Halloween was fun again this year!  Josey was our inspiration for our costumes.  I found hers first and then Spencer decided he wanted to be a spider.  I was a bumblebee and Chris wounldn’t decide on a bug so I started naming bugs…cockroach (he wasn’t too keen on that one), grasshopper (he didn’t want to have a thorax), then I told him he should be a stink bug because he was being a stinker…we settled on a Bug Catcher!  He was super cute! 

Here are a bunch of activities that we did to count down to Halloween and then to celebrate it:  we made spiders out of pipecleaners, made popcorn pumpkin balls, carved pumpkins, made roasted pumpkin seeds, decorated sugar cookies and went to HeeHaws Halloween afternoon.  What a beautiful day Halloween turned out to be.  Trick or Treating was a treat and Josey had it all figured out after the third house!  Happy Halloween everyone!

Oh how I love and hate this time off year! I love it because of all the things that are coming off the plants in my garden…my cantaloupe has been so delicious this year and my raspberry bushes are still producing berries, but I HATE all the work this causes me in the line of freezing and canning. I did add several new items to my canning repertoire this year…spaghetti sauce, salsa, and canned chicken. It is really great when I have the end results sitting on my counter and I can see all the hard work from the Summer culminated there.
So here are the stats…
Plants planted: 4 bell peppers, 2 jalapenos, 1 zucchini, 1 acorn squash, 1 pumpkin, 2 cucumbers, 12 tomatoes of various variety, 1 cantaloupe, row of yellow onions, row of white onions, +all the spring stuff
Canned items:20 pts spaghetti sauce (10 for me and 10 for Melissa) 27 pts canned chicken, 4 doz jalapeno jello, 7 qts stewed tomatoes, 9 qts salsa, and only applesauce left to do.

Mom and Dad were in Florida for 6 weeks and so to celebrate the end of Summer, their arrival home and just a good excuse to get together, we all met at my sister’s cabin in Joe’s Valley.  Joe’s Valley is a hidden gem in the Mid-Eastern part of Utah, south of Price.  It is beautiful there, but it seems that not many people know about it.  We drove up in the motorhome with Grandma and Grandpa Teeter which Spencer thought was the coolest thing next to sliced bread!   Dave and RayNette Atkinson (old family friends) towed the wheelers up and we met Heather and her gang up there.  We spent 2 days 4wheeling all over the place which was a total blast. 

We went on an adults only 5 hour ride up to the ridge and the wildflowers were all abloom and breathtaking!  We stayed up totally late talking and playing cards (had to teach my siblings how to play Canasta and Back Alley) while the kids played themselves ragged, hence the picture of Spencer totally DONE and crashed amidst the Legos.  It was great being with my family and just relaxing and having fun! 

So we spent the early morning hours going to the Freedom Fesitval Hot Air Balloons with my good friend, Racquel and her girls (Kira and Olivia) while the dads golfed.  They loved it.  It was a crisp cool morning the blue of the sky contrasting beautifully with the bright colors of the balloons.  Josey kept pointing and saying “bawoons mama, bawoons!”  We had a great bbq with our neighbors, and finished the day off with Fireworks are Racquel’s mom’s house.  It was a relaxing fun day!

Vacation #2 was awesome!  We had such a blast in Disneyland, Legoland, Sea World and the beach in California.  It definitely wasn’t a “relaxing” vacation, 5 days of theme parks does that to ya, but it was MAGICAL! 

Mema & Papa Powell came out and we all drove to Cali in our new minivan (it had to be long road tested right?!?) with no incident.  We stayed at our Condo in Anaheim and had 3 gloriously busy days at Disneyland.  It was slightly overcast which made standing in lines bearable for us and the kids.  We also were told about a website called RideMax which was worth the $15 bucks it cost to stand in the minimal amounts of lines possible, it is very cool!  Monday was great (magical to see Spencer and Josey’s, as well as Mema’s & Papa’s, reactions for their first ever visit).  Tuesday was extremely busy (Senior Day) so we left at noon and relaxed and then came back at 4 and met up with Kim Haddock and the kids in California Adventure then stayed for the fireworks!  Wednesday was heavenly (10 major rides accomplished in the first 2 hours of being at the park!) 

Spencer’s favorites: Buzz Lightyear (we went on this several times back to back), The Matterhorn, Big Thunder Mountain, and Star Tours.  When he got off Star Tours he said to me, “Mom did you see me take off and go into outer space?” I told him I thought I saw something take off and he turned to Chris and said, “She saw us go into space!  IT was awesome!”  Rides he didn’t like so much: Tower of Terror and Splash Mountain…when asked if he wanted to go on these again he would quickly say no! 

Josey loved the rides!  She kept pointing to the rides and would say “RIDES!” over and over again.  She loved the “neigh neighs” of the Merry-go-round and Dumbo.  She went on the Tea Cups with Mema and even had to spin the cups much to Mema’s dismay.  She loved the Tiki Room birds and flowers and anything Pooh Bear!

We did a character breakfast on Tuesday morning with Minnie Mouse and friends and we got to be up close and personal with about 10 of the characters.  Spencer got their signatures which he thought was cool.  Josey was doing alright with them until Tigger touch her cheek with his nose.  After that she would scoot as far back onto Chris’ lap whenever they would come to our table! Josey loved Goofy the best and didn’t want to leave him in Toon Town.

My most magical moment was the fireworks Tuesday night.  As we were standing underneath the fireworks and the music is playing a song about “believing” and a real life Tinkerbell is flying through the air I watch my kids standing around me and throught back to six year ago when Chris and I were standing in Disneyland childless and wishing and hoping that someday we could bring our children here and that moment it had all come full circle!  I had a good cry through most of the fireworks so grateful for my little family and my blessings!

One of Chris’ favorite moments was taking his mom and dad on the Indiana Jones ride.  His mom is claustrophobic, and almost didn’t make it on the ride, but talked herself into it.  Chris said that when the boulder came crashing down at the end his mom almost had a heart attack!  Then she couldn’t get her buckle off fast enough and shot out of the car like a bolt and Chris and his dad couldn’t even catch up to her in the tunnel to get out.  Chris kept telling her that she needed to do one thing every day that scared her…she said that that was more than she needed! 

Legoland was fun…although the lines were very long to ride the tinyroller coasters, but it was nice to have a more relaxing less hurried day than doing things in Disneyland.  Spencer loved riding the cars, helicopters and airplanes, and especially loved The Dragon roller coaster.  He and Chris went on it back to back!  I was amazed at all the things that they built full sized out of Lego’s!  I loved the city skylines that they had in miniature with real working subways, boats and lights.  It brought me back to my childhood and playing Lego’s with my brothers!

Our last day was in Sea World.  It was overcast and mist/drizzled rain for most of the morning, but was so amazing for the kids.  They LOVED all the different animals, and really loved the shows!  Again we had a more relaxing day here.  Spencer had to do the Shark exhibit twice.  We couldn’t leave until we saw the penguins, the polar bears, and the turtles!  I loved being able to touch the bat rays with Spencer.  He wasn’t too sure at first, but really thought it was cool after a little warming up.  He was bummed he couldn’t ride any of the rides there (1 in too short), but was super excited when he got to build his own Shamu stuffed animal as his souvenir. 

I am so glad we decided to do this vacation this year!  Our kids were at a really great age for the the magical parts of it.  Everything to them was real and so amazing!  It was so fun to have Mema and Papa Powell with us and for them to experience Disney for the first time as well!  We walked everybodies’ legs off and tired everyone out, but it was a great way to do it!  Can’t wait to go again!