A Touch Of Tyrell

I should probably have Jake write this post (but since it will take him weeks to even read it) I'll do my best to re-cap :) Fact #1 He got to go to Utah THREE times this year and I have asked him to move us there AT LEAST 300 times this year #truestory Fact #2 Guys are so much cooler than girls. In fact, I sent him a text message while he was there that said something to the effect of "I wish I were a guy" Fact #3 Jake and Kevin flew to Utah to meet up with Sean and Adam. They went mountain biking the first day and then drove to the dunes later that day to camp and ride for the remainder of their trip.  Fact #4 I was jealous of the whole trip.  Fun Fact #5 Jake framed that house with all of those windows.  Fun Fact #6 Jake posed for this lovely picture and then immediately fell off :) Fact #7 I still wish I were a guy sometimes. For all of the obvious reasons like: They care less about a lot of stuff They can...

Halloween Dinner 4 was mini mummy pizzas, spider deviled eggs, and ghost cookies!

Saturday morning I took the kids to breakfast at Kneaders. It's delicious. And all you can eat (not that we could ever come close to eating more than the original order!).  Roxy was good and sat in the highchair for the duration of one picture.  The other two were happy dunking their pancakes and (the worlds greatest) French toast into (the worlds even greater) syrup. It is reeeally good!  Breckie was adorable and couldn't stop commenting on how delicious it was and making hilarious "delicious" sounds. Everett was great until I told him we were going to the park afterwards.  He has a video game problem that we need to fix. It's getting pretty bad and we need to fix it while he's still young.  Being a parent is stressful.  But on a happy note that picture reminds me of these .  (click on it, you won't be sorry :)

Jake was on his annual dunes trip this last weekend. He was gone for the greater part of 4 days plus was gone all day (the kids didn't even see him) for two days prior to the trip.  I LOVE that he gets to go on these trips but this time he left when I was already at the end of my rope. We've got a lot of things going on right now and it was just super bad timing.  He missed Trunk-or-Treat. Which isn't a big deal other than dressing up kids, keeping track of them in a public place in the dark way after bedtime and the candy and bedtime and the brushing of teeth and the crying and... it just would have been nice to have an extra set of hands.  The Little Mermaid was an angel. Ironman was shy and just watched the movie the whole time, and Roxy was.... Roxy 👶=👹 Everyone kept asking where Jake was and it kept adding to the frustration that he wasn't there. Raising kids is no joke. It should be two parents to every one child... so when it's do...

While I was gone to the Grand Canyon (for a whole 33 hours) Jake took the kids swimming at a friends house and then came home to find this African spurred tortoise just walking down the sidewalk! He 'rescued' it and she's been our lucky pet since.  Roxy (obviously) is blown away at how cool the tortoise is! We named her Shelly. We were out feeding her one night and Breckie says (so genuinely and sweetly) "Dad, I feel so happy now that I have a pet"   They aren't wild here so she was someones pet to begin with. I don't know how long we'll have her but for now it's great. She's pretty heavy. AT LEAST 20 pounds but Jake thinks she's closer to 30. She could be anywhere between 5-10 years old so I'd like to think that Ironhide came back to find us! (because the replacement tortoise (Ironhyde) didn't make it through that Winter)  *Update: We weighed her.... 36 lbs!

There comes a point in your life when you stop collecting things and start collecting experience and memories instead. Maybe it's when you turn 31 because I didn't get a single present this year (well, technically my mom gave me a Dairy Queen gift card :) A week after my birthday my friend Lori and I hiked the Grand Canyon.  #collectingexperiences She had hiked it in April with her husband (for their anniversary) and I have been begging her to take me since!  We drove to Flagstaff on Friday night and slept in a super cheap Super 8. The ONLY good thing about it was that it was across the street from Cafe Rio! The bed had these three little tiny couch-like pillows to sleep on and that was it.  I slept a whole 2 hours before we woke up to drive to the Grand Canyon.  It was a little scary driving that distance in the dark... there were 'watch for elk' signs everywhere.  We were trying to make it to the 7:00 shut...