Las Vegas tournament.

I know I have been slacking.. Again. In May we took Kobe's soccer team down to a tournament in Vegas. It was so warm. It was nice. The first 10 minutes we were there the boys heard many things they don't hear here, and seen many things they don't see at home. It was a real eye opening for them. We ended up taking 2ND place. It was a great experience for them..

The long ride to Las Vegas! The boys were really good , but got really anxious to get there.

Our Rampage team. They are so cute. Lots of fun.

Out to dinner with the "gang". Waiting patiently for our dinner. We were starving.. We had quite the ordeal trying to find somewhere to eat... Go figure!

Colton ordered this huge steak dinner from the adult menu. Randy offered 5 bucks to him if he ate everything. He put up a good fight but couldn't do it. He was SO SICK afterwards.

So there we sat, by the bathroom WAITING for colton.. We sat there for over 20 minutes. He was sick. We had to go home and go straight to bed.. Maybe next time he will listen to us! Probably not.

We took 2ND place. They did so awesome. It was really hot, like 90 degrees. They weren't use to playing in that heat. Hopefully we can redeem ourselves next year. Not too bad though considering there was 8 teams total . Most were from Vegas and California.

SuB fOr 7th AnD 9th GrAdE EnGliSh.

Okay so tomorrow I am going to sub for 7Th and 9Th graders English class until Friday. Can I just say I am scared out of my mind. I have had " nervous poop" all day long. I know how I was when I was that age, and I just hope the saying ; " What goes around comes around" Is true.. Please pray for me,if you get this in time. If not just think of me be humiliated by Jr high kids, all day long. I'll let you know how it goes. Wish me luck , I'm gonna need it I think.

San Francisco.

Randy and I decided to go on a little Road trip, just the two of us. We had a blast. I thought the drive was going to be long and horrible, but to my surprise it wasn't at all. Rand packed us ( really for me) a cooler of " treats", we had games, i had my book, and our I-pod's and off we went.. We left Thursday afternoon, drove all night to Reno NV. ( my fault. I thought Reno was only a 4 hour drive, didn't realize it was 8!)

This was as we were almost to Reno, so yes I know I looked like crap, but that's what Road trips are about.

Are we there yet?? Day 2. So excited to get there. Not sure what to expect, neither one of us had been before.

This was taken as we were crossing the Bay Bridge. It is beautiful, all the sudden the city just pops out and there it is. Anyone behind us driving probably knew we were tourist, as we had to search our car for change to get across the bridge. We didn't know there was a toll. Luckily we found exact change.

I was amazed by how close all the houses are. They were just right on top of each other. You could jump from roof top to roof top all the way down the street. Half the houses didn't even have a yard. It was crazy!

One of the old trolleys that gets around in downtown San Francisco. We rode this and the Bart system everywhere we went. It was to crazy to try and drive, then park.. I don't know how you would live there with kids ( Cathy)?

We did the Alcatraz tour. It was so cool. Very interesting. If you ever go to San Francisco I would really recommend this tour, and do the audio tour. It was cool, you could hear the prisoners like they were right there with you. Kinda creepy.

Randy inside one of the jail cells. There was not much to these cells. They are tiny. Concrete floor. It was really cold inside. The jails philosophy was, you are allowed to food, water and necessary medical attention everything else is a privilege. I think I'm gonna use that motto at our house!

This is the city view from Alcatraz. It was really pretty.

We took a tour that went all throughout the city and all the cool places that we would never have found on our own. We rode across the Golden Gate Bridge, and then got out and walked across it. It is beautiful. Talk about breath taking views each direction you looked. It was great. Although it was really cold.

Not sure what was going on here. Their was a million guys and girls in wedding dresses everywhere. We thought it was rather interesting so we took the picture. Only in San Francisco!!

Every corner had something going on. People would just sit up on a corner and do different things. This was the fire dancer. He was really fun to watch. After the show he would say , " If you liked my show please leave me some money." I bet he made good money, he did several shows within an hour.

Here is the "Crazy Fire dance" . He was really a little crazy. Notice how many coats I have on? I had 3 shirts, a sweatshirt, my green coat, and then we had to stop and buy this bigger grey jacket and gloves. It was freezing.

We also had our picture drawn. This guy was amazing. He did really good work. We sat and watched him do a family of 3 and decided we would get our done . I hated just sitting there and having everyone walk past and watch! I hated it.. But I do like the picture.

What do you think?? Some think it looks like us, others don't. We liked it.

Does this look familiar to anybody?? So many houses like this everywhere. I was hoping we could go through one but we never made it. They were really pretty. I would love to have an older house like this one day.

The food was AWESOME!! We loved it. One night we had Yummy Seafood, then it was Chinese from Chinatown, and then Italian, from little Italy. I could do one post just on the food alone.

Now we know why they say Happy cows come from California! There were green hills everywhere!

We had a great time. It was so nice to be alone , just the two of us. Every couple needs a break like this. Sometimes you forget what its like being a lone without kids. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids but it was sure nice to have some "US" time. I am looking forward to our next little get away. Thanks Randy.

I'm Back.

Okay so I know I have been slacking, but I am going to be better. I feel like not much has changed. How sad is that? I hate these few months, it feels like winter will never go away, and spring is so far away. Our family has been doing good, we are all healthy and Randy still has his job. Can't complain.



I did sign up to run the Ogden 1/2 marathon with my two sisters and my sister in law Maryann . I am really excited. We have just started our training, and boy did the memories come back as to why I don't do these very often.. I hate having to run all the time. On the other hand its good, cause I feel like I can eat whatever whenever!



We also put a team together to run the Ragnar relay race. Its a race of 12 people. You start in Logan and finish up in Park city. It takes 2 days to finish up, so we will be running on and off all day/night long. We have a fun team of family and friends. Some beginner runners, and some that have ran marathons and other races. Randy has decided to run with us. I am really excited for him. This is his first big race.



With the hard economical trials, I have decided to get certified as a Substitute school teacher. I'm a little nervous to do this, but I am willing to give it my all. Any little extra money right now will help. The nice thing about doing this , I don't have to be tied to a job. I can do it as I need or want to.



To go along with my substitute teaching, I have decided to start clipping coupons and try to save more money. This is time CONSUMING!!! Any pointers from you experts out there??

DisneyLand.

We had a great time. Where to start, Hmmm. The kids loved the plane ride. I was stressed, I hate not being in control and knowing what's going on. We ate lots of suckers and chewed lots of gum so they loved it. I have done a slide show, so I will just post the hightlights of the trip. I would recommend everyone to go at least once.It was great, I loved it as much as my kids did. Randy on the other hand was ready to go home by the time we were done. I did learn that vacations with kids are not relaxing one bit, they require a lot of head counting all the time. ( And we only have 3 kids.) , and we had to swim EVERY night, no matter what time we got home, and it doesn't matter if we just ate, we want a churro that costs 4 dollars each. Vacation's with kids are EXPENSIVE!! Every store or place we went to we had to buy a souvenior because who knows when we will be back..
We did have a great time. It was worth every penny to see their faces light up when they got to meet a character, or when they got off that AWESOME Ride. As Kobe would always say.


Meeting Mickey, It took a little longer than expected. But you can't go to DisneyLand and not see him, right? Although we waited for about one hour, it was worth it.


Jasmie was beautiful. Ash was in heaven seeing her.

The characters were so cute with the kids. They would sign there books and get pictures taken with them. It was really cute. Here are some that we seen.








We got to go and eat lunch with the Princess' at Ariels Grotto in California Adventure. It was so fun. Ash was so star struck so could not even talk. The princess' were very cute with Ash. That was by far her favorite part of DisneyLand. The boys didn't want to go, but they made sure I took their autograph books, and got plenty of pictures for them. Bennett said they were going to do " Men Stuff".


Ash and Ariel, She was really cute with Ash. Ash wouldn't talk so Ariel said that's ok, you must have lost your voice like I once did. Ever since then Ash has been saying she lost her voice like Ariel.


Princess Belle. Ash thought she was just beautiful. She loved her dress.


Sleeping beauty is Ashtyn's favorite. She was really pretty. Ash said she wants to grow up and be princess Aurora.


Cinderella.


Ash and Snow White. I loved this picture. You can see how excited she is, and how cute the princess' were with the kids. The food was really good. The dessert was amazing. I would recommend doing this!


I have to post this picture. This is a picture of the picture they took of us on the tower of terror ride. We are in the back. I am in the blue jacket, next to me is little Bennett. His face is priceless. He was scared to death. He really didn't want to go on the ride but we talked him into it. He was not happy. You can get him to do anything for a churro!! Ha ha . My dad's face is pretty funny also. He's next to Bennett.

We also went to Sea world, and did the Midevil times dinner. It was really fun, my kids loved it. They want to do this again next year. I hope this was something they will always remember... I know I will.

I forgot to mention that Ash no longer has her little blanket corner. You will see it on the slide show pictures. One day we went down to breakfast, she left it on the floor, well when we came back to the room the maids had cleaned up and threw it away. She didn't seem to miss it too bad because we kept her busy then at nights she would fall asleep on the ride back to the hotel. She did start using the tail of her stuffed shamu. I think it's just habit for her to stick something up to her nose when she gets tired. As of today she really doesn't really say much about it, when she does we just tell her it's still on vacation at DisneyLand. Scroll down to see our slide show of pictures!

DisneyLand.

Pictures are coming soon!!

So I just wanted to post and let you know that our Disneyland pictures are coming soon. Literally. We left our digital camera in the rental car. We didn't realize it until we were boarding our plane, of course. That would have been to easy. So the rental place is sending my camera to me in the mail. I am dying to have my camera back. Check back in a few days, hopefully it will be back by then. We did have a great time!! Can't wait to do it again.