Happy Thanksgiving!

by Noah

by Kyle

by Meggie

Noah: "I wonder what Tommy (dog) wants to grow up to be?
... Maybe he wants to be a cow."

Playing in the Leaves...

...on a freezing cold afternoon. They don't seem to mind. I think I'll go back inside and enjoy the warmth of my home and the obnoxious sweet sounds of happiness and crunching leaves.

Girls Weekend!!

I had the opportunity to hang out with my sisters and my mom this weekend. My oldest sister,Cyd, turned 40 at the beginning of the month which meant only one thing: Time to mourn celebrate! We stayed in Cyd's condo in St. George, we shopped, ate, hiked in Snow Canyon, ate, went to a BYU Young Ambassadors concert at Tuacahn, talked A LOT, hot tubbed, laughed, laughed and laughed some more. We missed our SiL's who couldn't be there though.  Guess that means we better plan another one soon. :)

This is Halloween...

...This is Halloween!

Getting ready to go trick-or-treating.

Kyle and Noah really got into the candy getting this year. Kyle was literally running from house to house. We had a hard time keeping up with him. 

Megan had a great time carrying her bucket all by herself and collecting her loot. It was really cute. 

The kids also got to go Grandma and Grandpa's ward party and do trunk or treating along with trick or treating at Daddy's work. Waaaay to much candy but I'm making good use of it. ;)

 Megan and the Super Market-er.

Dang, I'd be afraid if I were that donut...

 Ward Halloween party.

 I LOVE the picture of Spider-man who is putting some distance between

 the mini Frankenstein and himself.

 Kyle looks nice and mummified with his red eyes but then again, so does everybody else.

Creeeeeeeepy!

Noah had such a great time with Halloween this year. He wanted to decorate everything and make it "scary". He was so excited to wear his costume. Both him and Kyle loathed being called "cute" in their costumes. Especially Kyle. He was all about being in character as you can see in the cousin picture.

This is the pumpkin that Kyle and I carved. Cool, eh?

 I feel bad because I didn't get one of Noah and Daddy's.

Monterey and Manta Ray*

Our first stop in Monterey (other than Taco Bell for dinner the night before) was the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  While I am not a fan of fish I must say that this place made looking at creepy, scaley, smelly creatures quite enjoyable. 

I mean, look at the above picture!

 

Hmmm... at least Taylor seems to be having a good time.

So much to see!

We've been to Sea World before but were always a little disappointed by the displays there. 

Monterey Bay Aqurium does an amazing job showing off their water creatures.

I couldn't even believe these jelly fish tanks were real.  The colors were so vivid I thought I was looking at TV screens made to look like real tanks.

The aquarium had a HUGE "fish tank" the size of a giant wall.  I loved this room and so did Megan.  Every time  the turtle or big ugly sun fish would swim by she would get all excited and squeal (loudly).   The people around us thought she was pretty entertaining.

 Noah and Reagan were pretty cute watching this tide pool tank and then laughing and giggling when the tide would come roaring into the tank.  Noah says he and Reagan "his best friend" were pretending it was hot lava coming out of a volcano.

Wish I knew what I was pointing at...

For lunch we found a nice, empty Mexican restaurant.  Every other place we walked into got that panicky look in their eyes (we got to know so well) when we said we needed to seat 11 people.  

After lunch we rented these family bikes. They were awesome! Cyd and Eric's bike fit 6 or 7 people! Mine and Adam's fit 5.  We had fun riding up and down the coast, trading off passengers and racing each other.  Kyle got a good scrape when he tried to pedal (after being told NOT to a few times).

Ho hum. Waiting for the Schroeders after being in the lead the whole time.
Its not like they had TWO kids more than us and a bigger bike or anything. ;)

 Let's go fly a kite!

We gave kite flying another go since my husband the romantic bought the kites to fly on the beach.

The Shiflett kite was once again temperamental but the Schroeder kite soared.  Looking at the actual kites you'd have thought it would be the other way around.  Kitties don't soar.

Our condo was in  a pretty cool location. More or less on the beach.  Unfortunately, the weather tends to be overcast and cold in Marina Dunes even at the end of July. 

See you in tomorrow in the great valley of Yosemite!

*Note: There are no actual pictures of Manta Ray in this post despite the fact that this was what Adam anticipated seeing.  We did end up seeing them but didn't end up getting pictures.