them.

Here is Derek peeking out from behind his fort

Here is an inside view of Derek's fort, totally awesome!

More of the inside of Derek's fort, forts RULE!

Hannah and her fort.

More silliness with Hannah's fort, the world could use more silliness in my opinion!