Saturday, November 30, 2013

Thanksgiving

We had a perfect Thanksgiving this year. Low key, good food, and all our family (minus Derek, who is on a mission) was there. Everyone just hung out and enjoy each other all weekend.
Me, Preston, Steven, Easton, and Chris hanging out in the kitchen.
London with a handful of books for Kyle to read.
 Steven and Easton





Steven reading Easton and Macy some stories.
 Nathan lost a tooth!
 Such a heart breaker
 London and her Great-Grandpa Bochat

 Grandma Carbonneau (My Mom) breaking up the rolls.
 Baby Preston
 Cute Emali

 Preston was super tired and just couldn't make himself go to sleep. Grandma was making him laugh and he just kept giggling and then would close his eyes- it was the cutest thing.
 The table all set for some dinner!
 My Mom has started a Thankful Tree. During dinner we all write down what we are thankful for and then hang it on the tree. Macy and Kyle. Not sure what Macy is doing though...
 Chris, Preston, and Kati
 This is my Grandpa with some of his Great-Grandkids. They sure love him- and by the looks of that smile on his face- he sure loves them too.
 Jack, Steven, Meghan, and Easton. We couldn't really get the kids to look at us- but it sure is a cute picture of them!

 The whole family! (again- missing Derek). Kati, Chris, Emali, Meghan, Easton, Steven, Jack, Dad, Mom, Preston, Me, Bentley, Kyle, Wesly, Nathan, Brelss, Travis, Grandpa Bochat, London, Grandma Bochat, and Macy.
After all the Thanksgiving festivities (food, football, and sleep) My Mom, Kati, Me, and Chris ventured out for some Black Friday shopping. I got almost all of my Christmas shopping down and the rest of them got a few things too. We started about 5 or 6PM and were out until 1. We wouldn't have been so late if the line in Kohls didn't take a little over an hour to get threw :) It was a fun adventure though!

Sunday, November 3, 2013

The Lion King

Kyle is such an awesome teacher and decided to take his kids to the broadway showing of The Lion King this year at Gammage. We had a few extra tickets and decided to take Macy along with us. As the day got closer to go, Kyle had a few kids that couldn't make it- so we invited my Mom, Meghan, and Meghan's sister to join us. The show was so good and Macy was so excited. We had told Macy where we were going earlier in the week and all she could talk about was the fact that she was going to get to ride the bus. She was SO excited to ride the bus. 
We left on a Saturday afternoon and headed over to Panda Express for dinner and then off to the theatre. Macy did amazing through out the show- she was very well behaved and hardly made a peep. The only parts she really remembered were the scary parts with Scar- but I think she'll remember it forever. 
 The day before we left Kyle found Andrew Gorell's email address (the actor that plays "Zazu") and asked if he would be willing to meet with us after the show and answer some of the questions that the kids had. Kyle's students were very respectful and asked some really good questions. The headed home around 11ish and rolled into Holbrook around 3am. Macy and I pretty much slept the whole way home. It was such a fun night!


Saturday, November 2, 2013

Utah and Route 66

I think I've mentioned before that Kyle's sister Kathleen works for the Chamber of Commerce here in Holbrook. Part of her job is promoting Holbrook to tourists and getting them to spend some time and money here. We live along the old Route 66 and Arizona has tried something new to help people travel along the route. They hand out these really cool Passports and as you go through the little towns on the highway you get a stamp to go in your Passport book. Kathleen has been wanting to do a little Route 66 tour to be able to promote the Passport program a little more and asked if I wanted to tag along with them turning Fall Break. Kellie (Kyle's other sister) was putting on a Film Festival and needed some help- so we made a whole week out of it.

We left the Wednesday before school started, so my awesome Mom met us in Show Low to trade the kids while Kyle was still working. The plan was to head to Kellie's house first, help with the festival, do some shopping, then head to Kingman where Kathleen's mother in law lived to stay the night and start our Route 66 tour. Our first stop on our adventure was the new Casino in Flagstaff. It's kind of a random casino in the middle of no where, but it's really pretty.

 They are supposed to have the biggest/coolest chandelier in the state of Arizona...
 But it was down for cleaning. Bummer huh?!
 We checked out the casino anyway, we were already stopped- and they have the coolest signs for their bathrooms! How cute are the indian characters?!
 A while ago my Mom went on a little vacation with my Dad to San Fransisco and she documented the whole thing in a Smash Book. My Mom is awesome and let me borrow her "craft room in a box" so that I come document our trip as we went. It was so fun and gave me something to do during the car rides.
 We stopped and ate lunch halfway to Kellie's house. It was super yummy (as Subway always is) but they charged me like twice as much as they did anyone else. I was too nervous to say anything though so I paid the $10 for my food and ate every bit of it.
 Rolling out of Kanab we got a little visitor... Kathleen was just a little too excited to get to Utah and was going a little too fast.
Luckily the officer had pity on us and let Kathleen go without a hitch.
 As we were going through another little town in Utah we stopped this- a fake cop! How funny is that? I've seen the police cars just sitting there, but never a mannequin dressed up as a cop!



After our 10 hour trip we made it to Kellies just in time to help her get stuff ready for the Film Festival the next day. She is awesome and got Kirby to come be the guest actor. He's not really that famous, but he plays in a lot of Mormon movies- so he's pretty famous in Utah :) Cassie and I decided instead of getting a picture of our own with him it would be much cooler to just photo bomb him.


Then everyone told me I had to get a picture with him and I for my Smash book... so I did.



The next day we decided to venture out and get some shopping done. We hit all the Deseret Industries close to us, the Savers, and then the Mall to get something to eat. Here's Marie chilling by the Space Craft. She was beat! Can't even tell though :)
 After shopping we had dinner and dessert at Kellie's house. Brian and Janes two kids that live in Utah met up with us. This is Jared being Jared.
 After dinner we went to a cute outdoor mall that had a really cool fountain show. Here is Cassie, Casey, Kellie, Karl, Jared, Marie, and Me.
 The next day we checked out a few really cool houses that Kellie knew of and then went to a super cute place called the Gardner Village. Because it's almost Halloween they had a Witches Parade. They were expecting like 10,000 witches to be at this place. It was crazy cool!
 I had to grab some witches and take a photo op- for the smash book of course- there were so many to choose from and these ladies looked like nicest. After a while they all kind of looked the same to me, but they were all super cute and creative.

On Sunday the second leg of our trip began. The Route 66 Tour!
 Funny story. We wanted In-N-Out really bad, like really bad. Well, we found one in Las Vegas and were on our way to get to it when Kathleen accidently got back on the freeway instead of turning into the burger place. We did  a quick google search and realized the next one closest was in Kingman. We were so hungry and tired but determined to eat there. I don't know why we didn't just turn around and go back- but we waited another hour to get to Kingman. Needless to say we were super excited for the food when we got it.
 We stayed with Kathleen's mother in law Vivian and the first night she showed us all around her place and showed us all the things she likes to do. She loves to make quilts and blankets and showed us all the ones she's been working on.
 We did the Route 66 tour a little out of order. We first started in Kingman and the went back to the border of California and Arizona.
 We stopped at Cool Springs on our way to the border. It was such a cute little place (it's just a gas station) and it reminded me of Cars. They did a good job and keep everything clean and still historic.
 We didn't end up going all the way to the border, but we did go to Oatman! It was a little mining town that had these burrows that would just roam the streets. It was the coolest thing to all the sudden have burrow lining up in the road. There was lots of baby ones that were super cute.



Our next stop was Hackberry (just a little store) and then off to Valentine to The Keepers of the Wild Nature Park. They had a lot of tigers and random animals- like the Llamas. These Llamas LOVED Kaleb- they would come running whenever he would make a little call out to them. It was the funniest thing to watch.

 Next on the map was Peach Springs and then Seligman...
 After Seligman we took the interstate back to Kingman where we stayed the night again. The next day was Williams and HOME! Since Kyle had picked up the kids from my Mom and I hadn't seen them in a week- they decided to meet up with us at Bearizona. I was so exited to see my little family- it had been too long.

 The kids loved all the animals and they have done a great job with Bearizona. We did have a little scary part though... Bearizona is basically a drive through zoo. The only thing keeping the animals from eating you is the car. We were in the wolfs enclosure and there are signs up everywhere that says "Keep Windows Rolled Up". Well... Kyle decided he could get better pictures if he would roll down the window and stuck the camera out. All of the sudden he looks back and there is this huge wolf (it stands as high as the bottom of the window on the van) walks along side of the van. We noticed just in time for Kyle to roll up his window! Crazy kid!

It was so fun to be able to get all my stamps in my Passport and to be able to actually see some of the historic towns in the state that I've lived in my whole life. We really do live in such a pretty state- there is so much diversity here just an hour or so away from each other! It really made me appreciate my home state a little more.

Halloween 2013

We had such a fun Halloween this year! I always have a difficult time about what to have the kids be for Halloween but I thought it would be perfect for them to all be Peter Pan characters. Bentley could be Peter Pan, Macy would be Wendy and London would be Tinkerbell. How cute would that be?! Well, I ran it by the kids and they weren't as excited as I was. London really wanted to be a snowman and Macy had decided she wanted to be a Princess (just like last year). Bentley is only 14 months so he didn't get an option- he got to be Peter Pan!  
Her snowman costume was super easy and she loved it. 

I can't even get over how cute our little Peter Pan is. These pictures just bring a smile to my face.

I can fly!
Off to Neverland!
Sometimes they love their brother a little too tight.
We started off Halloween with the Fall Into Fun Family Festival. (what a mouthful huh?!) Kyle and I were driving to the valley a few years ago and decided we should have some sort of activity for kids for Halloween that was cheap and family friendly. There isn't a lot to do in Holbrook and we thought people would really enjoy something for the kids. This years was so fun and there were so many vendors and things for the kids to do. It was a great event! We roped the missionaries into some games- a favorite is always the fishing game.

Kyle set up his sound equipment so we could have some entertainment and his choir kids all busted out in their dance moves.
The kids all got to decorate a little bag to keep all their goodies in from the different vendors.
Cookie Decorating!
Kyle's choir set up a hay maze. It's been a hit the past two years- his students love to rework the maze through out the day so it's different the next time the little kids go through.

Kyle's sister Kathleen got on Oriental Trader and got prizes and candy for all the game vendors to hand out. The Easter candy was on hardcore sale- Macy was so excited to get some bunny candy!
Oh. My Gosh Peter Pan is adorable.
London throwing bean bags at the cans. She has a pretty good arm for a 3 year old!
The girls doing some pony races!
The train came this year! It's always a hit.
The basketball was a little too tall for the kids so they let the parents help.

Pin the tag on the missionary :)
The Miller's joined up at the festival and we just had to take a picture of these too. Lucy is and Indian- her Daddy was a cowboy. Don't these two look like Tiger Lily and Peter Pan?!
One of the favorite parts- The Hashknife Pony Pose brought in a horse and gave the kids pony rides. They LOVED it.
We had a such a great Halloween! This was on Saturday morning, we had our Stake Trunk or Treat the following Thursday (Halloween) and then headed out for some Trick or Treating. The kids got more then enough candy and had a blast!