Look what I picked up at Target!

Best deal of the year!

beautiful girls

These beautiful girls belong to one of my best friends.
And I got to take pictures of them. They were such great models!

I have a new-found respect for moms of a bunch of girls.  The accessories you all must have to deal with!!!  The shoes, socks, tights, jewelry, and then the hair stuff to go with it!  I just don't know if I could do it.  Good thing I have mostly boys.  They're so much easier in that department.

Harry Potter!!!

What a fun night!

The office rented out a big Cine Capri theater for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows the night before its' official release.......and at 6:30, not midnight!

It was such a festive atmosphere at the theaters with all the Harry Potter crazies camping out in big lines all over the place.  So much excitement!  And the movie was really great too.  Maybe one of these days I'll get around to reading the books, when I'm the last one on the planet that hasn't!

Tree of Gratitude

It's a good start.

There's so many more we need to add.

Gus wrote his in heiroglyphics. But they all mean something to him.

I'm thankful for my new dishwasher & new garage door opener, both of which broke the same week.  Oh, how we take things for granted until they're gone.

I know I'm a bit sarcastic on this blog, but I'm just trying to be true to who I am.  I'm not one for spiritual-speak, but that doesn't mean my faith doesn't run deep.

That being said,  I am  so thankful for my entire blessed life.

The good, the bad, and even the ugly......it's only made me stronger.

Arizona Tourists part 2

I'm so behind in everything right now!  Buried.  I've taken on too much, like I always seem to do this time of year.  Booger!

So here's what we did on our second daytrip during October break.
I was craving some fall color, so we went to find some.  We headed up to Flagstaff, which was in peak fall leaf color.  It was awesome! 
So we jumped out of the car for some pics......

And this is what I get.

No cooperation.

And then there's my little angel!

She's quickly becoming my favorite child.

Then we continued our drive down through Oak Creek Canyon towards Sedona.

We stopped at Slide Rock, which is really cool.

The kids had never been there.

We hiked around.

Then Brian tells Jake & Max he'll give them ten bucks each if they go down it.

Now, we didn't bring any swimsuits, since it is October!  And the water was freezing!

But they took him up on it.

And stripped down to their undies.

In front of strangers.

And floated on down.

We were all cracking up.

I think they were mostly worried that I would post undie shots of them on my blog.

They'll do anything for ten bucks!

After the boys changed back into their dry clothes behind some bushes, we headed back to the car, just before it started pouring.

It stormed hard most of the way home, so I didn't get any Sedona pics.

Next trip maybe.

We found out something new about Caroline......

She really loves chocolate shakes!

Arizona Tourists

Brian had to work all of October Break this year, so we couldn't make any big trip plans.  Which was really fine with me.  I was so craving a real break.  Meaning at home with no schedule.  Not going from crazy schedule to family vacation, then right back into the crazy schedule, except now you're even more behind on everything & buried in laundry.  So we hung out at home & truly chilled out.

But I wanted to do something to remember this October Break by.........

So I figured this was the perfect time to be

Arizona  Tourists!

I've wanted to do this for a long time.

Here we live in The Grand Canyon State and not one of our kids have ever even seen it!  Shameful. 

So this is our goal this school year.  To visit as many Arizona sights as we can through a series of daytrips.  Whenever we can fit them in.  All of those places I remember (or don't remember) learning about in Arizona History class long ago.

Destination #1......

Meteor Crater!

It's the best-preserved meteor crater on Earth!

OK.  So it's a big hole in the ground.

In the middle of nowhere.

But the light was beautiful out there.

And there was a gift shop full of rocks & fake gems that we could hardly get the boys out of.

And now we're the proud owners of several smashed pennies with a picture of meteor crater on them.

Who needs Disneyland, I ask you!

This is when Gus was proudly singing his Planets song at the top of his lungs.

I love how Max & Jake are so embarrassed & Zane's laughing his head off.

Because there were a bunch of people around. 

As it turns out, we aren't the only ones who thought it was a great idea to spend the day driving out to BFE to see a big hole in the ground.

It was pretty windy out there.

And with that light & the wind & Marlee's hair.......I just had to take some pictures!

I normally don't do much to my pictures in Photoshop.  Mostly just optimize them for the web.  But with all these pictures of Mars, I thought I'd try some different things.  Experiment a little.

Then we headed to  Destination #2.......

.....with Gus hanging his head out the window like a little puppy dog......

....and takin' it easy on  Route 66...

to

Winslow!!!

Where we  stood on a corner.

I'm telling you, the excitement was never-ending.

We even made some new friends there in Winslow.

Here are the boys just takin' it easy before our drive home.

And that sums up Daytrip #1.

Watch for more exciting memories of our Daytrip #2 when I get around to editing them.