We had a wonderful Christmas this year- doing just what we like to do, hanging in our jammies all day, playing games, building puzzles, watching movies, figuring out our new gadgets and chatting with family. We LOVE spending the day in our home with our own little family. To me it is perfection! Since we didn't get a picture the Sunday before Christmas (Everett had a little cold and Jamey volunteered to bring him home right after sacrament for a nap) we did it the Sunday after. Pretty nice picture if I say so myself. :)
It was IMPOSSIBLE to get Everett to look at the camera when there was no one to
look at or Uncle Logan to make him laugh. :)
A friend organized a large group of people to go caroling to some fun families. I haven't been since I was a youth, and I had so much seeing the smiles on the people's faces as we sang. Spencer and Jamison really got into it and had to be right up front in the center of all the action. Again this year Santa came right to our house in proper style with fire trucks blazing to tell the kids Merry Christmas. We quickly through on coats and ran after the big man in red. I love that Spencer and Jamison are still totally into Santa and find so much magic in the holiday.
Also earlier in the month the little nursery in town always hosts Santa and brings at least one his reindeer. This year he brought two- Vixen and Cupid.
...there huge excitement when you open your birhtday present and it is a PILLOW PET! Spencer had been asking for one, and he got his wish.
...you blow out the candles on the ice cream cake that you pick out.
...you become a Cub Scout! He got his nice shirt from grandma Stanworth. He has been to two den meetings- and can I just say, he is LOVING every minute of it!
...you are old enough to be baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was a strange day- Spencer was feeling all kinds of emotions, from excitement to being upset because school friends didn't come and everything in between. Over all it was a nice day with an excellent program! Thank you so much to all our family who came and participated and to my wonderful friends for singing.
Our family's miracle has arrived!!! (Really it is Ashley and Logan's- but I am darn excited to have this little here!) Tatum entered the world on Monday morning at 7:47, weighting 7lb 6oz. Isn't she just beautiful?! I couldn't help myself and I drove up Monday night to hold her, take pictures and visit with Ashley. She had a super rough day, but was starting to feel a bit better that night. I stayed way longer than I had planned, but I just couldn't stop taking pictures. She is so precious!! I don't think it gets more perfect than this!
This gorgeous hat my dear friend made Ashley. She is actually going to start selling them. Check out her blog if you are interested. :)
I mean- look at those tiny feet!!!
While I was cooking dinner tonight my mom called to tell me that once again only 2 days later I am an aunt again!! My oldest brother Jason and his wife welcomed their first daughter into the world this afternoon. Tagan was 7lbs 10oz and from what I hear she has some hair too. Her delivery was fast- I am so excited for them!! I am going to have to wait until spring break to visit them. We are just over the moon to have some girls in this family. However I am SO glad that it is someone other than me. :) Just got some pictures-
So it was a friends birthday and all she wanted to do was go roller skating. Do you know how long it has been since I have roller skated? Much too long!! So we thought it would be hilarious to go looking like roller derby girls. Holy cow- we had SO MUCH FUN! So much in fact that we are already talking about when we are going to do it again!!
Train with the birthday girl!!
The whole group.
A few of my friends had this idea to dress up in Halloween garb and go out to dinner. I thought it sounded like fun, so I was on board. However again, I don't dress up, so I was on the hunt for a CHEAP costume to wear. I found this doctor costume at Target for a decent price and went with it. Again I laughed so hard- it was a FUN, FUN night!
It all started with Spencer deciding that he wanted to be Obi-Wan, and the theme exploded.
I have an AMAZING friend who offered to make this unbelievable costume for Spencer.
Then with LOTS of convincing I was able to get Jamison to agree to be Anikin. Shortly into October I got onto ebay and found a great deal for his costume. Paid for it and expected it no later than the 25th of October. However the day before our ward trunk-or-treat we were without a costume because the crappy person never mailed it. A whole other story, but now I have had to put a claim into ebay trying to get my money back. At the last moment on Friday Jamey spent some time driving to 3 different stores trying to find a costume, with sadly no luck. Only a couple of hours until the trunk-or-treat (in which Jamison was just going to wear a costume we already owned) a friend called me and told me to call another friend to see if she had something that would work. To my udder surprise, this is what she dropped off to us. Absolute perfection!!!
Doesn't he look so darn cute?!
And then there was this one. Jamison actually wore this costume when he was 18 months old, so I was excited to already have it. However like most things in this little ones life these days he was not thrilled with the idea that I wanted pictures. So this is what we got.
I found for a steal of a deal this hilarious costume for Jamey. He is a good sport, considering I don't dress up. (He is Plo Koon.) I love this group shoot- turned out fairly good and Everett was a bit more cooperative.
The boys had so much fun trick-or-treating this year and I must say there is way too much candy in this house!!! Everett was totally getting into the whole thing and once his bucket started getting heavy I tried to take it, to carry it for him- complete melt down! So we just went even slower. Our neighborhood is still not completely finished, so there aren't tons of houses to trick-or-treat at without walking tons. So I asked the Briggs if we could crash their neighborhood and go with them. Holy cow- there were tons of houses and again SO MUCH CANDY!!
There is soon to be a HUGE miracle come into our family. My beautiful sister and her family are going to be welcoming a precious baby girl in November. I can't even begin to explain all that they have endured trying bring this sweet little one into their family. I know they truly feel blessed. Now I am in no means a professional photographer, but I really wanted to try my hand at a few special pregnancy photos for my sister. I really love how a few of these turned out.
It has taken me quite some time to sit down and finish our travelog. This post has tons of pictures- I hope you enjoy reading about the second half of our vacation.
Day 4
We had a VERY early start to the day this day. We had to be up by 6am because the ship was starting into the Tracy Arm fjord to see the Sawyer Glacier. Again we made our way to the back of the ship in the upper room to watch as we sailed into the fjord. It of course was very cold outside being early in the morning and the ship moving. I opted to stay inside and watch, but Jamey wanted to be outside. Which was a win-win for both of us. Jamey was able to get some really neat pictures!
Since we had gotten up so early we decided after the ship left the fjord to go back to our cabin and take a nap before we stopped in Juneau. Just as we had gotten comfortable, I was reading, the announcement came over the intercom that the captain saw orca whales out the side of the ship. We quickly jumped out of bed threw on our shoes and ran to the top viewing deck to see the whales. This was by far one of my highlights!! I loved seeing the whales and capturing it on the camera. The time which the whales were by the ship was only a few minutes, so I felt extremely lucky we had made it outside to see them.
After our nap our ship docked in Juneau at 2pm. Again we didn't have an excursion planned because when we went to book it online it was already full and again we got the same response on the ship. So we had just decided to skip our original plan and just pay a small amount of money to go to Mendenhall Glacier. When we went to the 'booth' right outside the dock we asked the lady for 2 tickets to go to Mendenhall Glacier. She asked us if there was anything else we were looking at doing, Jamey answered that we wanted to go whale watching. She told us that she had a group leaving in just a few minutes and if we went we could get the excursion for only $100. That was $50 cheaper than the other people paid riding in our van and a lot cheaper than what the cruise ship was charging, so we felt like we had hit the jackpot and signed up. This again was one of our favorite days and we are so glad we did it. We first started the tour with a trip through streets of Juneau learning some fun little facts about the city. Then we headed to Mendenhall Glacier. We only had 20 minutes there so we felt really rushed. We hurried around looking at the beautiful scenery around us. Took some pictures, Jamey tested the coldness of the water then we were off to see some humpback whales.
I wish I could show the four hundred different pictures I took. Seeing the whales was such an awesome experience. We were on a small boat, so the captain would not get us very close to the pod. We weren't extremely close, but we saw so much. We were out on the water for well over an hour. When we counted the blowholes we counted at least 8. So we know it was a pretty large pod. The captain told me that he had been bringing people to the same area for over four days. They were just hanging out almost vacuuming the bottom of the ocean for their food. He said they were working in calculated manner. We watched the whales feed doing a technique called bubble net feeding. They swim in a circular motion blowing bubbles around the school of fish, then whales suddenly swim upward through the 'net', mouths agape, swallowing thousands of fish in one gulp. It was magnificent!! While we were out on the boat watching the whales, we saw some beautiful mountains and two more glaciers. The one in the pictures behind the whales is Eagle Glacier.
We finished our tour and headed back to the ship, walked around a bit, the tourist shopping street and of course bought a few souvenirs.
Day 5
This was the day that we stopped in Skagway. We had our longest port here and let me tell you I have no idea why!! There really wasn't hardly anything to do except ride the gold rush train which we didn't want to do. When we got off the ship we walked up to the information booth and asked for a map- we had planned on just walking the town. The lady laughed and said- oh you won't need one. Does that explain what we were in for in this town? We went to the National Forest Service to see about a free tour of the town. We had just missed the 11 o'clock tour, so we had to wait until 1pm. We then walked through the streets and came upon a bike shop. We thought it would be fun to rent some mountain bikes and ride around. I'm not sure who's bright idea it was to get the tandem bike instead of us each getting a bike, but that is what we did. It in itself was the most comical thing you have ever seen.
We rode to the gold rush cemetery- what do you do in a cemetery when you know nothing about the people who are buried there? It was a fast stop to say the least. We then walked up the short hike to Reid Falls. It was so beautiful!!! We of course had to take some pictures of the sign because it made me think about my cute little nephew Reid!
After the falls we headed up what the bike shop guy said was a 'bit' of a hill- or what we might say as a BIG hill- to go to the lookout point and see all of Skagway. It was pretty, but I'm not sure the effort it took to get there was worth it.
Again we were the comedian act for a Princess Cruise line tour bus. The driver slowed down and had everyone on the bud clap for us. I get embarrassed easy and this one was no exception. After we returned the bike we did the walking tour of the city and learned a bit more about the gold rush. Interesting. When we were done with the tour there really wasn't anything else to do, so we got back to the ship and- you guessed it took a nap. We stayed in this port for 13 hours and really we could have seen everything that there was to see in a matter of a few hours. That night was another captains dinner so once again we got all dressed up for dinner. For dessert they served Baked Alaska which was Neapolitan ice cream with meringue. It was good and ice cream is my huge weakness- our waiter gave me an extra large piece!
After dinner we went up to the night club for some dancing. Of course Jamey didn't dance except for a slow song, but I take what I can get. Good thing Siki was willing to boggie with me on the dance floor.
Day 6
This day was mostly at sea. We were on our way back to Seattle. On our way though we did get to spot in one more port. We docked at Victoria, British Columbia Canada. This actually was one of our stops that we were super excited to port at. However we felt extremely disappointed that we only got to spend five hours there and most of it in the dark. Once we docked we went straight to the tour bus which took us to Butchart Gardens.
I had no idea it was such a drive from the dock. On the way there the bus driver took us through some of the streets and told us some history of the city. Amazingly beautiful place. Jamey and I want to go back there on a vacation, because there is so much to see and do! We arrived at the gardens and had over an hour to walk around. The place is so huge. It is hard to explain the beauty that surrounded us.
We only had an hour of day light left- so lots of the pictures were taken in the dark. As we walked around we ran into our dinner friends Siki and Doron. I took a picture of them and then Doron wanted a picture of me and Siki.
It was such a neat opportunity to meet this fine couple on the ship. It made our dinners and other activities we did so enjoyable. I loved the rose garden- I remember years ago my grandma telling me that this place was one of her favorite places on earth and someday I needed to go. I took a minute and thought about my grandma and I hope that she has a rose garden even more beautiful than the one I witnessed.
Day 7
We docked port 66 in Seattle and said goodbye to the food, employees and our cabin for the last time. Jamey woke up feeling quite yucky. He was suppose to change his motion sickness patch the night before, but thought that since most of the night he was going to be sleeping he wouldn't worry about it. In hind sight he wished he had. He spent the morning in the bathroom throwing up. It made for a quick exit from the ship though when we told the employees that we needed to get off the ship because he was so sick. We then walked what we thought was a few blocks- if you go the right way- to our rental car. Once we got our car we were off to Whidbey Island to meet up with our good friends Robb and Kris for the boys to scuba dive. The boys left and Kris and I took her kids to Ebey's Landing to see a north west beach. I have never been to one before and it was just like the pictures- I loved it!!
Feet pictures are about the only ones you can take by yourself.
Avery started posing at the end, just before leaving.
Day 8
Let me just say- we stayed an extra day and I think both my kids and their babysitter had wished we had not. At 8:30 in the morning I got a whiney phone call from Spencer asking us to come home. We spent a few minutes calling the airline trying to see if we could get an earlier flight home. Just like go it was impossible. Oh well. We had high hopes of getting to see all that was in Whidbey Island, but the weather was typical rainy weather which put a damper on everything we wanted to do. We drove to Deception Pass, but barely got out of the car to take some pictures because of the rain.
We then decided to just head to Seattle. It was raining there, so we ate at P.F. Changs- thanks to my parents awesome anniversary gift. By the time we were done it was time to get to the airport and return our car. We arrived home pretty late- tired and wanting a good night sleep in our own bed. It was for sure a vacation of a lifetime and I am so lucky that my husband took me. Happy ten years and many more to come!!!
I love life, mostly because of the amazing family and friends that surround me. My wonderful husband supports and loves me through all of my dreams and endeavors. I have children that I adore. I am continually astonished when I realize how truly blessed I am. My life is not perfect by any means, but through every situation, every up and down, my faith and strength in the Lord get me through. I believe all of us are something, but none of us are everything. Life is Good.
