Enjoying the Endless Journey

Safari Day

2009-06-17T20:53:00.000-07:00

We went with some of our good friends, the Crofts, to Natural Bridge, Virginia, where they have this great Safari Park. It was a total BLAST! It was so cool to see so many different kinds of animals and to see them up close and personal. Sometimes a little too up close!! haha! You can see in some of Kevin's pictures he didn't mind that though!haha! All of these pictures are of us at the Park. We all had buckets of "feed" to feed the animals with. Now, my kids are deathly afraid of dogs, but a buffalo .... heck, they have no worries. Nathan was feeding this one buffalo with his hands and just dropping food into its mouth, with his hand almost touching the tongue of the nasty ginormous animal! Oh well, we carried a lot of hand sanitizer thats for sure, and it came in pretty handy...no pun intended.haha! At this park you could walk around and see different animals and then you could either drive your car around the major safari part or you could ride on this wagon. We chose to ride the wagon, which was a ton of fun, but I included a picture in here that we took of a car a couple cars in front of us (while on the wagon) and a camel had stuck its head and neck in this minivan and was eating out of the van. It was hilarious! I'm sure that van needed a major slobbery clean up job when that feeding was over. haha. While we were walking around there was this kangaroo that was just resting right on the pathway we were walking on. It was soooo COOL! The kids hung out with it for a little while and it was so friendly! It was such a fun family day trip! Maybe our next family Safari will be in AFRICA wouldn't that be cool? Anyway, I love all these pictures! I count my blessings every day to have such a sweet, fun, and loving family!

We love Strawberry Pickin' in Virginia

2009-06-17T20:42:00.000-07:00

One of our favorite things to do in Virginia is to go to the orchards and pick our own fruit! Its really fun and yummy! This time it was strawberry picking! Here are some cute pictures of the kids! I love how beautiful it is in the orchards out here too!

Grandpa's Easter Egg Hunt Brought to Denver and Easter Surprises

2009-06-17T19:59:00.000-07:00

Easter is always such a great time of year! I am so grateful for the Resurrection of my Savior, Jesus Christ and for his atoning sacrifice. What a blessing it is to have the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life and to know that I am a daughter of a Heavenly Father who really does love and care about me. I am so grateful for the promises that our Heavenly Father has made to us as we keep His commandments and repent and come unto him. What a blessing it is to know. I wish everyone in the world would know and choose to accept his plan. That would be awesome! I love the spirit of Easter as well as some of the fun traditions!
One of our favorite Easter traditions is that Grandpa Hughes always has a FANTASTIC Easter egg hunt! One that the kids look forward to all year long, and heck even the adults! We have missed it for several years now, that we have been living so far away. But, Grandpa and Grandma are always soooo thoughtful and send it to us through the mail each year! What sweethearts!!! One of the best things that Grandpa did while we were in Denver was bring the Easter egg hunt to the kids, since we would be missing it in Vegas again this year! Grandpa, thanks a ton, we had a blast!!!! And we were so grateful that we got to share it with you, Grandma, Aunt Bonnie, Amber, Kayla and Taylor! What a fun time to be with you guys in Denver! Throughout the pictures you can see how much everyone enjoyed it! Nathan got into it so much he had to take off his shoes during the hunt so that he could run faster to get the eggs. haha, what a smart kid! Since we came home from Denver on Easter Sunday, there are also a couple of pictures of the kids looking in their Easter baskets at home and a picture of them dying Easter eggs! What fun! The last picture is of Brooke with her very first tea set. Aunt Bonnie gave that to her for her Birthday while she was there with us in Denver! She loves it and continues to play with it! Thank you for thinking of her! We love you!

Denver Trip Pictures

2009-05-28T19:21:00.000-07:00

Here are a ton of Pictures from our fun time in Denver, but for some reason I couldn't add little comments under each one, so I'll try my best to tell you what they all are in a row -
1st - our first afternoon together with some long lost friends!!! Jeromy and Becky went with us to undergrad, then to medical school with us, then we parted our separate ways for residency and after three years, we just couldn't stop hugging or maybe that was me..haha!
2nd - My sweet Uncle Bill and Aunt Shirley! We got to spend a day with them while we were there and it was so great! My Uncle is super talented in wood work and he gave us a few of the things that he made (a birdhouse and a beautiful bowl with lid on it.) What a treasure! Thanks a ton and thanks for taking us to a yummy and very fun lunch! We love you!
3rd,4th,5th,6th - The wrestling match in the hotel with Aunt Bonnie! First it started with Nathan, then came Heidi, and Ashley was not about to be left out of the fun! Aunt Bonnie - thanks for being such a good sport! We had such a great time with all the Hughes!!! We love,love,love you!
7th - We went to a yummy pizza restaurant with the Hughes Family and this is a picture of Nathan dipping his pizza into ....um, Ranch...no...sugar!!! sick!!! Ad he actually ate it that way, until we stopped him, that is...
8th and 9th - We watched the movie Twilight for the first time with our friends, the Coles while we were there and Kevin kept making fun of "Edward" (I think he might of been a little bit jealous, haha,jk), he kept making this face and saying that it was his Edward face. So while we were at the Zoo with the Coles we came across a picture of a Spider Monkey (hence the movie) and the guys both mde their best Edward faces!! haha Not even close in my opinion.
10th and 11th - We went bowling with both families and had a great time!!!! Here are 2 cute pictures of Nathan with his buddy, James and Heidi with her sweet friend, Julia!
12th - Being with friends is fun!
13th - They had a little Deli there, called Heidi's deli, so of course we had to snap a picture with our favorite HEIDI!
14th and 15th - Brooke at the Zoo with the Komodo/Komono??? Dragon and kids at the zoo
16th and on - We went to Redrock Ampitheatre while we were there. It was a lot of fun and absolutely beautiful! So the rest of the pictures are of that! We had a great time and there are more posts to come!

Catchin Up and Liberty Jail!

2009-05-25T19:51:00.000-07:00

Well, we have been busy the last few months! Yeah for that it, it keeps things movin'~ Kevin is about to start his 4th year of anesthesia residency and has been interviewing for fellowships lately in Pediatric Anesthesia. So, we decided to go with him. The first was in Philadelphia (the whole family went, while Kev interviewed we went shopping, to the movies and then we all went to see Grandma Peggy in New Jersey, it was great to see her, but I don't think we brought the camera. bummer. The next was in Boston (just Kevin and I went) and it was great! We loved spending 2 days with just us, but we were definitely ready to pick up the kiddos when it was time. I just don't like leaving the kids for a long period of time. But thanks to some very sweet friends we were'nt very worried about them and knew that they were partying it up with their buddies! We went to a place called the North End in Boston, it was soo fun. There is this street in the North End that has like 90 restaurants on it (its like a little Italy). When you start to walk down the street, it smells like GARLIC, fresh bread, GARLIC, pastries, and GARLIC! And we LOVE garlic! So it was perfect for us! We ate at a yummy restaurant and had some of the best Italian food ever and stopped at a different place to get dessert, it was great! It was fun too, because tons of people had a deep Boston/Italian accent. If you can imagine that, i.e. "Foget about it" haha. And we stayed in a hotel room that was about as big as our apartment. We walked all over Boston, took the subway and walked all over some more! It was really cool to see so many of the historic things there. What a great place (bummer that I forgot the camera there as well). Last but not least, we went to Denver. We took the whole family for this interview and decided to drive it, instead of fly......Are we crazy, you ask.....YES, but it was loads of fun and the kids did fantastic for the entire vacation! On our way to Denver we decided to stop by the Liberty Jail in Independence, Missouri. We decided to use this as a great teaching opportunity. The few days before we left, we decided to teach the kids about it, starting with Family Night and then reading a little here and there. So when we got to the Liberty Jail, it meant, I think, a little bit more to the kids as well as to us. It really was a cool experience! The Spirit is so strong there and we all felt it! They have really done a great job with their presentation of it. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is thinking of going!! Here are a couple pictures at the Jail.

This sweet sister missionary was our tour guide and was just a great gal. She was so kind to our kids and was funny too. The girls loved her, so we took a picture with her after the tour. She asked some questions to the girls and this was how the conversations went:

Sister: If you had to leave your home and everything else that you owned but you could take only one item with you and leave everything else behind, what would it be?

Heidi: Um...I would take money. Because if I had money, then I could buy anything I needed later.

Ashley: My scriptures.

Their answers were so precious. I loved it.

----------------

New question

Sister: Do you know who General Alexander Doniphan was?

Heidi: I do, he was the General that said that he would not go through with the order to kill the prophet. He said it was murder and that he would tell on them and get them in trouble if they did.

Sister: Woah, I can't beleive you knew that, I didn't even know that, until I got my mission call and did some research about the Liberty Jail. ... I know that one day you are going to go on a mission to one of the Church History sites and you are going to be a great missionary, because you already know a lot about church history.

It was soo cute and made Heidi feel so good! She was smiling and giggling as she walked out!
Well after stopping there, we stayed a night in Topeka, Kansas, swam a lot and went out for ice cream at Dairy Queen! Then we finally and I mean FINALLY (that is a long drive) moved on to Denver. We got to stay with some of our closest friends, Becky and Jeromy Cole. THANK YOU, THANK YOU COLE'S WE HAD A BLAST! The following are LOTS of pictures of our time there! ALSO, a BIG SHOUT OUT to Grandpa and Grandma Hughes, Aunt Bonnie, Amber, Kayla and Taylor for coming all the way from Vegas and meeting us in Denver for just 2 days!!!! WE LOVE YOU!!! Thank you so much for sacrificing a lot to come out and see us! We will always be grateful for that!

Baptism, Birthday, and just fun pictures

2009-03-11T11:37:00.000-07:00

We have had some great things happening in our family lately. We'll start off with the best thing, which was that Heidi turned 8 and recently was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! I can't believe how the time has flown by with our oldest. She has grown up so fast. You always hear that but don't get it until you recognize it in your own life. Ashley said something so funny the other day. The girls had gotten up to go to school. They had woken up about an hour before we needed to leave to take them, of course, we mosied in getting ready and were racing out the door to get them to school with no minutes to spare. As we started heading towards the school, we said a prayer that we would get to school on time. After the prayer was over, Ashley said, "Mom, our time goes by too fast, doesn't it?" I replied that "it definitely did" she then responded, "we should get a new clock!" It was hilarious!! I busted out laughing. I love the things my kids say. They are so true, yet so so funny!

Heidi had a very special Baptism. Her Grandpa and Grandma Hughes were able to come out for the special day and her Grandma Mangum made her Baptismal dress (which she loved). Other family members sent some very thoughtful gifts that we sooo appreciated! We wish that you all could have been here for it!!!! She had great support from our ward members and Charlottesville friends with over 70 people showing up. She was baptized and confirmed by Kevin. Her Grandpa Hughes and I said the prayers. Kevin and her Grandma Hughes spoke and the songs that we sang were "If the Savior Stood Beside Me", "When Jesus Christ was Baptized" and "Baptism". It really was a special day. We then went and had a great nachos and taco salad luncheon following the baptism. After all of this was over, we went home and opened gifts that some of our sweet family sent and gifts that Kevin and I had gotten her. One of our very favorite parts of that afternoon was that the Hughes family had gotten together and made posters and a video congratulating Heidi! We watched it over again a couple times and cried each time. It was so thoughtful!!!!! There is a picture of Heidi looking at the posters (that are now hung in her room) below. We then went to eat, again, at Red Robin and then relaxed the rest of the time. It was a beautiful day to the fullest extent! Following are the pictures!

Just outside our home on Baptism Day! Kevin and Heidi (this one's my favorite) I love their smiles!

Us girls right after changing.

Heidi getting ready to go.

I just thought this was sooo cute.

Heidi at the church before going in. Ashley actually took this picture. Not so bad, eh?

This is one of the posters that was made by the Hughes family. As you can tell my the look on her face, she LOVED it! What can I say, we all did!

The girls love the shakes at Red Robin!

Before Kevin's parents left, we were trying to take some family pictures. Kevin wanted to try the "automatic shoot" on the camera. This was us trying to get it right. I just think this is sooo funny, because Kevin is running so fast trying to make it back for the pose, and doesn't quite make it in time. It doesn't seem like Nathan minded though. He's having a blast. haha

We took a few shots, but this was the best it was going to get!

Some single shots of the kids with their grandparents. Just Stinkin' Adorable if you ask me!

Kevin saying goodbye to his parents. Kevin loves picking up his dad and mom and giving them lots of love! haha. They HATE it! hahaha!

CAUGHT, RED HANDED! Ashley snuck into Grandma and Grandpa's rental car and hid in the back before they took off. It was as they were pulling away that she popped her head up and said she was going with them to see her cousins. I had to get a picture it was so cute!

On Heidi's Birthday, we played all day. Heidi wanted to get her ears pierced for her birthday and wanted to have donuts, not a cake (must be the Mangum in her, haha). So we took her to get her ears pierced and by the looks of the person doing the piercing, she had a lot of experience! Kevin and I laughed and said if we had to pick anyone to pierce Heidi's ears it would be her. (She had many multiple peircings all over). All went well, she only cried for a second. We came home had donuts, opened presents, and Heidi and I went shopping and to a late night movie together. It was fun!

Heidi pulling off the candles of her favorite donut. Yum, Yum!

I just thought this was a funny picture of Brooke. It looks like she is looking to see if it really is okay that she eats the donut. Her face is so funny.For Heidi's friend Birthday party, I made a real cake. The theme was a sleepover party with out the sleepover (pretty much a pajama party). So I made a cake that looked like little girls at a sleepover. Heidi and I together, in our pj's and sleeping masks, with the cake.

A close up of the cake. Isn't it cool!!!!

She had a lot of friends over as you can tell! For the party favors, she handed out sleeping masks and journals with ring pops. Face masks off!

Face masks on!

Through the night we did lots of sleepover activities, along with opening presents and cake and ice cream, from pillow fights too...

Limbo, to ....

Dancing, (it was really cute Grandma was in the kitchen working on a ton of food for the next day (bless you, mama), when all the girls came in and convinced her to dance with them (she is such a good sport) the girls loved it!!! She showed them how they shook their thang in the old days)to...

A major marshmallow fight. We separated the room in half and built up baracades for the girls to fight eachother, but then as soon as Kevin and I came in, they all came together and attacked us. It was great! This is Kevin getting totally pelted.

I found marshmallows for weeks after. The funniest one that I found, was in the lamp next to where Kevin is standing. I was cleaning my front room and heard this sizzling sound. I looked all over and found that it was coming from the lamp. I tilted it down and noticed that a half burnt marshmallow was roasting by the hot lightbub. Anyone for s'mores??? I know it was dangerous, but really funny!

More marshmallow fights! After all of that was over, everyone sacked out and watched one of Heidi's favorite movies, Mr. Bean's Holiday and ate a ton of goodies. The party was really such a blast! I was talking to one of Heidi's friend's moms a few days later and she told me that her daughter came home and said "Mom, that was one of the two funnest days of my life!" her mom said, "well what was the other one?" the little girl replied, "the day I was born." We got a great laugh out of that!

Now are just some random pictures that I thought I would put in. Kevin and I love how Brooke is starting to get our attention. It is so cute, she'll grab our face and lay a big wet kiss on you! Its soo cute!

I love how much she smiles and laughs. If I'm laughing, she does too and I love it!

Check out the little curls she's getting and that cute smile!

The day before Valentines Day, Ashley had a bring your parents and grandparents to school party with little heart learning games. She lucked out and actually had her sweet Hughes grandparents here. Thanks for coming out, guys! If you click to enlarge the picture you can see Brooke's face. It is hilarious, she didn't enjoy it as much. haha

However, Nathan and Ashley had a great time. Nathan felt like a big boy with all the big elementary school kids!

We went to Dick's Sporting Goods while Grandpa and Grandma were here, and I lost Ashley for a second, when I found her, this is what she looked like. hahaha. She is so funny! She's always putting on different clothes where ever she is at!

There is a bounce house place here that the kids like to go to, so of course we had to take Grandpa and Grandma to it as well. Here are some pictures from there.

Doesn't this look like fun?

This is Nathan trying to fight the little blown up knight. He got pretty bored when the knight wouldn't fight back.

Brooke coming off the slide. I think she liked it!

One thing our kids love to do when the weather simmers a little is have a good swing at the park. If you enlarge it, you can actually see the kids faces.

As we were preparing Heidi to be baptized we would talk a lot about her baptism as well as her receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. We had a family night on the purpose of the Holy Ghost as well as many talks on the subject. A few days prior to Heidi's baptism, Ashley said the prayers a lot for meals and bedtime. Every time she would say them, she would always make sure to say, "and Heavenly Father, please bless that Heidi will feel the spirit in her heart everyday after she is baptized." Talk about melting a mama's heart! It is a tender thing for a mother to hear her child pray to Heavenly Father that their sibling will continue to have the Holy Ghost with them. She now will say periodically in her prayers, "please bless that when I am baptized I can feel the Holy Ghost in my heart, too." She has also said, "please bless that me and Heidi will start trusting our mama and daddy more so that we can make better choices." (I think that one is my favorite...haha) I love listening to my kids pray. I really feel like it is a tender mercy of our Heavenly Father to have the gospel in my life and to be able to raise my kids in it. How blessed we are to know that there is a Father in Heaven to go to whenever we want and that our kids know the same thing.
These are some fun pictures of our family night about the Holy Ghost. "Ears to hear the Holy Ghost and a Heart to feel it." One may think that I modeled the ears after my own big ears, however I did not, it was a template. hahahaha!

And Brooke, of course, did not want to wear hers. But, she's cute enough to end off this post!

2009-01-27T19:54:00.000-08:00

Oh Christmas time, I know its over but, how I LOVE everything about it! The frost in the air, the smell of warm cinnamon, the fun of making candy, spending time with family and friends, the kindness that everyone in the world seems to share, the kids anticipation of Christmas morning and most important, truly dedicating a month of learning, reading, and teaching about our Savior's birth!!!! How sad I am that it is over! You'd think I would have posted this last month.....but January comes and so does all the sickness from sniffles and snot on mom's pants and shirts, to coughing, to sore throats that turn into strep throat, to sore bellies that turn into a full night of puking to super cuddly kids that want lots of love and milk it for all its worth and mom enjoying almost every minute of it! Happy to say that as of this minute all are now healthy, I think! So, maybe in July I'll post my new years resolutions! hahahaha!
A week or two before Christmas we took the kids and went to go visit our families in Vegas. It was sooooo great! We hadn't seen the entire family together in a year. Both of our parents came out when we had Brooke and my little sister Jody and her husband Josh came to Brooke's baby blessing in June other than that we hadn't seen anyone for a year! It was a long awaited trip and well worth it! We spent a lot of time with both families and just had a great time all together!!! And, while we were there, it snowed a ton in Henderson and Las Vegas!!!! It was great! We finally went to see Kevin's brother, Kenny's house in New Harmony, Utah that was full of the much-loved Hughes family! We went riding quads in the snow, ate lots of good food, had a mini-early-christmas eve with all the cousins, and thanks to Kevin's sisters and mom for watching our kids, Kevin and I went snowbaording with our neice and nephew, Amber and Caleb! Its been a few years since we lived in Utah and went snowboarding a lot more, but thanks to some well thought out prayers, I didn't fall once, (except for getting off the "Lift", which doesn't count because I fall off that every time - that little bugger is so hard for me to get off of, I don't know what my problem is.hahaha) I can glide down the mountain, gracefully - but that stinking lift is one day going to kill me.hahaha. This time I only made 8 people all crash together, getting off! haha Wish I had my camera then! But hey Kevin totally rocked it on the slopes!!!! That guy is an animal! Any thing that requires athletics or academics - the guy is a complete natural! It is truly amazing! He is wicked smart and rocks every sport! Way to go on that babe! That is one of mine and Kevin's favorite things to do together! So, even though it was freezing! We had a total blast! And, we love Amber and Caleb for coming with us!!! Their wicked awesome on the slopes, too!!!
We then spent the week back and forth with both families. We ended off our trip with the much-loved Mangum side doing a fun little mini-early-Christmas eve with all the cousins! Wich was really fun! Kevin and I also got to go on a really fun date with all my brothers and sisters and parents! It was sooo fun! Good times! Here are some random pictures of the week in Vegas. I don't know why but my camera didn't work very well - and I also kept forgetting to get out the camera, I was having so much fun! Sorry, not very many good pics, sorry guys! And, SORRY friends that we didn't get to see any of you, our time was pretty well taken! However we would have loved to see all of you!!!!

Grandpa Hughes' favorite time with Brooke! I think maybe her second favorite thing with her Grandpa - next to getting slurpees! Who would've known that a 7 month old likes coke slurpees?? (I'm gonna get you for that one dad! To bad they don't have any formula slurpees - you could've been her #1)
Snow in Vegas at my parents home! Isn't it beautiful? It could not have come at a more perfect time!

My dad and Kevin had fun making a snow-bear in my parent's back yard together! Isn't it sooo cute! I love their smiles! What a good memory!

The kids making smores with gigantic marshmallows my mom got in the firepit in their backyard! They loved it! My kids are made for snow!

Heidi and Ashley with Hughes cousins in Aunt Bonnie's backyard on candymaking day! What a blast! If your wondering who the crazy guy in orange camo is, it's my great brother-in-law, Scott! Hey Scott, the orange camoflouge isn't going to hide you in the snow.hahaha!

At the Hughes early-Christmas eve bash. Ashley getting on Santa's lap and realizing that it was her grandpa-undercover! She also ruined it for all the other younger kids! hahahaha! We all kept trying to get her to be quite! It was hilarious! Hopefully they didn't catch on!

Nathan showing off his belly, while waiting to go see Santa. My camera ran out of battery after Heidi and Ashley saw Santa, so I didn't get Brooke and Nathan on Santa's lap! MAJOR BUMMMER!

Heidi giggling but not saying a word about Santa being Grandpa! I think she liked it better that it was him! Way to go Dad Hughes - you make the best Santa!

One of the mornings that we were there, we went to see my little sister Shannon's new house and made a Gingerbread House! The kids had a lot of fun doing that! I love Nathan with the knife and frosting. Not a good combination with him!!hahaha!

Races and Braces

2009-01-27T19:11:00.000-08:00

So, our sweet little Heidi got braces on, the beginning of December. I think that she is the first girl that was SUPER excited to get them on. She looks adorable and is getting good at chewing loudly! haha! One of my funniest memories of braces is when my sister Michelle had braces on, while we were in highschool. I was talking to her and my mom and while I was talking, Michelle was cleaning out some pancake out of her front braces with her tongue from earlier that morning. Right as I'm talking, Michelle flicks the pancake with her tongue out of her mouth and it lands in mine!!!!! SICK!!!!!! hahahaha! We cracked up laughing! It was soo hard to stop, I could bearly get the pancake out of my mouth! hahahaha! Thankfully, that hasn't happened with Heidi yet! She's not a big fan of pancakes:)

RACES, RACES, RACES! My big hunk is a runner along with this group of handsome guys!!! The kids and I went and cheered Kevin on as he recently ran the Charlottesville Men's 4-Miler with some of our friends! It was FREEZING cold outstide and as excited as the kids were to watch their daddy run the race, they were miserable! It was a whopping 17 degrees outside and the kids did great for the first 5 minutes after that it was tears and snot and more tears and more snot and little tiny red fingers, by the end! You may think that I am a mean mom for making them stay out there to watch ole' Kev, but he is always sooooo supportive of my races and the kids events that I wanted to show him the same support and DEEP DOWN the kids really wanted to also!!! haha. Luckily for us, he came in at an amazing, drum roll please, dodododo ......32 minutes!!! He did EXCELLENT! Way to go Kevin we love you!!!!! You're an all-star!

He made running look easy! Who smiles, when they run???? Surely, NOT ME!!!! I only do it because of the 1/2 pound of ice cream and 20 chocolate chip cookies I ate!!! What a babe! This was him running in toward the finish line!

Here we are...all smiles!!! The race is now over, the kids are now warm and asleep in the car and we are enjoying laughs with friends and some yummy propel water!!! He doesn't even look like he ran 4 miles does he? What a knockout!!! I love you babe! Way to go! I loved watching you run the race!!!! Thanks for always supporting me in my races!!!

Happy Thanksgiving and Lets Go Get a Tree

2008-12-09T20:58:00.000-08:00

On Thanksgiving morning we went to an old Presbyterian Church where they do a program called the Blessing of the Hounds. It has been a tradition dating back to mideval french times where they would bless their hounds before going out on their fox hunt. They have been celebrating it every year since the 1920's here in Charlottesville. We heard it was the place to go on Thanksgiving day, hence, we went! It was very interesting! The picture of our family was taken in front of the church.

This is when they were in the middle of blessing their hounds and they literally went on a fox hunt afterwards, across from the church into some fields. Isn't the church pretty?

Since all my children are deathly afraid of dogs, their favorite place to hang out was by the hot chocolate and donuts. Ooh that was yummy! I'm all about hot chocolate and donuts!

We had Thanksgiving at our lovely friends, the Borgs home! It was great fun with a lot of good food, a great game of BINGO, and gingerbread house making (out of graham crackers). haha We had a great time! Thank you Borgs! Below are the lovely finished products of each child

Yeah! Its Christmas time! Time to decorate the tree! Here is Nathan putting his first ornament on. Since this time, he has managed to take a lot of the ornaments off the tree and has repeatedly pulled the ribbon off! Little stinker! But oh how we love him!

Ashley and Heidi putting their ornaments on. They always love decorating the tree and decorating for christmas! They love it so much that they put their own tree up in their room! Its really cute!

Its great to have a tall husband, but even greater when they can hold you on their shoulders! Macho Macho Man!! How else would we get the star on the top of the tree!

We also have our very own Darth Vader. I so want him to like the good guys! haha! He wore this one night for a long time and kept trying to scare the girls. It was hilarious! Thank you Allison and Clay and Dallin for the evil attire. hahaha! He loves it! And Brooke likes to chew on it!

Brooke and I at Ralph's tree farm. The place that we go every year in Virginia to cut trees for Christmas! The trees are so beautiful and they smell so good!

Kevin and all the kids at the tree farm! Don't they all look so cute!

Look how strong my great husband is! Carrying it all on his own! What a man!

So everyone had to take a crack at it! This is Nathan trying saw into the tree!

Now its Ashley's turn! I think she just liked to do it for the picture!haha

Then Heidi taking a crack at it! Needless to say, Kevin was the only one who could actually cut it down.

Just some fun pictures of the kids while at the tree farm! It was great! We always love doing it!

Birthdays, Birthdays, Birthdays

2008-12-09T19:38:00.000-08:00

We finally got to go on a fun date the other night with a few of our good friends. It was my sweet friend, Janis's, birthday. We all went to dinner at Sakura to celebrate and then ate ice cream at Maggie Moo's! It was sooo much fun! This is a picture of the girls! Sakura was fun and delicious, Maggie Moos was even better, and the company was the BEST!

This was a picture of all the couples. Janis is in the bottom left with her husband Justin! Happy birthday, Janis!

So I didn't quite do these in order, I thought I was when I first started doing it, but once I added more pictures it reversed, what the heck! So, just so you know, Kevin's Birthday was actually first and then mine was 6 days later. So you are just going to get to hear about mine first! And from the end of the day to the beginning. Sorry, I'm still getting used to this blogging thing. haha Bear with me!
So Kevin had to work the night of my birthday. BUMMER, but it was a Sunday so it was kind of shot anyway. hahaha! Some (lots) of my sweet friends new that Kevin was working that night so they surprised me and came over around 8:30 with cake and sang to me and then hung out, I think the last to leave, left around 2am. IT was a BLAST! I love you sweet friends! The funniest part about the night was that, Nathan was supposed to be in bed and unbeknownst to us he was taking a huge chunk out of the cake that my sweet friend Angie made. He came in while the gals and I were all talking and my first thought and spoken words were "Nathan, you better go get back in bed!" Then, I realized that he had chocolate all over him. I said "where on earth did you get that chocolate?" My friends told me that they had brought a cake and that maybe he got into it. OH YES he DID! Crazy nut! He came to get me because he had fallen off the chair and wanted to get some more cake! The naughty little thing. We all started cracking up! Gotta love that kid!

The outcome of the fabulous pedicure I received from the kids! Notice the excellent cutting of the toenails as well as the beautiful paint job! I should hire them on a regular basis, what do ya think? hahaha!

So for my birthday Kevin made such a sweet video for me with pictures of me and him and the kids put to music. It was sooo sweet and cute! Then it was time for mom to be pampered! I went to the Salon de kids! I got a massage from Kevin on my shoulders, while the girls did my hair and Nathan constantly blow dryed my hair. I also got a fabulous pedicure by all three of the kids, which you will see in the picture above the outcome! IT was great! Kevin also took me the day before to buy a new outfit! THAT WAS FUN! Thank you Kevin and kids I had fun!

Kevin's Birthday was a couple weeks ago! We had a great time! The girls did so good! They really wanted to make Kevin's day special. They woke up at 5:30 am and made him breakfast. We made waffles, bacon, eggs, fruit smoothie and orange juice. They set up a blanket in the front room and set out place settings to have an early morning picnic with their dad, before he had to leave to work. Then they took balloons and tied them to sticks, each of them having a banner on it that said Happy Birthday dad! They held them and marched in to our room singing happy birthday to him to wake him up. It was really fun! The kids then went to school and Kevin went to work!
Then later that day, we had put together a program for Kevin with songs about "dads" and speaking parts that Heidi, Ashley and Nathan each had. They sang to him, read their parts and sang somemore. It was really cute! At the end of the program it led to a scavenger hunt for Kevin to find his presents. On each clue it said something that we were grateful about him as well as a clue to where his presents were. For example one of the clues said "We are grateful that you love us so much that you always help us to get all the excerise we need to stay healthy". This clue led to a present that was by Kevin's weight set and in the present was some excerise pants and a t-shirt. It was so fun to put together! On one of the speaking parts, Heidi said something so cute. She read in 1 Nephi 1:1 - and this is what she read "I, Heidi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father." Then she proceeded to read a poem about what she learned from her father! Oh, man it was adorable!
Ashley said something so funny that morning. She told Kevin, don't come out and look in the front room at your presents or the clues, because they are supposed to be a surprise, so don't look dad. (haha) Then, Kevin started laughing and said, "oh, Ashley, I love you...I'm counting on you to spill the beans to me"... to which Ashley replied "What beans? We don't have any beans out there dad." It was hilarious. Overall, I think Kevin had a good birthday. He really loved all the stuff the kids did for him!

Comments, Comments, Comments

2008-12-09T19:32:00.000-08:00

Oh how I love all of you guys! I love getting the comments! I think that is the best part of these blogs! The best of my friends that I haven't seen or heard from in years. Oh how I miss you!!! And to the ones that I do see and talk to more recently!!! I love you all just as much!!! Oh it is so good to hear from everyone and to hop on your blogs! I LOVE seeing all your families!! I'm going to start commenting on them soon!!! I am so grateful that you would all comment on mine!! Keep it coming!!! I have the best family and friends in the entire world!!!! And boy do I miss you all sooooooo much!!!! Stay close to eachother and close to the gospel!! I love you all!!!!!

Random pictures of the family

2008-11-18T19:06:00.000-08:00

This is a pond on the Monticello Trail. The trees behind it are reflected into the pond. Pretty cool, ehh! It's so beautiful here.
We spent the day at the cannery in Richmond. The girls had a great time helping the members of our ward get their food storage. It was a great experience for them.

It wouldn't be our blog if there wasn't something Highschool Musical on it. We all went as a family to see Highschool Musical 3. Even though its totally corny and cheesy and anything else you want to call it. And, I know that I am going to get made fun of for this, but we all loved it! hahaha! It was great! You do however, have to be able to look past the corny-ness of it all.

Poor fourth child. I thought this was so funny. She actually kept bouncing, on and off, while she was a sleep in this. She's so cute.

What's that kids name on Fat Albert? hahaha! I think he has a mini-me.

For Ashley's 5th birthday (Oct. 10th) she wanted to have pancakes with whipped cream, strawberries and raspberries on them for breakfast.

We like to go on walks at a place called the Monticello Trail. It is this beautiful trail that leads you up to Thomas Jefferson's home. It is about a 2 mile walk up. It is so beautiful with a pond on the way up the trail. On this particular day, however, we had our very own Jedi Knights to protect us from any harm that came in our way. Nathan is so funny. He is way into Star Wars right now and takes his light saber everywhere he goes. He also makes sure to bring one for Kevin, if he is along with us. And he freaks out if he can't find it or someone takes it away from him or his dad. Kevin is such a good sport about it!

We hiked up Humpback Rock, which is a pretty steep hike for little kids, but the kids did fantastic and we all had a lot of fun. We love having a dad that gets us up and going and out to do fun things whenever he's off.

Nathan relaxing after a long overnight campout. Can you beleive his feet are still clean? haha

Nice hat. Kevin likes to be funny and embarrass the fam. He has no shame, that guy! I guess that's what makes him so fun!

Nathan can't seem to get this thing working?

I love this picture. The kids faces are hilarious. They were about ready to be done taking pictures. hahaha.

Fun photos of the gals, while outcamping.

The men on the campout!

We took the kids camping a few weeks ago. Just overnight. Some great friends of ours met us up there and had dinner with us that night and had campfire desserts, too. Ooh YUM! It was really fun. It was really cold though that night, so by 4:30 a.m. I generously offered to take Brooke to the van to get warmed up! What, she was cold! The kids had a great time.

2008-11-18T14:33:00.000-08:00

This time of year, it is always so fun to go apple picking! We went to the apple/fall festival at Carter Mountain Orchard. We picked lots of yummy apples! They also have these yummy apple cider doughnuts. Sounds gross, but they are soooo yummy! I love Fall here.

Ashley was a Chef for Halloween. She dressed like this and carried a pot with a spoon in it to catch her candy. It was so cute!
Kevin and Brooke on Halloween day at Barracks. She was a Ladybug for halloween, but for some reason we didn't get any snapshots of her or Heidi in their costumes. Darnit! Only video. Maybe I can post some of that on here.(once I learn- hahaha). Don't these two look a lot a like.

This was Halloween day. We took Nathan and Brooke trick or treating at the Barracks Shopping Center while the other girls were in school. He was a Jedi knight. He looked so cute!

Brooke and I at Ashley's field trip. I just love this one because of Brooke's smile! It was fun to watch her be so happy, even though it was soo cold!
We went on Ashley's field trip with her to a pumpkin patch and corn maze. It was a lot of fun, but really cold. The corn maze was pretty long and a little confusing. It made it really fun. We love going on the kids field trips. This one Kevin lucked out and got to go! Yeah! Ashley loved having her daddy there.

CLOSE UP SHOT! We love her eyes!

Fall is our favorite time of year here in Virginia! The multiple colors of the leaves are just amazing! We could not have picked a prettier place to live for a little while. So sadly, the leaves do have to fall off, which makes bare trees, but a really fun ground to play in. These are the leaves in the backyard. We pulled out the snowboard and "leaf-boarded" down the hills behind our house. It was a total blast and worked great. We all had fun, except Brooke as you can tell.hahaha. She didn't know what to think of all the leaves.

HAPPY FALL!

Bloggin Bandwagon

2008-11-18T11:33:00.000-08:00

Hey, Hey, Hey! We're finally doing it! We hopped on to the "Bloggin Bandwagon"! The whole reason we're doing this is because we love all of our family and friends soo much but we never keep in very good contact with you all! So this is going to be our way of doing it! We love you all dearly and are so grateful for your love and friendships to our family. Please know that even though we don't keep in touch very well, that you are all in our thoughts and prayers often! We love you and miss each one of you!!! And, hopefully we'll keep this going for a long time.

For those of you who don't know we are living in Virginia and having a great time. Kevin is in his third year of medical residency doing Anesthesia. We have about a year and a half left here and then we are off to fellowship somewhere else for a year in Pediatrics. From then, who knows where. . .but at least we'll finally have a real job 14 years later. hahaha! As for the Jessica and the kids, we are just along for the ride and loving every minute - but are anxiously awaiting a fenced in backyard! We love the gospel and our grateful for our Savior. What a blessing to have the gospel in our lives! We are grateful for it and thankful for all of your examples! We love you and miss you once again! And look forward to bloggin with ya!

2008-11-18T11:17:00.000-08:00

Here is our miracle boy, Nathan. He is totally 2 - a ball of energy, but a total blast to have around! These may very well be the best lookin' guys in Viriginia, heck, lets make it the entire U.S.

This is our sweet Brooke. She is such a doll baby and loads of fun! Doesn't she have the cutest smile!

We love their smiles!

They love posing for pictures together. We have the best daughters in the whole world and they're total cuties as well!

This is Ashley. She's our big 5 year old. Isn't she adorable!! This was taken at the same park as Heidi's. Just a week ago.

This is Heidi, our sweet 7 year old. What a knockout! This was taken at a park near our house just a week ago.