Kittens!

 For part of the kids Christmas this year we told them they could help pick out 2 new kittens. So introducing Blizzard and Oreo. I think you can probably figure out who is who. Blizzard is a boy and Oreo is a girl.

 Oreo was named because Keaton rode on a black and white horse named Oreo and he kept saying when we get a kitten I want it to be black and white and call it Oreo. The boys wanted to name the white cat snow flake and Kayla about had a heart attack because she thought that was  a wussie name . So i came up with Blizzard which everyone seemed to like and it was a little bit more manly of a name. It was just corny enough to fit. Oreo Blizzard.

 They both have really good personalities and love to be petted and cuddled.

 Oreo was a little standoffish of Blizzard  at first and he put up with it for 2 days and then he decided he had had enough of that and was ready to play. He would just tackle her and play whether she wanted too or not and they became instant friends after a few days of that.

I feel sorry for them some times having two boys who love them so much and want to play but they always come back for more so they must be ok with getting roughed up a bit.

Halloween 2012

 Working on our pumpkin carvings again this year. What will be the carving of choice this year?

 Lots of hard work to scrape out all that pumpkin goo. The boys don't love that part so much but they do look forward to eating roasted pumpkin seeds afterwards.

 Keaton's being just a bit goofy! He is enjoying getting his hands dirty. Can't you tell?

 Nice work boys and a not without a little help from dad. We have a spider web and ghost graveyard. It never fails that at least one picks out a very detailed one that keeps Jason busy carving for hours.

 Keaton is a gold power ranger this year. He even kept his mask on for quite a while.

 Kaden is batman and again picked out a costume with lots of muscle. Our cousins didn't get to join us this year which made us sad but we went with neighbor friends this year and Ty came over as well and we had lots of fun.

Someone is missing from this picture and blog post. I haven't gotten a picture of Kayla before trick or treating in a long time. She is always getting ready when we are leaving and even though I ask her to come back for a picture I never get it. She did go trick or treating for a little while before going to a halloween party. This year her and Sabrina made Dori and Nemo shirts to wear but you will have to use your imagination on those. Maybe next year I will get a picture.

Random Pics

 These are just some random pics that didn't really fall into a big post for the blog but I wanted to share them anyway. This is community helper dress up day at school.

 I think Kaden makes one cute police officer! I love the built in muscles:)

 The boys are teaching Tyler all about pokemons. Probably more then he ever wanted to know about them right Joanna?

 Just a couple of soccer pictures of Keaton. He did really well this past fall season. His team went undefeated. They are the avengers!

Some more pictures from another modeling session of Kayla and Sabrina's. Kayla is still getting taller. She has now officially passed Jenny and JoAnna.

Beach Trip JoAnna and Robert's October 2012

 The kids had a couple of days off school in October so we headed down to Jo and Roberts for some R&R. Love their view. I don't know how they will ever bring themselves to move.

 They were great hosts as always and we enjoyed ourselves. They are brave to take on five of us!

 We ate good food, went to the beach, got snow cones, played tennis, played ping pong, played games,
the girls made headbands one night, took the kids to a movie.

 This is probably how they really felt after we left!

 I am sure their neighbors below loved us. Hard to keep these two still and quiet for very long.

 Just letting them know what they are in for if they have a couple of boys of their own one day.

 Our favorite thing we did was rent a boat on our last day there. It was a blast. The kids and adults all loved it. We will be doing that again for sure!

 Kaden is ready to ride at the moment. Later he fell asleep and slept for half the boat ride. I guess we had been wearing  him out the last couple of days.

 Kayla is pointing to JoAnna's very small and cute baby bump. She is very excited to have girl cousin number two.

 The bathroom is that way...

 Should we trust him driving us around? Probably not but the kids did like going fast.

 Love Keaton"s hair in this picture!

 We found an island to swim to and walk around and collect sea shells for the boys. These two decided to soak up some rays.

 Poor Robert had to keep getting in and pushing us out of the shallow parts a couple of times. I think we sucked up some seaweed.

 I don't think I have ever laughed harder then seeing Robert jump/fall in when he misjudged how deep the water is. Jason was crying he was laughing so hard.

 You are a good sport Robert! We loved hanging out with you guys. Thanks for having us over again.

Yosemite/ San Francisco Trip August 2012

Shocking!!! I found time to do a blog post! Working has definitely eaten up my "extra" time and things like blogging just don't happen to often. Maybe I'll be better about it for a while since summer vacation is fast approaching:)

 

 Jason and I decided to go to San Francisco this past summer. I had been wanting to go for a while and we decided to just go for it. Jason has been out a few times for conferences but I was never able to work it out to go with him. We always try to do at least one trip a year by ourselves. Sometimes it is a smaller and shorter trip but it is nice to get away once in a while. The first day we were there we drove around and did a lot of sight seeing and also did alcatraz.

 We walked around Fisherman's wharf for a while and had to get a picture of the seals for the boys. The picture below is for Jason's mom. She calls flip flops thongs and I always use to laugh because the only thong I know of is the underwear version. This picture proved her right! i guess it is a western thing.

 We headed out to Yosemite for a few days for Jason"s fill of nature. The trees were simply amazing!

 Jason hiked to this waterfall. Just a couple days after we left two brothers were swept away and they both drowned.

 This deer was eating apples that had fallen on the ground.  This is a parking lot near some campsites Jason wanted me to stay in. They were not very clean looking from pictures we looked at and I shot that down pretty quickly. It ended up being a good thing because a couple of weeks later several people had come down with Hanta virus which they traced back to these tents. Instead we stayed at a really nice casino hotel that was gorgeous.

 Back to the city! I have gotten to where I really enjoy the big cities. I wouldn't want to live in a big city but it is very fun to visit. Always so much going on.

 The whole time we were there in the city I kept thinking we were in Europe again. Lots of people speaking foreign languages and the restaurants were so diverse. You could find anything and everything you wanted to eat. There was one place in particular that reminded me of Europe. We found a place that served crepes for breakfast and the owners were French. We went there a couple of times for breakfast. I sent Jo and Robert a picture of my crepe.

 We treated ourselves to a really nice dinner one night. Our anniversary was coming up soon so we said that was our anniversary dinner. The food was awesome! Jason had crab as you can see.

 We had to take a picture of this store for our little lefty, Keaton! Everything in this store is designed for people that are left handed. You don't realize how everything is made for a right handed person till you visit a store like this.

 We decided it would be really fun to rent bicycles and ride over the Golden Gate Bridge and down into Sausalito.

 It was beautiful but a hard ride. San Fran has so many hills! this was our last day and it was probably a good thing. We hiked, walked and biked until our legs were about to fall off. I was glad to sit on an airplane the next day!