Our adventures in Utah

We flew up to Utah Monday night arriving at Grandpa's house around midnight.

At the airport roughly 11pm.
With our baggage that miraculously made the flight with us.

Tuesday morning we went to Temple Square, took a tour of the beehive house, and the conference center.

Connor and Daddy in front of a fountain
Ellie, Camille and Claire check out the water fall while...
Connor slept

Then we headed home. Later that night we met up with cousins for an ice cream party, which made for another late night-but we enjoyed it.

Wednesday we met up with more cousins and took a trip to Logan to visit the cheese factory, then stopped at A & W for lunch, followed by a trip to the Pepperidge Farm Factory. I was looking forward to getting a bunch of bags of Milano cookies, but they didn't have any...bummer. Instead we picked up other cookies and gold fish for really cheap.

The employee of the month parking space.
Connor somewhat enjoyed playing in the snow...until it got really cold.
The adults and cousins enjoyed the snow and a good snowball fight
Then we went to an ice cream place and had dessert
Connor really enjoyed the kids' table and chairs.
Back at home Connor knocked over a cup of water onto Peter's lap...it was too funny.
Looks like my Daddy wet his pants, doesn't it?
My great grandpa let me play with these cool toys.

I love this video-I have such a smart baby.

Thursday morning we prepared for the big feast. We brought a spinach salad for the feast.
During the morning we all went over to another house and made food. (Not many pictures were taken today...but a few videos will be posted later.)

Friday morning we went to visit more cousins and more importantly to visit their farm. Connor got up close and personal with horses, pigs and chickens. He wasn't fond of the horse who nearly bit his hand off (though I think he was more upset that the horse took his apple). The pigs were loud and smelly and the chickens were just the right size for him.
After our fun with the farm animals. We visited quickly with the Mackley's, went to Seagull Book, then out to lunch at Cafe Rio, and then headed back to get ready for the Novemberfest.

Connor and I are chickens, Peter is a pizza.
Basically Novemberfest is Oktoberfest held the day after Thanksgiving. We rent a church (same for Thanksgiving) and all the family gets together for another great party. We dance, play games, socialize and have a great time.

The chicken dance

The hat game-basically musical chairs with hats.

My gnomes (look he's showing his teeth)
Peter and other manly men dancing

Well I think this post is long enough. More videos to come a little later.

Airport Adventures

Monday-

So we left for the airport at 4:30, our flight left at 7:40 from Long Beach which is about an hour and a half drive. We thought we would have enough time for dinner so we stopped at a cute diner. Unfortunately when we left the diner we had about 30 minutes to spare. A bit tight on time, but we could do it. Then we hit major airport traffic and sit for 20 minutes. We have 10 minutes to catch a plane...were we going to make it? I was convinced that it wasn't going to happen. We get to the ticket counter and there's a sign that says you must arrive 30 minutes prior to your flight...we have less than 10 minutes left. We ask if there's any way that we can make the flight. The lady makes several phone calls and then tells us she can take our luggage, but it probably won't make the flight. It'll arrive on a different flight. We said that was fine as we really didn't want to miss the flight, our luggage could come later. She takes the stuff and gives us our ticket and tells us to try and make the flight. We RUN through the halls the best that we can. Then we get to the security check point. The stuff goes through, I go through...I'm putting my shoes on and realize they've pulled aside my bag...the diaper bag to be exact. The security officer is putting on gloves and asks me if that was my bag. Yes it is. "Is there anything sharp in your bag?" No. It's just diapers and wipes and baby supplies. "May I look through it?" Yes. So he opens it up, pulls out the wipes and looks around some more. Then he sends the wipes through the scanner again. When it comes through he says it's fine. I shove everything in the bag and take off running again. I hear our names being called over the intercom. Peter is rushing to tell them we're here....We finally make it to the gate!!! Apparently they held the plane for us and one other couple. We walked through the doors and then ran again down the halls for the plane. When we finally got to the plane we were clearly out of breath...but we made it.

They announce that we are to turn our phones off. Peter calls my dad to tell him we made the plane so he could stop circling the airport and go home. Then we send Peter's mom a quick text message that we might need a car seat. Then the phone turned off.

We arrive at our destination, turn the phone back on and relieved to find out David and Diana went and bought a car seat for us if we needed one. We find David and then go to the luggage carousel. Much to our delight our luggage had made the flight!!!

This concludes are airport adventures. I think our return flight home we'll be on time for.

Farewell nice weather, Hello freezing temps

Some might call us crazy, some might calls us insane, yet some others might call us wimps...we're leaving our beautiful weather(with the exception of the rain tonight) and heading to the bitter cold of Utah. I just checked the 10 day forecast...our lowest temperatures 40-46 degrees are still higher than most of the highest temperatures(37-52) we should see in Utah....shiver. I hope we survive.

On the bright side, when we return it'll be the warmest day of the week here at 70 degrees. Normally I would complain that this is also cold, but given what we will be in, I'll gladly take 70 degrees with no complaints.

Kitchen Catastrophe/Julian Trip

About an hour ago we had a small kitchen catastrophe. I had done the dishes, loaded and turned on the dishwasher, ran the disposal and then headed upstairs for a shower. Peter heard Connor awake so he went to get him. As he's coming downstairs he hears an odd leaking sound. He walks into the kitchen to find both sinks backed up and nearly overflowing. The fix to the problem is to run the disposal right? Well that's what I always do and that always fixes the problem...well this time it didn't. Peter turns the disposal on and (insert flatulence sound) the disposal explodes. The trap got backed up and last night's spaghetti noodles, peas and carrots came flying out of from under the sink. Water, food and grime were everywhere! Peter likened the mess unto vomit...lovely don't you think?
It was a good thing that we store some of our dishes under the sink, because one of them caught a lot of water. Had it not been there, we would've had a much bigger mess on our hands.

My kitchen was clean before the ordeal.

So that concludes our past hour. The disposal is fixed and the dishwasher is still washing...and when it's done we'll have more dishes that will need to be washed before they make it back under the sink.

Yesterday I had the day off and it was Peter's Friday off so we drove up to Julian to see the different colored trees and to get pie and bread. Apparently everyone else had the same idea and the place was super crowded. I was a bit bummed out with the nature bit. Most of the trees hadn't changed colors yet. This was the most colorful tree I could find.
We couldn't find a parking spot anywhere...so we drove back down the hill to Santa Ysabel and stopped at Dudley's for their famous bread. We bought 5 loaves for the price of 4 and had lunch there.

We enjoyed looking at the cows.
Then we went here
and brought home two apple boysenberry pies for dessert.

Connor's First Birthday!

Guess who turned 1 today!

Connor had a birthday party with Peter's family yesterday and got this cool pirate ship from his aunt and uncle and cousins.

I wish we took our camera with us then, so we could show you the mess he made with a chocolate cupcake. I took pictures with my phone, but have no idea how to get them onto the computer.

Then this evening he had another birthday party with my parents. His uncle gave him the elephant pillow/super soft blanket.
And his grandma and grandpa gave him shoes that match his daddy's. He also got a soft soled pair that have flames on the fronts. He was given those a little early and showed up in them.

He was eager for cake time

Connor also got some magnetic cars from Grandma and Grandpa O, a popping car, some balls, bath squirt toys and a balloon from Mommy and Daddy. All in all I think he enjoyed two days of celebrations.

Halloween

For Halloween my family thought it would be fun to dress me up as different characters. They had fun.

Here I am as a bunny rabbit...

and a mouse...

and a clown...
Will you please stop putting things on my head.

for Halloween I was a monkey...and I enjoyed it (for the most part).

Wait for me...
I'm all ready!
I got some candy, but mostly I just chewed on the packages.