Birthday Dinner at The Roof

Steve really spoiled me tonight and suprised me by taking me to The Roof for dinner for my birthday! The food was amazing: appetizers, salads, shrimp, soup, amazing Lion House rolls, meats, fish, and of course the dessert bar. It's all buffet so of course we ate as much as we possibly could. The view was amazing of the Salt Lake Temple where we were married. And of course the company was great! After dinner we went to see Twilight. Thanks so much for making it such a special night, Steve--you're the best!

Thanksgiving & 30th Birthday

I started the holiday (Thanksgiving & my 30th birthday) off with a 5K race at the park behind our house. I ran with my friend Joni and I wasn't out to break any records because I had a cold, but we ended up beating our previous 5K time by about a minute! My time was 25:37. We were pretty excited to see the clock when we came into the finish!

Thanksgiving was at my mom & dad's house this year. My mom put out a little kids table for Kate, Michael, and Brooklyn. They played with playdough before dinner started. I was in charge of green bean casserole and jello pretzel salad this year.

Thanksgiving Dinner was SO yummy. I have so much to be thankful for in my life!

After dinner we headed to the theater to watch the movie BOLT. I thought it was pretty cute. If anyone has seen it my family knows the guy that does the voice for the hamster. Mark Walton was a missionary in our ward when we lived in Albuquerque. He came to our house the first night of his mission and drew disney characters for each one of us.

Kaitlyn LOVED the movie and loved being in a theater. That was her first movie theater experience. Michael spent most of his first movie theater experience out in the hall with his dad.

Today is also my niece Brooklyn's birthday and my 30th birthday. I can't believe I'm 30! It just sounds old, although I can't really say that I feel much different than when I was 20. It was fun to share my birthday with a 2 year old. We had a pinata, cake, and presents. Kaitlyn & Brooklyn didn't have a chance a breaking open the pinata, so we decided to take some karate kicks to it!

My mom didn't even attempt to put 30 candles on the cake...it would've started the fire alarm. I still had to blow really hard and get a little help from Kate. Well, here's to 30!
Some of my girl friends surprized me last night and took me out to dinner and to the movie Mamma Mia. Thanks girls--that was a lot of fun!

Curious Michael

Steve came downstairs this morning to find Michael doing this...

Arizona Day 7...

I wasn't the best at keeping Steve company on the drive home from this trip. I really wanted to finish Twilight because I knew everyone would be talking about it again with the movie coming out, so I read a lot of the drive home. I can't say that I've ever read a book that fast. I have to say that-- I loved it!

We planned to stop at the Dam again on our way back and take a dam tour (he he he). Had we'd known that the last tour of the day is at 3:00 we wouldn't have shown up at 3:20. Dam tours! We did spend about an hour in the visitors center. My grandpa Chamberlain actually helped build the dam.

Then we drove about another hour to Grandma & Grandpa Chamberlain's house in Kanab to spend the night. Steve and I had a bet on dinner at Grandma & Grandpa's house. He bet me a 30 minute massage (from him) that there would be beans served at dinner. I probably shouldn't have gone along with this because Grandma is kind of notorious for beans (black beans, pinto beans, kidney beans...you get the point) but I thought I'd give it a shot. When we showed up and Grandma asked if we'd rather have squash soup or curry chicken and rice, I voted for the chicken and rice. No beans! Well, then she had some apple cake with ice cream for dessert. Grandpa suggested that we put some almonds on it so he brought those out along with some dried edamame. Now, think to yourself...what are edamame? Well, of course they are soy beans. But they looked like nuts--hard, green. Steve wouldn't let me live it down! After a lot of arguing, he said he was right but he still gave me a massage! What a guy! The rest of the night consisted of Grandpa telling Steve stories of working on the dam and Kaitlyn & Michael playing with the marble track. Grandma read some books to Kate, too.

Arizona Day 6...

Steve's done with working now!! We checked out of our hotel (after taking the kids for a swim in the heated pool) and went to the mall and found a space playland for the kids to play on. Michael loved walking in the big open area.

We headed back to John and Mylie's house to stay there for the night. We had fun hanging out with them for the afternoon (and of course I read some more of Twilight).

Arizona Day 4 & 5...

Well, we didn't do anything exciting enough to take pictures of on these days of the trip. We went to a new hotel in Phoenix area and it was REALLY nice. It basically had two rooms--one with the King size Bed and the other with a sectional couch. There was a 42" flat screen (which seems huge compared to our 26" old school tv at home) and a fridge, and continental breakfast. I read a lot more of Twilight while the kids took naps and played. It was not too exciting, but definetely relaxing and I didn't have to feel guilty about reading all day because there was nothing else to do! We did venture out to go to Wendy's for lunch and we even got a few prizes at the dollar store.

Tuesday night my Aunt Mylie and Uncle John invited us over for dinner. My grandpa Dahl was actually in town from San Diego, so that was fun to see him too along with my cousins. Kate and Michael had so much fun playing with my cousins Shane, Emily, Coy, and we saw Brad for about 30 seconds.

Arizona Day 3...

Our 3rd day in Arizona we drove to Casa Grande to stay in a hotel. 85 degrees in November feels so nice!! Steve had to work in the afternoon so I hung out in the hotel with the kids and read Twilight (yes, I finally started the book that everyone else on the planet has already read).

I told Kaitlyn that we could go swimming, but the pool wasn't heated and by the time they woke up it wasn't quite warm enough, so we resorted to letting them put their feet in.

Day 2 of Arizona Trip...

We continued the drive to Arizona and made a stop at the Glen Canyon Dam outside of Page, AZ. We walked along the bridge and looked over each side to see Lake Powell and the Colorado.

We made our stop for the night at my aunt Rhea and uncle Sam's house. We had fun having dinner with their family. We also found out that Michael REALLY likes dogs (at least little ones that he can drag by the leash).
I got to hang out with my cousin Ashley on her last night before going into the hospital for her pregnancy. She's 24 weeks along now and has no amniotic fluid. We're praying for her!!

Trip to Arizona

Steve had to go to Arizona for work, so we decided to make it a family road trip.

The kids watched WAY to many movies in the car...

Michael just started laughing when we turned on the dvd player in front of him. He thought that was the funniest thing ever!


Michael & crackers became very good friends...

Steve had to stop in a get a magnet from this place in Southern Utah...

We spent our first night at Grandma & Grandpa Chamberlain's house in Kanab. Kaitlyn was excited to see that the bed she'd be sleeping in had pink sheets!

Fieldtrip to the Fire Station

I took my preschool on a field trip to the Fire Station today. The kids had a lot of fun climbing on the trucks, watching the lights and seeing the fireman in his fire fighting gear. They even pulled out the big fire truck so we could take a picture on it!

Kaitlyn--Pledge of Allegiance

Steve was putting Kate to bed a few nights ago and was taken back when out of the blue she began reciting part of the pledge of allegiance! I hadn't told Steve, but we say the pledge at the beginning of each preschool day. I asked Kate if she'd say the pledge on camera and I was surprised that she can say the whole thing!

Happy 31st!

I don't think Steve had the greatest birthday this year. But, besides a WAY stressful day at work and rolling his ankle playing basketball, we had fun going to lunch at the Nauvoo Cafe with my parents and our kids. A missionary Steve works with was also eating there and saw Kaitlyn and asked Steve if she was his granddaughter. ??????

We went to our favorite restaurant, Happy Sumo. I actually saw one of my mission companions! She was working there and it was a lot of fun to see her. She even gave us some mochi (pounded rice) ice cream. Hated mochi in Japan, still hate it now! It's looks like a marshmallow, but is really heavy and just wierd! It was fun to relive the memory, though.

We had cake and ice cream with a couple friends too!

Happy Birthday Steve!!