Year end trip!

The end of October we took a trip to North Carolina to visit my sister's. While there, Maddi my niece was baptised. It was fun to see them and have the kids get reacquainted. After spending a few days, we packed up all our stuff to fly down to Florida to go on a cruise. I was packing up and happened to take out our passports and only had 4. I looked at each of them and mine wasn't there. I started bawling and couldn't get out I had left it at home. I had taken a photo copy of it and got side tracked and left it in our printer at home. My calm husband got on his phone and called our friends and had them go into the house and sure enough there it sat. I panicked! Here we had this wonderful vacation planned and was I going to be able to go???? This was a Saturday morning. Our flight to Florida left that afternoon and our ship out of Ft Lauderdale was to leave Sunday morning. After an hour of figuring it all out, we got my passport overnighted to our hotel in Ft Lauderdale. It arrived at Midnight Sunday morning. So $400 and a lot of stress later, I was able to go!!! I can laugh at it now but man, freaked out! Luckly I found it in enough time to get it! We met up with my entire family and they all joined us on the cruise. It was such a blast. It has been over 2 years we have all been together because we all live so far apart.It was so fun and relaxing. It was great not to have to clean up our room, cook and we could use a towel once!

We went to the Princess Cays (private island owned by princess cruise lines), St Maarten, St Thomas, and Grand Turk.
We had to drag the kids kicking and screaming from the beach each day. They were in heaven and is was so great to have all the cousins playing and entertaining each other.

Max loved the sand and ended up eating most of the beach!

We went on a tour of St Thomas and ended up at this incredible beach called Magen's bay.

We celebrated Ellie's 3rd birthday our 2nd day at sea.

My siblings and spouses on a formal night. Carey and Chantel, Nate and I, Mom and Dad, Katelyn, Sharma and Rob.

We were on the cruise for Halloween. We took the kids costumes and the kids club had them go on a parade trick or treating then they ended up at one of the rooms to introduce themselves to everyone

Shooting

Kale received a gun for his birthday and was excited to take it shooting (ok so Dad was REALLY excited)! We went up parleys canyon to the police shooting range and tried it out!

T-Ball take 2

We signed Kale up for another season of T-ball. It was just as funny as the first go around! He was on the Rockies this time and loved it!

Kale's Birthday

Kale turned 5 on September 28. We started out the day at his school. Ellie and Mom took cupcakes to eat during snack time. He had a little party with some of his friends then had family over for cake and ice cream. He is such a fun boy. He is so gentle and kind. He looks out so well for his sister and brother. We are so glad he is in our family!

Nate was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes two years ago so this year we walked in the Step Out walk for Diabetes. We met at This is the place monument early in the morning and were fed breakfast then walked 2 miles down to Hogle Zoo. We were fed lunch at the zoo, the kids got their faces painted and we saw the animals. It felt good to do something to raise a little money to a cause that is very close to our family.

A day at the beach

We went to a man-made beach in Herriman with some very good friends. The kids had such a blast and I had a great time with kids entertained talking to my friends!

ER trip

Sunday morning, the kids were playing and Ellie told me she was going to slide down the stairs on her sleeping bag. I told her we don't do that because someone will get hurt. The next thing I know, she is screaming and walking up the stairs holding her head. She had hit her head some place and got a pretty good gash in her head. I took her to the ER and luckily she didn't have to get stitches they just glued it together!

Good Times....

Family reading time

This is one of our families favorite times of the year-peach season. We go up to Brigham City every year to buy peaches and eat so many on the way home our car is sticky and we are sick!

We have gone on many walks up City Creek Canyon to enjoy the beautiful scenery and nature.

We rode the bus downtown to Temple Square and looked around then went to the Church museum where they have a hands on part for the kids.

We went to Thanksgiving Pointe to see the farm animals. The kids had a great time riding the horses and seeing all the animals.

We took another trip to the zoo to see all the baby animals. We saw a baby Giraffe, Snow Leopard and saw pictures of the new baby Elephant.