Sledding! Snow!

Me trying to get up after slipping in the snow!

The night we arrived in Utah they had to touch the snow.

We left for Utah the day after Christmas, so I will post the Christmas pictures when I get home, but for now we have snow, snow and more snow! The kids are in heaven and we have made snow angels and gone sledding. So much fun. We are having fun with all the cousins and grandparents. Lots more pictures and videos to come.

Disneyland Fun!

Blue Bayou
All bundled up

Bubble Snow!

Fireworks!!!!

The kids had their last day of school yesterday, so we picked them up and drove to Disneyland for an evening trip. We had reservations at the Blue Bayou and then rode a few rides and watched the fireworks and the bubble snow. We had a great time, but the misty drizzle made everything a little wet. This made for fewer crowds! We walked on Autopia! We had umbrellas, so we did our driving while staying dry. A 3 minute wait for thunder mtn. Unfortunately Indiana Jones was still 40 minutes so we passed on that. It wasn't raining the whole time either, it was probably only 30 minutes of the whole night. The fireworks at the end were amazing. Icaught a little part of it on my camera. Wasn't that cool!! 4 days until Christmas, I'd better start wrapping :)

My new car! :(

Here is a picture of the back bumper of my new car. If you look closely you can see red and white marks all along the bottom. Some one rear ended me. I was sitting at a stop light and heard a screeching noise. I looked around to see what it was and then looked in my rear view mirror and saw smoke and a car coming at me. Luckily she was almost stopped when she bumped me and I was the only one in the car. But she hit my new car! (yes, I realize if this is the worst of my problems then life is good) I thought I would cry, be upset, but I wasn't. The lady was very nice and in my head I thought "now I get a new bumper!" This made me happy because the first 2 weeks I had the car 2 different people on 2 different sides of my back bumper, scratched it as they pulled out of a parking spot while I was inside the store, leaving no note! Now that did make me cry. mad and frustrated! So yes I got rear ended, but I get a shiny new bumper this week! (notice I didn't even have my license plates yet)

Sledding in California

He has his shirt off in this picture because it got wet, after I told him to only get his feet wet. Good listening :/

We had a half day of school, the weather was beautiful, and the waves were supposed to be VERY big today, so we headed down to the beach with our sleds. Every winter they make big sand burms (?) in front of the buildings along the beach to keep the water from getting to them, but we see them as great sledding hills. (quite the opposite of Kendra's sledding) Today was perfect and in the 70's!! Happy December.

The weather outside is frightful...

We had a fun time setting up the tree last weekend. It is going to make the next month really drag for a few of our family members, especially seeing presents under the tree. Today it is really raining out and getting cold (65 :) I am sure it will turn to snow by the time it gets to Utah. Have fun!! I told my friend yesterday that I wanted to go down to Malibu on a cold day and get Hot Chocolate and pretend it was winter :) Luckily that's as close as we get. Happy Winter!

Fun week with Gma & Gpa Brodine

We had such a great week going to the beach, spending the day at Disneyland, and going to the Griffith Observatory. Gwen, Paige and Grandma got to go see Wicked on Friday for a girls outing. It was so good and we all loved it! We also had a very fun time playing the Wii. We would find Grandpa playing tennis or bowling by himself sometimes :) We are sad the party had to end. Back to our routines and school tomorrow! :)

Happy Thanksgiving

Despite a few major setbacks, we had a very nice Thanksgiving day. I ordered a Honeybaked Ham, and was going to pick up Marie Calendar pies. I usaully pick everything up on Tuesday to avoid the major crowds, but we went to Disneyland with Gma and Gpa that day so we pushed it to Wednesday morning and prepared for some lines. The first blow was when I walked up to the Honeybaked Ham store and it was totally gutted. What??? My reaction too! The sign on the door told of the nearest stores, 30 minutes north or 30 minutes south. While I was standing there at least 4 more people came by and were in the same boat. Who had we called and where were our hams. The woman at Trader Joe's said it had closed about 2 months ago! Off to Marie Calendars. Way too long of line. Grandma saves the day by making her own pumpkin pie and Paige and Seth helped. Doesn't it look great? Thank goodness for people who cook! When we got home I called the number I had for HB Ham and told them my frustration. The girl told me I could pick it up there. "Where is there, and where are you?!!" I said. Needless to say I will be calling the corporate office next week and ask who had the bright idea of forwarding the phone # to a store 30 minutes away without notifying the people ordering on the other end. But Albertson's sells a great ham! :) and it's only minutes away. Thanks to Grandma we had a wonderful meal and a pretty relaxing day.

Tomorrow we are "Off to see the Wizard" I mean Wicked. Should be fun!

My, what big feet you have

This summer we bought Paige new tennis shoes. By the time she put them on a few weeks later they didn't feel right. Ok, so I returned them. School was about to start, so we went out and bought 2 more pairs of shoes. First day of school comes and she puts on the cute pink and white addidas. "They don't fit right, too tight". OK, are you sure, we just bought them a couple weeks ago? Luckily the slip ons were fine. We make the special trip to the Skechers store spend lots of time looking, trying, making sure. One of the problems was that she was right between girls and womens. I felt sad telling my 9 yr old, at the time, to disregard those cute sparkly blue or pink shoes on that side of the store and to focus on the ladies shoes that are severly lacking in what a young girl wants. Luckily they had some white ones with a few rhinestones, and a cute pair of black converse type shoes. We started by trying the 6 1/2, then asked for the 7, then had to ask for the 7 1/2!! My she's growing by the minute the guy said. This must be true!! because 3 weeks later they don't fit right! AARRGG! "Are you sure they don't fit? we just got them. where are they too tight?" We haven't had time or luck finding new tennis shoes, but she needs them for PE. When coach C said "the pink sparkly slip on shoes are okay but not great" as Paige tried to sit on her shoes so the coach wouldn't remember they were hers, it was time to get serious. Long story longer, she went to tennis and didn't have anything but the pink sparkly shoes, so I suggested trying on my size 8 1/2 shoes with some thick socks. They worked and she even wore them to school on Wed. for PE! Her feet are growing by the minute! She even wants to share shoes :)

Laugh out loud

This clip is hilarious. We had another that was longer, and better, but I couldn't get it to upload. This will have to do. Future singers of America. Super cute!!! After soccer games, can you tell? and spit out the gum Paige.

Hannah Montana!!!

Emily and Paige

Dancing and singing!

We had a lot of fun at the Hannah Montana concert last night. It took us a long time to inch along in rush hour traffic to get downtown, but we made it with time to grab some food and get to our seats. Paige had fun singing all the songs, screaming after every song, and looking through the binoculars to get a better view. And no, we didn't pay an arm and a leg. Our friends luckily got through on ticketmaster and we paid $26 plus $10 service charge. Steep, jk:) The same tickets were going for $300 on the other websites trying to resell them. Crazy!! We lucked out. We had a great time with our friends Linda and Emily. Thanks guys!!!

Pumpkin Patch

Thanks for coming!
They're turning into pigs!

Which one to choose?

Munchkin family

Fore!!!

King of the Maze

This is a little late, but we had so much going on with Halloween. We had so much fun when Grandma and Grandpa Strong came to visit the weekend before Halloween. They came to the soccer games and then we all went out to the Pumpkin Patch. We go every year and enjoy the corn maze, tomato shoot, fun games, picking pumpkins, and my favorite, the kettle corn. YUM! We love when our relatives visit. Thanks for coming Grandma and Grandpa.

She Did It!!!!

Yea Paige!!!! Paige has been playing awesome this soccer season. Today she had a game at 3pm and it was only 90 degrees. She was really getting in there and kicking the ball. The other team had a corner kick and it bounced off one of the other girls and scored on themselves, but Paige was the closest to the girl so the ref called it her goal. But it gets better. Later she dribbled the ball down to the goal and kicked it in right past the goalie!!!! Great job Paige. Her second goal of her career. 2 goals in 4 years, We'll take it!!! We are so proud of you Paige. Of course we went to BJ's to celebrate and got the pizookie to finish off the meal. Yum!

This is Halloween

"This is Halloween, This is Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, This is Halloween" (Nightmare before Christmas) I have been singing this song in my head for weeks. Maybe it will go away soon.

We had a fun Halloween. Had Pizza at the neighbors, trick or treated our neighborhood and then went down to our old neighborhood where the real trick or treating happens. We loaded up on candy and saw a lot of our friends. Here are some pictures from pumpkin carving and last night.

Halloween Party

family photo

check out the tattoos on that guy! :)
cool eyelashes

the spider princess

Johny Storm or flame man

Trucker Tom

Our ward Halloween party was last week. We had a fun time dressing up and trick or treating around to the rooms in the building. The kids had a fun time picking out dad's costume for him. We had to do something with a wig, and sure enough, people didn't recognize him at first. We can't wait for Halloween.

Unexpected guests

We were so excited to have Grandma and Grandpa Brodine stay at our house unexpectedly when they had to evacuate from their hotel in Escondido. We got to take them to school in the morning, play the wii, and read books. We were sad to say goodbye Thursday morning when their hotel was cleared to reopen. Thanks for coming, and we are excited to see you at Thanksgiving. The last picture is from our house monday afternoon when we saw the fire creeping to the top of the mountain, not cool. But the two black dots in the sky are the planes that drop the fire retardant and it was out within 45 minutes. Great job guys!!

Holy Smoke!

My cousin Mary goes to Pepperdine in Malibu and this is her picture. Much more dramatic than mine, luckily.

Saturday night the winds kicked up and we prepared ourselves for the 80mph gusts they said would be coming over the next few days. I fell asleep with the window open and woke up around 11pm and smelled smoke, turned on the news and saw a fire had started 50 miles north of us. When I tuned in Sunday morning to check on the fire I found that Malibu was on fire, and not just Malibu, but Malibu Canyon. We live on the North end of the canyon 8 miles away. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the Santa Ana's were blowing so hard out to the ocean that we didn't even see too much of the smoke and it kept the fire on that side of the canyon. We will miss seeing the "castle house" and church as we drive down the canyon to the beach.

My parents are vacationing in Escondido this week with some friends. Well, they were in Escondido until their hotel was evacuated Tuesday morning. They weren't planning on coming this far North, but when you've got a free place to stay, away from the major fires, and you get to see your grandkids, no brainer. So we lucked out and get them for 2 nights possibly 3!!

Today the winds finally died down, but that actually makes for a lot more smoke in our area because it is settling instead of blowing away. No outside time at school and soccer practice canceled. Looks like the fires are done around us for now, but looking at all the news reports gets pretty depressing. More pictures of Gma and Gpa's unplanned visit coming soon!

Back on the trail

The first picture on my blog is on the same mountain top that my friend Katrina and I were hiking last winter and spring. We saw our first snake in May and gave up for the summer. It wasn't a rattlesnake but we weren't going to wait around to see one. So now that it is cooling off we started again. We hike it once a week and man what a feeling of accomplishment. It takes us about 40 minutes to get up, on a good day, and half an hour to get down. But the view is amazing. On a clear day you can see the ocean toward Santa Monica and the ocean out toward Ventura (not many of those days). So we are back on the trail!!

Happiest Place on Earth