San Francisco

This year we decided we wanted to check a destination off of our bucket list, so we went to San Francisco and stayed with Colby's relative Richard and his daughter Maddie.
After a long drive on election day to Reno, we arrived the next afternoon in Mill Valley where we were staying, only about a 10 minute drive from San Fran.  After lunch, some grocery shopping, and unpacking we drove into the city.
The drive over the bridge was so pretty.  We acquainted ourselves with the city, then went to the aquarium.

The second day Richard showed us Muir Woods, a redwood forest.  It was so pretty.  Then after lunch on the dock in Sausalito, he showed us some cool angles of the city.

Then it was back over the bridge and into the city.  This was one of my favorite nights.  We rode the trolley, it was one scary ride, and walked China town.

We were starving by the time we got to the end of China town, but were sick of eating out.  So we got wraps, fruit, and drinks at Walgreens and sat in front of a vacant building and ate as people stared at us walking by.  It was one of my favorite memories.

The next day we went to Alcatraz, and spent some more time on the wharf at Ghirardelli's, and had sour dough bread bowls with clam chowder (for Colby only of course).  Then we went to the Haight-Ashbury District which I absolutely hated.  After seeing several drug deals, and being offered some ourselves we got out of there, not my kind of place.  

 

Our last day in the city we planned to go see the Giant's Stadium, but lucked out and were able to go in for free and stand on the field, we then went and saw Coit tower, and walked around the city some more, finally visiting the ferry building. Then we got back into the car to go find the Tanner house, from Full House.  Colby had found the address for it on the internet so we plugged it into our navigation. After a long nail biting drive clear across the city we found ourselves in the GHETTO, and we pulled up to the house.  Definitely NOT the Tanner House, so he looked it up again and it was supposedly where the show was Filmed, the outside of the house was back almost where we started.  We got a good laugh and decided not to go back due to the traffic, and crossed the bridge out of the city one last time.

After church the next day we headed out, stayed another night in Reno, and finally made it home.  Thanks Stewarts for allowing us to stay with you and giving us inside tips on the city.  We had a blast!

Birthday Surprises

This Birthday I had a couple of surprises.  For my first surprise my sisters, along with my nieces and nephew had filled my car with balloons and goodies for me to find after work.  What made me laugh is my co-workers told me they had seen a car full of what they thought was unattended kids through our hall window going crazy climbing over the Tahoe seats, doing the macarena (that would be Kendell), and yelling for their mom.  Yep sounds just like them:).

Then for my second surprise Colby took me down to Salt Lake for reservations.  When we arrived at our destination, PF Changs, and walked in, a couple of our couple friends were sitting at a table.  I excitedly said to Colby, "Oh my gosh, look who it is!", while waving frantically, figuring as they were friends they were there having dinner together.  Then it hit me, oh duh, there here for me.  I felt pretty stupid, but it was a lot of fun. 

Thanks for another great birthday!

Halloween '12

This year Halloween was quite the marathon.  Between family and friend parties we went to 4 costume parties and dressed up 5 times in all, once Halloween day hit.  Needless to say we were all costumed out.  But we were grateful our costumes got good use, as we spent plenty time on them.

Our second party was with the Sherman's.  The Belnap's were nice to invite us over because Nate and Rebecca were in town.

They had some creative costumes including siamese twins, but we could not stop laughing at Nate's unicorn outfit.

They had a donut on a string contest.

First the guys,

then the kids, 

 then the girls showed them all how it was done. 

Our 4th and last party was the 2nd annual Radmall Halloween party. 

Guests were welcomed by Erica's creation, the mummy door.

We unfortunately didn't get a big group picture so here is each costume individually.

My Auntie Marge was down helping my grandma after her knee surgery, so they threw together something.  They giggled at each other the whole night:).

 Gramps in his hunting get up.

Brian the zoo keep, and Emily Hermoine

The zoo keeper with his wild animals

Jenn and Sam threw together this little diddy, I think you get the idea:)

Bryce a golfer, Erica a witch, and Brynlee a little pumpkin

 My dad hates dressing up so we helped him out this year.  We laughed so hard all night long.

All the kids

Here we are, Mary Poppins and the chimney sweep.  

We love finding our costumes and seeing what we can put together each year.  Though some of my costume was borrowed, we went on the hunt for my umbrella.  We found one at Walmart with a duck head, and thought it would do.  However, when we got home i found a blog that had the exact same umbrella that she made into the real Mary Poppins parrot head.  It was already late and our party was the next day right after work.  I debated whether it was worth staying up late for, and went back and forth and finally decided I would just paint it, and wouldn't ask Colby to switch the beak around so he could go to bed.  I rushed to get into the shower and when I got out, to my surprise Colby had sawed off, flipped, re-glued and filled in the beak!  I was so glad because now it would look legit.  So, for the next couple of hours I went to work on painting it finally going to bed after 2.

the original handle

Here was another one of my complete time wasters.  Gotta make every detail count right?

Then finally Colby and I had our candlelit dinner Halloween night while running in between bites to answer the door.  

We had to laugh because we felt old when none of the kids knew who we were, but all the parents were giving us compliments on our costumes.  One of my girls from YW guessed we were 50's people, then 60's, pioneers, then asked "train people?"  Ha ha we thought that was pretty right on if you didn't know who Mary Poppins was. 

Happy Halloween, we are exhausted and glad to put our costumes away!