Lost: One Brown High Heel

This post could have had a lot of titles (as you will soon see, I think I might be breaking some sort of record for number of pictures in one post) and I will get to the shoe dilemma in a minute. We just got back from California where we celebrated my little sisters wedding. I can't believe that Elyse is married. It was a beautiful wedding and I wouldn't have missed it for anything, but I won't pretend it was our best trip ever. Let me just run down a few stats to show you why:



-Number of hours IN car: 482

-Number of hours OUT of car: 6



So, the first number might be a little bit of an exaggeration but not by much and the second number is very close if you only count the number of non-sleeping hours out of the car. Here are a few more fun facts about our trip:

-Tyler and Carissa joined us for the trip there and back. They are still talking to us as far as I know so we didn't completely drive them crazy. : )

-Ashlyn cried through the entire state of AZ there and back (we go through a corner of the state between Vegas and St. George)

-I still hate deer. Hate them. There were several deer warning signs and I made sure everyone knew they were there and what the plan was if a deer did jump out in front of us. I don't know why I have this fear of hitting one. I did feel a little better in our Sequoia rather than Rhonda our old Honda.

-The kids were such little troopers. They did so, so good (except for a meltdown or two here or there but those happen at home too). They had some hilarious conversations in the many, many hours they spent in their car seats in the back. A few highlights: (these were all real, ask Tim, Tyler or Carissa)
Brax: Let's talk about boogies...can I put it in my ear? (as he was holding one)

Brax: Let's talk about skeletons.
Jace: Okay, skeletons have hands, but no tummy.

Jace: I'm a boy, you're a girl
Brax: No I'm a boy,
Jace: No I am a boy and I am Super Mario
Brax: (in tears) I am a boy and I am Super Mario!
Tim: You guys talk about the stupidest things

-So here was my shoe dilemma. I packed two brown high heels to wear with my dress on the wedding day. The morning of the wedding we are rushing around trying to get all the kids dressed and ready, iron clothes, get ourselves ready, etc. and about 2 minutes before we have to leave to go the temple I realize I can only find one of my brown heels. They were beautiful 3 inch Banana Republic chocolate brown heels, and I had one of them. We are tearing the car apart, and hotel room apart looking for my other shoe with no luck. So here was my dilemma. Wear the one high heel that I have and stand like a flamingo all day but give the illusion of height and slenderness (I am not sure that is a word, but just move on) OR wear two very casual, slightly worn looking, brown flats that I happened to bring and look short and squat. Needless to say, I went with the short and squat look. I thought it was better than looking like I had one leg amputated in all the pictures. I still haven't found my shoe though, so if you see one lonely high heel somewhere between here and CA, let me know.

-We paid about $35 in tolls on the lovely roads of CA. That was money well spent. : ) I just kept thinking, man I could have gotten a pedicure with that money.

-The one thing I didn't get a picture of was our trip the the Lego store at Downtown Disney which was their favorite part. Dang. We didn't get to go to Disneyland because Tim had to get back to work for some pressing matters....and because he used up the remainder of his vacation, sick days and personal days when he had pneumonia.

-When we got to the temple the boys were in clean, ironed clothes with their hair fixed nicely and shirts tucked in. Sometime in between that moment and the moment Andrew and Elyse came out of the temple they both managed to get their clothes as dirty as possible. Jace had about a 4 inch grass/dirt stain down one leg of his pants and Braxton looked like he just rolled around in some dirt and their hair looked like they just woke up. It was one of those moments where I thought, okay so maybe I'm not Mother of the Year material.

The event was well worth the trip though. The wedding was on a beautiful day in Newport Beach and Andrew and Elyse looked so happy. Here is a picture of the bride and groom.

Don't they look cute together...and young. I promise they are old enough to be married. : )

Here we are at the start of our long car trip...everyone is super excited.

We got to spend most of Halloween riding in the car but got to CA in time to do some trick or treating. Thanks to Andrew's sister Katie for letting us join them in their cute neighborhood. Here are Spiderman, a flower and a monkey ready to hit the town.

Ashlyn in her flower costume that I loved.

Towards the end of trick or treating, everyone has lost their head wear.

Braxton thinks that ghost might jump out and get him. He was a great little trick or treater and liked to do it all himself. Sometimes he would get confused though and get the candy and say Trick or Treat as they closed the door.

Here are the handsome boys doing a silly picture since all the official ones had to be nice.

Jenna, Carissa and I. You get tired of smiling after a while so this is what happens.

Grandma and her grandkids. (they are the only ones so they get all the love and attention, they love it)

Attempt #1 at a family picture

Attempt #2 (actually this is probably like 15 but these were the best two. Really they were.)

The second best looking couple there : ) A couple of days ago was the eight year anniversary of our first date. Time has flown and the next picture is what we have to show for it...

Three little munchkins

Everyone is getting tired of pictures but I still keep taking them. : )

Newport Beach LDS temple

Jace contemplating diving in the fountain.

This is the difference between 2 and 5. Jace contemplates it but here is Braxton actually diving in.


The next several shots are the many faces of Ashlyn all within one minute. She is so cute I couldn't leave any of them out.

The view from their reception. It was a beautiful location. The boys loved to look at all the boats and Braxton kept trying to climb through the railings to get a better look. Thankfully that never happened because he would have had a pretty nasty fall off a cliff to get closer.

Jace got these trick or treating and loved them. With his bow tie he looks like some crazy professor.

The way there we split up with a quick stop in Vegas for the night. They way back we did all in one day. So stops like these were needed to get some energy out for all the boys, big as well as little. Here they are in some sort of tag team kung-fu match.

This is where the boys get all their fighting skills. We were in the middle of nowhere during this fun stop and I am sure the owners of the the little store that this took place in front of thought we were crazy.

So this last picture is just to brag on my cute little punkin. As of a week or two ago she is officially sitting all by herself. She has been my earliest sitter so far...a week before she was 5 months old. She is so steady and can reach for things and look around without falling over. She is such a fun baby and is getting big way too fast. :)

This is already the longest post ever so I thought I would add just one more little tidbit that I am stealing from my sister's blog. It is a musical slideshow called Reflections of Christ with amazingly beautiful photography. It has been around a while so I am sure a lot of people have seen it but even if you have it is worth watching again. I like it even more because my cousins wife is one of the ten virgins and because I heard this song sung in a Sacrament Meeting by the same guy and it was the most amazing musical number I have ever heard. It is just beautiful so check it out herehttp://mabrystudios.typepad.com/reflections_of_christ/2008/03/reflections-sli.html (I know I am totally lame that I can't just link it to one word but it is late...keep the mocking to a minimum) Make sure you enlarge it to full screen. I even used it as an FHE lesson and talked about what was happening in all the pictures.

So enough from us, I hope everyone else is doing great!