6th Birthday                                                           13th Birthday

Along with the Christmas Festivities in December, we celebrated Spencer’s 13th Birthday! At the last minute we decided to have his party on the actual day so Spencer called/texted his friends two nights before to invite them. After lunch at FIVE GUYS we went in to the mall where I divided the boys into teams and played a mini AMAZING RACE. I had made up the clues that morning and it turned out fantastic. Such a blast! I had so much fun watching the boys try to figure out their clues, compete with each other, and even lie to me and my friend whose son was at the party and came along to help me. We laughed ourselves silly at the things the boys would do to figure out their clues. Spencer is such a fun kid and his friends are all the same!  

On a more serious note , I can’t believe that I have a teenager. Seriously, am I old enough? I remember the day I turned 13 and it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago! I’m so blessed to have Spencer as my son. Just thinking about him makes me smile and there are so many reasons that I love him. For his birthday I’ll list a few.

1. Spencer is my oldest child. Being the first he is the child that took me from “sister”, “daughter”, “wife”, and friend” to all of those things PLUS “mother”.

2. He is soooo much fun and always has been. Even as a little guy he was always up for a fun time. The older he gets the more game he is to just have fun!

4. He takes such good care of all of his siblings. They are lucky to have him as a big brother. And he helps me out with Avery a ton!

5. He is very thoughtful with me. If I’m not feeling well or if I seem to be having a tough day he’ll text me to check on me or come find me as soon as he gets home to see how I’m doing.

6. He LOVES to have his back tickled by his Nana and Gramma. He’s loved it since he was a baby and I LOVE that he still likes it.

7. He’s not scared to talk to anyone. If we need directions he’ll walk right up to someone, look them in the eye and ask them. At his birthday party/amazing race one of the clues was to find a salvation army volunteer who had the donation box and was ringing the bell. He and his team went straight to a mall security guard and asked where one was in the mall. He wasn’t nervous or afraid, just walked right up to him and asked.

8. He is best friends with his little sister, who is now 4 plus inches taller than him. Even though it bothers him that she is taller than he is, he takes it in stride and even introduces himself to her friends’ parents as “Annie’s little big brother”. (You’ll grow Spence, we promise you will….someday!)

9. He gives me back massages and will rub my feet whenever I ask.

10. He still likes to snuggle up to me on the couch when we are watching TV.

11. He works his tail OFF in school and has straight A’s this year. So proud of him and how hard he works!

12. Has taken our move to California really well and even when things were hard for him, he was always willing to face it instead of have a pity party about it. He’s such a HUGE example to me of just dealing with life as it comes!

13. He still kisses me goodbye when he goes to school and he doesn’t care if his friends are there or not.

I could go on with another 13 things I love about Spence but will stop there. I’m so so blessed to be his Mom! I love you Spencer! Happy 13th Birthday!

This year I really wanted to get our pictures taken but ended up running out of time to get them done by a professional photographer so I asked my friend Renae if she would take them for us. She used my camera and the pictures turned out so great! I’m sooooo excited about them!

Adam and I were completely blown away as we drove down to Irvine on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving! An entire year has literally flown past us! Its so hard to believe that exactly one year ago we were in Georgia, visiting Chris and Lisa for Thanksgiving. We were also in the middle of selling our house in Colorado and buying a new one in California! As we look back on the past year we have so much to be thankful for!

A beautiful new home. healthy kids. the gospel. family close by. new friends. old friends. warm weather. adam’s job….the list could go on and on.

To celebrate we headed down to Irvine for the Thanksgiving weekend. Nicole made a fabulous dinner and we had fun going to lots of movies, staying up late with cousins, playing games and hanging out! Once again I left the house without my camera. Thank you to Marin who was our photographer extrodinaire!!!

After dinner we headed down to Fashion Island Mall to see the big Christmas Tree and to walk off some of our dinner.

One of the highlights of the weekend was meeting Dan, Jill and baby Raelynn at the park on Saturday. The kids and uncles played games while the aunts chatted about baby stuff and took turns holding Raelynn! Oh do I love that baby girl! She’s SOOOOOO cute!

In November the kids had a bunch of days off of school. A few weekends before Thanksgiving they had a Friday off and since Nicole’s kids didn’t have school either we decided to meet for a day of fun. We invited Laura and Zoey along and met at a place called TRAVEL TOWN. It was this cool place where there are a bunch of old trains the kids can play on and then its close to a park for them to run around at. A few of my friends in my ward came with their kids too. We had a great time watching the kids play and be together. Definitely one of the biggest perks of living in California again. Cousins! Boy do my kids LOVE their cousins!

PS- Thanks for sending the pics Nicole! I’m a dork and forgot my camera!

It has been way too long since I last posted but there is a good reason for my Blogging MIA status. I had plans to blog each day of our Trip to Disney World but my computer died! Like literally just stopped working. Won’t even turn on. Some cooling fan started acting up and I knew it was going to happen soon. Like all responsible people who have their life in pictures on their computer, I backed everything up onto my External Hardrive. But, when I tried to transfer all my info from my external hardrive to my new computer my pictures were not on there. I tried every which way to find them on it but I’m not that computer savvy and couldn’t do it. With the Holidays I didn’t have time to take my laptop in and have the hardrive recovered so I decided to wait to blog until after the Holidays when I could get everything off my laptop and continue my blogging about Florida.

Long story short(er), I took my computer into Best Buy, paid the $99 fee to recover the hardrive only to be told that there is some problem and they are going to have to send it away to some place in Kentucky and that it will cost me $250 dollars to do it. I talked to a friend of ours who is a computer whiz and he is going to try to see what’s going on and recover it for us so in the mean time, I’m stuck with no pictures from September to mid November.

With that I’ve decided that this delay is causing me to be further and further behind in my blogging and its time to move ahead. I’m still going to blog about the things that happened between September and mid November (The rest of our trip. Raelynn’s birth. October Birthdays. Halloween.) but I’ll come back and do it as soon as my pictures are recovered.  For now, I’m Moving Ahead…

PS-please cross your fingers that we will be able to recover our pics!!!!

Spencer and Annie waiting for the game to start!

Our second day in Florida was the reason we initially started planning our trip. It was BYU Game Day! My Mom, Dad, niece Natalie and family babysitter Brigette had arrived the night before so we woke up early, met up with them and then left Brigette at the hotel with Natalie, Garett, and Logan while Adam, Spencer, Annie, Mom, Dad and I made the trip to Tallahasee for the game. Bridgette is sooooo amazing that she had the whole day with the kids planned out. Pool, lunch at Downtown Disney, ride on the resort boat to get to Downtown Disney and more.  She’s AMAZING!!! 

Our drive to Tallahasee wasn’t too bad but it was long and by the time we got there we were all STARVING. After scouting out the best place to park we all piled out of the car and started searching for a place to eat! The sight before us was indescribable. We had parked quite close to the stadium and were completely out of place in our Blue BYU shirts an hats as Florida State colors surrounded us! EVERYONE in the state of Florida (or so it seemed) had come to the game and were tailgating outside the stadium. Not only were they tailgating but they were doing it in style and completely decked out in Florida State colors. Their shade canopies were Florida State, their cars, their clothes, their lawn chairs, EVERTHING! They had these big flatscreen tvs set up on the back of their trucks and hooked them up to their satellite dishes so they could watch the games! To say it was crazy would be an understatement! After finding a small, hole in the wall but yummy burger place, we snarfed down our food and then headed off to find our seats. As we got closer and closer to where we were going to sit, we started seeing lots of BYU fans and felt very much in our element. We found our seats and set out to wait for the game  to start! We had about a half hour until the games was supposed to start and it was HOT! I have never been so hot in my life! Sweat pouring down my face, my shorts looking like I had wet my pants because I was soaking wet! It was crazy!

Pregame Show

The game finally started. It was exciting to see them play in such a cool stadium. The Cougs struggled through the game and gave us some false hope at one point when they had the chance to catch up.  Unfortunately it was not a good ending for us and we ended up losing the game. We all decided that it was soooo worth it though! The stadium was cool, the Florida State Fans were all very nice and friendly and we got to have lots of time together!  Thanks Nana and Granddad for the tickets!     

Our most FAVORITE family trips of all time up to this point in our lives was when we went to Disney World with Julie and TJ and their kids 3 1/2 years ago. It was SOOOOO fun and we’ve been counting down the days til we could go back. Well, earlier this year my parents asked my siblings and I if any of us would be interested in going to the BYU vs Florida State football game in Florida this fall. We thought it would be fun and when Julie and TJ thought that since they would already be in Florida then they would take there kids and go to Disney World, we decided to follow suit. Heather and Steve decided to come too but unfortunately because of when Ryan and Nic’s kids started school they weren’t able to work it out. 

Anyway, we made our flight reservations and because we were flying on points we had to leave a day earlier than everyone else. So, after what seemed like the longest countdown in history the day arrived and it was time for our vacation to begin! We landed in Orlando at about 11 pm Eastern time on Thursday night but we were on Pacific time and starving. After checking into a hotel near the airport we walked to the neighboring Denny’s for a midnight feast!  Denny’s at midnight is an interesting place let me tell you and to walk in with 4 kids (we left Avery at home with two of my besties here in CA who traded off halfway through the week) at midnight was a fun time. Lots of stares and funny looks! Now that I think about it, that happens even when its not midnight.  

Anywho, the next morning we slept in a little, woke up, got ready and headed back to the airport to pick up our rental car. Since we had arrived in Florida a day before everyone else and no one else in the family really cared about Harry Potter, we decided to use this day and go to Universal Orlando and check out the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! Let me just say it DID NOT disappoint!  After checking out a few of the other rides at Universal we headed back to see the Harry Potter stuff. The only way I can describe it is to say that I honestly felt like I was picked up and dropped into the middle of a Harry Potter movie! The place was AMAZING! No detail was overlooked and everything was exactly how I imagined it when I read the books and how it looks in the movies. Every person who works that part of the park spoke with an English accent and stayed in character the whole time! Our favorite was the train conductor who called out for the kids to come over to him as they walked into Hogsmead. Adam and I were busy taking pictures and by the time we got to them they were all in stitches laughing at him. He was HILARIOUS!!!!

When we walked into the park we could see Hogwarts as soon as we passed through the main street shops. It was Magestic to see it across the lake and we could hardly wait to get over there. We decided to try a few of the other rides first to build up our excitement even more. HULK the roller coaster was AWESOME and the Spiderman Ride was pretty cool too!

Entering Hogsmead

The HILARIOUS Train Conductor (see Spencer and G laughing)

After getting a picture with the Conductor we checked out the trick shop, the candy store and the wand shop/gift shop. One thing we had on our to do list was to try the Butter Beer. Oh. My. Gosh. It was SOOOOOOOO good! The minute I felt the stuff on my lips I was in Heaven! It was fantastic and like nothing I’d ever had before! 

Butter Beer Mustaches

After walking through Hogsmead we rounded the corner and this is what we say! Hogwarts in all its glory!

Couldn’t resist and had to buy a chocolate frog. Helga Hufflepuff was the card we got and she really did move!

The singers and Ollivander in his wand shop!

The kids had spent many months earning “Disney Dollars” by doing lots of extra jobs. They each had decided exactly how much of their $ they would spend at The Wizarding World and how much they would spend at Disney World. One of the most exciting parts was choosing their wands. I had so much fun watching and helping them and in the end they each got a wand that matched their personalities perfectly! One of the things they say in the Harry Potter books is that “you don’t pick the wand, the wand picks you” and it really was true! Spencer looked through all the different wands and just couldn’t decide. He just wasn’t feeling it with any of them. He was about to surrender his desire for a wand when we pulled a box we hadn’t seen yet. Adam, Spencer and I were all standing around it and the minute we opened the box we all went “aaaahhhhhh”! That was the one! Spencer looked up at us with the biggest smile on his face and knew his wand had found him!

Logan was loving it soooo much, especially because he was tall enough to go on the main ride! It was close but he made it. With his white blonde hair and glasses all the employees called him the “blonde Harry Potter”. He was thrilled!

The main ride was incredible as it took us winding through all the different Harry Potter books. As we were waiting in line for the ride, we couldn’t believe how detailed every thing was. From the Sorting Hat to Dumbledore’s office everything was just like the movie!

I could go on and on about the magic of the place but will let you decide for yourself! Whether you are a huge Harry Potter fan or not, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is definitely something you should see the next time you are in Florida!

As the day came to a close and we started walking out of the park we realized that we hadn’t eaten a thing all day long and we were STARVING! We stopped for dinner at the NBA Restaurant and then headed over to the Disneyworld Property to check into the Villa that my parents had so generously reserved for us from their Vacation Club Membership!

With one fabulous day down, we were excited for everyone else to arrive so we could continue the fun!