Our Family Vacation – Disneyland

Last time we took the girls to Disneyland, it was …. shall we say … a disaster?  Allison and Chloe were terrified of all of the rides and all we did for 2 days was stand in line waiting to meet princesses.  Not my idea of fun – especially since Brian and I LOVE the thrill rides of places like Six Flags Magic Mountain!  We were all very nervous to take the family back this year, but we made Allison a promise that if she earned the money for her ticket – we would pay for the rest and let her go dance.  She earned more than 3 times what she needed and was so excited to dance in Disneyland that there was no way we could say no!

This time was WAY BETTER than last time!  Allison and Chloe did much better on the rides, and only got scared on one ride.  Allison chose not to go on Splash Mountain and they both got scared on Big Thunder Mountain.  But other than that – they were awesome!  Catie and Mary had a wonderful time and other than Mary getting lost at Mickey’s house (more on that in a minute) the only crying we had from them was when Mary had to get OFF of the roller coaster!  They are going to be thrill junkies like their parents!! :)

Here are a few pics!!!

(The entire Dance Studio that attended Disneyland)(Allison’s Starting Pose)

(One of my favorite poses in the dance)         (The end!)

(Allison at the A)

(Chloe at the C)

(Catie at the C)

   (Dad, Catie, Allison & Chloe)

(Catie, Allison & Chloe)

(Allison, Jordan (cousin), Catie & Chloe)

(Jordan & Mary – Jordan was Mary’s ‘best friend’) (Rachel (another cousin)& Catie) (Mary & Catie)

 (Dad, Mary & Catie outside Sleeping Beauty’s Castle) (Catie & Mary in Toon Town – don’t you love Mary’s ‘natural pose’??)

(Seeing Minnie Mouse)

INSIDE MICKY’S HOUSE /  MARY GETS LOST!!

This was an experience!!  We decided to wait in the enormous line to see Mickey since neither Catie nor Mary had every met Mickey.   You get to go through Mickey’s house during the line and see fun things.  It is usually a fun photo opportunity.  We had only gone through 2 rooms and had taken just a few pictures when Mary decided she was enthralled with Mickey’s desk.  It is located just next to a door way that quickly turns the corner.  The line had started moving and Brian, Allison and Catie were already ahead of us.  I had told Mary to get off the seat and come with us and then turned to see where Brian was.  I turned to get Mary and she wasn’t at the desk anymore.  I quickly looked around and figured she slipped by me and went to daddy.  I walked up the line to Brian and he asked where Mary was.  What?!?!  I turned and ran back to the other room and Mary was NOT there.  It was quickly apparent that we had LOST her!  I spent the next 10 minutes running back and forth up and down the line trying to find her.  I had a few parents in the line tell me that they had seen her head backwards towards the front door and outside.  I ran outside and looked.  I could not see her.  There were 2 older teenager boys, both more straggly looking, who asked what Mary looked like.  I quickly described her and said that she was wearing a pink shirt.  One of the boys asked if it had anything on it, and I remembered that it was a 4th of July shirt and it had a flag on it.  They offered to look for her and I ran back inside to talk to Brian.  He was starting to panic too (of course I was already there) and said he was going to get out of line.  I told him ‘no way!’ what if she was still in the building!?  He had to stay there in case she was still inside.  I turned to go back outside and halfway there, I ran into one of the boys from outside.  He told me that they had found her!  A woman had seen her walk out of the Mickey Mouse house looking lost and had picked her up, and they had recognized her and had come to get me!  What good citizens!!!  I went running outside and the minute I saw her I started crying.  Even just typing this up again, makes me cry.  I have never been that scared before.  I was so thankful for good people and the willingness to see a little girl who needed help and to try to help her instead of hurt her and for a Heavenly Father who was watching out for us!

(Inside Mickey’s house) (Mickey’s couch) (Mickey’s Desk – and the last place I saw Mary) (after we found Mary – playing Mickey’s piano) (Allison playing Mickey’s drums) (Catie playing Mickey’s piano) (Catie, Mary & Mickey Mouse) (Dad, Mom, Allison, Catie, Mary & Mickey Mouse) (Mary next to Mickey’s Mailbox – where she was found)(Mary on her favorite ride – the rollercoaster in Toon Town)  

(I didn’t want to get off!! I wanted to go again!! – People kept asking if the ride scared her and we kept having to tell them that she wasn’t scared, she wanted to go again!)   (Mary’s other favorite ride – the carousel) (Dad, Chloe & Allison on the Train)

(Mom, Catie & Allison on the Train)

(Dad, Chloe & Catie riding Splash Mountain – it’s hard to see, but this is really them!)

 

WE HAD A BLAST!!!!

Our Family Vacation – How many temples can you see?

We had the most fabulous family vacation this last week!  For all of you who remember Allison selling the Lehi Roller Mills stuff, she did earn enough to go dance in Disneyland and we finally went last week!

We decided that since we were traveling so far, it would be nice to see the temples that the girls wouldn’t have an opportunity to see otherwise.  It kind of became a mission of ours to see as many temples as possible while we were gone, and we did great!  We visited 7 temples!!

MANTI UTAH TEMPLE

We started with the Manti Utah Temple.  It is so beautiful, and it is right at the entrance to Manti, set on a hill.  Wow! You can definitely imagine Moroni standing on this hill dedicating it someday to be a temple site!

(Manti Utah Temple)  (the girls on the steps of the temple)

ST. GEORGE UTAH TEMPLE

The next temple we stopped at was the St. George Utah Temple.  It was a beautiful day, and it was also Easter.  We were able to go inside the visitor’s center and a sister missionary gave the girls an Easter lesson in front of the Christus statue. 

What a way to spend Easter!

(The girls in front of the Christus Statue)

(The girls listening to the Christus message)

(St. George Utah Temple) (Girls on the steps of the St. George Temple)(The whole family at the St. George Temple)

LAS VEGAS NEVADA TEMPLE

After eating dinner on the strip in Las Vegas, we decided that we definitely needed something better to end our day with than what we saw there.  We were able to find the temple and it was BEAUTIFUL at night with all of the lights on.

(The Las Vegas Nevada Temple) (The whole family) (The girls at the Las Vegas Temple)

LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA TEMPLE

The L.A. Temple is Brian’s favorite temple of all.  So, we couldn’t be this close and not go see it!  It was enormous!! I found out that it is the 2nd largest temple in the world.  You can totally tell when you are there.  We were able to take some great pictures – but I can’t seem to find the ones of the whole family! :( If I find them, I will post them later.

(The L.A. Temple from across the street – that was the only place I could get the whole temple in one shot!)

(The girls outside the L.A. Temple)(More beautiful pictures outside the L.A. Temple)

NEWPORT BEACH CALIFORNIA TEMPLE

This was a pretty cool experience finding this temple.  We didn’t even know there was a temple in Newport Beach!  We were driving to San Diego from L.A. and using Google maps for directions.  Instead of taking the way that we have always taken, we decided to follow the map and take a toll road, thinking that it would get us there faster.  While mom was driving, Brian was looking out the window and in the distance, he saw a building with a lot of lights.  He kind of sat up and leaned out the window and then asked if there was a temple in Orange County.  Neither mom or I knew, but as we got closer we all decided that the beautiful building in the distance looked like a temple.  Pretty soon we could see the spire and Brian said, “That looks like Moroni on top of that spire!” We took the next exit and sure enough, it was a temple!! We would have never seen it if we hadn’t taken that toll road!  We all said a prayer to thank Heavenly Father for leading us to this temple.

(Newport Beach California Temple) (Front view of the temple) (Side view of the temple)

(Tired girls in front of the Newport Beach Temple)

SAN DIEGO CALIFORNIA TEMPLE

This was a MUST STOP on our vacation!  In fact, we stopped twice, once in the dark and once in the day!  This is my favorite temple of all time, and I think it is becoming one of mom’s favorite too.  It was a gorgeous day and the girls loved being at the temple.  We were able to talk to a sister missionary who brought out a book of pictures of the inside of the temple to show us.  It was really neat.

(San Diego California Temple) (The girls running and laughing at the temple) (The entire family at the San Diego Temple)

REDLANDS CALIFORNIA TEMPLE

As we were getting ready to leave, we decided that if we came all this way, we better see every temple we could.  We looked and found that the Redlands Temple was only a few miles out of our way, so we of course stopped by!  We were surprised how much smaller this temple was than the others that we had seen, but it was no less beautiful!  It was actually in the low 90’s when we visited this temple, and as soon as we got out of the car we were immediately enveloped with the strongest smell!  It was a mixture of honeysuckle and lilacs.  It was so intoxicating (strange word to use when describing the temple, but true!) that we did not want to leave the temple grounds.

(Redlands California Temple)

(The girls outside the temple)

 (Some of the flowers that created the beautiful smell!)

(The whole family finishing our temple tour outside the Redlands Temple)

Children Q&A Tag

Ask your child(ren) to answer the questions and type their answers in.

Tag other moms with older kids who might have fun with this. :)
Answers are by "Mary" (age 3) and *Catie (age 4)

1. What is something mom always says to you?
"Clean up your room"
*Can I eat your cheeks?
2. What makes mom happy?
"When I get clothes on"
*When I clean my bedroom
3. What makes mom sad?
"When I don't get the clothes on"
*When I don't clean my bedroom
4. How does your mom make you laugh?
"Do clown stuff"
*Tell me jokes
5. What was your mom like as a child?
"She was a good baby"
*I don't know
6. How old is your mom?
"I don't know - are you 16?"
*16
7. How tall is your mom?
"This big (with arms outstreached)"
*30 inches
8. What is her favorite thing to watch on TV?
"Football with Daddy"
*Grown up shows
9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
"You put stuff together and when I come home, you suprise me"
*Mess up the house
10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
"Cleaning up"
*Messing up the house
11. What is your mom really good at?
"Playing baseball with dad and being on his team"
*make us dinner!
12. What is your mom not very good at?
"Cleaning up"
*Cleaning
13. What does your mom do for her job?
"I can't tell you! It's a secret!"
*Make us stuff
14. What is your mom's favorite food?
"potatoes"
*spaghetti? What is your favorite food?
15. What makes you proud of your mom?
"Cleaning up"
*When you tell us nice stuff
16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
"Goofy in Mickey Mouse clubhouse"
*Candice from Phinneas and Ferb
17. What do you and your mom do together?
"beauty sleep"
*Clean
18. How are you and your mom the same?
"we're both famous"
*We dress up the same
19. How are you and your mom different?
"I'm 3 and you're 14"
*I wear black pants and you wear blue pants
20. How do you know your mom loves you?
"I give her big hugs!"
*You give us hugs
21. What does your mom like most about your dad?
"I don't know - it's a secret"
*When he comes home
22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
"the Temple"
*the store

**Funny that they were 'interviewed' at different times and not together - but they still came up with a bunch of the same answers!
I'm tagging Alicia, Jolene, Melissa, and anyone else who wants to laugh!

A House of God

   So, the girls and I have not been seeing quite eye to eye on a few things around the house lately, mainly chores.  They don’t seem to like doing them.  Truthfully I don’t like doing them either so we all put them off as long as possible and then, when it gets time to clean, they don’t understand why all of a sudden mom wants them to finally do their chores? That’s when we start having problems.  After lots of  timeouts, tears, and temper-tantrums I am finally ready to come out of my room and talk to them (just kidding J).

   I decided today that during our devotional we were going to talk about a few scriptures that dealt with cleaning. D&C 132:8 - “Behold, mine is a house of order, saith the Lord God, and not a house of confusion.” and D&C 88:119 - “Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;”  We talked a lot about what those scriptures meant, what we had in our home and what we didn’t.  We also talked about all the things that we wanted in our home.  Then, we talked about Lehi’s vision.  Brian has a beautiful print of a painting of Lehi’s vision, so I had the girls bring it upstairs and we read it out of the scriptures and then talked about all the parts.  It was a really good devotional.  My favorite part was when Allison asked “Mom, how can you get lost in the mist if you are holding on to the Iron Rod?” I just looked at her and told her, “Sweetie, that’s the whole point! If you always hold on to the rod – you will never get lost!” She just smiled.

  In primary in our ward, they have introduced the ‘reverence jar’. It is a big glass jar that when the kids are being reverent, a member of the presidency will put cotton balls into.  If they are being irreverent, they will take cotton balls out.  When the jar gets filled – the kids get to have a popsicle party at the next primary activity.  (Awesome idea Dede!!) So I decided that we were going to copy the idea at our house – but it is going to be our ‘CTR Jar’ instead of a reverence jar and when it gets filled with cotton balls we will all go to a movie or do something fun as a family!  The girls and I bought the supplies yesterday and as part of our devotional activity, I wanted to make something cute to put on it.  I couldn’t find any cute sayings – so I decided that we should write a poem.  I really wanted the kids to write it, so I showed them how. 

• First – we made a list of the things we wanted to have in our poem. Here is our brainstorm list :  family, service, House of Order/God, Iron Rod, CTR, chores, home, everyday
• Second – Allison came up with the first line – Every day I’ll Choose The Right, but then she couldn’t come up with a rhyme for right – so we went to www.rhymezone.com and I typed in the word right.  It gave us all the words that rhyme with right, so I gave her the options and her and Chloe came up with a concept for the second line.  They had a little trouble with the cadence (they are only 6 & 7) but it was about serving their family with all their might.
• Third – we talked about how we wanted the poem to finish (I helped them with this part and kind of gave them the last line)
• Fourth – They found a rhyme on their own and wrote the third line and now we have a finished product on our CTR Jar!!!  We also submitted their poem to The Friend!!

   I am so proud of my girls!  AND their poem is pretty terrific if you ask me!  So – here is Allison & Chloe’s poem, and a picture of our CTR Jar!!

A HOUSE OF GOD (by Allison & Chloe Furse)

Each day I’m going to Choose The Right,

And serve my family with all my might!

I’ll hold on tightly to the Iron Rod,

To make our home a House of God!

Airman of the Year Banquet

Who doesn’t love getting dressed up and going out on the town? I don’t know anyone.

The Air Force has an awards banquet each year for outstanding Airman. Brian and I first went back in 2002 when Brian was the Outstanding Airman of the Year for the 419^th Communications Squadron. Oh yeah, did I mention – Brian has to dress up in his dress uniform?? That is definitely the BEST part! It was fun to dress up in a formal dress and have a nice dinner and know that Brian did a good job, but it was slightly uncomfortable since I was 5 months pregnant with Chloe. We didn’t go again until last year when Brian was chosen as one of the 2 emcee’s for the event. Of course I was going to go and see him in action! Mom went with us and sat with me while Brian was up ‘doing his thing’. It was pretty fun, but I really didn’t get to dress up, since Hannah was only 2 ½ months old and I barely fit into anything, and I had to take a nursing baby with us, but it was still fun.

Well, this year we had the opportunity to go, just for fun! Just to dress up and go – with no babies and not being pregnant! I was talking to one of my best friends, Alicia, and she was talking about how long it has been since she has gotten dressed up fancy and gone out. So, we invited her to go on a ‘date’ with us! We often joke about dating with Alicia, since she is now single (almost officially) and we live in Eagle Mountain – so Brian must be looking for another wife right? LOL!!! Anyways, Brian was more than willing to take 2 beautiful women out to dinner!

I had to find something to wear, so I searched and searched. One of my other best friends, Mariah, went shopping with me (note to self – do not take 10 kids to the mall when mom needs to try on dresses!) and we went dress hunting. We found the prettiest dress and jacket at Macy’s. I just fell in love with it! It turns out that everyone fell in love with it. After I bought it, everyone wanted to try it on – now, we are definitely NOT the same size or body type, but it seems to fit all of us AND it looks good on all of us too! It seems as though we have formed the ‘sisterhood of the traveling dress!’ :) Now if they can just find somewhere fancy to wear it to!

I wish that I could say how much fun I had getting ready, but I was pretty stressed – my hair did not want to co-operate and I ended up having to re-shower and re-wash it! Then I was running late and had to do my makeup in the car! Thank goodness Alicia was driving so I didn’t have to do makeup while driving. We got to Hill Air Force Base, picked up Brian and continued up to the Ogden Eccles Events Center where the banquet was being held.

The banquet was nice but the fun definitely started after dinner when we went to get our pictures taken. Each year they have a professional photographer there to take pictures – just like your prom pictures, they come in a little black photo frame and everything. They always do 2 poses, so this year we decided that for one of the poses, we would have Alicia in the picture. Alicia was protesting, but finally she came over. I asked that it be more of a cute pose – so the photographer put Brian in the middle sitting down and Alicia and I were placed on either side kind of hanging on his shoulders. You should have seen his face! His smile was so big! On the way back inside, he slung his arms over both of our shoulders and said, “Ah come on, I have to do this at least once!” We walked in with our arms around his waist and his arms around our shoulders. I think he thought he looked like the luckiest man alive! :) Again he had that smile that looked like his face was going to explode!

The rest of the night was full of laughter. We went out for pie at Marie Calendars and had some great conversation and good jokes. We took pictures with our cell phones and made stupid jokes. It was so much fun! I definitely think that we all need some fancy dates more often!

Alicia, Brian & Me

Brian & I

Allison Performs at Halftime!

So for most people that know Allison, they know that she loves to dance. She has been dancing since she was 5 and she did gymnastics for a year before that. She has always wanted to be a ballerina. She even has her own blog about it! (allisonsgottadance.blogspot.com)

Last year, she convinced me that she should try out for the competition team at her dance studio. I don’t know what I thought would happen, but I certainly didn’t think that my baby girl would turn into a teenager!

She tried out and ended up making it on to a more advanced team than we had thought. The team that she is on now is the team that last year won a 6 foot trophy and numerous 1^st place trophies. In fact, they did so well last year, that they have to move up a division this year! The team is called the Diamonds.

I love watching her dance! She has a love for performing. She always wants to be the center of attention. J She has a talent for dancing. She is usually always on beat (even if that means she doesn’t match the other dancers ;) )

On Friday, the Diamonds performed at Rockwell High School’s Basketball halftime. It got off to kind of a rocky start, not the performance, but the basketball game. The Diamonds were performing at the boy’s basketball game but the girl’s game was playing first. We were told that the girl’s game would start at 3 pm and then the boy’s game would start at 5 pm and we would be performing at 5:30ish. The girl’s game apparently didn’t get started until around 4 and then went long. The game didn’t finish until 6! The boy’s game didn’t start until almost 6:20 and we didn’t end up performing until almost 7pm!

We had been told to show up at the high school at 5 pm ready to go (of course there was no way Misty – Allison’s coach – would have known what was going on with the games) so Mom and I had packed up all 5 girls and had shown up at 5pm at the school. AND 2 of my girlfriends Mariah and Alicia had brought their kids, Allison’s friends, to see Allison perform! There were 12 friends + my 4 kids just to see Allison! (Those are all kids – there were 4 of us Adults there tooJ) Plus all of the other people there to see the other dancers. It was a little crazy. The Diamonds did a few practices for us – kind of a ‘private show’ which was nice because Alicia and Mariah had to leave before the actual performance since everything was running so late.

When it was finally time to perform, they did such a good job! It was their first performance of this dance, the first time they had ever done it outside of the studio and the first time in front of anyone. I was so proud of Allison!

Here are a few pictures, and at the end is the video of the dance. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Allison stretching before the big performance!

Misty telling the girls to get ready.

Our ‘Private Show’ or dress rehearsal – which ever you prefer :)

Allison’s Friends that came to see her – Becca, Brayden, Lilliah, Royce, Zeke, Noah, Brooklyn, Danni, Gabe, Savannah, Chloe, & Catie (Mary, Hannah, Mazie, & Cole were playing somewhere else)

You should play too!

It is fun to read everyones answers. You actually learn a little something!
1.How long have you been together? We've been married almost 9 years!
2.How long did we date? 6 months
3. How old is he? 32 next month
4.Who eats more? Brian
5. Who said, "I love you" first? Brian did, on the phone - and then called back to tell me it was an accident! (he had planned to say it in person later that day)
6. Who is taller? Brian
7. Who does the laundry? I do the kids clothes, Brian does ours
8. Who does the dishes? depends on who cooks
9. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? when you're laying on it or looking at it? - if you're in it, Brian does.
10. Who pays the bills? I do
11. Who mows the lawn? Have you seen our lawn? - Brian.
12. Who cooks dinner? we share
13. Who is more stubborn? Totally me
14. Who kissed who first? Brian kissed me.
15. Who asked who out? I asked Brian out on a group date first, but he wanted to meet me before then, so he then asked if we could go out the day before - so who wins?
16. Who proposed? Brian - 3 times.
17. Who is more sensitive? Me
18. Who has more siblings? That depends on how you look at it, Brian has 2 sisters and a brother, but I have 2 brothers, 1 step brother, a half brother and a half sister.
19. What were you doing ten years ago? I was dating Brian and interviewing for the Florida National Sea Base job that I ended up turning down the day after Brian proposed!
20. Five things on my to-do list: fold laundry, fix dinner, plan Shonti's birthday party (Catie's imaginary friend), do school with the kids, get dressed
21.Things I would do if I was suddenly made a billionaire: Pay all the debt, take the family to Hawaii! Make Brian retire, Landscape the backyard!
22. Three of my bad habits: not folding laundry, sleeping in, procrastinating
23. Five places I have lived: SLC, UT, Hoback Junction, WY, Eagle Mountain, UT (I haven't lived 5 places!)
24. Five jobs I have had: Lifeguard, Zuka Juice, Boy Scouts of America, Robins Brokerage (food broker), Mom
25. Things people don't know about me: I was a registered Boy Scout for 6 years, I LOVE swing and ballroom dancing and I used to go 2-3 times/week, I once blew up a microwave and set my mom's kitchen on fire.
Tag - Jolene, Melissa, Alicia, Sharlon