Here is one more picture from our trip to Long Beach a couple of weeks ago. I have some more pictures of the kids but they are still in the camera. My parents who flew down with us are also in the picture. Hope everyone is having a good holiday. Had a Merry Christmas and will have a Happy new year.
Thanks.

Here is a picture of the kids outside the lego store in Downtown Disney. We went there last Tuesday for a day of shopping. The boys and I flew down with my parents.  Had tons of fun. Jacob was a little dissapointed when we got there and he found out that we weren't checking into a hotel and spending the night. I think that they were also a little bit dissapointed that we didn't go into the park. I thought that this was a cute picture this is one of their favorite spots to pose for a picture ( not really sure why to be honest). The other picture is taken down by the Disney hotel in front of the big tree that they have. We had a lot of fun on this trip and if nothing else the kids were happy to get pulled out of school for the day and for another trip on a plane.

Merry Christmas.

Here is a picture of the boys with the big man himself. Visiting Santa is always fun. Zach ask him for a Wii for Christmas and Santa told him that he would bring him a box of toothpicks and a bottle of glue and he could make his own. The kids didn't think that was nearly as funny as we did.

We took these pictures several weeks ago when raking up the leaves in the front yard. Jacob had fallen asleep in the car on the way home from school and we couldnt get him to wake up for leaves. He got very upset when we tried but ever since has been very upset that we didn't force him to cause he missed out. He asks every couple of days when it will be fall again so that he can play in the pile of leaves.

Ok here it is our house is officially haunted and by more then just our own two little spookies. Jacob says that the reason that you can't see him in the one picture is because the fog decided that it needed to be the only one in the picture. Zach is still in school so he hasn't even seen this yet. Hope he likes it to. We will post more pics with the kids in costume on halloween. Thanks for looking.

For those of you who didn't see these on my stamp blog I am adding them here.

This is the last picture to add I was actually supposed to add it a couple of weeks ago when we took the picture. It is of Jumba our dog he is a Catahoula. You can't really tell from the picture but he is spotted and has partially grey eyes and he is pretty big and strong. I think they are a cross between a mastiff and a wolf bread to hunt wild boars originally. He is our guard dog. He is great with the kids but not much else. ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK. We still love him though, well most of the time anyway.

Jacob wanted to add a picture showing that he had lost his first tooth. He just lost it last friday and the tooth under it was already half way in he has put a lot of effort into keeping the old tooth in his mouth as you can see. He was very excited though that the tooth fairy brought him some money although he was a little concerned to know if they were ever mean when they came. He is going through nightmares right now I think it has a little to do with halloween and all of the decorations and shows on tv. I guess we shouldn't have let him watch the Exorcist last week. To bad kids don't come with an owners manual. Just kidding mom it wasn't the exorcist what kind of a mother do you think that I am it was just Nightmare on Elm street. hahaha.

For those of you who don't know Jacob is totally obsessed with stuffed animals. He carries them everywhere. Every room in our house has at least five or six of them or more at any given time. We are constantly threatening to throw them away if they aren't picked up. When we were in Florida in Aug he found this little penguin (pictured) at the contemporary hotel gift shop he insisted on buying him with his money that he took. Usually he buys mostly plutos (we have so many different stuffed plutos) but this time he wanted this little penguin. When we got him back to the hotel we discovered that he is a virtual pet for online. The kids have had so much fun playing with him online and the penguin is now a favorite stuffed animal he is always included even though the others do change around from time to time. When Craig was in Vegas last month one of his accounts sold webkinz so he got Zach the bullfrog which was the pet of the month at the time and Jacob the Bat which comes out only at halloween. I must admit that at first I wasn't excited when I realized that it was an online thing but the kids actually get along when they are on it and there isn't a whole lot of fighting over it. The games are easy enough that Jacob can play and even when you can't complete the game you still earn money that you need to take care of the pet so Zach doesn't get frustrated like he normally does when he can't pass a game. It is a fun sight and the kids really enjoy it I also don't have to worry about where they are when they are on it. It is a little young for Zach but he does have fun helping Jacob with it so it all works out. Besides that with Zach a computer game is still a game.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Here is our big family spider that greets you as you walk into our house. Jacob wanted to add a picture of him to the kids blog even though he says he doesn't look very friendly. He is pretty cool though you have to admit. It has been awhile since we posted so the kids have a few pictures that they wanted to add. We haven't been on any trips since the last one that we took in Aug with Aunt Jenn but we are still having fun around the house and in town.

Polynesian Resort and Hotel

Jacob helped me pick out the picture for today. When he saw me posting to my blog he wanted to have a post to his. And I am sorry to admit that the camera doesn't come out at our house as often as it should. We mostly get it out when we go places. Zach posed special for the blog for this picture can you see that he is picking the tiki guys nose. The kids are getting into the swing of school, I am still trying to convince Jacob though that it is ok for me not to hang out at the school with him until it starts. Seperation is proving to be as hard as we worried that it would be. When the bell rings to let them out he barely looks around and if he doesn't see me immediately he bursts into tears and runs to the wall. Where he stands and cries until I get there. This has only happened a couple of times and even though I have explained that I am there he just didn't see me it doesn't seem to help it also doesn't hurt that he gets all sorts of sympathy from other moms and teachers. He knows how to work a crowd. Zach is doing well in his new school and loving it, I have to confess that Craig and I are thinking that we need to hire a tutor for ourselves in order to help him with some of his homework. Not sure that we can keep up. Thanks for looking.

Here are a few pictures from the Ohana restaurant in the Polynesian resort in Florida. Check out those goofy poses. We had never eaten at this restaurant before and the kids had a lot of fun. The hotel was very pretty we all decided that someday we would love to stay there. But for now we will stay at cheaper accomadations. We still had a fun and don't spend a whole lot of time in the rooms anyway. Zach is back in school. Last spring he was selected to test for the accelerated program and was one of only two in his grade in the whole district that was chosen to fill the openings. We are very excited and he is loving his class and new teacher, however this did mean a school change. He will now be in a different school then Jacob. This is still ok just means mom has to drive to two different schools for pick up and drop off. We were hoping to get Jacob in the same school but they were full. Maybe next year. Jacob will still be at a really good school. He starts school on Thursday of this week and is very excited to start also. We have spent this week cleaning bedrooms and rearranging them so that we could move a desk into each of their rooms for homework. As all moms know this becomes mostly a mom chore. Zachs is finally done Jacobs desk is in but his room is now a big old mess again. Whats new though. I am told it is an easier process to choose the toys to play with when they are spread out on the floor so that you can see everything that you have. Doesnt work so well in the dark in the middle of the night for the big people in the house though. We also have just recently discovered IKEA.

Love it. Hoping to add a couple of wall shelves and other orginazational tools to each study area. And it shouldn't cost to much.  Maybe I need a job there do you think I would get a discount. Better yet maybe the boys need a job there. Hope everyone is having a good holiday weekend thanks for looking.

hotel

We took some pictures the day that we left the hotel. Wednesday morning it was really overcast and drizzly I don't remember that it was foggy but maybe it was I thought that it looked this way because of the drizzle it was thick. We should have taken pictures before this but by this point we had no choice and the kids had seen this tennis court next to our building and wanted to have their pictures taken on it. We decided that our best option to get home was to connect through Austin from Orlando to Longbeach. We could have gone through New York or D.C. and tried to get home in one day but after we got to New York or D.C. we were afraid that we would be stuck overnight and didn't want to risk being stuck there we decided that it was cheaper to get stuck in Austin or plan on spending the night in Longbeach then being stuck the other way. We made it all the way to Longbeach on Wednesday but then the next flight to salt lake wasnt till this morning so we did spend the night there again. Just outside of Texas after we had left Austin we hit some bad turbulence (spelling) I have never been through anything like that in my life. They had already passed out snacks and drinks and they all went all over the floor. The plane was a mess I looked back in the back galley and there was a ton of stuff on the floor back there as well. The flight attendants were both in the aisle and they ducked down and grabbed on but one did get slammed into something and cut his eye. Other then that it was ok it did happen very quickly though and was very scary I honestly thought that we were going to die. I have never felt that way before but it was scary. The flight crew was very good and handled it well and so were all the passengars. But it was a little unsettling. Jacob was a little scared and a little nervous to get on the plane this morning.  Zach was so focused on the cartoons that he was watching that we arent sure that he even noticed what was going on he wasn't affected at all. We were wondering if he even noticed or if he just went to grab another chip or sip of his drink and noticed that someone had already cleared them away for him. There were drinks dripping from the ceiling and everyones snacks and beverages were all over the floor. I wish now that I had taken a picture but at the time we were all shaky and I didn't think of a picture. Zach was sitting on the row in front of me but the woman sitting next to him said that he did great. She was more shaken up then him and he didn't even react. I still really wonder if he even noticed he is a smart kid but when he is focused on something he is oblivious to everything else around him. We did have a lot of fun and are so grateful for the flights and for the trip. We had a lot of fun and we are grateful to daddy for letting us take this trip while he was in Vegas even though he didn't want to miss the trip and wanted to be with us. I do have a couple of more pictures that the kids want to add that I will add over the next couple of days. Thanks for looking and we love you all.

Blizzard Beach again

Here we are back at blizzard beach. We were here on Tuesday Hurricane Fay was supposed to hit on this day but they had downgraded it to a tropical storm. We still went to the water park and spent the day there until they closed the park early and kicked us out at 6 pm. We were one of about 100 people in the park. It was awesome we hardly ever saw anyone and as the day got later there were even less people there. We spent most of the day in the lazy river. The park employees thought that we were crazy they all had on jackets over their suits and then rain jackets on top of that but it was warm. It just rained all day we were wet though anyway. It was really cool in the river cause with all of the trees hanging over the top of us and all around and then the constant drizzle it was almost like being in a real rainforest. Or what we think that it would be like. It was fun. A lot of the employees came to know the kids by name and spoke to them every time that we went by. We only rode the family raft ride one time on this day cause the ski lift was closed due to winds. We had to climb the side of the mountain and it was a long climb. Jacob said that he would be willing to go up and ride it again if someone would carry him. No one was willing to take him up on the offer so once was all that we rode. We had a lot of fun though.

Typhoon Lagoon

Typhoon Lagoon, this park was a lot of fun but it does seem to be geared a little more towards older people. We still had fun but Jacob spent most of the day crying. He didn't like most of the rides there. The kids are very limited anyway on what they are willing to go on but at this park it was even more limited. We convinced them to try the family raft ride, they really like the one at

Blizzard Beach. The very first thing that we did was run into a wall that had a waterfall shooting down from it and it was were he and I were sitting that we ran into it. The water completely ran over the top of us. He couldn't have gotten any wetter if he had gone under in the pool. But he doesn't like the stuff that gets his head wet so this really upset him. And that was just the start it wasn't a very long ride and didn't really go down hill. You just ran into different things that got you wet. Zach never got hit by any of them but it was always Jacob who got wet with one of the rest of us.   He was screaming mad when we got off and sobbing, and the mean mother that I am I just laughed. We still had alot of fun though crying and all.

Blizzard Beach

Blizzard Beach, we didn't get a whole lot of pictures this trip since we were at a waterpark. Who really wants pictures like that anyway.  We went to Blizzard Beach first since we were planning on buying an annual pass and I wasn't sure if it was good at both parks. The kids really wanted to go to Blizzard Beach the most so we decided if it was only good at one that is the one that we wanted it at. It was cheaper to buy the annual then a three day pass though and we are now hoping maybe to fly down and use it again since we have the passes.

Hotel

Yeah, here we are at the All Star Sports hotel in Disneyworld. So glad to be here I do have to admit that at this point in time I did try to convince the kids to stay in the room and just take a nap but they were excited to get to the waterpark. I can't really blame them and I am glad that we went now.

Washington Dulles

Here we are in Washington D.C. at the dulles airport we took an overnight flt to D.C. and then from there to Orlando Sunday morning. Because of weather problems in the New York area flts filled up on us so we had to take the round about way to get there but who can complain. Right it was still fun we saw a few places (from the airport haha) that we had never seen before and it is one more adventure for the kids. We are just so very grateful for the ride.

Oakland

ok we are home I meant to update this in every airport but after longbeach they charged for internet. Or we didn't have enough of a layover to get the computer out. We had so much fun though. Saturday we flew from longbeach to oakland here are the kids in the oakland airport. We decided to buy postcards and take a picture at least in all of them.

Longbeach airport

ok here we are. We flew into longbeach last night hoping to fly to Orlando through Austin. But the flight filled up on us and we didn't make it on. Here we are at Longbeach having a fun adventure and waiting to go to Oakland. From there we are off to D.C. and then onto Orlando. Hopefully by morning we will be singing about what a small world it is after all. Yeah. Orlando here we come. Just remember life comes at you fast, but it is never boring. We love you all.

Here is the other stitch photo this one cracks me up. Our camara quit working on the trip and most of the pictures that we thought that we had taken we hadn't. When we got home it worked fine wondering if maybe it was the humidity. Most the pictures that we ended up with from this trip were what the photo pass people took. Had we known that the camara was going to bug out on us we would have had more pics done there. It also turned out to be fairly reasonable to purchase everything on a disc. It would have been an even better deal had we had more pics done, but we still got quite a few.

stitch in italy

When we were in Florida we did the photo pass thing, it was really cool and now I wish that we had had more pictures done. This is one that we got back and the photographer had added stitch. The kids were pretty excited, Stitch is Zach's favorite character. I'm adding this picture for Jacob because everyday he pulls up their blog to listen to the music and look at the pictures. Zach had told me that he would take care of this and I would just monitor but turns out he was just interested in the music. Maybe when we travel he will have a little more interest in blogging. But in the mean time these pictures are for Jacob who loves to look at his blog.

Ok one more picture from the trip in March this is taken outside of the Lego store in downtown disney. Everyones favorite store right. I think that this is the cutest picture all three wanted to pose for this picture they love the giant lego.

This is the boys blog but so far all they have wanted to put on it is the music. They actually picked it all out themselves, Zach did have to ask me how to spell a couple of peoples names but knew who he was looking for. We took this picture in March when we went to disneyland for the weekend, Zach's little friend Dakota went with us as well. Craig was out of town so we just made a fun weekend. I'm sorry to admit that the summer is half over with and so far that is the only little trip that we have taken. We have been to see several movies though and spent a lot of time in the pool in the backyard. It's still been fun. The only thing in life that the boys really seem to like anyway is video games and fighting. This picture though was taken right next to the line for Peter Pan's flight. One of the best rides in the park.