Monday, March 28, 2016

I have a SISTER! In MY TOWN!

I've always DREAMED of having family in Meridian.  I see kids with their aunts and cousins at dance recitals and sports games and it always makes me wish we had someone! My friends truly have become like family, helping us out the way family would and I still consider them all my sisters. But now I have a REAL SISTER in Meridian!

Heather and her family moved here! It's still so crazy. It almost happened like 17 times and I'd get my hopes up and then shattered. So last time when they said they were moving here I was like "yay...." Notice how there were no CAPS or !!!!!!??? That means I was excited but skeptical.  But when my mom flew me to Seattle to help her pack and move I was like "THIS IS REAL!!!" All caps and exclamation points!

Here's the hard thing. It's been really hard for their family. I mean, moving with 2 teenagers and one almost teenager? I would have been MAD at my parents and they are. :( Heather and Mike knew this was the right thing to do but the kids are still mad and I think it's been hard for Heather as well. So it's really hard to be the only super excited one in the group of Saddie McSadders.

It's weird cause I have no pictures of Heather and I together. I think next time I'm with my family I need to get one-on-one pics with everyone.

One of their first weekends here I forced them to come to the Boise greenbelt with me. We had one crazy moment where Deacon turned around to run back to me and almost got hit by a bike going pretty slowly. The guy stopped and started yelling like inches away from Deacon's face. Then he yelled the full-on F word right in his face. Deacon was so scared. I was so stunned but "Auntie Bear" came out in Heather and she let him have it. Too bad he was so far away or Mamma bear would have come out as well.

I'll just say, I LOVE this entire family. She has the BEST kids and my kids are obsessed with all of them.








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Summer, I guess?

Every time I read my BFF Jessica's blog I realize how crappy of a family blogger I am. She inspires me. I stink. Anyway, I realize I didn't post ANYTHING from summer. So while she posted every camping trip and fun outing and milestone moment, I'm going to post a giant summer re-cap. (Since it's November.) Maybe in the Spring I'll post first day of school pictures.


Cowabunga Bay water park in Utah.




 
Rigby Lake!

Gregg's awesome outdoor concert with his band Alternative Nation! Saw my long time BFF Shanan there! Her husband is "in the band".




 My  mom and I babysat Lynzi's kids while she taught EFY in Alabama or somewhere like that. We took them to Cherry Hills water park. We also took them to a little indoor amusement park. There are random pics of that scattered throughout. ;)


 
4th of July in IF!



 
Got to see most of my High school Besties and meet Rochelle's little Vivi!


 
Hale family reunion in Island Park!













Christmas in March

Well that's depressing. I was going to blog about how FABULOUS this Spring Break has been and then I realized I haven't blogged on my family blog since November! GAH! I'm always the catch-up queen, so let's get to it!

This Christmas was different because my parents are on a mission in Salt Lake City again and it was kind of everyone's years to be with their in-laws except Tami and I don't do in-laws for Christmas and Heather WAS so far away. (more on that later!)

So we decided since it was a weird year anyway and our kids needed NOTHING for Christmas, we would do a vacation! We looked at places like Hawaii and San Diego but air fare over Christmas is Re-Donk. So we found cheap flights to Portland and then drove to Grand Mound Washington to the GREAT WOLF LODGE... Pretend I just said that like Oprah. May her show rest in peace.

I wish we had a super cute family picture in the super cool lobby but we don't. We were literally having too much fun to stop and take very many pictures.

The airplane ride went well but the rest of Christmas Eve was a little shady.

See HERE.  I was the nut-job lady yelling at the Wal-mart worker and crying at customer service. I was super menstrual.  Even that night in the hotel was kind of shady... kids were kind of whiny and acting slightly entitled and I lost it a little bit.
 But then Christmas morning came and Santa came and we played all week and gloriousness ensued.




 We ate Christmas morning breakfast inside a life-size Gingerbread house. This thing was literally made of Gingerbread and candy.







Great Wolf Lodge has a really fun indoor water park.

























It also has this thing called "Magic Quest" where you buy these wands and play this magical quest throughout the resort where you're finding things like treasure chests and fairies and you get clues as to the next place to go. It was really fun. I wish I'd had a chance to play that part more with the kids.

They also have this animatronic show in the lobby a couple times a day and for the month of December they make it snow indoors. "It's snowing...at great wolf lodge...and all our friends are here..." (A song they play every time.)

There's also a bunch of other stuff to do like mini golf, arcade, build-a-bear type thing that also comes with a quest game...


























































 We went with our friends Ryan and Natalie Taylor. Again, I wish I had pics of all of us together! We've been friends with them since before we had kids or houses! We love them!


So we spent 3 FULL days there and then decided since we were flying out of Portland, to spend the last 1/2 day there in the city. We went to the Portland Children's Museum and VooDoo donuts, which is a must visit in Portland!























Then we flew home, had a day to recover and then drove to Salt Lake City to meet this little ADORABLE BABY!!!! 

And to spend New Years with my family. Deacon got sick the morning we were supposed to go, but there was a big family party that night, and I really didn't want to miss it, so we went anyway! Deacon through up randomly off and on for 3 days.


We also celebrated Brighton's birthday there!  Holy cow, we did a lot!