Well, as most of you probably know, we took a trip to Disneyland last week. Everyone had a great time! It will be more fun when Cam gets a bit bigger and can go on more rides, but good times were had by all.

As soon as we got there, we trucked Serayah onto the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad... thinking, hey, this is the girl that LOVES speed, tunnels, and trains. Can't miss... right? Wrong. So very wrong. Apparently, tunnels are meant for cars, not trains. The tunnels did not go over well at all. So, from that point on, any ride that looked like it might possibly have a tunnel, or might be dark (coming from the girl who doesn't want a nightlight in her room, mind you) was shunned. This put a big 'ol damper on a lot of rides. Oh well.. Cam couldn't go on many of the bigger rides anyway.

The teacups were a big hit. A really big hit. Serayah and Cam LOVED them... Serayah (and mommy) went 4 or 5 times. Side note: Serayah enjoyed the teacups quite a bit more than mommy... Since when did I start getting dizzy? Huh.

We also went to Mickey's Halloween Party in California Adventure Park one of the nights we were there. It would have been a blast if the kids were a bit older, but they weren't really into dancing with any of the characters, and most of the rides were closed. Also, our Serayah has a very vivid (and real) imagination. She knows that Cartoons and Pixar movies are just movies and not real... how could they be? Then, at the party, she saw Mr. Incredible boogyin' down. I was thinking she'd love to go meet him, right? Wrong again. She took one look and started freaking out. "Where's the Robot?!!?" (for those of you not familiar w/ the movie, the end involves a really bad, big robot-o-destruction. Apparently if Mr. Incredible could be walking around looking just like he does in the movie, that means the Robot must be around somewhere. Not good. To make matters worse, on the last day we were there, we went to the Pixar parade. Lo and behold the robot was there. The only "bad guy" from any of the movies, and it had to be the robot. Jeesh. Major freakout once again. She's now over it, and knows all is well and that Disneyland wasn't destroyed, but wow. Did I mention she has a really vivid imagination?

Probably the highlight for Serayah was eating at Ariel's grotto. She and Cam (who was diggin' the cutie princesses.. seriously!) met Ariel, Cinderella, Aurora, Mulan and Belle. Life was pretty terrific.

Anyhoo, here are a few of the many, many pictures taken from the trip. Some of them aren't terrific, but we were too busy having fun! Enjoy.

Here's a family shot (complete w/ Grandpa!)

Serayah and Woody (She LOVED the show.. Cam not so much)

One of many teacup shots (daddy got out of all rides this way)

Serayah, Cam, and the mouse Himself

The kids with Jojo and Goliath

Random Cam shot (I LOVE the hat!)

Serayah walking w/ Pluto (Serayah not sitting still... who would have thought?)

Another walk, this time w/ Goofy

Mommy and Serayah on the Dumbo ride (Cam was with Grandpa)

An idea of the AWESOME Halloween decorations throughout the parks

Cam again

The princess lunch, and Aurora

Meeting Ariel (You know, Cam's gotta be thinking "What a babe!")

Halloween Party

Well, I decided it would be a terrific idea to throw a Halloween party for a bunch of 2-5 year-olds. Actually, everything went really well, and all of the kids had a great time. We ran a relay race, played throw the hoop over the pumpkin, and a couple of other games. I made some spiderweb cookies (complete with spider rings on top)... they were really terrible... but looked fantastic, if I do say so myself! (Note to self... don't use an untested recipe for party food), Skeleton cupcakes, Rotten Apple punch (with gummy worms inside the frozen "apples"), witches brooms, Orange-o-lanterns, & spider peanut butter, ritz, and pretzel sandwiches. Other than the cookies, everything was very yummy. Everyone had so much fun that this might turn into a yearly event!

Moab (once again...can't get enough!)

Well, we're Moab crazy.... Dad came down to visit, and he hadn't seen beautiful things that Southeast Utah has to offer, so we went camping yet again! Ok...maybe "camping" is stretching the truth a wee bit. We stayed in a little cabin thing at the campground so we had heat (a very good thing... it dropped into the 30's at night). Here's a rundown, complete with a ton of pictures (you know me!), of our trip.

First we headed to Goblin Valley to let the kids run around. They had a TON of fun, and ran, and ran, and ran..... Cam was thrilled to have so much dirt, and started trying to climb up things like his big sister. He started jumping (OK..stepping grandly) off of rocks, and was very proud of himself. Here are some pictures from there.

One of the many goblin faces
A random picture of Miss S.
Serayah and Cam playing on the "choo choo" (Cam's words)
Cam proudly sitting on a big rock...just like Serayah
One of Serayah's many poses of the trip
A family shot (Thanks Dad!)
Cam saying "Not Yet!"
Peek-a-boo Goblins!
















Well, that night we made it to our "Village" (Serayah's words), and slept. The heater was VERY necessary. The next morning we drove into Arches and took an unpaved road out to the Klondike Bluffs. Let me tell you... I thought that logging roads in Oregon were washboardy... they don't have nothin' on that road in Arches. Art and Dad thought that we were going to vibrate the poor Trooper apart! (Unfortunately more on that later). We made it out there, and discovered that the hiking trail wasn't really 2 and 4 year-old compatible, so started to head back. I was taking some random pictures, and snapped this one of a really freaky fork-tailed lizard.

















Well, we made another very interesting discovery about Moab. If you don't know, Moab is an off-road paradise. When you go down there there are Jeeps and Land-rovers by the hundreds (not much of an exaggeration). Art had picked up some off-road maps on our last trip that we forgot at home. He was bummed, because we had the trooper this time and it has pretty decent ground clearance, so he'd been looking forward to getting off the beaten path on some of the 4x4 roads. Pretty much any off-road road that we'd seen labeled in Oregon (unless it had rained buckets, or was straight up) we could take no problem.... But this is Moab, not Oregon. The map showed a 4x4 road that you could take around Klondike bluffs so we could go see Tower Arch without as much of a hike. We were thinking "Great... no problem.. the road's on the map, so it'll be fine." Uh huh. Here are pictures of the "road". Obviously, we didn't really feel like attempting it. (Now Art is desperate for a Jeep w/ a lift... sigh).


















Well, Cam ended up crashing in the car, so we drove back into town and let him take a nap, grabbed some food, then after he woke up drove out to Canyonlands. There's a road (Shiela knows it well!) that you can take down into the floor of the park. It pretty much clings to a sheer cliff and switchbacks down to the bottom. Those afraid of heights, drop offs, or overhanging boulders probably don't really need to see the sights badly enough to make the descent. Once we got down there, we were able to see everything from different perspective and it was terrific. You can even see where Thelma and Louise made their fateful last drive off the cliff at the end of the movie. There are some Arches that you can only get to on the back roads (we only made it to one.. you need a lot longer than a late afternoon to see everything.. you'd need several days. Here are a few pictures of what we saw. (Also, on a side note, I would like to thank our wonderful Trooper for chugging happily along for the duration of the day...especially on the cliff road... are you seeing something coming?)

Some random rocks
A gorgeous river view
Here's another
A mesa
Art standing out on Mussleman Arch (Good balance, and lack of vertigo are important)

Here's a shot I took as we were leaving. The full moon was gorgeous the whole trip.





Well, the next day, we woke up and packed and headed back to Arches. We went straight to Sand Dune Arch (a favorite of kids everywhere), and everyone had a great time. Serayah wrote her name in the sand, Cam dug, Serayah climbed a lot with daddy, Cam dug, Serayah ran, Cam dug... Here are some pictures from there.
Art and Serayah relaxing after their climb.
Serayah under Sand Dune Arch
Serayah and Cam digging
Art and Cam
Cam's big climb.










So then the fun really began... We got back to the trooper and turned the key... nothing doing. Huh... that's odd. The dome light had been bumped on, so it had drained the battery... bummer. Oh well... we'll just get a jump. To make a really long story shorter, our battery was toast. The only way we could start the Trooper was to have some guy w/ a big Diesel (and a huge battery) jump us... that was the only thing that had enough amps to get us going. At one point, we thought we were going to have to be towed (keep in mind we were 90+ miles from home). The battery problem ended up manifesting itself in many frightening ways... not a good afternoon. We were all THRILLED to make it home. Oh, and the Trooper is now fine after some TLC and a new battery (we were thinking the Trooper was on it's last legs, but she seems to be good as new now). All in all, it was a great 3 (OK..2 1/2) days!

Our little Engineer

Grandpa bought Cam an Engineer outfit to wear to accompany his train obsession. Here's a shot of him in his new favorite clothes! He wore them all day (as you can tell from the Garden pics) and when we were in a store, a woman asked if she could take a picture of him 'cause she thought he looked so cute! (yeah... bragging... can't help it... sorry!)

The gardens with friends

Well, we made it back to Thanksgiving Point gardens (for the last time this year) last week. We went w/ MaryAnne, Ellie and Tanner, and everyone had a blast. Serayah LOVES Ellie and Tanner, and Cam was happy to be surrounded by so many cuties! There were grasshoppers by the thousands (ok.. maybe a slight exaggeration), and Serayah was in bug heaven.

Being a boy may not be so bad...

So today, Serayah's friend Rachel came over to play, and during the course of the afternoon, they ended up playing dress-up (who would have thought?). I was informed that Serayah was the princess, and Rachel was the fairy godmother. Cam had been taking a nap and came downstairs, and was thrilled to see Rachel (he's a big fan). Well, a few minutes later this is what I hear.

Rachel: "Cam's my prince."

Serayah: "No, he's my prince!"

Rachel: "No, Serayah... he's mine!"

Serayah: "NO.... CAM IS MY PRINCE!"

Needless to say, I quickly intervened and proclaimed Cam to be capable of juggling the two of them. He was thrilled to be the center of two cuties' attention!