Quick Quote

 

Mom:  "Faith, your nose needs help." 

Faith: "I know.  He keeps saying 'Help! Someone help me!"

November Summary

Before December is done, I need to do a November recap.  Mostly so I can talk about Faith’s birthday, so here goes:

Faith turned the dumb age of 3 on November 1st and since she basically had been talking about a party for months, I was forced into having one for her on her birthday.  We had a million 3 year olds.  I made Ryan come home from work and help.  It was a total 5th Child Birthday Party:  very loose theme, cheapo store-bought invites, a during-the-party-realization that it was lunch and I should feed the 3 year olds, etc.

It was kind of a Dora party and so they made Dora bracelets:

and they played a kind of Backpack game, and I did a musical chairs to Dora music, and I fed them quesadillas because it’s a Spanish word and I had a kind-of treasure hunt with a Dora thing stuck on cupcakes as the treasure. 

I rule. 

Whatever…she got lots of presents:

 

I also fed Faith Fruit Loops for breakfast (to be fair, cereal really is her favorite breakfast):

and I fed her McDonalds for her dinner/family party. 

…where we couldn’t even light a candle so we had a lame birthday song and pretend-blowing-out-of-candles.  At least I homemade the cake.  Being the 5th child does have it’s advantages (siblings who dote on you, parents who slightly know what they’re doing), but awesome birthday parties aren’t one of them.  Sorry, F.  I promise if you keep only turning 3, I’ll do a better one next year.

But I was a good mom, when, on Veteran’s Day, I heard, last minute, about a REALLY cheap entry fee into a ski resort’s water park, I decided just to bag everything and take the kids.  We had a super fun day:

They have a surfing ride that had a line 45 minutes long, but when the worker saw Faith and I watching, he asked if she wanted to jump the line and he’d take her on a ride.  It was really cool:

 

Seth also lost his first tooth…2 months into First grade is very late to lose a tooth, in case you’re wondering.  It’s the best when you lose it at school, because then you get a cool carrying case and a sticker.  Except then you lose it in the pebbles when you’re tossing it around on your walk home and you have to write a sad little note to the tooth fairy, begging her to pay you anyway.

And we had a cool Family Home Evening where Ryan had everyone illustrate the Tree of Life story from the Book of Mormon:

And then the whole rest of November is 400 pictures of our trip and you’ve already been privileged with those beauties.  I’m sure more stuff happened in November but by December 18th, I can’t remember them.

Yay!  November summary done.

Wait!  Seth was also in the paper for winning the No Cavity Club at our awesome local pediatric dentist. He got a $25 gift card and his own photo shoot:

Okay, now I’m done.

Who Drives to Texas? Part 8 (Finally!)

Some numbers:

Odemeter at start of trip:

176, 725  (Go little blue van, go!)

Odometer at end of trip:

182, 319

Mileage Grand total:

5, 594

Hours spent traveling:

81

Books (audio, children) completed by Jessica:

5

Pages read in Jessica’s paperback book:

32

Books brought on road trip:

6 (sorry, Ryan, I thought I would have time to read!)

Times pulled over by a cop:

2 (once for failing to switch lanes when cop on side of road, once for speeding)

Tickets received:

1 (for speeding)

Meals eaten in a restaurant in 15 days:

15

Hotel stays:

1 (Thanks fun family and friends)

Different states’ license plates we saw:

43

States we drove through:

14

And now for some non-iphone pictures…

The whole family and the presidents:

 

Giving proper respect to the home state:

Our Kansas City hosts (Mark and Carie) and the incredible Chocolate Bag dessert:

Faith and her cousin, Luke (Nate’s little boy):

Nate’s twin girls:

Everyone was soooo happy to see Grandma Dorrie:

Cute Sam and Stephanie, hung out with us in both Dallas and San Antonio:

 

The Alamo…oh! that weather is looking so lovely right now:

Me, Adrianne, my kids, her kids, her brother’s kids and my uncle’s kids:

Who drives to Texas? Part 7

I was so excited to go to Arizona with my family. I get down there once in a while to see Adrianne and my uncle and aunt, but we never get to have all of our kids and spouses together.

Both Adrianne and Dane and Lorena appreciate a good Sight See, so I knew we'd have perfect hosts.

Our first night we stayed with Adrianne (best friend since high school), and everyone (even Ryan) kept exclaiming over her super-talent at making everything she touches beautiful. Her house was perfect. (bonus: seeing one of Adrianne's younger sisters. Love me some Smart sisters.)

We chatted and I ran (Adrianne wussed out. Something about 6 months pregnant. Whatever.), then we packed up the car for Casa Grande Ruins. Very cool--highly recommended for anyone in the vicinity.




I love this one of kids pouring over their Junior Ranger guide books, that's Adrianne's Gabe in the cowboy hat ("I wouldn't be afraid of snakes because I'm wearing a cowboy hat and cowboys are tough"):





And I actually remembered to take an adult one:




Notice my jacket. Um, Arizona: when I visit in the winter I expect 70 degrees at least. Got it?

We met up with Dane and Lorena (no adult picture. Dang it!)
at the famous Rosa's. I've been there on every Arizona visit.




And then hit the Mesa temple Christmas lights:







We spent that night with D and L (too short) and then hit the road at 5:00. Little did we know that we were embarking on the most ambitious leg of our road trip.

Faith had been running a fever for 3 days as we headed for Utah and, although the plan was to stop in Kaysville, By the time we were in St. George, we were worried about her. We just wanted to get her out of that carseat and in her own bed and near doctors we knew. We'd also noticed that the snow was supposed to start.

We made the crazy decision to drive straight through. Dinner in Pocatello, kids to sleep at 9:00 pm, and 24.5 bleary, snowy hours later, we rolled into Liberty Lake at 4:30 am. It was not fun the last 2 hours but we were so glad we had a whole day to recover from our odyssey. (Faith woke up with no fever, of course, and was greatly improved.)

One post to go: a round up and a few never-before-seen photos. Stay tuned, folks!


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Who drives to Texas? Part 6

Oh, San Antonio was SO much fun! We loved getting to stay with my brother, Matt and wife Janelle.

We did the necessary San Antonio things on Monday.

Alamo (where the kids had fun with the "can you find?" paper from the front desk):




Gabe used his $15 souvenir money on this:



Shockingly, Jane was accidentally bleeding from that super safe souvenir within the hour. (nothing violent, just dumb)

I highly recommend the boat tour through San Antonio's famous riverwalk:



On Tuesday, people who had barfed in the night (Emma and Gabe) stayed home with Ryan and had their first brush with Monty Python and the Holy Grail, while the rest of us went to a virtually empty children's museum:










On Wednesday, we hit the awesomest outdoor African safari park, where the inmates got VERY close:











Super, super fun!

We also hit the famous Rudy's BBQ, where it was super fancy. Note the "plates":



It was delicious and Matt sent us home with a bottle of their yummy sauce, so we can have a little Texas all year long.

When I download my regular camera shots, I'll have more pictures of my brother Sam and his fun wife Stephanie, who hung out with us in both Dallas and San Antonio.

Watching cousins play together, long talks at night with adults, and an accidental 6.8 mile run with Matt were other highlights.

Why, oh why, does 60% of my siblings live on the other side of the country??

Who drives to Texas? Part 5

The last week has been so filled with family and fun that I haven't stopped to post, but since we are driving through a VERY desert-y Texas/New Mexico/Arizona today, I had some blogging time.

We spent last Wednesday visiting Ryan's sister in Tahlequah, Oklahoma and driving to Dallas.

Had to take this picture, as we crossed the border into Texas:





The next few days were spent with all Romneys (except grandma and grandpa, SUCH a bummer), doing these like

Eating:



Giving uncles pedicures:



Baking:



Attending the Cowboys game:



Playing games:




Visiting big fun centers:



And talking, talking, talking:





Family reunions are only sad because they remind you that you really wish you lived closer to each other. Greg and Christy were relaxed and generous hosts and we enjoyed mild Texas weather and so much playtime and catching up time. There was a little tearing up on my part when we had to say goodbye on Sunday, as we got in the car to see my side of the family in San Antonio.

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Who drives to Texas? Part 4

These are the pictures from yesterday:




Our second stop at Panera. The soup! The bread! The Mac and Cheese! The pastries! (note the soft cast/sling on our boy....ugh.)

Panera was in Joplin, Missouri, where a huge tornado hit. We asked a lady at panera where we could go to see the major damage and she said "go down to main street. It's decimated. That's where my house was." :(

It was crazy and a sobering experience for our family to see the destruction.

This is the next picture:



Lots of cousin love! We ended up in Tahlequah, Oklahoma at Ryan's sister's house. I LOVE hearing the sounds of cousins playing and laughing. We talked our faces off with Brooke and Spencer. Yay for hanging out with far-off family!

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Who drives to Texas? Part 3

No driving yesterday! We stopped at my friend Carie's house and just had the best day...until we had to take Seth to the emergency room. But I'll get to that.

After a lovely run with Carie, we headed to Liberty Jail, a place with historical and spiritual significance for our church. It was neat to be there:





We stopped for lunch at Panera. (Don't have one in Spokane and holy cow! We stopped there AGAIN today for lunch.)

We headed to downtown Kansas City and went to Kaleidoscope (a Hallmark owned children's art museum). We had so much (free!) fun:

Gabe using their wall kaleidoscope maker:



Lots of art to make:




The adults dropped kids at home and left for dinner at Jack Stack (cuh-razy good barbecue) and the famous chocolate bag for dessert (picture on my regular camera--but that thing was a. A work of art and b. so so so yummy).

We got home to news that Seth had jumped off a ledge and hurt his arm. We weren't too concerned till we heard him whimpering at 12:30 in the morning. One middle-of-the-night ER run later, the radiologist confirmed it was a bad sprain. Phew. We tend towards broken arms around here and we were scared. Ryan reports MAJOR charming of the nurses on Seth's part:



He is now complaining, as we drive to Oklahoma, that is itches. I hope it itches so much he NEVER jumps from at 5 foot ledge again.

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