Vacation Part 2: Seaport Village

The day after Christmas, we headed up to San Diego to do some fun SD things. Our first stop was Seaport Village which was a place that we both remembered going to as kids so we wanted to take our girls there as well. It has a bunch of little shops and food places, some local entertainment, right by the water (of course!) and just a fun place to walk around.

the drive up the mountain to San Diego

The girls by the water. I tried getting them to sit on the wall for the pic, but they were all too scared to. What a bunch of girlies!! :)

They would've been content just to chase all the birds that were around there

Daddy and his girls.

Kendal was still a little nervous about being so close to the water. She eventually warmed up to that. They all did.....and at times made me a nervous wreck the way they were running around. I just knew they were going to fall over the side. Now who's the girlie?!?! :)

Jeff's 4 favorite girls ;)

The girls watching some of the local entertainment. Kendal heard that his next performance would be "in 15 minutes" and she begged us to watch it.

Yes, it was that kind of crazy performance. Here he is swallowing fire...it gets better...

Here is his wacky assistant. I think that's a job requirement in this line of work. I could never apply. :)

Here is Jeff with 3 other guys picked (two girls were picked also) from the audience to assist in one of his crazy "stunts".

Here, they are all testing out the bed of nails

Jeff, another guy and the two girls stood on a board....on the guy....laying on the bed of nails. The other two guys stood on the ends for support. While I know this is all part of the whole magical, illusion act, I still couldn't help thinking as I was watching this that it would be just totally awful if the horrific did happen and he punctured himself through all those nails while our innocent girls were looking on. Not to mention, that the poor guy would most surely die.


Thankfully, the horrific didn't happen and all ended well and he peeled himself off of the nails. He did have some pretty icky gouge marks all over his back though. EEEWW!


Here he is demonstrating how he was going to swallow the sword. Yuh-huh!!

Ummmm, yeah, I was totally icked out and fascinated by this at the same time. I actually gagged watching this. I really wonder sometimes what makes some people tick. I mean really now, what possesses a person to try something like this. He did inform us that he is only 1 of 47 sword swallowers left in the world. Hmmm really, I wonder why that is....



It is just gorgeous there, all the views of the water and the weather. We realized while there how much we actually miss living there.


The girls getting their caricatures done

The finished product in less than 30 minutes.

to be continued...

Vacation Part 1: Christmas

I'm finally getting around to getting pics and all posted about our vacation. It will be done in several parts because there are ALOT of pics and......well, just easier on me. :) Enjoy!!

Starting out on our first day of our two week trip. Headed to Grandma and Papa W in NM for an early Christmas with them. The girls were very excited to finally be on our way!!

First year to make a gingerbread house. It was fun to do that with the girls and they, of course, loved eating the candy off of it.

future cake decorator???

It was Daddy's idea to do this in the first place, but notice where he is.....in the living room watching the football game with my Dad. Typical guy!!! :) He did pop in on us every once in awhile.

the girls with their finished masterpiece :)

They were anxiously waiting to open their presents. They thought it was very cool that they were going to have two Christmases.

SPOILED ROTTEN!!!

Bsyn lookin' all cute in one of Papa's hats!!

A pretty sunset in Arizona on our way to CA to Jeff's parents.

Jeff and the girls with his Grandpa S

Grandma and Papa S with all their grandkids

Our family with Jeff's sister and her family

opening presents with Jeff's family

Payton and Bransyn being goofy. Gosh, they're cute!! :)

And here's all our cuties Christmas morning

All the grand and great-grand kids with Jeff's Grandma H

After Christmas dinner with Jeff's family, we went to my Aunt and Uncle's where some of my family were getting together and Santa (otherwise known as my cousin's hubby) showed up.

The girls (and everyone else) were very excited about Santa's visit

My Grandma S is in the background in the red dress. So bummed that I forgot to get a picture of the girls with her before we left.

Santa trying to get one of my Aunt's to sing Jingle Bells with him. She wouldn't!!! :)

He was not the least bit impressed with Santa. He was much happier when he reappeared as Daddy. :)

We had TWO great Christmases with our families!!!

to be continued...

Home Sweet Home

Well, alas, playtime is over and we have had to come back to reality. We had an AWESOME, FABULOUS, FANTASTIC, FUN-FILLED, EXCELLENT, NOT SO RELAXING vacation. While we enjoyed our trip beyond words, it is good to be home!

We got home Saturday afternoon, got the car unloaded, unpacked pretty much nothing, scrubbed out my empty refrigerator, spent two hours at the grocery store (alone), came home to put groceries away, sort of watched the SD Chargers (who won..woohoo!) football game with Jeff and a couple of his friends, fed everyone a not so nutrious meal, bathed kids, cut out laminated stuff for Kendal's teacher, started feeling not so good, went to bed, woke up Sunday still not feeling good, but went to church anyway because I was scheduled for the nursery, came home spent the rest of the day laying around feeling crummy, went to bed, woke up this morning sending Jeff off back to work and Kendal off back to school, but feeling better. :)

But....have I done anything productive, like unpacking the five suitcases that are still laying on the bedroom floors, making beds, cleaning up my messy kitchen, putting away the Christmas tree that I didn't have time to do before we left?!?! Oh no, instead I have caught up on some of my recorded TV shows and getting caught up on all my blogging friends. To all of you that I keep up with, I read each and every one of your posts to get caught up. While I wanted to comment about each of them, I just don't have that kind of time. I enjoyed reading each of them and I'm glad everyone had a great Christmas and New Year. Reading ya'll's blogs is something I missed these last two weeks.

I have several more posts to come with lots of pics as well, but I also don't have the time for that either. Once I get caught up on everything else that has to get done, I will get to those. :)

Until next time...

Time Flies

I'm not sure what happened to the last 26 days since my last post. It has been a whirlwind of a month! I have been busy with everything Christmas (who hasn't), laundry, trying to keep up on housework, 3 kids, packing and getting ready for a two week trip for a family of 5 across 3 states. It has been crazy to say the least!!


We are currently in the first state of our vacation. We are in NM at my parents where we celebrated an early Christmas with them last night. As was tradititon when I was a child, we started out by reading about the birth of Jesus in Luke 2. It is one of my fondest memories of Christmas as a child.


Eary tomorrow morning (6 am...ICK) we will be heading out to Southern CA to spend Christmas with Jeff's family and see some of my extended family as well. The girls think that it is pretty neat that they get to have two Christmases. I'm not really looking forward to the 12 hourish drive, but once there, it will be well worth it. While in CA we will be taking the girls to Sea World as well as some other fun San Diego things and then going to Disney Land with his parents and sister and her family.

I will have lots and lots of pics and "narration" to go along with them when we get home so stay tuned for that. :)


I hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas and the Happiest of New Year's with your loved ones, but at this time of Christmas, remember the true meaning of Christmas....the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Until next time...

A Reason to Celebrate

14 YEARS AGO TODAY, I was waking up on a windy California day as a "single" woman. Before the day was over, I would be joined "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part" to the man I loved and still love.

Happy 14th Anniversary!

It's hard to believe that 14 years have already gone by. Some of them are a blur. Some of them were rough, but we are better because of them. We have been blessed with three beautiful daughters. I love you as much today as I did then. I look forward to as many more years as God gives us to share together. I love you ALWAYS and FOREVER!!

BLAST FROM THE PAST!!!

In going through things to organize and get rid of, I ran across a bunch of old pictures of Jeff and I that I stuck in an envelope to go through at a later date. Today, I was looking for something and I came across that envelope so I took the time to really look through them. Here are the ones that were my favorite awww moments and seriously?!?! pics.

~Kindergarten~

I totally see Payton and Bransyn in this pic

age 7

age 11

I have no words....I don't think that outfit could get any dorkier!

this is better, more studly

Senior pic

He's so handsome! I JUST LOVE HIM!!!

What was with taking pictures of me sleeping?!?! I no longer sleep with baby dolls or stuffed bears, by the way!! :-)

My first paycheck from my very first job at McDonald's. Oh yes, I am a former MickyD's employee~HA!! Could my bangs be any higher and the makeup any heavier?! Once upon a time I was so, so skinny. To have that 16 year old figure back......

My first car--------turned out to be a piece of crap!!

Me with my mom. Gotta love the orange face and white neck that I got going on!! Oh....that is so bad!!!

looookin' good!! hahahaha! ;)

Senior pics

My 19th birthday. Lovin' the floral outfit....ICK!

June 1993

Jeff and I together on one of my trips back to California. A year later, we were planning a wedding. Loved him then...love him still!!

Until next time...