Thanksgiving Weekend

This Thanksgiving was kind of a low key one for Brad and I. We drove up to Steve and Alli's house in Idaho on Wednesday afternoon with my Mom and Dad. We were excited to go up and see them and their girls. Brad was stressing out about riding in the backseat with my Dad driving...because we all know what a good driver he is. But everything ended up being just great, and we had a fun time! Unfortunately, i don't have a lot of pictures of this trip. I wish i would have taken more! 

Wednesday night, we went to an Idaho State University men's basketball game. It was fun to see Steve in his element at work. And most importantly to see little Cami in her element with the Cheerleaders. I was so entertained just watching her stand right next to the Cheerleaders the whole time holding her little pom poms and dancing just like them. She is so stinking cute!

 Thanksgiving day, we went to a new park by Steve and Alli's house in the morning. We had a blast playing with the kids. I think Brad loved the park just as much as Cami and Sophie did. He is such a little boy, and gets so excited about the littlest things, and i love that about him.

Brad pushing Cami and Alli on the tire swing.

 These were the most comfortable swings i've ever been in. It was like a recliner! I could have sat there all day. :) Cami and Brad became the best of friends on this trip. They adore each other. 

 We came home from the park, had our delicious Thanksgiving dinner. We sure went to the right house for Thanksgiving. Alli, the incredible chef, went all out and we ate so much delicious food. We all then took a nap on the floor for a little bit, and then woke up and went to the movies. We went at saw Happy Feet 2. We came home and ate some yummy pies that Alli had made. They were to die for! 

Funny story: Cami and Brad got in their first fight while eating pie. Brad kept on threating Cami that if she didn't eat her pie then he was going to eat it. (Because she kept on just eating her ice cream), and she kept on saying no to him and continued to dig at her ice cream. Finally, Brad took his fork and took a tiny corner out of her Banana Cream pie. She immediately freaked out, and started bawling hysterically. It was so funny, and her reaction was completely unexpected. Steve even took her out of the room to try and talk to her and calm her down, but she wouldn't. After ten minutes of snot dripping, hysterical crying...she pointed to Brad and said 'Spit it out!' So my plate was still sitting on the table with a little bit of whip cream on it. So Brad sneakily put some whip cream on his fork, and put it on her plate and said 'Here is your pie back, i'm sorry Cami!' After that, she immediately stopped crying and they were best friends again. It was so funny. We love that little girl!

Across the street from their house, there was a gas station called 'Stinkers'. Brad and my dad were talking about it all weekend, so Thursday night we decided to walk over there. Brad got a drink in his stinkers cup. And my dad had a nice little bathroom stop in there. They are such boys.

Friday morning, we left early to go back home so Brad could be to work by 1. We had a great trip, and are grateful for Steve and Alli, and their cute family!

Let Christmas Begin!

For our date night, Brad and I decided to go to the Riverwoods when they lit their Christmas lights. It really is so cool! We went and ate at Malawi's Pizza first, which was so yummy. Then we walked around and looked at all the cool lights. Jon Schmidt was performing, so we listened to him for a while. He was so good, and the atmosphere of the whole place was so fun. Brad has been in the Christmas spirit a little too early for me this year, but i have to admit...this got me really excited for Christmas! 

 Chris and Heather and the boys came and met us there, and we had a blast hanging out with them! The boys looked so cute all bundled up in their coats. And we just played and danced around to the music. Since all of my nieces and nephews live far, it is sure fun for me to have some cute nephews that i get to see often! I can't believe how big and old they are getting!

 Chris and Heather's cute family!

 Heather and Korver having fun!

At the end of the night, when we were walking back to the car, it started snowing and Brad and I got so excited. We are so excited to have our first Christmas together! And what a blessing it is to live close to family to celebrate and do fun things with!

Happy Halloween!

Brad and I had a fun Halloween this year! I have never really been a fan of Halloween, and i have always believed it is only fun when you have kids. But this year, Brad and I decided to dress up and do something fun! So my friends decided to do a Murder Mystery dinner the Friday before Halloween. So we were assigned certain characters, and had to dress up like them. Here we are at our  best.

Meet Elias and Elvira...

 If you haven't noticed, Brad is wearing my Jeans. How sad is that? 

The dinner was really fun! Marnie went all out to make it an old western dinner, eating chicken legs and beans out of tin, and drinking lemonade from jars. It was so fun.

 I wish i had pictures of everyone else's costumes, cause everyone looked good!

When we were shopping for our costumes...Brad found this mask and thought it was the funniest thing ever.

On Sunday...we went up to the Curtis' for Sunday dinner, and we all carved pumpkins that night. I have to admit...ours was pretty cool.

 Brad drawing it out..

 A 'B' and 'L' for the eyes...a heart for the nose...and a palm tree representing our wish to go back to Hawaii as the mouth. :)

 Ours is on the left, Chris and Heathers

 in the middle, and Heather and Kenny's on the right. 

If you look closely, you will see Brad cut a hole to the right of the mouth on the pumpkin representing a mole that the pumpkin has, because i have a mole in that spot on my face. Thanks Brad?

 The fam with our pumpkins!

 Work on Monday (actual Halloween) was fun! We all dressed up, and only worked a half day. I will say Assisting in that tight corsette i was wearing, is not easy!

 When i got home from work, i made Brad some mummy corn dogs. I wrapped the hot dogs in dough like a mummy. I have to admit, they were pretty cute. For as much as Brad loves corn dogs, i guess i can make them for him once a year. :)

 After dinner, we put our costumes back on and went over to Chris and Heathers to go trick-or-treating with the boys. Marty and Keri down too, and we had a great time hanging out with everyone. Korver was a cute little cowboy, and Pryson was a little Indian. We had fun walking around with the family, and seeing how excited Korver was about all of his candy. 

 The two handsome cowboys!

This was the funnest Halloween yet! I'm glad i had an excuse for Brad and I to dress up and live a little!

LPD Hawaii Trip!

Back in September my boss, Dr. Lorscheider surprised us and told us he had just bought us plane tickets to Kauai! We went as a staff about two years ago, and we had talked about going again this year...but none of us thought it was really going to happen. Luckily, he checked for flights at just the right time, where he found super cheap tickets and bought them! So then with the help of sweet Keri, we found Brad another cheap flight so he was able to go, and we were set! On Friday, October 14th, Brad dropped me off with my friends at 5 in the morning and i left, and then Brad was joining me two days later, so he could go to one more day of school and work.

I'll try and do justice to show how fun this trip was...

The first two days without Brad were fun, but i was of course just dying for him to get there! We got settled in our condo, got our rental cars, and did a giant costco run for the week.We played at the beach most of the time these two days, and did lots of boogie boarding and snorkeling. 

 Kenny, Andrea, and I just arriving in Kauai! 

All the girls on the beach our first day!

This is the place where we stayed! I am standing on the road where the beach is at, so it was just a short walk down to the beach!

The next day we went to my favorite beach! We snorkled and swam with many big sea turtles like this one...

You can see why this is my favorite beach...because it has grass! And not just sand!

 Dr. L and Kenny sword fighting

After the beach, we went over to the Spouting Horn. You can't really see anything in this picture, but Angela and i call this our 'lesbian lover' picture. We mostly just love the outfits of the two ladies next to us. :)

On Sunday morning we went to church, and got out of sacrament meeting in time to go pick up Brad! We timed our trip just right, and were lucky enough to see their primary program! We were all laughing so hard. Those kids are so cute. Also, when we went to church they just had a box sitting in the hall way of tons of huge avacado's for anyone to take. They were soo yummy!!

 So our last Hawaii trip, we went to church at this same ward. We ended up going to one of their ward activities during the week too. Anyway, we fell in love with this kid two years ago, and were so excited to see him again. Angela asked him if he remembered us from two years ago, and he looked at her like she was crazy. So we had to take another picture with him! Isn't he cute?

 Ange and I always call eachother 'Sisters in Zion', so we had to take a cheesy Relief Society, "As Sisters In Zion' picture outside of the church. :)

So right after church, we went home and changed into our daily Hawaii attire (swim suits) and went to go pick up Brad! I was so excited. Ardice, Shea, and I went to the airport to get him. He texted me when we were on our way to the airport saying he had just landed, and that I HAD to meet his man Rodney. I was kind of dreading this, to be honest. I just thought he was some weird guy that Brad sat by and talked about weird things with the whole flight. So i went into the baggage claim to meet him, and i hear this loud yell from across the whole place saying "LIINNNDSSSEEEYYY". Here is Rodney with this arms wide open to give me a huge hug. He is a native hawaiian, and is actually a United Airlines flight attendant, but was not working at the time. So he would sneak back in the plane and give Brad all of this free food the entire flight. He really was super nice.

After Brad dropped his stuff off at the condo, we got in the car and drove up Waimea Canyon. We hiked around and could not stop taking pictures of all the beautiful scenery. I'm officially in love with Kauai. 

 Angela found a pig! I would have thrown up if i would have touched it. 

 After the canyon trip, we went back to the condo for dinner, and then Brad was dying to go down to the beach and play in the water. So we did..and it was a beautiful night! 

  

Monday we went on our Kayaking trip up the Wailua River. We left early in the morning, and got done around 12:30.

Getting ready to head out to the river...

So we kayaked up the river for about an hour, and we went on this hike through this cool jungle/amazon to get to a waterfall. Our tour guide, Justin, was really cool...and once again we couldn't get over how beautiful everything was!

We had to make a stop at a rope swing of course. I even did it :)

And then we made it to the waterfall!

After the Kayaking expedition, we drove over to another waterfall to jump off of. Brad, Kenny, and Josh had a blast doing stupid things off the big waterfall. I found a little rock to jump off of. I wish i had pictures of this...but my camera was dead at this point.

The next morning, Brad was awake by 6 a.m., ready to to go boogie boarding. So him and Kenny walked down to the beach and boarded for a few hours. Checkin out the waves...

 The next day we went back to the grassy beach to snorkel some more...

 Brad fell asleep on the grass, and Kenny was putting bread on his head for the birds to eat. :)

 Swimming with some more sea turtles...

 Later that day, we went to Shipwreck, which was right by our condo too. We loved this beach. See that giant rock behind us? Yeah, my crazy husband jumped off that thing.

 Here is my husband standing at the top, ready to jump. I was standing down thinking i had so much control over him to convince him to not do it. But then i realized i had no control, so i just took a deep breath and took a picture. :)

 We also snuck into the Hyatt Hotel, and swam in their pool.  They have like a man made beach in their pool, which was fun. It felt good to swim in fresh water for a while. :)

Wednesday we went up to the North Shore. For those of you who have seen Soul Surfer (We watched it on the island) this is the beach where the shark bit her arm off! It kind of freaked me out to go in the water, but it it's another pretty place, nonetheless.

 We went on a big hike around the Napali Coast, to this other beach. It was sooo beautiful! 

 When we got to the other beach, there were lots of cool caves to go in.

 Inside of a cave...

 On our way home from the North Shore, we stopped at Dr. L's dad's house that he owns and is building. When we went to see it, the contractor that was working on his house, gave us these flattering T Shirts. 

 And then we stopped to get snow cones. I'm sorry, but the snow cones in Hawaii smoke the snow cones in the entire world. They are sooo good!

 Everynight we stayed up late with everyone being stupid, or playing games, or watching movies! We really are so lucky to have such a great group of friends!

Thursday was our last full day, and we went back to the beach to do some more boogie boarding. 

 We also went and got Brad a Kauai famous Puka Dog for lunch. I knew Brad would love it, because he LOVES hot dogs. Hot dogs aren't good on a normal day, but these were good!

 After lunch we went to this waterfall. We went here last time, and it was really fun. But this time i had a serious panic attack. We hiked down to the water at the bottom of the water fall, swam across that huge thing against the strong current, climbed up on the rocks to the right of the falls, and walked across so we were sitting on the rocks behind the water fall. Then we had to to do the whole thing over again to get out! SOO scary! I felt like i was in a hurricaine with that strong of water beating against me. You are not supposed to hike down to the water (for obvious safety reasons), but having my sweet husband and Kenny with us, we broke the rules. Liz and Shea, who stayed at the top and watched the whole thing, said that everyone around was watching us the whole time saying how stupid we were. We were stupid, but it was a good adrenaline rush i guess. 

 That night was the night that the Dr. took us all out to dinner. Before dinner, they had these hawaiian dancers that let anyone go up and dance with them. Andrea, Angela, and I went up. I was horrible and ended up falling. So embarrasing!

 Dr. Lorscheider and all of his staff outside of the restaurant.

 Eating our yummy Hula Pie for dessert. I can't explain it, but it is truly the best thing i have ever put into my mouth!

 Friday was the day we left for home. We were so sad, and not ready to go back! As we were getting on the plane, we randomly saw Rodney again! He was so nice and gave us these yummy smelling, and beautiful Lei's that he made himself, and put a flower in our hair.

We got home Saturday morning and pretty much slept the whole day, since we lost a whole night of sleep! What a fun trip it was, and we are so thankful for Dr. Lorscheider taking us all! We probably won't make it back for another 20 years...so we will just cherish these memories forever! :)