Dana Point, Las Vegas, Ragnar, Utah, 2 Deer Hunts, Halloween and the Rest of Oct.

President's Club '09

Every year Rob's company does an award trip for the employees who make their goal. This year it was at the Ritz Carlton in Dana Point. The hotel was gorgeous and we had so much fun being on a trip with just the two of us. Unfortunately, we forgot to take our camera...I guess that's what happens when we don't bring our kids along:) We had to use my phone for the few pictures that we ended up taking. This is the picture of the view from our balcony. This was the other view from our balconyOne of my favorite parts of the hotel, were the fresh flowers in vases throught the hotel. The day we arrived, the flowers were purple...a few days later they changed them to orange.
More flowers

We spent a day doing a tour of Newport Beach Harbor. Rob was chosen to be the captain of our boat.

This was the view from the treadmill in the gym at the hotel. This made running a little more enjoyable:)

Isn't this gorgeous?!!!

Brooklyn's 4th Grade Musical

The day after we got home from our trip to California, Brooklyn had her 4th grade musical. I may be a little bias, but I think Brooklyn is the most beautiful 4th grader:) About 25% of the 4th graders missed this musical, due to an outbreak of swine flu.

Alyssa Got Braces

In September Alyssa went to the dentist for a cleaning, and we were told that she might need braces because her permanent teeth didn't have enough room to grow in. 2 weeks later, she had 5 teeth pulled and new braces. This is her before picture.

I cannot tell you how excited this little girl was to get her braces. Her two sisters are insanely jealous:) Alyssa got to choose her color pattern for her elastics...she chose purple, black and orange...for Halloween.

After

Las Vegas

Rob babysat overnight with all 4 kids for the first time ever. I left for Vegas the day before he did to run the Las Vegas Ragnar Relay. He had them for 2 1/2 days and even drove alone with them for 5 1/2 hours to get to Vegas. He did a great job! Unfortunatley for him, now he might have to do it more often since I know that he is fully capable. We stayed and Rob's brother's house in Vegas, and the kids had so much fun playing with their cousins!

Kids are easily entertained:)

I drove up to the race with my two friends Kaye and Rebecca. We had two teams this time, and they ended up on a different team:( I did however, get to run on the same team as my brother Adam. We had so much fun with the kids in our van. I use the term kids, because I was the oldest person in our van of 6 people. Is 32 really that old??? Natalie and the kids met us all at the finish line. Hunter and Rex had a little too much fun playing in the dirt waiting for us to run into the finish line.

My team running in...For some reason I am always at the back of the line...Maybe it's because I was wearing flip flops:(

All of us with our medals

My girls all plan on running these races when they are old enough.

After the race, I had about 1 1/2 hours to take a nap before going to the BYU/UNLV football game. I had only slept for 20 minutes in the past 36 hours during the race. I'm so glad we went though!

Rob was so excited to finally be able to go to a BYU game again! I'm not sure why we were all wearing our BYU shirts, but Rob wore light blue. At first I thought maybe he forgot to pack his BYU shirt, but a few days later I saw it in his suitcase. That's a little weird Rob:)

We had GREAT seats in the north endzone of the stadium. You would never have believed that BYU was the away team. The stadium was at least half full of fans wearing blue. UNLV's color is red:) We are so sad that they have dropped to 25 in the rankings:(

Rob left during half time to go and get more snacks. He was like a paparazzi with the BYU team. They went back onto the field right next to Rob.

Max Hall

Rob gave "five" to the players as they walked back onto the field. He thinks they thought they were supposed to know who he was:)

The kids had so much fun at the game! Ash especially loved the cotton candy:)

Some nice lady offered to take a picture of our family after the game. Thanks nice lady:)

We were able to meet our beautiful niece Paisley for the first time. This is Rob's sister, Brittany's new baby girl. Her dad, Ryan, did a great job on her blessing.

Rob's parent's cabin looked so cute decorated for Halloween. Is there any question as to where Rob gets his outdoor illumination skills from?

Utah

My brother, Ryan, changed my parent's go-cart track from dirt to concrete. It looks awesome!!! Rob is the current day-time record holder of the go-cart track, and Ryan is the night-time record holder.

Ash looks a little scared riding with Grandpa:) This is about the spot where Alyssa and Hunter crash...pictures will follow:)

My brother, Dave, got home from serving in Iraq for 4 months. He lives just outside of D.C., so he had been home for 2 weeks before he flew to Utah to see all of us. We all met at the airport to welcome him home.

Dave, Maren and Liberty (and Baby Kya in Maren's tummy). We are all so proud of Dave and all the other men and women who risk our lives to defend our liberties! Dave got home just in time for a new baby. Maren had Baby Kya on Sunday. She is gorgeous!

I love this picture of Hunter! This one is definitely better than when the little kids were all playing swords with their flags.

My mom and brother

My mom spent a month before we all came to Utah to visit making quilts for all of the grandkids and men. They all turned out sooooo cute! Jessica, are you still bummed that they all have to stay at Mom's house?:)
Since my sister, Jessica, married into a Hawaiian family, she has finally decided to learn how to do all of the different Hawaiian dances. They perform as a family in Missouri. I never knew your hips could move like that Jess:) She taught all of the granddaughters how to do a dance.

Happy 10th Birthday to my baby Brooklyn! I cannot believe she is that old! We had a costume Halloween party, like always, only we forgot to bring our kids costumes this year. Luckily Natalies's mom has all kinds of costumes at her house. Natalie took the girls over and dressed them up. Brooklyn was Miss Utah. Brooklyn was so excited for her birthday, she wore her birthday crown all day on her birthday...and she even tried wearing it the next day:) We love you Brooklyn!!!

The bakery near my mom's house has never let me down! Until this year:( I called the baker and told her that I wanted a witch cake. Instead, I got this. Thanks to my sister-in-law Stephanie, she helped me spice it up by adding all of these plastic spiders. It turned out cute after that:)

I tried to add new games this year, since we always do the same things for Brooklyn's party. We did pumpkin bowling on the basketball court. It was great for the older kids, but the little boys just wanted to knock down the bottles that the girls were trying to roll the pumpkins into.

The next game we did was wrapping the kids like mummies. This turned out to be lots of fun. Rob was determined to wrap Alyssa faster than anyone else.

Taylor wrapped Ashley

Kinzie wrapped Hunter

Taylor did a great job with Ash

Ryan wrapped Gracie

Dave wrapped Libby

Our last game was a hat and broom race. The kids & adults loved this one:)

The birthday girl

Doesn't Rob look cute wearing a witch hat?:)

Brooklyn opening her presents

Rob wanted to mix things up this year and have the kids go down to the "Haunted Forest" and scare the adults. The kids all thought it was a great idea, until they got too scared walking down into the forest:) Cooper had a blast scaring the other little kids with his mask:)

Brooklyn blowing out her candles

Hunter was so exhausted after the party that he fell asleep eating his cereal. He was even still holding his spoon:)

Remember the go-cart hill??? Well, we told the kids that they could only go counter-clockwise around the track because we figured the other way would be too dangerous because of a big hill. Apparently, counter-clockwise was just as dangerous because Alyssa crashed riding her razor, and Hunter did a flip and landed on his face when he was simply running around the track. Alyssa put her brakes on as she was going down one of the hills, and the scooter stopped, but she kept on going. Her face got banged up pretty badly.

And, she broke a bone in her hand. The night it happened, we didn't even know she had broken it. By the next day, when it was still hurting, my grandpa got her an oppointment with an orthopaedist that he knew to get it xrayed. It was Brooklyn's birthday that day, so we didn't want to spend the day in the emergency room. Once we got to the orthopaedist's office, we were in and out in 20 minutes. Xrayed and casted. Plus, I only had to pay a $40 copay. We are so lucky to have a doctor for a grandpa!!! The advantage to having 21 people staying at one house, is that Alyssa's cast was immediately filled with signatures. There were a lot of disadvantages to having that many people in one house. On Saturday, my 10 month old niece started throwing up with the stomach flu. Hunter came down with it the next day, and then it dominoed throughout the family. By Thursday, the 19th and last person out of the 21 got sick. Ashley and I are the only ones that didn't get it. That is especially amazing, because Brooklyn and Alyssa threw up the entire way home from Utah. About 30 minutes after leaving Alpine, Alyssa threw up all over the dashboard of the truck. An hour later, Brooklyn was throwing up. Alyssa even threw up in my mouth, and I still didn't get it. Rob was supposed to go on a fishing trip in upstate New York with his boss on Thursday. His flight left at 6:00 am, and at 3:00 am he woke me up and informed me that he was finally sick. What are the odds? At least he got sick before he boarded his 5 hour flight to New York:)

Rob loves having a son that will spend hours looking through binoculars for deer. My parents always have so many deer in the field behind their house.

The is apparently the largest non-typical elk to ever be shot in the world. It was shot in Utah so it is on display at Cabelas. Of course Rob had to take Hunter to get a picture with "Spidey".

Dave wanted one too:)

This picture is so sweet, because all the little grandkids are looking at the pictures Dave has from Iraq. They think he is so cool!

Now that the go-cart track is paved, the grandkids all spend so much more time at the bottom of my parent's yard. Just about everything in my parent's yard is named after the grandkids. This is Marshal Cooper's office...named after my nephew Cooper. My dad better get busy, the 18th grandchild is going to be born in December:)

Hunter (I don't really know what he is doing)

We took the rhino up American Fork Canyon with the kids that were not under quarantine for being sick...Even though in the end we almost all got it anyway:) Libby and Hunter had so much fun on the rhino.

Hunter, Jaxon and Libby had fun throwing rocks into the river. Jaxon almost fell in as well when he tried to throw a rock in that weighed more than he does:)

Hey Dave...What are you doing walking out of the trees with a package of wet wipes?:)

My sister Jessica, my sister-in-law Maren, and myself...Rob almost ran into me with the rhino as we were posing for a picture. Nice Rob!

Hunter's wound from running on the go-cart track

Jessica, is that you driving the rhino??? Do you see that Mom?

I love the mountains in Utah!!!

Adam took all of the little kids into the front yard to play golf. It was a great idea until he left and the kids started hitting each other with the clubs:)

Hunter and Jax

Rob drew out for a deer tag in Utah this year. He hunted around Strawberry Reservoir this year instead of going to Vernal. Ashley went up with

Rob the day before opening day to scout the area with him.

On opening day, my brother Dave and Alyssa went hunting with Rob. Too bad I don't think they even saw anything more than a spike.

Rob had his gun out, but never got to shoot it at anything other than a target:( The next hunting day, all of the kids and I went hunting with Rob. We drove all over and saw nothing but doe.

Ashley's 1st Grade Field Trip

Ashley's field trip this year was to the Phoenix Botanical Garden. The only highlight was the butterfly exhibit. This kids loved seeing hundreds of butterflies.

A butterfly even landed on my friend Sarah's head.

Ashley and her friends

Ashley was chosen to hold the mouse. Hunter got it next, and lost it. Luckily I found it because the guide was a little upset when she noticed Hunter didn't have it in his hand:)

Pumpkin Patch

Why is it that kids pick the first big pumpkin they see, and then they change their minds as soon as you've put it in the wagon??? Ashley is my most indecisive child!

The pumpkin patch we go to every year always has cute photo ops.

Halloween

This year Brooklyn was a gothic witch, Alyssa was a candy corn witch, Ashley was a pumpin princess, and Hunter was a fire fighter one day, and Lightening Mcqueen the next.

Rob was nice enough to be the only dad helping with games at Ashley's class Halloween party. The kids in the girls classes always think Rob is so cool!

Hunter wasn't thrilled to be a firefighter...hence the sad face:( Alyssa was sure excited to have him come to her party though:)

Alyssa and her BFF Courtney

Brooklyn's classmates were all so excited to meet Choncho...I swear nobody knows his real name:)

Rob carving the pumpkins with the kids

Hunter was proud of his little spoon that he used to carve out the tiny pumpkin that he picked at the pumpkin patch.

The kids STILL carving

Voila! They turned out so cute!

We had a party again on Halloween night before the kids went trick-or-treating. I seriously spent 8 hours in the kitchen getting ready.

The spider cupcakes that I made took me forever!

The spider web dip

The Spider Deviled Eggs

The cousins eating dinner

If you saw this crazy witch trick-or-treating with Brooklyn, just know it was NOT me! This is Rob's mom:) She is a great witch every year...the kids love it!

The kids decorating their Halloween cookies

I love decorating for Halloween even more than Christmas. It's a lot less work! I was so sad to take my decorations down:(

Rob is the master outdoor illuminator. The picture doesn't quite do it justice. He put about 30 sets of eyes in our ficus trees over the porch. So cute!Kaibab Hunt

This year both Rob and I drew out for the deer hunt in Kaibab. Rob went up 2 days before me to hunt with his brother Kris. I thought for sure he would have something by the time I got up there, but he didn't:( He even passed up a 4 x 3. Once I got there, the biggest thing we had a good shot at was a 2 pt. Ashley found a 4 pt., but as Rob was getting out of the truck to shoot it, Hunter started yelling, "I want a deer!"...over and over. That buck ran away really quickly!!!

The lodge that we stayed at in Jacob Lake had a fun little playground for the kids. Is it any wonder why Alyssa is always breaking bones or getting stitches???

Ashley hanging upside down

My girls always flash a peace sign in pictures for some reason:)

Rob and Hunter on the swing

Rob wanted to take my car out the first morning we were there because there was more room for the kids to lounge around while we hunted at 5:00 am. I was so proud of my car and all the places it could go. There was seriously an inch of dirt on the back of my car. After the morning hunt, we ditched my car so that we could take Rob's truck and the rhino out. When we got home that night, my tire was COMPLETELY flat. I mean completely!!! Rob successfully put on my spare tire, I only had to help him jack up the car:) He was constantly looking around to make sure that no other hunters were watching his wife jack up the car:)

We actually really had a lot of fun on this hunt. I was kind of dragging my feet about going, but we had a blast! Rob may be sad that we didn't come home with a trophy, but I like the hunting... minus the killing and the gutting:)

Hunter was determined to find a buck for us:)

Brooklyn is my only child that doesn't like hunting. The other two girls LOVE it! She and I were the "rhino hogs"!

This is the only picture that Rob took while hunting with his brother Kris. Thanks for going Kris!

Labor Day in Utah, Star Student & Poor Lonely Choncho

Ever since I can remember my parents have hosted the Neider Family Reunion at their house almost every year. It is usually around the 4th of July, but this year it was the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. When my mom told me the date, I knew we wouldn't be able to sacrifice any school absences to attend. On Friday morning of Labor Day weekend, Rob woke up and said, "Why don't we just make a quick trip to Utah for the weekend?". My first response was, "You're nuts! A 10 1/2 hour drive each way for a weekend trip???" After first questioning the sanity of his suggestion, I quickly agreed that it would be fun and I was on board. We hadn't surprised our kids with a trip to Utah for a while since they have gotten smarter. I knew it would take me a couple hours to get ready, so I sent the kids off to school with them not knowing we were going anywhere. (I was also hoping if I checked them out at noon, we would only get a half day absence instead of a full day:) The girls knew our friends were going to Lake Powell for the weekend, and since our girls have never been there, we told them we were going to Lake Powell and that it was on the way to Utah. It worked beautifully until about Fillmore (about 2 hours away from my parents) when Alyssa asked me if she could play with my iphone. As she was playing, my sister sent me a text message asking when we were going to be arriving. All you iphone users know that when you get a message from someone, above the new message is all of the past messages that you have exchanged with the sender. Alyssa read off all of the messages to Brooklyn...including the one that I wrote to my sister saying, "My kids have no idea we are coming to Utah...they think we are going to Lake Powell." Luckily Ashley was asleep so we could still have one surprise. We also hadn't told my parents or grandparents that we would be in town for the reunion. We stayed at my sisters house that night when we got in town and Ashley was so funny because after we had been there about 15 minutes, we started talking about surprising my parents at their house in the morning. Ashley piped into the conversation and said, "We're going to Utah tomorrow???" My sister only lives about 15 minutes from my parent's house, so apparently Ash isn't as quick as I though she was:) I guess that makes for great surprises:) When we got up to my parent's house Saturday morning, my parents were both gone. We all hid down in the backyard and surprised my mom when she went into the backyard frantically looking for my niece that she thought was lost (thanks for the trick Natalie:) I will say that my mom screamed like a little girl when she saw all of us! My dad's cousin, Cory, has an awesome band that played for us Saturday night.

My niece, Amber, is quite the dancer! She had to ditch the Princess Belle dress so that she could show us all of her SEXY moves:)
The lead singer of the band decided she needed to teach us all how to dance...Some of us Clarks are extreme introverts!!! I always think my dad is, until we do something like this. He was just like the other Neiders out there on the dance floor:)
Ashley is another grandchild that knows how to dance:)
The kids doing their own routine

Brooklyn decided she would look better sitting on the chair most of the time:)

Kinzie teaching Hunter how to dance

Rob and my brother Ryan took Cooper and Hunter out on Ryan's rhino one morning. Hunter had so much fun just being a boy...That isn't always easy in our house:(

These boys thought they were so cool with their helmets on:)

Buddies

Cooper is all boy throwing the stick in the lake.

Rob and Hunter...Both are dreaming of owning their own rhino:)

I'm glad Hunter can raise his arms in a rhino, because he would NEVER do this on a roller coaster:)

A couple of weeks before we arrived, my sister-in-law Stephanie had their 3rd baby. His name is Colton and he is so beautiful and so sweet! Yes Ryan, I called your son beautiful:)

Ashley was star student this month.

Hunter's new favorite toy is my iphone. He loves to play games on it...I'm not quite sure why he likes to play it sitting under the bar stool, but here he is:)

Hunter staring over the fence into the park behind us. I don't know if he was watching all of the cool boys playing football, or maybe he was checking out the girls??? He is getting better at entertaining himself since all three girls are in school all day.

Happy Birthday to Me!

For my birthday this year we decided to go to a local resort for the weekend before my birthday. We went to the Squaw Peak Hilton where they have a great water park complete with a lazy river and water slide. Hunter wasn't quite tall enough for the water slides, however, the girls had a blast...Rob and I only lasted a few times. Alyssa and Ashley could have spent all day on the slide:)
The girls playing under the waterfall

The hotel was having a Hawaiian themed weekend with a luau and fun games for the kids. They each got to take a turn at pineapple bowling using coconuts to knock over the pineapples. Ashley threw hers so hard the coconut broke in half.

Alyssa tried really hard to knock them all down:)

Hunter ditched his water wings on the first day of our trip. Rob and I were amazed to see that he can actually swim without them. He has turned in to quite the fish now...He jumps off of the waterfall in our pool and can swim to the side without any help. It is such a relief each time one of my kids has learned to swim on their own!!!

Brooklyn managed to avoid the camera most of the weekend...We finally got a picture of her laying out:)

Alyssa and Hunter spent about an hour breaking part of a coconut into tiny pieces to use as "moisturizer". They even brought some back to the hotel and added it to all of the shampoo and lotion bottles...I'm glad I brought my own!!!

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with my birthday, but I'm posting it anyway:) My girls love to play school and it actually comes in handy sometimes. This is Alyssa going over Ashley's sight words with her. Hopefully Choncho will learn them too:)

On the day of my birthday, I went to lunch with some of my friends. When I came home, Rob had decorated the house with streamers and balloons...Isn't that so sweet?!!!

He also ordered this cute cake for me. Thanks for the great birthday Rob!!!

Best Anniversary Ever!!!

Rob and I have now been married 13 amazing years! This year Rob had to leave the country on a late night flight the day of our anniversary. Because of this, Rob and I celebrated our anniversary the day before. The kids wanted to surprise us with a "romantic" evening before Rob left town. They started planning early in the morning and kept all the details mum, except that we were going to have a romantic dinner on the patio...complete with dessert. They set up on the patio in the backyard and closed all the blinds so we couldn't see what they were doing.

This is the sign that they made...complete with a stand and balloons. I love the way Alyssa spelled anniversary:)

The girls got our card table out of our garage and set up this "romantic" table for us to eat dinner on. They even brought out my ipod with speakers and had the song "Everything I do, I do it for You" playing for us. I especially liked the shoe box lids they used to put the silverware in:)
This was the card they made for us

Here is Rob and I eating our dinner. Brooklyn kept peeking through the blinds trying to get a picture of us kissing...Sorry Brooklyn, we did it while you weren't looking:)

The girls were terrific servers for us. Rob and I were almost in tears it was so adorable!

Alyssa made this for Rob as a present. She also bought us a box of Nerds to share along with a card she bought at Trader Joes. We had gone to Target earlier in the day to get a few things. Alyssa stood in line after us with her money and told me she was going to buy herself some candy. This is quite common because Alyssa has a sweet tooth...Candy is one of the few things she will actually spend her money on:) She is so sneaky, we had no idea those Nerds were actually for us...Thanks Lulu!!!

Alyssa ended our evening by doing a "show". She danced and did some tumbling for all of us:) The only thing as good as being married to Rob for the past 13 years, is having 4 wonderful kids to go along with it:)

Okay...Okay...Here is the Picture of Rob

There was a little confusion on which way he was supposed to point his toes...up, or down...:) Down was what he chose:)

First Day of School & FHE at the Lake

All three of my girls started school yesterday and since Ashley is now in 1st grade, they are all in school ALL day:( I'm one of those moms that dread sending my kids to school! I love having them home all the time and Hunter misses having three playmates...Even when they do make him play Barbies:( The only bright side to Hunter being alone, is now hopefully I can reverse the damage that was done over the summer with him being dressed up like a girl and having his toe nails painted...YIKES! He was so sad to have the girls leave yesterday. As we were loading up their backpacks with snacks and their lunch boxes, Hunter kept saying, "Me...unch. Me....nack. Me...school." (Yes, he does speak on occasion:) He ran around the house carrying a bag of chips and a bag of cookies. Ashley said our family prayer before leaving for school and she said, "Bless Choncho not to miss us today and not to cry...and bless that I won't miss Choncho..." It was very cute! Luckily, all went well, and aside from a lot of tears (from me), the girls all had a great day first day!
Hunter with his "nacks"
Ashley and her BFF Hannah

After school we headed to the lake with our friends. Normally the front of the boat would be a pretty safe place for all of these kids (and Sarah) to be sitting. Not the case last night...These kids had to dodge flying objects twice. The first time was a flying sandwich...That's right, a sandwich. Sam pushed Derek into the lake while he was eating his sandwich, but no worries...Derek managed to throw his sandwich to keep it from suffering from the same fate that he did by falling into the lake:) I don't know if he just wanted so badly to finish the last inch of it, or if he was afraid the fish might choke on the turkey and lettuce...Who knows:)??? The second flying object was the tow rope that Rob was using to wake board. He let go of it during an unsuccessful wake boarding attempt and it flung all the way the the front of the boat and hit Alyssa's leg:(

Besides driving for a little while, this is what Hunter spent most of his time doing. Just hanging out.

Last night everyone took their turn wake boarding (except Brooklyn and Hunter). Brooklyn had regrets the whole drive home for not giving it a shot. Sam went first and showed us all how it was done.

Alyssa went next and she tried...and tried...and tried. She finally got up for a minute...

but, quickly crashed:(

Derek went next and made it looks so easy...

Since I was able to get up on water skis last time, I decided to give it a try. On the 3rd attempt, I did it. I was up for quite a while and even crossed the wake...I didn't realize I was as scared as I look in this picture:)

Rob actually followed me, but I have been warned not to post the awesome picture I have of him wake boarding:)...So, Hannah gets the next picture. She was up for a second, but didn't like crashing:(

Ashley was the biggest surprise of all. Derek got in the water with her to help her get situated and keep her in the right position. He stayed in the water with her because we all assumed she would crash and burn like the other girls. She got up on her 2nd try and kept going...and going...and going. She even managed to stay on while Rob turned around to go back to Derek. It was so funny because she sat in this position the entire time...She never stood up:) In Sam's words, "That was AWESOME!"

Disneyland & Newport Beach

For our last big vacation before school starts, we spent last week in California at Disneyland and Newport Beach. This is the kids and I on the parking lot shuttle on our first day at Disneyland. Every night when we would take this shuttle back to our car, Rob and I had to laugh. On the way into Disneyland EVERYONE is smiling...at night on the way out, NOBODY is smiling. Most the kids are half asleep and the parents all looked exhausted. Our kids did really well this time and we stayed each night until about 11:30 pm. It was so much fun!!!It doesn't matter how many times our kids go on the Haunted Mansion ride, they are still scared. Brooklyn and Hunter most of all:) Brooklyn is always on the verge of tears before the ride even starts:) The second time we went on this ride, Hunter pretended like he was asleep as soon as we got in line. He was so convincing, I really thought he was asleep. He had his eyes softly closed and his head on Rob's shoulder throughout the entire ride. As soon as we were done, Hunter perked up smiling and said, "Done!" That's one way to not get scared in the Haunted Mansion:)

Ashley, Brooklyn, and Alyssa waiting for their mozzarella sticks...YUM!
I don't even know how Rob managed to take pictures of the fireworks because we never actually stop to watch them. This is the best time to ride all of the rides in Adventureland...Really short lines!

Hunter all ready to go to Disneyland with his Mickey Mouse ears and his Lightning McQueen shirt. "Ca-chow"!

Rob held up our Small World boat so that he could get a picture of us:) I love this ride!

We had a yummy dinner at ESPN Zone in Downtown Disney. It was soooo nice to be in an well air-conditioned restaurant!

The kids all really thought they had a driver's license for the day! Alyssa still has her driver's license in her wallet:)
Autopia was one of Hunter's favorite rides. He drove the first half of the track until it got too crazy...then I took over. I don't even think he could see over the steering wheel, but he had a blast!

Brooklyn was nice enough to let Ashley steer while Brooklyn controlled the gas...She is such a nice big sister!!!

Rob was the lucky one to be the passenger in Alyssa's car this time (I was in it last time...WHIP-LASH!!!) Apparently she did better this time...no complaints from Rob:)

While Rob and the girls went on Splash Mountain, Hunter and I rode Winnie the Pooh over and over and over again. There was no line, so we just stayed on and went around and around. After 4 times, we got off and grabbed a treat at the candy store and did a little people-watching...well, I did...Hunter just stared at Winnie the Pooh as if he hadn't had enough:)

On Friday we ate at Joe's Crab Shack before we headed to Disneyland. The kids were fascinated by the employees dancing around the restaurant.

It is rare to have Rob and I both in a picture...It is nice to have kids old enough to take pictures:)

We spent all day Friday at California Adventures. Hunter was so excited to get his picture taken with Sully!

Another photo-op...Brooklyn is even covering her mouth pretending to be scared:)

This was the highlight of our trip from Hunter...LIGHTNING MCQUEEN:)

While the girls and I went on the Jellyfish Drop, Hunter polished off a bag of cotton candy.

The kids with their bug glasses on ready for the Bug's Life 3-D. This was the first time Hunter actually kept his glasses on the whole time...He loved it!

I love the little caterpillar ride!

Hunter carrying on his tradition of burying his cars in the sand. He wanted this yellow bus from the surf shop because it had a peace sign on it. Are anyone's kids obsessed with peace signs right now, or is it just mine? I took the kids shopping at Fashion Island Mall in Newport, and every time we passed a shirt with a peace sign, Hunter and Ash would point and yell, "Peace!"

The waves were so big at Newport Beach, the kids spent a lot of their time digging in the sand. I've never seen the lifeguards have to run into the water so many times to save someone from drowning.

Alyssa throwing a football to Rob

Since we were about the only ones at our hotel with children, we had the pool all to ourselves:)

The Hyatt that we stayed at had a glass elevator on the outside of the building. My kids were scared by this almost as much as the Tower of Terror:) Yet, every time we took the elevator, this is the one they wanted to go on.

I am sooooooo sad that school is starting in a week and a half:( Now I'm going to have to start keeping track of absences again:(