November Sun

 Over the holiday, we took the kids to Surf Beach about an hour north of Santa Barbara. Guess we got tired of our local beaches and needed something different. So, while a lot of our family and friends are digging out of the snow, we weren't!

 Snow, I mean sand angel.

 Kaden's teepee.

 Avrey always putting on a show.

 This was sand dollar heaven. Our Santa Barbara beaches don't have very many so it was a lot of fun to go searching for them here.

 Trey's running back moves on display trying to get past mom, not a chance!

 We all had a blast playing around on the dunes as well. The kids found a new use for the boogie board since we were a little hesitant to let them go in the water with the bigger waves...see the final picture for our reason why!

 I guess sitting wasn't enough...

 Like father...

 Like son's...

 I guess I wasn't brave enough to try surfing, maybe next time.

 Who knew snot mixed with sand could be so cute?

 This location is pretty isolated, and with the cooler weather we had the beach to ourselves which made for a lot of roaming and running around. 

 Looking for a few last sand dollars before packing up.

We'd heard stories, but with the sign giving us no doubt, there was no chance we were letting the kids get in the water too far. The waves though, were really fun to watch and much bigger than we were used to. When we told the kids we were taking a little trip to a different beach they weren't so sure, but they're already asking to go back!

Smashing Pumpkins...

 Rather than throw our pumpkins in the trash, the kids came up with the clever idea to "destroy" them and have some fun at the same time.

 Trey pitching to Kaden, this was a killer knuckleball...

 Avrey hit the tee more than the pumpkin, but had a blast with her brother's.

 A little disclaimer though. We'd just bought her some new PJ's and she had to put them on right when we got home. Not a chance we could talk her out of it, guess these are pictures she'll look back on and laugh, especially with the killer boots too!

 Decent form, too bad it was an epic whif...

 Connected there.

 Dad had to get his fill too, had to show the boys who's boss.

This little miss ended up on the wrong side of the bat, lots of tears, but she took it like a champ. A sucker helped too.

Thanks & Giving

 We had a wonderful & relaxing Thanksgiving! We ended up staying home with our little family playing and enjoying way too much food! 

The fascination of the day was smoking the turkey! I don't think we realized how long it was going to take,(7+ hours), but it was delicious!  

 When the kids saw that the fine china had been set out for dinner they all went and put on more dressy outfits. I was so impressed!

While we waited for our turkey to cook the kids made tie-dye t-shirts! I think they turned out pretty cool!

On top of the world

 One of the best parts of moving to a new area is having some many new things to see and do. A pretty nice view from our new hiking spot 'Lizards Mouth'. From the top we could see all the way out to the Channel Islands and beyond.

 The kids had so much fun exploring all the little caves and jumping from rock to rock! 

Tricks and Treats

 Halloween for our family is fun and magical and this year was nothing less!

 Trey was SOOOOO excited to be a Red Soxs player especially since they won the world series the night before! 

 Kaden had a hard time deciding what to be this year. When he finally picked Dracula I think he was most excited about dying his hair black! 

 A princess dressing up as a princess...yep she's adorable! 

The ward trunk-or-treat, trick-or-treating the neighborhood and a wonderful Halloween party with great friends. I guess you could say Halloween was pretty awesome. 

Pumpkin Guts

 It finally started to feel like fall when we did our pumpkin carving night.

 The kids favorite part is cleaning out the guts of course!!

 Trey was pretty happy that he got to design, clean and carve his all on his own!

The final results...the sports fan, the One Direction groupie (she has an awesome dad who carved it for her) and Mr. Traditional!!

San Diego...a trip down memory lane!!

A few weekends ago Jeff had a conference down in San Diego so the kids and I decided to tag along. We were able to stay at the Hard Rock Hotel in the historic gaslamp district. The boys loved the hotel but thought the best part was the view of Petco Park where the Padreas play! 

 After Jeff was done with his conference we tried to see as many things as we could in such a short time. Our first stop was the Point Loma Lighthouse. The kids could not believe that a family the same size as ours could actually live in there! 

 One of the highlights of the trip was visiting the Mormon Battalion. If you are ever in the area it is worth the stop. The kids had so much fun dressing up as soldiers and panning for gold. 

 We spent a very FULL day at the San Diego Zoo! It was huge and almost too much to even see in one day but the kids enjoyed seeing a lot of unique animals. The favorites were koala's, panda bears and polar bears!!

 A cool morning at La Jolla Cove seeing the sea lions!

 Our last stop was at the beautiful San Diego Temple. This was really a trip down memory lane for Jeff and I since we spent our honeymoon in San Diego 12 years ago. It was fun to now make new memories with our cute little family!