Aircraft carrier adventure

Brent had a dream come true this week! He was able to fly on a C2 and land on an aircraft carrier at sea! He'll have to blog about his own adventure but I'll get it started just in case.

New Moon Madness

Well, It came, it went, it was awesome! I had a New Moon Girl's Night at my house. Yummy themed food and a fun trivia game about the book. I decorated with black and red. Candles and flowers. I made Blood cakes (red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and strawberry glaze blood splatter.) There was meat for the werewolves and werewolf cupcakes. Lots of yummy treats. Lisa and I wore our Team Jacob shirts to show our werewolf pride. I made little treat bags with New Moon Movie Mix:Vampire fangs,Werewolf teeth and Dazzling sweethearts.(red and brown candy corn, choclate fangs, twilight conversation hearts and glow-in-the-dark fangs.)

The movie was great! It's always fun for me to find new ways to play. Party planning is one of them. I love the details. It's always fun to be silly sometimes. Staying up 'til 3 am is pretty silly for me these days. And there wasn't even a sick kid involved. Just some seriously sick fun.

Influential?

Recently I found out that my blog is a little more 'public' than I ever knew. Apparently when you Google or search (but who are we kidding, it's Google. Anyone ever use Ask.com? I didn't think so) for Ridgecrest, Ca my blog comes up. I should have realized with a blog name of Ridgecrest Review that this might happen. But I didn't. So, I have a little thrill knowing that my blog entries may inspire or hinder perspective hires in their decision to move to the great Mojave desert. Maybe I'll make a new friend or two out of it as well. Enjoy!

Date Night

Brent and I try to get out on a date without the kids a couple of times a month. We generally go to dinner, have game nights with friends or see movies. This week we combined our date night with my church responsibility of chaperoning a church youth dance. It was western themed. The youth have a good time and we did too.

Halloween

We love Halloween around here. We decorate our house and the kids generally dress up as something different for each events we attend. Joey's preschool class had a parade, trick or treating to city hall and the police department and a classroom party. Joey was a fire-fighter. Nana and Grandpa Dave bought Joey a fantastic costume that is an exact replica of a fire-fighter uniform just miniature. Red suspenders and all. He loves it. He has always said he's going to be a fire-fighter when he grows up. Katie dressed up as a witch and Grace was Alice (from Wonderland not the Brady Bunch, though their uniforms are similar) and on Halloween Grace switched to Supergirl for the evening. I was a witch and Brent was Super as well.

Lisa and Orson Porter came up to visit and we had a BBQ at the Ballard's. We headed to our ward Trunk or Treat for games and treats then over to our friends church for a huge Fall Festival with climbing walls, games and food. On the way home we stopped at a local home where the owner id Wizard of Oz and Wicked CRAZY. He decorates his house in the theme and this year had a performance of scenes from the movie. Green lighting, costumes, and a bon fire. INSANE. The kids loved it.

We are still candy crazy around here. It was a great Halloween.

Isaac's Blessing

We traveled down to L.A. to be with family for Isacc Porter's baby blessing. (Brent's cousin Lisa Ballard Porter's son) We had fun seeing family, eating yummy food, and enjoying the gorgeous view from their home on the base. We love their dog Penny.

Utah Trip

Brent's job takes him to BYU for recruiting twice a year. We've made it a tradition to take the entire family along with him in the Fall. We had 10 days of great fun! First stop Cedar City. My brother Carl and his kids live there. We drove the 6 hours to his house and stayed 2 days. We had fun playing and chatting. The kids played outside in the cold weather, discovered Nintendo DS, and decorated fall cookies. I've made a tradition of taking my nieces and nephew to the book store and letting them each pick out a book. I hope it's a tradition they'll cherish.

We then made the drive in terrible rain to Brigham City to visit the Agrens. It was fun seeing all the temples along the way. If only all places we're sprinkled with temples like Utah. We had never been to BC before and were looking forward to it. The Agrens are awesome friends who stay up way to late on work nights and scurry to finish house projects just to make us more comfortable. (I like company as a goal to get things done as well) It was great to see their new home and how well they fit there. The kids adore each other and we all had great fun. Kathryn never fails to amaze. She even provide a snow fall for our kids to enjoy. Great fun to see them.

We then headed to the Ballards in Draper. (friends from college days)We had fun catching up. They had a family Halloween party which they sweetly invited us to. Great fun. Again great friends who stay up way to late on work nights chatting with us. Wish we were still neighbors.

Next we shopped and cleaned up and met our friend Jess Bishop to have our family photos taken. Jess is an amazing photographer. Glad I can say I knew her when. We had fun with our photo shoot and went to visit Jess and her family later that week at their home. The kids had fun with their friends just like old times. Again, wish we were still neighbors.

We visited Grandma and Grandpa Cannon. We walked with Grandma around the Provo temple grounds which is across the street from they're house. Grandma taught the kids to play pick up sticks and Grandpa taught us how to play Blockus. Very fun.

The kids love Provo. We visited the library for story time, ate at the counter at the Creamery on 9th, went to Krispy Kreme to watch doughnuts being made, swam in the hotels indoor pool, saw the places Brent and I lived there, and shopped for church stuff you can't get anywhere else. Bowling at the 'Wilk' and dinner at Old Spaghetti Factory. Good times.

Friday and Saturday we're filled with activities. We purchased Salt Lake City passes which got us into 13 attractions in 2 days! Including lunch at the Lion House. It was fantastic. We stayed those 2 nights with the Carricks in Saratoga Springs. They joined us for some of the adventure. We went to the planetarium for a dome show and IMAX movie, lunch at Lion House and Discovery Gateway children's museum then headed for a BBQ with more college days friends. All of this on Friday! Whew.

Saturday we started the day off right. The dads took the kids to the Dinosaur museum in Lehi and Carma and I went to a boutique being held at the Ballards house. This was a n event to benefit Liza (another college buddy) who son is struggling with lung disease among other health problems. It was awesome and I even saw more college friends there as well. We joined the kids at the museum where they were having a pirate-palooza. It was a great day to go. Face painting,games, pirates telling stories and giving out pirate names. The museum is cool! Lots to see and do. We then hit the aquarium in Sandy (don't bother) though it was free-ish for us and cool to see. We ended our day walking around Thanksgiving Point Gardens in the freezing cold. It was sunny but the end of the day. Gorgeous place to walk and take in the beauty of the earth and work of the landscapers.

Sunday we headed to Vegas. We visited my great friend Kerri and caught up with all the happening from back home and each others lives. She made the girls bracelets which they love. We then headed down the road to the Coopers (college buds) who forgot that we'd be passing threw that day and got a surprise on their door steps...US. They kindly welcomed us of course 'cause they're the coolest. We spent the night there and had fun watching the kids run around friendly as can be. They were definitely the worst behaved friends. We stayed up WAY to late talking and laughing and even watched a new episode of The Office at 1 am 'cause they had it on DVR. Such joy to have great friends.

We came home Monday (thank you Columbus) having had a fantastic and busy trip to our old stomping grounds. Hooray for work travel that gets you free family vacations!

P.S. The kids did do school work most days and turned it in when they went back to school. Just so you know we were responsible.