New News...

We had a couple of big deals over here.  Clare, after years of wanting to and then quickly changing her mind, decided to cut all of her hair off tonight.  She ended up having enough to donate to Locks of Love.  That is a lot of hair.

AAAAANNNNNDDDDD Lorien submitted her first college applications!  UCLA and UC Irvine done.  She will still need to submit portfolio work to UCLA but the actual application is done.  UCLA is her first choice.  We are crossing our fingers, toes, and eyes in hopes she gets in.

Birthday in two takes...

Earlier this year Clare had to have her birthday celebration on a road trip home from Utah.  We thought Adell needed to have a turn celebrating in the car.  Really, her birthday just fell on the Sunday after Thanksgiving when we needed to drive home from Ben and Charity's house.  

To set the stage, Will and I were up all night with Colter.  He had a tummy ache and was threatening vomit all night.  We were up and down and up and down again.  After the second round, I told Will to stay asleep as he was going to be the driver the next day and I could sleep in the van. Colter and I stayed up with his tummy ache.  He kept asking me to stay with him and I kept insisting I wouldn't leave.  At one point he thought a bath would help him feel better.  I got him in the tub and gave a big yawn.  My sweet boy said "Mom, you can go to bed and rest.  I can take care of myself now."  So sweet, but there was no way I was leaving him to take care of himself.  It was a long night.

In the morning, I suggested we stay at Ben and Charity's for the day and let all of us rest up.  Traffic would be awful and we all had crappy night's sleep.  Will thought it would be better to get on the road so off we went.

We left early so we could make it to Vegas in time for breakfast.  We went to a place called Hash Hash a Go Go.  We got there just before the breakfast rush.  It was perfect timing!  We all ordered and nearly ate too much food.  Colter still was feeling bad with his tummy ache.  We ate, wished Adell a Happy Birthday and got back on the road.

To no one's surprise, traffic was horrendous.  Every couple of hours we handed Adell a present to open for her special day. 

Colter threw up a few times...sorry environment, I had to throw a barf bag out of the window once.

Adell ended up getting two birthday meals on our drive, breakfast at the hash house and dinner at Panda Express.  The whole drive ended up taking 14 hours...it was hard.  Adell was pretty depressed about her birthday.  We hoped to be home (leaving at 7 am) by 8:00 or so with time to give Adell a little celebration at home.  It was not meant to be.  We rolled in just before 10 pm, exhausted and sick of the van.

Since Adell was so sad about her birthday in the van we recelebrated Monday night.  She reopened her presents and we had cake and ice cream.  She was happy with the do-over.

Happy Birthday Adell Becci, nine years old looks good on you!

We rented the rink...

The last big group activity of the Thanksgiving get together was rollerskating.  We rented out an old rink and had the place to ourselves.  We could bring rocket cars and scooters for the kids too little to skate.  The place wasn't in great condition but we all had so much fun.  Especially once we figured out how to get some music playing over the speakers.  All of the kids agreed, it was their favorite activity of all.  

I cannot rollerskate very well...at all.  I have no idea how you stop.  I think there are brakes on the toes or something but one of my skates didn't have the toe-break-thing at all.  It was a little hard to find skates that matched, fit and had all the right equipment (laces, brakes, wheels).  Anyway, I was a bit of a disaster going around the rink.  I ran over every single baby on a scooter or rocket car at least once...I ran over a couple of babies twice.  No one got hurt, just scared.  I took a couple of good falls trying to NOT run over kids and know some wicked bruises are going to show up next week.  It was fun.

Dave was not really impressed with the facilities.  He managed the music.  I told Will my bet was 20 minutes before we had to leave Dave would lace up and have a ton of fun.  Well, I was almost right, with about 15 minutes to go he got on a pair of rollerblades and zipped around the rink.  He is a really good skater!  He didn't stay out long but he could go backward and do figure 8s.  I think he had fun too. 

Snow Canyon Hike...

The pictures are all out of order but show a lovely day just the same.  We hiked up to some lava caves in Snow Canyon Saturday morning.