Kansas City Winter

Money Woes

We were eating dinner at the Crayola Cafe one night and the conversation between big sis and little sis turned to money. Big sis thinks that money is just always available. If I don't have any on me and she wants something at the store "just go to the ATM mama". Little sis is more realistic. Being the mama's girl that she is, her ultimate goal in life is to be a mama herself. In this endeavor she also realizes that there is no monetary compensation for this job. The discussion between the two ended with an very adamant statement from little sis. "I'm a mama so I don't have any money".

You're Not The Boss

Conversation in the basement heard through the vents. Both 8 year old and 5 year old screaming about new Christmas toys and who's in charge. 8yr old: These are all mine and I'm the boss. 5yr old: (screaming) Wait wait wait I have to tell you something 8yr old: I'm the boss 5yr old: You're the boss of me, Mama is the boss of you, Daddy is the boss of Mama I thought Mama was the boss of everybody. :-)

Ho Ho Ho

Family holiday picture A trip to Crown Center Crayola Land & Santa

Oops I did it again............last night

Need I say more??????

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Can you say G-Man times 2????? Yes, we are going AGAIN to the final show Wednesday the 14th. So Pumped!!!

The G Man

For those of you who don't live in KC or couldn't get tickets here are some pics from the Garth Brooks concert. TOTALLY AWEWOME!!!!!! We had such a blast we're trying to get two more tickets for his last show this Wednesday and see it again. Oo-rah!

How does?.......

I was having a conversation with my littlest angel who is 5 1/2 going on 12. It centered around the upcoming holiday, Santa, and how was he possibly going to get into our home. We have been in our home now for 15 months and I guess it just wasn't an issue last Christmas. We started a new family tradition that we all sleep around the tree Christmas Eve and leave the tree lights on (I believe our tree is flame retardent). I asked her how she thought Santa was going to get in our home to leave his presents.(We do have a gas fireplace). Without a second thought she blurted out "he's going to come down the chinney". Duh

Happy 41st !!

This was taken the night we stayed at Great Wolf Lodge and went to Famous Dave's for dinner. It was the Kansas Special Olympics Tip-A-Cop night there and they were "serving" dinner. They sang Happy Birthday to me then took our picture for their website. Was pretty funny. Don't we all look like we've been at the water park?

Pumpkin Patch Visit

We went to Carolyn's Pumpkin Patch in Liberty, MO. Lots of fun stuff to see and do. However, we were not gullible enough to purchase the big pumpkins they sold for $8. We stopped at the Wal-Mart just down the road a bit and got the same size for $3.42!!

IT'S THE GREAT PUMPKIN CHARLIE BROWN

We took our annual trek to Worlds of Fun for Halloween Haunt this year. The girls dressed up in their costumes. Savannah is a Fairy and Haylie wanted to be Ariel. We went with our good friends Ryan and Kari and their two boys. Fun was had by all.

TRY IT JUST ONCE.....

My mother came for a visit last week but we hardly saw her. She was gracious enough to watch the girls while Mike and I went on a "day date". It was awesome. We were gone all day and stayed overnight at a hotel here in town. The girls did not have school that day and we were out of the house that morning. We went to the Nelson Atkins Museum, saw a 3D movie at Union Station, ate lunch there at Pierponts, went to Independence and saw the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, saw 3:10 To Yuma at the theatre, had dinner at Shoguns (my fav), stayed in a hotel, then ate out for breakfast the next morning. Something every couple should try once in a while.

Ahoy there matey!

Just some fun pics of our cruise to Barbados, Antigua, St Lucia, St Maarten, and St Thomas.

Master and Commander of the Buffet Line

We are taking our girls on a surprise Southern Caribbean cruise the end of this month. It goes to Barbados, Antigua, and up through the US Virgin Islands. I found this article in the newspaper back in February 2004 that everyone who's been on a cruise can relate to. This was penned by Dave Barry. "In my family, we are nautical people. We have the sea in our veins. I do not speak metaphorically: Sometimes we find actual eels in our underpants. Thats how nautical we are. And so a few weeks ago, we set out on a sea voyage from Ft Lauderdale, knowing that it would be five days, and roughly 153 meals. We sailed aboard a cruise ship, which had one of those cruise-ship names like the Majestic Vagabond Restaurant of the Seas. She is a fine vessel, a tad larger than CT, boasting an onboard shopping mall. Leaving port, she weighed 75,000 tons, at least half of which was food. Here's a log of our voyage: DAY ONE We arrive at the ship and meet our fellow voyagers, most of whom are wearing brand-new sneakers, as though they're about to compete in the decathlon, as opposed to spending the next five days chewing. We begin our cruise with a lifeboat drill, lining up in neat rows, wearing our lifejackets, calmly awaiting instructions. In a real emergency, of course, we'd fight for the lifeboats like wild dogs battling for meat. Speaking of meat: Its time for dinner! In the dining room, we engage in sparkling intellectual repartee with our fellow voyagers. After dinner, its time to engage in the vast array of shipboard activities, by which I mean drinking, gambling and shopping. By midnight, everybody is weary from a long partial day at sea, and it is time to: Eat More! There's a midnight buffet. Plus, if you pay a little extra, your cabin attendant will come around and stuff food into your mouth while you sleep. DAY TWO When we wake up, the Restaurant of the Seas has docked at the exotic island of Key West. This is four hours from our house by car. By ship we made it in just 13 hours. Before going ashore, we eat a buffet-style breakfast. We are issued enormous plates; they look like small wading pools. It is not easy to cover every square foot of plates this size with food. But we manage, because we know we must soon cross, on foot, several hundred feet of barren, commerce-free no-mans-land between the ship and the Key West shopping district. While we're ashore, disaster strikes: The power goes out. For 45 agonizing minutes, the cash registers in the stores and restaurants do not work. Unable to buy or eat anything, some cruise passengers become disoriented and begin to have non-shopping-related conversations. Fortunately it passes quickly. Carrying our purchases, we return to the ship in time for more intellectual give-and-take. In our cabin, we find chocolates on our pillows. Clearly, they want us dead. DAY THREE We arrive in Cozumel, Mexico. After a hearty breakfast, we go ashore and experience Mexico which consists of souvenir stores and restaurants where everybody speaks English and accepts dollars. Travel is a good way to learn about other cultures. That night back on the ship, we go to a piano bar, where the piano player gets everybody in a festive mood by playing - I am not making this up - The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a song about a ship that sank, killing all aboard. Party time! DAY FOUR We spend this entire day at sea, eating and shopping. I think some passengers must be secretly throwing their new purchases overboard to make room in their luggage for even newer purchases. The ocean is rough, some waves affect even the massive bulk of the Restaurant of the Seas. At breakfast, there's a moment when I'm watching maybe two dozen cruisers going thru the buffet line, each holding a wading pool heaped with food, and the deck shifts, and the cruisers, in perfect unison, all lurch to the right, then back to the left. Nobody drops so much as a waffle. I am damned proud to be serving with this outfit. DAY FIVE We arrive at last in Ft Lauderdale. We are tired but we are also, because of this experience, something more: fat. We vow to go on the South Beach Diet, or even just the Beach Diet, where all you eat is sand. But someday, we will return to the sea. Because we know that its a big world, and there are many more adventures awaiting us, out there on the vastness of the ocean. For example, we have yet to try the shrimp scampi. Happy Sailing!!!!

The Summer of 2007

I was contemplating over the last few months and what the summer of 2007 entailed for our family.

We went camping over Memorial Day weekend to Knob Noster State Park.

We drove to Utah and back for Savannah's 8th birthday and baptism.

We took a trip to Nauvoo to see the new pageant and Old Fort Madison.

And we went camping over labor day to our favorite spot in Mo, Watkins Mill State Park.

Keeping the Sabbath Day.........

Well today was Stake Conference and do you think we went. Uh no. We had every intention of going but since none of us got up until 8:30 this morning it was out of the question. See here in Kansas City we have to go an hour early to get a good seat as we have no stake center that will hold the entire congregation. This year it was held at the Ritz Convention Center. We've also been to the Overland Park Convention Center. Quite a different experience for those of us from Utah. So in lieu of going to our meeting today I was able to catch up on my 2006-07 scrapbook. See I have procrasted so much the past two years that I have had to combine them into one. Unfortunately this scrapbook is not one of my better ones and not one I'd consider entering in the Johnson County Fair. It is basically just a photo album. No pretty paper, no embellishments, no funky fonts; just pictures and descriptions. But I am glad that is off my mind now. Hopefully I'll be more on the ball for 2008.

New to Blogging

Ok Ok so I've finally arrived to the 21st Century and have gotten on the "BB" (blogging bandwagon). I won't bore you with details, pictures, yada yada yada of our lives up till this point. I will however try to keep everyone updated on a weekly basis. We have been home 16 days now from a trip to Utah. We are now the "Sole Survivor" of the Midwest so we decided to make the 2168 mile round-trip for Savannah's 8th birthday and baptism. And we did survive - whew!