July 9-11 Chris' Birthday Trip

For Chris' birthday I surprised him with the one thing he always asks for. A weekend getaway for just the two of us! He was so excited. Sheri has Fridays off so we made it an extra long weekend. We left Thursday evening and had dinner in San Francisco. We wanted to go to THe Cheesecake Factory but the wait was way too long. So we walked down to the mall ate and then walked through the mall. Was this my birthday or Chris'? We stayed at a hotel in San Francisco and went to Napa on Friday for a Mud Bath and Massage! Chris chose the Mud Bath. It didn't really sound good to me, it's mud! I hate to be dirty, but it was very relaxing. Since our spa time was in the afternoon we decided to do some sight seeing before. We went and saw the Geyser and went to a Castle that was a winery. We also walked around downtown. It was nice just to walk and enjoy each other's company without the kids needing something. On Saturday we did some shopping and then went to get the kids! It was a very fun weekend!

Riley Jo Graduates

My little girl graduated from the 3 year old Pre-School class! She sang some songs, did the Chicken Dance, and then there was a dance party afterward! It was a very fun day! Next school year, she will be in the 4 year old class. My how fast the years go by!

Girls Trip to Tahoe

In May we took a Girl's Weekend trip to Tahoe! We had a blast! The weekend went by very fast though. We drove up Thursday afternoon, April J., Hayley, and Valorie left in the morning, so by the time we got there they had dinner ready for us! Valorie had come from Idaho for our weekend and we hadn't seen her in about a year and a half so we spent some time catching up. We decided it would be fun for everyone to be interviewed Oprah style! So April P. took on the roll as Oprah and we interviewed a couple people each night. Anyone could ask questions though, it was a fun way to get some unanswered questions about people. We laughed, we cried, and laughed some more. We all had a great time and can't wait for the next trip. One night we had a SPA night and we all put masks on. We felt very rejuvenated afterward! We also watched some movies, worked on a puzzle or two, took day trips around Tahoe, and went hiking. I absolutely love my girl time just being me, so I can come back and be a good mom instead of stressed out all the time!

Here we all are. This was on one of our trips shopping. Starting at the front: Tara, Brittany, Valorie, Teri, Jen, April P., Hayley, and April J.

We posed by the lake at sunset!

Young Women Mystery Trip

So last year the young women in our ward had the privilege of going to Utah on an amazing adventure! SO this year we were planning our trip we asked the girls what they wanted to do and they said they wanted it to be a mystery. So the leaders started brainstorming! We had great ideas and all we needed was a place to stay to figure out the final details. Then we had a place in Napa and the plans were finalized.

We started our trip in San Francisco where we walked on the Golden Gate Bridge.

From there we went to Point Bonita Lighthouse. We walked through a tunnel that was picked with an ice pick! It was extremely dark inside. Then we had to go across a bridge to get to the lighthouse. Only 2 could go across at a time. Then we ate lunch, and then headed to the ropes course. That was an amazing experience. We worked on team building exercises and then went on the high ropes.

We had to climb a 40 ft. pole to go on the zip line. That climb scared me to death! I was shaking so hard. But jumping off the top proved to be harder than the climb! Then we climbed a 30 ft. pole and walked across a log. Some of the girls went on a tight rope type wire. Then the last thing was called the pamper pole. You had to climb up a pole I think 25 ft. Then stand up on top of the pole and balance there without holding onto anything. Then you had to jump out and grab on to the trapeze. I wasn't going to attempt this obstacle but I fell into peer pressure! I was glad I did. It was scary, but fun! I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't for the girls pushing me! We ended that day by going to the house we were staying at and swimming. Then on Saturday we met up with our Stake and cheered at the Special Olympics held at UC Davis. We showed up and it was 100 degrees out there. No one was cheering and our group got up and started cheering, even doing some High School cheers and the athletes totally appreciated it! We had some of the athletes come over to have their pictures taken with the youth and thank them for cheering! It was an awesome experience! Then the girls got to ride the Amtrak home! They all had a fun time!

I was at this point on the pole for a long time trying to figure out how to get on top of the pole without falling.

Finally made it to the top! Now all I have to do is jump! What? Yeah and try to grab onto the Trapeeze before you fall! Ok! Got it!

June Vacation to Carson City

We started out Summer out with a vacation to Carson City. We have a time share their so it was fun to stay the week there and swim in the natural hot spring water. We did take some day trips along the way! Chris stayed and worked the week and came up on Friday-Sunday. Michayla's cousins were in town and it was her grandparents Wedding anniversary so she stayed behind and came up with Chris on Friday. Summer is our busiest time for the business and we usually don't get to go away. This is the first time we have ever done a vacation during the summer and it was great! The kids and I drove up on Sunday and got all settled in. We even unpacked all our bags and put our clothes in the dressers. The kids liked that since we usually live out of our bags. Monday we hung out at the resort all day and swam.

Tuesday we went to Reno for the day and Riley Jo went on her first Go-Kart ride. She loved it! We played a round of mini golf and then I took the kids to Circus Circus to play the games. We all had a blast! Riley Jo was so cute, in order to his the golf ball, she would put the ball down close to the hole, then sit down to hit it! She got a hole in 1 every time! Tyler got a hole in 1 on one of the holes and so did I!

The rest of the week we did some mini tourist trips and swam.

There was a playground at the resort for the kids to play on, pool table, air hockey, and foosball. We spent a lot of time in the pool and spas too! It was relaxing and fun just to get away with the kids!

Blog Summer Vacation!!

You know it's been a long time since you signed on to your blog when you have to type out the entire web address! WOW! 3 1/2 months, did not think it had been that long. I thought I had done some updates during the summer. We have had such a busy summer and have had a lot going on. School starts next week and I am pretty sure the kids are ready to have a schedule again, or maybe it is just me! I know they are all excited to see their friends, not so sure about the classes and the homework though. Oh well, and so the fun begins. Michayla and Tyler in 8th grade this year. I know they are excited about that! Kyle in second grade and Riley Jo in Pre-School again!

Wedding Dresses

Tonight at Young Womens we made Modest Wedding Dresses out of toilet paper! We gave them the guidelines that the dress had to go to their ankles, needed sleeves, and it couldn't be too low in the front or the back. Then they were able to design the dress for their friends. Morgan and Carissa were paired up, Alaina, Christina, and Emily were paired up. The girls had so much fun as did Laura and I! The girl's did an awesome job creating dresses. We were getting a little pressed for time so everyone helped dress Alaina and Christina! Then we did some posing for fun! Everyone had trouble at the beginning getting the dress to stay on! But the results were awesome!

Easter

Our Easter started off with a celebration at Riley Jo's school. They sang a couple bunny songs

Went to the dance room to dance! They did the Hokey Pokey!

Of course there was an Easter Egg Hunt!

Then we decorated eggs at our house and had and egg hunt on Easter morning. (Disclosure: Kyle desperately needed a haircut, but refused to get one. He has gotten one now. And Michayla wanted a cheesey picture!)

Disneyland

We took the kids to Disneyland. Rather, I took the kids to Disneyland! Chris, Bobbie (Chris' mom), the kids, and I all drove to Disneyland on Saturday. We left at 6:00 am and thought the kids may sleep a couple hours of that. Nope! They all stayed awake the entire drive. Including Riley Jo. They all stayed pretty entertained by movies and music, except Riley Jo. We had to stop a couple extra times because she needed the "potty." Yeah right! But we stopped anyway. After the 3rd stop in an hour. I finally told Chris that he needed to stop listening to music and making the kids use the headphones for the movie. So that Riley Jo could at least listen to the movie, she doesn't like T.V., or movies and won't leave the headphones on. At least with the sound coming out of the speakers she will at least pretend to watch it. We finally make it to the hotel. Bobbie and I take the kids swimming while Chris rests! On Sunday, Chris and I had to attend a presentation on a time share for Shell Vacation Club, then we were given 2 tickets to Disneyland. By attending that presentation, they also paid for our hotel room. Bonus!!! Then after the meeting, Chris flew home and Bobbie and I took the kids to Disneyland for the next 3 days. That's right, Chris drove us all the way to Disneyland just to attend the presentation so we could take our kids to Disneyland! He won Father of the Year for that trip!!!

We usually have breakfast with Minnie Mouse and friends, but this year we decided to have lunch with the Princesses. Riley Jo was in Heaven! We were able to see Ariel, Cinderella, Belle, Aurora, and Jasmine. Tyler even volunteered to be in all the pictures! It was a great lunch. Cinderella and Belle were Riley Jo's favorites!

Kyle's baseball game

Last night at Kyle's game he played 2nd base. The 1st kid hit the ball up between 3rd base and shortstop and Kyle ran to try and get the ball. It was great. We told him to watch the ball and he tried to go for it. With a little more instruction he played his position well. He stopped all the balls that went past him it was amazing! One even bouced right in front of him and then he caught it. The look on his face was priceless, he put his glove out to catch it but I think he thought it was going to bounce over him. It was a high bounce. He even threw it perfect to 1st base for an out. Then the 2nd inning he played catcher and was able to make 2 outs at home. He had a great game and was very excited by it!

Busy but Fun Weekend!!!!

This weekend was extremely busy but we had a ton of fun! Friday night Tyler was able to go to the Giants and A's Bay Bridge Series at AT&T park in San Francisco with his friends Chase, Sam Albertson and Chase's dad Mo. They had seats 3 rows up from behind the Giants dugout. They were so excited! Tyler was able to catch a fly ball and get his ticket signed by the A's catcher Suzuki (I don't know how to spell this, sorry A's fans)! I was surprised I didn't get a phone call, he was so excited he ran up to me Saturday morning all excited. While Tyler was at the game, Chris had to work late Friday so I let Kyle have his friend over and Riley Jo, Kyle, Joey, and I made our own mini pizza's for dinner. We did this for Valentines Day and it was such a kick for the kids that we decided to do it again! Then my brother and Jeannine came over to play Partini again. My brother and Chris had 2 games left to win of our 20 game challenge so they thought they could finish it. Well, we played 6 games and the boys only won 1. Chris was definitely off his game!
Saturday Kyle had a baseball game and Chris had to work. After the baseball game, Tyler went back over to Chase's house and I put Kyle and Riley Jo down for a nap! I had a couple hours to myself which was very nice. Then Saturday evening Chris and Tyler went to the Priesthood session of conference (Tyler's first one!) and the moms and kids had a potluck in the park. It was a beautiful evening at the park and didn't even start to get cold until we started to pack up at 7:15. Then my brother and Jeannine came back over to try and finish up our Partini challenge. The guys won their last game in 1 game. Then we had dessert and played a game called Pop 5. It's a cranium game and lots of fun! We played until 1:15 a.m. WOW!
Sunday was conference day and Sheri, Brittani, and Abby came over to watch it with us. Then they hung out for the rest of the afternoon and left about 5:00 pm. We just couldn't get enough playing time in I guess because Steve and Jeannine came back again to play more Pop 5. Good thing they provided the dessert to help keep us awake! We are still tired but had fun so it was worth it.

Official Teenager!!!

Michayla turned 13 on Monday so we have a teenager in our house! Luckily she isn't the one with the attitude. Yet. She is sweet in nature and the fact that she spends 1 week at a time at each house hopefully we won't see much attitude. To celebrate her birthday our family went to dinner at Chevy's and rollerskating. Kyle lasted all of 5 minutes before he called it quits. He couldn't get the concept of moving one foot at a time. I told him to walk, you don't move both feet at the same time to walk right? But with the wheels on the shoes he thought he had to move both at the same time. Chris and I both tried to teach him but neither of us could. Riley Jo had decided she wasn't even going to try so she and Kyle both pretended to play video games for the 2 hours. Chris and I switched off to stay off with the little ones. I don't know how long it has been since I actually roller skated, luckily you can rent roller blades too. I ask the kids if they want roller blades or roller skates they both said roller skates so Chris said "Let's just all get roller skates." I had to admit that I don't remember how to roller skate. He proceeded to make fun of me in front of the entire line how I don't know how to roller skate. I know Chris was doing that? Ha Ha. Anyways, the kids had a fun time and now want to go back at least once a month. I had great fun and it's good exercise. My legs were sore the next day. Maybe I shouldn't be admitting that, that just shows how out of shape I am and need to exercise my muscles more. Next time we go we will leave the little ones behind.

New Beginnings

We had an Emma's Awards Show for our Young Women's New Beginnings this year. We all had to come dressed in fancy dresses and the dads wore suits. We stayed late the night before decorating the room. We put white lights around the room and hung up plastic sheets of paper to make it look like they were drapes all around the room. It looked wonderful! We came early to set up the tables and put on the centerpieces. We gave awards for each of the 8 values of the Young Women Recognition Award.

Laura and I were in charge of introducing the new Beehives. We made personalized Magazine Covers for them that showed their interests and talents.

Here are the new beehives with their magazines.

The current Beehives made a video to accept their award of our trip to Utah last year. I filmed it and edited it for that evening.

Curlers

Riley Jo let me put curlers in her hair so her hair would be curly. She sat still for the 30 minutes it took to put them in, but when it was time to lay down and go to sleep she had me take them out! They are sponge curlers what's the deal? Oh well, maybe someday she'll sleep with them in and we'll see what she looks like with curly hair! She looked so cute with them in though.

Riley Jo

Riley Jo was star of the week for her school. We had to put together a poster of all her favorites. This is her poster of all her favorite things. Of course, MOM is her #1 favorite!

The pictures are Cinderella, Belle, Family, School, Trampoline (favorite toy), her thumb (and bellybutton), Disneyland, and swimming.

Valentines Day

We celebrated Valentines Day with the Jacobs family. We had a Wii game night, we made homemade personal pizzas for dinner, and dipped yummy fruit and dessert in chocolate fondue. The kids all had fun making their own pizzas and dipping into the chocolate. The kids also had fun hanging out with each other and we introduced Jeremy to Rock Band. It was a fun time! Riley Jo even got out her guitar and jammed along.

Painting and Redecorating Projects

We painted the boys room and bought them a new bed. We didn't realize how dark the blue was until we started painting. Now the room needs a floor lamp. Oh well, I love the bedroom with the new bed. The boys are able to keep it clean too.

So we gave Riley Jo the boys old bed which works great in her room. We are storing the bottom bunk and were able to put her toys under her bed so she is able to keep her room clean now too. We love it.

After having our bathroom "ready to paint" for the last 2 years, we finally had Journey come over to paint it. The fixtures were off our walls for the entire 2 years so it was great to finally have them up again! The pictures don't give it much justice, the walls are a medium beige and the towels are light blue and dark brown. We are loving having our bathroom functional again!

Our Anniversary!!!

On January 30th Chris and I celebrated our 5 year Sealing Anniversary. I can't believe how fast that went. My mom went on her last mission in June of 2004 and she wanted to make sure Chris and I were sealed before she left. We wanted to have our Sealing date on our Wedding date, but our Wedding date was on a Monday in 2004 so we settled for the Friday before. We celebrated our 8th Wedding Anniversary on February 2nd. Chris and I have been together a decade now. For our Anniversary we went out to dinner. As we were getting ready to leave my brother called and asked what we were doing that night. I told him we were going out to dinner, he asked where and I told him Back Forty. I asked if they wanted to come and he said yes. I told him we were going out for our anniversary and he said, well never mind then we aren't going to intrude on your anniversary. I told him it was totally fine if they came, it's 8 years now and there will be another one next year. He laughed and they came with us. He and Jeannine were so sweet, they actually bought us dinner! They said "You gave us a week vacation at your time share, the least we could do was buy you dinner." My brother and I haven't always gotten a long so for him to do that for us was very special and meant a lot to me.

Blog Vacation

It has been a crazy couple of months so I haven't had the time to sit down and blog about it. Here is what has kept me so busy. Starting with January. My mom came home (She is in Utah on a Family History mission) for a 3 day trip so we could take Tyler to the Temple for the first time. That was an awesome experience. We had to go to the Sacramento Temple because the Oakland Temple was closed for cleaning. I didn't complain because I had never been to that temple before. The Burrs from church came with us, Jeremy Jacobs, my sister Sheri, Chris' Uncle Michael and Aunt Setsuko, and some friends who moved up there the McAnellys met us there. We hope to be able to go back again a couple of times before the end of the year.
Then Kyle had Baseball tryouts. He will be playing on the Giants coach pitch team again this year. This is his 3rd year playing with the Giants. He is excited for baseball to start.

More Videos from New Years!

So I hate posting videos to you-tube so you will have to view a these short videos. Enjoy!

No, that is NOT a hat on Tim's head. It's a Sweat band. GO ROCKSTAR TIM!!!!

Who knew Jeremy was so flexible? Love those high kicks!!

New Years Eve

For New Years we decided at the last minute to stay home and invited some friends over. We played Rock Band with the kids the whole night. Then right after midnight we kicked the kids off and the adults played until 2:00 am. Tyler bought Rock Band 2 with his birthday and Christmas money, it has a no fail feature so Riley and Kyle were also able to play with us. They thought that was great because they are always wanting to play. I convinced Jeremy to do his encore of Sabatage for the camera and he agreed. He also agreed to let me post it on my blog. Enjoy because we all did!!!

Christmas Dinner Group

This year we hosted our annual Christmas Dinner Group. Chris decided he wanted the dinner catered, so we ordered the dinner from Cinco De Mayo. We got burritos and enchiladas, it was very good! After dinner we played our gift exchange game. Everyone walked away with a nice gift and something that they could all use. After that some of the guys wanted to play rock band. Who was I to stand in their way? Jeremy Evans can do an awesome impersonation of the Beastie Boys. I thought the Beastie Boys were in my Living Room singing Sabatage. It was so good. Unfortunately, he wouldn't do an encore for the camera. Tim Doll enjoyed singing Wanted Dead or Alive. We all took turns on the guitar and drums. It was a very enjoyable evening.

Christmas 2008

We celebrated Christmas so many times this season that I decided to do it all in one post. On December 10th we went to get our family pictures taken. Both the boys desperately needed a haircut so I took them. Riley Jo decided she needed a haircut too even though she had hers cut about 3 weeks before. I didn't think it was worth a fight so I let her get her haircut too. So now her hair is to her chin too! I will post a picture soon. On December 13 it was our ward Christmas party. We had a great dinner, and experienced our first deep fried turkey. It tasted awesome! They squirted teriyaki sauce into the turkey so it tasted really sweet. Riley Jo actually sat on Santa's lap this year without crying which was a huge accomplishment. I forgot my camera so I am waiting for one to be sent to me so I will post it when I get it. Then on December 18th Riley Jo's preschool had their holiday celebration. We walked into the classroom and all the kids had on a Rudolph headband with a red nose. They sang some Christmas songs and Santa came to visit. Santa brought everyone 2 books and then they could take a picture with him. I forgot my camera again so I am waiting for the pictures too. Then you can understand about the Rudolph noses. The kids looked so cute and they sang the songs really good. Riley Jo sat on Santa's lap again!!

Then on the 20th we woke out kids up and told them it was Christmas morning and we let them open their Christmas gifts. We have to do a lot of jumping around on Christmas day and the kids don't get to stay at home, so we spent the morning at home and after lunch went to the mall to try to see Santa. Unfortunately, the rest of Concord and probably the surrounding cities were all there too. So we couldn't see Santa with all our kids. So the two youngest got their pictures taken with Santa. This is the best picture we've had with Santa in 4 years. Riley has been kicking and screaming in everyone until this year.