Preschool Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

On Monday Brynley's class took a trip to the Pumpkin Patch. We went to one up in Orem and it was a lot of fun. It was small so it wasn't very crowded. We got to go through the corn maze, which proved to be a bumpy ride for Aubrey in the stroller, play at a pumpkin themed play ground and pick a pumpkin. I loved that it only took an hour and was not crowded. I know, I'm no fun.

FYI, this was one of the only times that Brynley let me do her hair and actually kept it cute. Usually when I curl her hair she decides she doesn't like it 5 minutes later and wets her fingers and runs her hands through her hair until it's not curled anymore. I know, right. Stinker.


When the kids were playing on the playground I felt like it all looked really familiar. And then it hit me! I came to this pumpkin patch with Caleb when he was just 3 months old! Wow, how time flies!

Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Here are some pictures of the kids at the Pumpkin Patch this year!

Our "Vacation" to Southern California

Every time I come here I remember how wonderful it is... Oh I love Southern California! This was the most relaxing 3 days ever! Ok, so maybe not for Brandon because he was going there for work and I just tagged along. C'mon, free hotel, free car, free food, wouldn't you?! We left the kids with the McCain's, a family in our ward, and the kids did great! Thanks Carl and Devin you guys are THE BEST!!!

We flew down last Monday night and drove straight to Huntington Beach for dinner. We went to Spark, this nice restaurant over looking the beach. We had a nice per diem for dinner each night so we had a lot of fun choosing our restaurants! We never go out to eat so this was pretty fun for us. Food was superb, the view was gorgeous but I was extremely exhuasted. Can you tell? It had been a long week...
I made up for lack of sleep by sleeping 11 hours that night!

Tuesday started with a 5 mile run along the beach and it was wonderful. It was supposed to rain that day but it didn't start until I was done running and walking back to my car. Perfect timing! I spent the day with my friend, Bertie, whom I've actually never met before! We "met" on an online fitness forum and have been "friends" ever since! Now we are real friends not just "friends". Love you Bertie! We went to Irvine Spectrum and it was awesome! Great stores and atmosphere!

After Brandon got off work we went over to Downtown Disney and tried to buy some cheap tickets to get into the park.

It didn't work. Some people actually walked by us and said that they had just sold their tickets to someone else. We were too late! We had dinner and then did some shopping.

Afterwards we met my good friend from high school, Kent, his wife, Nellie and his brother and dad for dessert. It was actually Kent's birthday so we got to celebrate with them! It was tons of fun catching up! Thanks you guys for letting us celebrate with you!

Wenesday I went up LA and hung out with Dane. We were going to go to the beach or something but it was lightly raining all day so we didn't. He showed me the Venice Canals, Muscle Beach, and the little bit scary side of Venice Beach. Lol. Since it was rainy there weren't any tourists to dilute the scariness of the "locals".
Here we are posing at Muscle Beach. It was closed for the first time ever due to the rain.



Then we went to Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and had lunch, walked around and got a Pinkberry! I had so much fun hanging out with my bro and seeing his apartment and where he lives his life!


Wednesday night we went to one of my favorite places on the planet. Seriously, Dana Point is amazing. Talk about gorgeous.


Is this not a little bit of heaven on earth?


We ate at another fancy, schmancy restuarant that over looked the harbor while the sun set. It was wonderful. :-)

Thursday after another run along Huntington Beach the sun FINALLY came out! I spent my last 2 hours in California at Newport Beach. I had the place all to myself! When Brandon finished working we had about 30 min to kill so we went back to Newport and walked along the beach for a while.

We came home Thursday night to a house in perfect order and sleeping children. THANK YOU DEVIN!!!! Thanks for making this wonderful "vacation" possible!

NPC Bikini!

For those of you who don't know, yesterday I competed in an NPC Figure competition. I competed in the bikini division which is a little softer than figure (think fitness model as opposed to body builder). I have been wanted to do the competition that is in May but about 10 days ago I decided, what the heck! I decided to just do this one to learn the ropes and figure out how to do things before I really go in there with my game face on. :-)

The morning started with an early competitors meeting before the pre judging. There were 78 total competitors which is the biggest show they've ever had. There were 14 in my division, bikini tall, and 12 in bikini short. The morning show was the prejudging. For that one we walk out, do our three poses and then got back to the line. Then the whole line walks up and we do our front and back poses switching when the judges tell us to, sucking it in, flexing our abs and smiling the whole time. It was hard work. Really it was. I am on the left in all of these.









One thing you'll notice is how WHITE I look compared to everyone else. I took the same steps (mostly) as the other girls but for some strange reason my body didn't absorb it or take to it or something. I'm going to have to figure out something different for next time. You are judged on your "skin tone" aka tan and it looks bad if you stand out like I did. But, oh well. Live and learn.

Between the morning and evening shows, a few of us went to a photo shoot. One of the girls (the one who ended up winning) has a friend who is a photographer and wanted to photograph some of the competitors for free! So she and I and three others went and did that between the two shows. It was so much fun! I'll show you those pictures when I have them.

The evening show was the one that the public comes to where the bodybuilders do their routines and stuff. There were probobly only 50 people in the audience in the morning and there were probobly close to 700 people there at night. Yes, I pranced around in a teeny bikini in front of 700 people and I wasn't even nervous! Seriously I wasn't. Wierd, huh? Anyway for the evening show, we just walk out, do our poses and then walk off. Then they bring the top 5 out and do the placings. I won't know how I did until they post the judges scores online and I dont' know when that will be. There will also be official NPC pictures online so I will post when those are up too.

These are the girls that won. The girl who won tall is one the left and the girl who won short and overall is on the right. She was my backstage friend and was the one who set up the photo shoot.



I had a great time. Brandon doesn't understand how I can possibly think what I did yesterday is fun but he has been so supportive of all the exercise I've had to do, water I've had to drink and crazy food I've had to eat. And just think, I only did it for 2 weeks this time. Next time it will be for a full 12!

One of my favorite "one year old" moments...

One of my favorite things about my babies turning one is turning their car seat around. I don't know about you, but my babies LOVE this. They laugh and giggle the entire first few rides. Wouldn't you?! There's so much new stuff to see! And, hey! There's mom and dad! RIGHT there! I had no idea they were right there!

There are some criteria to be met before we turn the seat around, besides the standard 1 year and 20 lb rule. We must have the camera. Both parents must be present. We must be driving somewhere far enough that she has a good chunk of time to experience this first ride. That usually leaves only Sundays when we go to my parents' house. We flipped her this last Sunday and would you just look at this happiness:

Go Scorpions!

Caleb was on the Scorpions this year for soccer. He had a few friends on his team and he loved it! He was still a little bit timid around the ball but he was much better than last year and he had fun. That's all that matters right?


He's number 9:

I have officially gone crazy...

To see why go here