Fun at the Beach!

Here is the last of our vacation photos. We took so many that I had to make slides in order to show them all. On our last day in California, we took the girls to Newport Beach. It was a cool (60*) overcast day at the beach, but that didn't stop the girls from getting in.

The girls had a lot of fun chasing eachother with big long vines of seaweed, and by the time they were done, they were all covered in sand. While we were on the beach a cute little old lady who lives on the beach came outside wondering why people were at the beach on such a cold day. It was cute. There we are in our swim suits and flip flops, and she is wearing her jacket, a sweater, a scarf, pants, and socks and shoes. She was amazed when we told her that where we come from, most of our winter is colder than freezing. She must have lived on the beach her whole life... What a hard life, indeed...

Random Disneyland Pics

As you know...we won the trip to Disneyland in the "What Will You Celebrate?" contest on channel 2 news... These are some pictures of us celebrating being in Disneyland!

Disney Characters

The following are pictures of all of the characters that we met in Disneyland. Chris loves The Queen...is it because she's tall, her impeccable make-up, or that you can't make her smile?

The girls loved Tinkerbell! Shaylee and Sami showed her all of their Tinkerbell pins that they had traded for, but Shelby didn't have any Tinkerbell pins, so Tinkerbell made her stand to the side so she could take a picture with just Shaylee and Sami. Shelby's favorite is Eeyore, but she didn't want to stand in a long line to get his autograph...so she collected a bunch of Eeyore pins instead.

By the way, if you're going to Disneyland soon...buy your pins on ebay before you go. (I can recommend a good ebay seller). You can get them for about $1.30 each vs. up to$15.00 each in the park! The employees are required to trade pins with anyone who wants to trade. It was so fun for the girls! Just when they were starting to get tired from walking, they'd see an employee with pins and forget all about their tired feet.

California Nature

I love, love, love nature...flowers, trees, birds, rocks, mountains, you name it... So here are a few of the pictures of the beautiful things that we saw in California. My favorite is the last of the slides...the trees with purple blossoms. We don't have trees that blossom in that color of purple here in Utah and I wonder why not???

Driving to & from California

On Monday, May 11th, we left for Disneyland. We were supposed to leave that morning, but we told the girls that we couldn't leave until the house was clean...so it was after noon by the time we were able to leave. We had a few places to stop on our way out of town, so it was about 3pm by the time we finally hit the road. We drove through Las Vegas and on to Primm, NV; on the border of Nevada and California, where we stayed the night. We stayed in the Primm Valley Resort, which I wouldn't recommend. The room was very dated, not super clean and one of the metal bed frames was sticking out and Shelby walked into it and bruised her leg. Not fun, but they did give us a half price room at the neighboring resort, Buffalo Bill's that we used on the way home. The only good thing about Primm Valley was the Bonnie & Clyde car that they had on display. Pretty cool stuff. The bullet holes in the car are amazing. Next morning we left for California where we stayed at the Lemon Tree Hotel in Anaheim. What a cute little place with AMAZING grounds and landscaping! It was only about 10 minutes from Disneyland. The girls went swimming while Chris had a nap in the room and I had (an unintentional) nap by the pool. Then we watched The Biggest Loser finale in our room. It was nice to take it easy the night before our first big day in Disneyland.
On our way home, we drove back through the 104* heat in Barstow, CA and stayed in Primm again. Outside of Barstow, I had to take a picture of these two random piles of rocks on each side of the freeway. It was weird because the land was mostly flat, covered with cacti.
Buffalo Bill's is a much nicer place to stay with a nice pool, but the coolest thing is Desparado...the huge roller coaster around the hotel. It has the second highest drop of a roller coaster in the country. Shelby, Shaylee and Chris went on it. The girls loved it, but it scared Chris. Proof that he's getting older because it didn't bother him the last time he rode it; but that was about 8 years ago. Then the girls got in the pool for just a minute until security came and told us that the pool had closed at 6pm). Are you kidding...6pm???
Next morning, we hit the road for home, with a little detour through Las Vegas so the girls could really see the city. We finally rolled back into good old North Ogden a little after midnight on Sunday the 17th. I suppose technically it was Monday. What a fun trip, but we were glad to be back in our own beds!

I have to brag...

I have the best friend ever! Last week, Melanie read my last post and being the awesome friend that she is, she came over (and dared to step into the war-zone of our house) to help me get ready for the boutique. One hour before the boutique opened, I realized that my 3 big crates full of beads wouldn't fit in our little red Audi...Melanie to the rescue again! We loaded everything into her van and rushed over to the boutique. After we got the beads organized, we started tying tags onto the bracelets and pricing them. It was at this point that the boutique opened to the public. It's almost like the running of the bulls when they open the doors. Dozens of crazy ladies race through the isles looking for "the" thing to buy, and it is a race to get to that "thing" before anyone else does. I've seen ladies practically running down the isles! Once they run through the show, they go back and take their time looking in every single booth. So here we are, Melanie and I, working as fast as we can to get jewelry tagged, priced and out, and there are crowds of women in my booth. Melanie was answering questions and helping however she could. She ended up staying and helping me for 2 HOURS! What a blessing she is to me!

And then...on Friday night as I got home from the boutique, here comes Melanie, walking across the street with a big basket in her arms. She had made us a travel basket for our drive to California! I am amazed at her thoughtfulness! The basket included a few magazines, puzzle books for the girls, pencils, lots of different snacks, baby wipes and hand sanitizer, tissues, bottled water and even washable markers made for writing on glass! It's been killing the girls to stay out of the basket until we leave! We did try out the markers on the sliding glass door though...I started it, I couldn't help it! Chris still isn't sure about letting the girls write on the windows of his truck though. We'll see if we can talk him into it.

Thank you, Melanie, from the bottom of our hearts! You are the best friend ever!

***PANIC***

That's the best word to describe how I feel... Set up for the Kottage Kupboard Boutique is tomorrow and I'm not even close to ready. I haven't even started making earrings & pendants yet and I have a big pile of bracelets and necklaces (although probably not big enough) that need tags made and priced.

To make me even more panicked, Shaylee's last choir performance is tomorrow night at Bonneville High. I don't know why they have to perform all the way across town. And now I have to figure out how to get set up, make sure everyone eats dinner, and to the Bonneville on time. And let's not forget homework...AAAARRGHHHH!

And then there's the fact that in exactly one week we are leaving for Disneyland. Will we have enough money to eat while we're there? I dunno... I haven't had time to figure out a budget.

Oh, and I can't forget the plants in the sunroom! I've sold a couple but still have a bunch and they have to go THIS WEEK! I am freaking out!

And will somebody clean the house, please?!!! It looks like a bomb went off in here, and I don't have time (or desire, but that's a different story) to do anything about it.

Friday night, Shelby officially crossed the threshold into young womanhood. I've been waiting for this day for years, it seems. The girls all wanted to spend the night at Jamie's house so I kept asking Shelby if she really wanted to given the fact that she was experiencing something all new (and I thought scary). She insisted that she did and she would be fine. To add salt to my wound, she said that if she needed help, she could ask Jamie. So it's official...Shelby doesn't need me anymore. :( Unless she needs a ride to school. At least she can't drive yet! What will I do when she doesn't need me for that either?