Bonfire :-)

Last night our friends the Johnsons invited us to go have a bonfire in a canyon (i think bulldog??). I'm so bad with remembering the names of places. I got so disoriented on where we were going, but I think it was N/E of Mesa. Anyways, we got to the park area where the designated fire pits are, but we're too cool for that so we went on a little offroading excursion. After a few breath holding moments (hehehe) we made it to the top of a plateau and set up the campfire! The Johnsons are out door experts and have this down to a science. I was expecting it to be like a bonfire we had in high school where everyone gets together, you have cheap hot dogs and marshmallows that no one cooks quite right but you eat them anyways because it's part of the "experience". No No No....last night we had nice comfy chairs, a table, burgers complete with lettuce, tomatoes, mayo, ketchup, buns! It was GREAT! We even made banana boats, which I had never even heard of, but I think I'm in love. You open part of the banana peel, cut a few slits across the banana, insert chocolate chunks, close the banana up, wrap in foil and cook in the fire. We forgot tin foil so we improvised and they tasted amazing. I don't really like marshmallows, so I'm glad to have an alternative to smores!!! We had so much fun just sitting and telling stories...we were sad to go when the the fire died out. We mad a grand exit by lighting some fireworks the Johnsons had leftover. I think they got a good laugh at how chicken Josh and I were. They had a couple black cats (or bob cats!), some artillery rounds (they shoot up high in the sky!), and my favorite were these long sticks that you hold and little fireworks shoot up randomly out of them. Some twirled, some shot up then exploded into a shower of glitter. I felt like Hermione Granger holding a wand and casting spells :-))) I kept shouting out things like "Expecto Patronum!!!". I'm going to need to buy more of those fireworks...it was too much fun! Here are a few pictures I took. We will definitely need to do this again!!!!




Julia and their adorable baby Sammy!

Me and Julia

Sean, Sammy, and Josh

the boys!

LUCKY!!!

okay...I heard this song on my mom's xm radio in her car while I was in California and fell in love with it. I wish this song was around when I was putting together our wedding video. It's playing on my blog playlist. I LOVE it.
"Lucky" by Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat. The Video is really cute too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkoEMGk5KLc

Disneyland!!!!

This last week I was in California watching JT and Erik while my parents were in Hawaii with Josh's parents. I wanted to go to Disneyland on a non crowded day so I checked with my mom if I could pull JT out of school on Wednesday to go for a whole day...my birthday present to him :-) Then my mom asked if I would take some of his friends too and have that be his birthday party! (How convenient for her to have his birthday party while shes out of town :-)) He invited his two buddies from school Kylie Stucki and Caelum McCusker and both of their older sisters Hallie and Camden. I picked them up midday and we got to Disneyland by 2:30! I wasn't able to take that many great pictures because I had to keep an eye on all the muchkins, but Camden snagged a bunch of great ones! I'll have to get copies from her!

This is the clan on the tram! Caelum, JT, and Hallie

Camden and Kylie

Camden, Kylie, and Me

Camden, Kylie, Me, Caelum, JT, Hallie

In front of Mickey! They change the garden every season, it used to have Tinkerbell, but now it has a bunch of "balloons" everywhere. The theme right now is "Celebrate Today!" JT can now read and thought they put that all up just for him!!! It was really cute!

The kiddos on the Tarzan bridge.

Hallie climbing the rope.

Kylie climbing the rope.

Camden climbing.

JT climbing

Caelum climbing.


They ALL wanted a picture climbing up!! haha.

In front of the waterfall.

Waiting for Big Thunder. We paired up one "big girl" with one of the munchkins for every ride.

I love this picture. It totally captures all of their personalities! Caelum was having a shy moment and didn't want to be in the picture.

In the "Monkeys" cage on the Casey Jr. train.

Kylie is so adorable.

Me and Cam

Tea Cups!!!

I think Caelum has mixed feelings!!!

We're spinning...

and spinning...

and spinning!

Waiting for space mountain. Our favorite ride!

In front of the Castle!More Castle.

Matterhorn...the final ride of the night!


We stayed all the way till 8:00pm when Disneyland closed! It was a blast! Everyone thought I was crazy for taking (2) 9 year olds and (3) 6 year olds to disneyland by myself, but they were so good. I think that was the most fun I've ever had a disneyland!! I did get a ton of comments from people in line like... "wow you sure got a crowd there!" and "those can't all be yours!"I seriously wonder what goes on in peoples head sometimes! haha. First of all I look like I'm fifteen and for all of the kids to be mine I would have to have had twins then 3 years later triplets. haha. Many seem relieved when I told them none of them are mine, it's my little brother's birthday party, but they still thought I was a little nutty for taking them all by myself...and maybe I am. But it was still fun!

It wasn't crowded at all. We got to go on Splash Mountain, Pirates, Tarzan, Big Thunder, Casey Jr., Tea Cups, Autopia, Dinner at Pizza Port, Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, Star Tours, and Matterhorn! And if you ask JT he'll add that we got to go on the tram twice!!! haha. The longest wait posted was 20 minutes for Space Mountain, but we just walked through..it was really more like 15!

After all the rides each kiddo got to pick out a pin from the gift shop inplace of a goodie bag!

I didn't get a picture of them and I can't find them all online. But Kylie got a Cinderall hallograph pin, the two boys got Nemo pins, Hallie got a Minnie Mouse on a cell phone pin, and Camden got a Mickey Mouse electrical parade pin.

Pajama Party

Last week the people I work for went to a Suns game and so I watched the kids late that night. We decided to have a pajama party!! Jai wanted so see our "house" so I picked him up from school and we drove down to Tempe, picked Josh up, got happy meals, and went back to our place for a movie! I bought about 100 disney movies for really cheap in China, so Jai was in movie heaven! I had a bunch of movies he's never seen before. He was so excited because he NEVER gets to watch tv. His parents told him the tv at his house is broken from their move last year and he hasn't really questioned its spontaneous recovery for special occasions. :-) So he was VERY excited when I told him he could watch TWO movies. He picked Meet the Robinsons (I LOVE this movie), and Dinosaurs. As I was getting the movie and tv all set up Jai discovered our papasan chair. Its in the corner of the room next to the tv so I asked Jai if he could see the screen from there. He got really worried that I was going to make him move or something and tried convincing me he could see perfectly! When I told him I could move the chair so he could see better, he had the most excited look on his face! When it got late Josh and I loaded the little ones in the car and took them back to their house. Raja fell asleep part way into the first movie so he was easy to transport. Jai on the other hand didn't fall asleep till we got off the freeway to his house. Luckily he fell asleep in the car though because he takes FOREVER to fall asleep in his bed.