The Spaulding Way: 2009

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Game Day

Way back before Thanksgiving, I am behind on my blogging, Mark and Debbie (Jeff's Dad and Step-mom) took us to the annual Cal vs Standford football game. The Spauldings are huge Cal Bear fans and ironically Debbie is a huge Standford fan, we forgive her for it though. It was a close game with lots of excitement and the best part, we won! We had not seen them for a year and so it was really fun going to the game with them. Mary and Doug (Jeff's Aunt and Uncle) were also there and it was great to see them as well. Thanks for the fun night Mark and Debbie!

You should of seen us going crazy in the bleachers!

My Hubby!

I only had my camera phone so the pictures aren't all that great.

Jeff and his Dad

Again, not the best picture but here we are with Debbie.(Notice her red sweatshirt under her jacket. Standford fan, but we forgive her)

Monday, November 30, 2009

iFLY

November 27th was Ron's Birthday! His 60th birthday! So we celebrated!!! Linda took all of us, Jennie, Jeremy and their kids and Simone and Shane and there son and Jeff and I and of course Ron to iFLY. iFLY is an indoor skydiving place. Wow! So awesome! It is totally safe and Dallin who is five and Lauren who is 3 were even able to fly. I never want to skydive but this was totally fun! There is a trained guy who goes into the air chamber thing with you (as you see in the picture) that helps you get into the right formation and go up and down and spin around. If you are good enough and in a good formation he doesn't have to hold onto you the whole time. We all had a blast and I can't wait to go again someday. I don't know when but I definitely will go again one day! I asked Jeff what he had to say about this experience and I quote "I flew at I Fly" (He thought that was really funny) He loved it too! Afterward we all went to In and Out Burger, a favorite of Ron's. We ended the night with an ice-cream cake at the house. Thanks Linda and Ron for a incredible day and Happy Happy Birthday Ron. We love you!

There is Jeff and there is the trained guy holding onto him actually helping him spin around in the air.

I'm flying!

If you look closely his cheek skin is totally, well I don't even know what to call it. The wind/air was blowing so strongly it made your cheeks do whatever it is doing there in the picture. It was pretty funny.

If you notice on my head that fuzzy stuff is some of my hair sticking out of the holes in the top of my helmet. That was also pretty funny.

Lauren flying

Dallin flying, the kids loved it too!

Turkey Day and Giving Thanks Day

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was nice to have a few days off of school and work. We spent the day at Jennie's with her family and Ron and Linda too. It was fun to just visit, hang out and eats lots of great food. We are so grateful to have such wonderful families and it is so great to have some family close by!

I thought these place mats were cute!

Jeremy doing the honor of cutting the turkey. Tyler is peaking over his shoulder to watch.

Here we are, ready to feast and give thanks!

Lauren gave us a wonderful dance show after

Jeff and Rhona recovering from dinner by the fire. Rhona is more sad that she did not get to join us in the feast. Isn't she so cute though?!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Weekend Getaway

I was so excited when my dad called me up and invited me to a family weekend getaway in zions. I was even more excited when I could find a cheap flight and I could go! (Jeff had to stay home and take midterms :-( )It was a great getaway. It was beautiful weather, beautiful scenery and great company. We had many many laughs. The weekend consisted of playing with kids, watching movies, hiking, eating great food, sitting in the hot tub, and playing games of course. I had a lot of fun taking some great pictures too. Thanks Mom and Dad for a great weekend!

I love this picture. We are going into the light, into cyberspace.

Mom, Janessa, all the babies and I hike to the narrows, really the riverwalk. It was a pretty walk but struggle to keep them all out of the water. They loved throwing rocks into the river though. Everyone else (Jeremy, Jennifer, Dad and all the older kiddos) went on a 4-5 mile hike that was quite the adventure from what I heard. But everyone made it and seemed to enjoys it mostly.

After the hikes we all met up for a picnic on the grass.

Kayla being cute

Kayla and Kaden hugging. It was really sweet

I made Mom and Dad pose for a picture. They rarely have a picture together.

One of the days we spent just hanging out. We went to the playground and the lodge where the kids played ping pong and pool. The girls also did crafts/cards provided by Jennifer. Thanks Jen. It was lots of fun.

Halloween

Last year I didn't dress up at work for Halloween. My colleagues said I should dress up this year and I agreed if they could come up with something because I have never been good at thinking up good costumes and if I was going to be wearing it at work, in public, then it has to been pretty good. So a bunch of us came up with the idea of crayons. There was six of us that were different color crayons. Me and two other people did all the work putting the costumes together. It was really fun. I got so many compliments through out the day as I went to different school sites. The hat was pretty silly, but it was fun anyway. On Halloween we spent the afternoon and evening with Jeff's sister's family in Tracy. We went trick-or-treating with them and had a great time.

"The purple crayon" just a funny side-note, a couple of my students recognized what I was. The next day (well Monday) one of my students looked at me very puzzled and said you're not a purple crayon Becky. She was very confused. I love my job!

We put Rhona in one of Jeff's old football Jerseys.

One night Jeff and I carved pumpkins. Something that I love doing. I was so excited. I chose a very detailed picture and it took me a very long time and and caused pain to my fingers from sawing so much. Jeff actually had to finish it for me. I didn't get a picture of our pumpkins that night because I figured I could do it the next day. I was so sad when I went outside the next day and they were already molding and gross as you can tell from the picture. Booooooo! (no pun intended) Jeff's was so mangled you couldn't tell what his was anymore. Anyway, I guess next year I won't be buying my pumpkins at Walmart.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

OTM Nationals my first Tournament

So on Saturday the 26th of September I (Jeff) participated in my very first Jiu Jitsu Tournament. I have to admit it was fun and didn't feel too nervous until I actually got to the tournament. I was entered into the heavy weight division yeah I know shocker.

I actually did pretty well in my weight division I won first place. It ended up being a round robin style tournament cause well only three people showed up(in my weight class). Well we all went 1-1 But because I scored the most points out of the three of us I won my weight division.

Then came the open weight division which ended up being a double elimination tournament. I lost my first match there but came back and ended up taking third place. It wasn't pretty and looking back at the tape of my matches I made some mistakes which thankfully my size did make up for. (open weight means there is no weight limit so little guys roll against big guys it happens) Anyways I had a lot of fun and thanks to my team and instructor I was able to enjoy a small amount of success. Team San Jose Boxing and fitness did amazing I am pretty sure everyone got a medal so good job guys I am proud of us. Here are some pictures and videos from the tournament like I said not pretty but successful.

Win #1 Heavy weight division

Win #2 open weight division

Win #3 open weight division

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Name that object

Can you guess what this is? Really think about it.........what in the world is that? I'll give you a chance to try and figure it out ........................................................................................................

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..................That my friends is 3/4 of our car door handle. Apparently my husband is stronger than both of us thought. I knew he was strong, I mean have you seen his arms?! But are you serious, 3/4 of our car door broken off?? It wasn't like the whole thing just snapped off, I could have probably understood that. Crazy! At least we still have 1/4 of the handle left so we can open the door. :)

Favorites

Here are a few of Rhona's favorites....

I love this picture. Thanks to mahma (Linda) Rhona has a new bed. She loves it! She still sleeps in her kennel at night because otherwise she would come wake us up several times at night. But she loves to lay on it during the day. Next to Rhona is her second favorite toy. She has ripped to shreds about every toys she has had. So we thought maybe a tire would last longer. Well, it has definitely lasted longer but it only took her a day or two to get a hole through in it. Her number one toy is her squeaky "Wubba" ball. She goes crazy outside for the squeaker!

These two are buddies! Here they are hanging out together! Jeff is Rhona's favorite person in the whole world.

Henry Cowell State Park

We have been wanting to go hiking for sometime now. We have heard about many great state parks within an hour and have wanted to check them out. So we decided to go hiking on Labor Day. We came upon a small dilemma when I looked up the many state parks and the majority of them don't allow dogs. Booooooooo! Almost all the of parks that allow dogs are the desert barren ones. I wanted to go hiking in the mountains surrounded by huge trees and gorgeous views. I finally found one park that looked beautiful and allowed dogs (they even gave Rhona a doggie treat when we entered the park). So we were off. The map was very confusing and a 3 mile hike turned into a 6 or 7 mile hike. It was a fun adventure though. We had so much fun and it was a gorgeous hike.

And we're off....(yes, that is a huge tree behind us. I love it.)

Love it!

Water break. Rhona loved the hike. We will definitely be taking her on more hikes if I can find more pretty places she is allowed.

We did it! Rhona's tongue hanging out explains how we all felt after the hike. Side note: Jeff said "I sure wouldn't like to be the person who has to count all the lines on that tree." It dated to before Christ. It had several markings showing different significant years. Amazing!

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Rollllllll onnnnnn youuuuu Beaaaaaars!

What's that smell? Come on you know what it is! It's the atmosphere it's electric, it's the grill at the bottom of the hill, it's 300 fans sitting on tight wad hill, it's 60,000+ fans in memorial stadium going crazy for Javid best as he breaks for 73 yards to the end zone, it's Riley connecting for a 49 yard touch down strike down the middle of the field like he's done it a thousand times before still don't know what it is.......? Its the California Golden bears on opening day that's what it is! For those of you that don't know I (Jeff) love the CAL Bears and the Pac-10. Becky and I each Saturday around this time of year sit and watch my obsession, college football and specifically the California Golden Bears. I have been a Bears fan since well basically my Dad told me I was but, to be honest over the years I have done the band wagon thing but always stayed true to the gold and blue of California. I remember growing up and going to CAL games with the my Dad and Grandfather(class of 38 I believe). Those games bring back some fond and not so fond memories but mostly bring a smile to my face. Though my wife is a BYU fan she supports the bears as best as she can though I must say that last night there were plenty of "Rolllllll onnnnn youuuuuuuu Beaaars" chants started by my lovely better half. Our house is with out a doubt a football household. Like a lot of people I played in high school some in college but nothing like you may be thinking of, just for fun in a small semipro league, and at BYU-I.(That's when Becky first got to see me play and now she is hooked she even said that she loves to watch football now that she understands it more but there are still some lessons that occur during the game.) Anyways we are very much excited and happy that it's football season it is our favorite time of the year (Fall, yes I know it's not official for a couple of weeks). There is just something about the smell, sounds, and sights of football and fall that puts a smile on face. It's not to cold, it's not to hot, all you need is a light jacket, a tri tip sandwich, and a cold drink and you have your self a wonderful day, game day. Jeff Tedford we salute you.

The Spaulding Way

Family Collage