Disney on Ice

was indeed a "Magical Journey". About two months ago a postcard came in the mail telling about the latest installment of Disney on Ice that would be coming to Salt Lake. It gave a code on it and said to use that when ordering tickets and they would only be $10 instead of $30-$50. I showed it to Mike and he jumped right on it and ordered them for us. We kept it a secret from the kids, which was VERY hard to do, and Thursday night we rode Frontrunner down to Salt Lake to eat and "do something fun". That's what we told the kids. As we walked into Energy Solutions Arena it was so funny to see them looking around trying to figure out what we were doing there. Jenny asked me if we were going to see the Jazz play, and Meghan asked me if we were there to see a High School Musical show or something. I laughed and then they saw all the Flounder hats and figured out that is was Disney on Ice. Jenny had this big smile on her face the ENTIRE time! *Enjoying their $10 popcorn!!

The hosts of KSL's Studio 5 opened the show and welcomed everyone. That was kind of cool.

This part was at the end of the show right before the Peter Pan segment.

Lilo and Stitch. I have to admit that this was my favorite segment of the whole show.

The Little Mermaid part. Rachel LOVED this part and was all gaga at the end when Prince Eric kisses Ariel!

This was at the very beginning. Apparently I can not put pictures on Blogger in the correct order. Anyway, it was the Disney characters introducing the theme....that they were going to go on a "Magical Journey".

It was a fun night even though we got home at 10:30. Sidney stayed home with a babysitter and that was nice because we didn't have to fight her when she got sleepy. It was bad enough that we had to fight Meghan the grouch!

Happenings....

Sidney got moved into her BIG GIRL bed. OH yeah! I got tired of her climbing in and out, in and out the entire time that the kids were in the bedroom playing. I figured if she could climb in and out, then we were just waiting for a broken arm or leg so we might as well put her into a toddler bed. I am happy to report that she does really well.

The Wii that Mike won for doing a contest a few months ago finally came in the mail on Martin Luther King Day. Hooray for FedEx working that day!! Jonathan loves the bowling. Not as much as he loves the boxing, but we are trying to put a handle on the fighting so you know....

Jenny is a pretty good bowler too. It's funny, but both she and Jonathan have NO correct form and they don't even try to do it correctly and they get over 100 every time. Yet Rachel who walks perfectly straight and tries SOOOOO hard and she can't get a good score to save her life! It's so funny!!

Here is Mike testing out the golfing. BTW, I ToTaLLy BEAT him on golf and it was my first time golfing EVER!! :]
This is Sidney's opinion of the Wii. She is so expressive.

*I have no pics of Rachel or Meghan (yet) because they were at piano when I was taking these pics and they missed out.

One WORD Wednesday

FANS! (this is last year's picture)

face painting gone wrong.

Last night was the Halloween Carnival at our church. The Young Men and Young Women put it on every year and it is tons of fun! The kids all get to put their costumes on and play all sorts of arcade/carnival style games to win candy prizes. One of the favorite stops to make is the face painting table. EVERYONE always wants some doodad painted on their face. Last night was no exception.

Now before I go on with the rest of the story, you should know that we have the best hometeachers in the world. They are so wonderful to us and are just so fun because they fit right in with our circus. That said, they are HUGE University of Utah fans and we are BYU fans. Kind of opposites, huh? Anyway, Bro. Thompson is always telling me that one day he is going to give my kids red U of U shirts, and he usually wears his U of U shirt when he comes to home teach us. He is funny that way!

So anyway, last night when our kids were just wandering the church doing the different activities and such, Bro. Thompson grabs Jonathan and says, "Hey, let's go get your face painted."

This is the result. (Bro. Thompson was SOOO Proud of himself when he brought Jonathan over to show his face to Mike and I. I told him he was FIRED! :] )

My son's face was an abomination! It got even funnier though because ALL these people kept coming over to Mike and I and asking us if we had seen his face and what did we think. It cracked me up! Anyway, the girls, in an effort to placate Daddy (who wasn't mad, by the way), had BYU painted alllllllllll over their faces. Too funny!

Saturday...

Saturday we got to drive to Logan to see this beautiful niece baptized. And we saw this handsome nephew blessed. I got to hold him and he is so precious!
Also witnessed Brecken dipping everything into the frosting on his cake because he just really wanted to eat it!!!
Grossed out watching Mikaela shove a WHOLE PIECE OF CAKE into her mouth! She's gorgeous otherwise!
And see the beauty of nature in the trees changing colors. It was beautiful to see the reds and oranges and yellows amidst some greens. Beautiful drive and fun day!

Slippin' and a-slidin'

After the parade, in the afternoon, we went over to Shannon's for a BBQ. She had the little pool and the slip-n-slide set up and the kids got their suits on and went to town! It was so hot out and they wanted to cool off! Jenny getting water in the face while testing out the slip-n-slide.
Meghan doing some sort of weird squinty thing with her eye while grabbing for the stick thing.
Even Sidney wanted to get in on the action!!
Jonathan trying the feet first approach to sliding.
And Rachel all tangled up a slidin'!

The last is the best

I thought I would end the posts about the family campout by putting on my bloggy some pictures I took of the fun moments around camp.
Amy, Gina, Bryan (Gina's boyfriend), and Andi looking at magazines and talking about the latest stuff. *Amy,Gina, and Andi are three of my sisters. We had to stop on the roadside on the way to the campground for Jonathan to use the bathroom. What? You can't SEE the bathroom? Neither could we, but he dropped his shorts and went anyway!
Kelsey (who is 13) riding on Shiney's (who is 4) bike. She was just a teensy bit big for it and that is what made it fun!
Sidney cuddling up with Bryan. She seems to have a bit of a crush on him. She would just coo and almost giggle every time she saw him or he held her.
Sidney standing up in the camping chair with her binkie hanging out one side of her mouth. She is such a goof!

Legacy

So, in case you are wondering.....which you probably aren't.....but I will tell you anyway- this campout that my family goes on every year is just my family. My parents and my siblings. It is the Jay Cole Family Campout and we started it the year Mike and I got married. So we have done this for 9 years now. Every year one of us children is in charge of it. We plan where it will be and organize it all. Each of us kids (and our spouses/children) is in charge of one meal for the whole group. It makes it nice that way because we all eat together. My brother is big into Dutch oven cooking, so we almost always can count on something in that form from them. This is my mom and dad. They're not grumpy- they just didn't know I was taking pictures and didn't know to smile. I like candid pictures that way!
They are good with their grandkids. This is my dad with my nephew Shiney. They like to hang out and Shiney is grandpa's little shadow.This is my mom with my nephew Caleb on the teeter-totter that was at the campground. He wanted to play on it and she was a good sport to do it with him.
This is them with all their grandkids minus one. Jarom is 21 and was working and couldn't come to the campout. But all the rest of them were there. Good times!!

*extra points if you can find all of my knuckleheads in the picture

Campfire, dirt, kids, and more dirt.........what do these things have in common?


We are going CAMPING! Can't wait! My family goes every year on a big 4-5 day campout as our family reunion. It is so fun and we have been to lots of different places over the years. This year we are going to a HOT SPRINGS, so we can swim too! The kids are so excited that they can't stand it, and I just want to get out of Dodge.

Anyway, look forward to the pics when we get back and be thankful that I posted something so that my stupid twinkie story is not the only thing for you to read. ;)

What a day!

I'm not talking about today. Yesterday was busy, busy, busy! Well, actually, the whole week has been busy. But now it is over and next week looks to be less occupied with "stuff to do". So what made it so busy?

Here is the rundown: My two oldest are off track. They think I need to entertain THEM. Jenny had end of year Kindergarten testing this week. I had Activity Days to do on Thursday and since it was also the beginning of the month, I had to get typed up the newsletter for the girls. Rachel had a party with her soccer team to celebrate being done with soccer. WOOHOO! We had to go to the church and pick up the baptismal clothes for Rachel. I had a Cookie Lee jewelry party at my house. I had to clean my house. YUCK! And I had to make some food and go to Costco to get the rest.

That was the preparatory stuff. Yesterday was the culmination of what we prepared for. My sweet Rachel was baptized by her dad! It was an awesome day and I am so proud of her.

And since we had Stake Conference last week, it worked out well that this week was Fast Sunday and would be her baptism, since today is Sidney's FIRST BIRTHDAY and so our family all got to be here to celebrate that as well! So much fun! She loved her cake. After she fully woke up and people helped her a little to taste it. That's when she really got into it. She's getting closer to walking too. She takes a couple steps at a time. I think she is about a week away from full-blown on her own. YIKES! I am not ready for that!!

What a day!

UGH!

Yesterday we thought we would take the kids down to Temple Square for FHE, since we have never taken them there before, and WOW we don't have to drive even because the new FrontRunner train is having its grand opening and you can ride for free! I guess everyone else in Utah had the same idea, because we were not the only ones on it. We left our house at 3 pm and caught the 3:30 train from the Clearfield station. We had to stand until the next stop and then a few seats opened up and we were all able to sit down. It wasn't crowded, so I had high hopes for the return trip home. (this picture is from when we were boarding in Clearfield)

Temple Square was great and the kids thoroughly loved it! Jonathan especially loved seeing the "old building where they do conference". He was all excited and making the Sister Missionaries laugh! All the kids thought the reflecting pool was pretty cool and we went up inside the visitors center and listened to the narration (in English and Spanish) about Christ as we looked at the beautiful Christus statue. Rachel loved that part the best. Then we started walking back to find somewhere to eat and decided that JB's would work just fine for us. The service left much to be desired, but the food was good and they all enjoyed it. Jenny said she wanted to come there for her birthday since they give a bowl of ice cream with the kids meals. :)

We went over the the Trax stop and waited and waited for a trax train to come. Which is weird because they are supposed to come by every 5 minutes. That should have been our first clue that the rest of the night would NOT go as we planned. Finally after 15 minutes of waiting it came and we rode over to the hub where the Front Runner leaves from. The Train was there and we ran over to get in the VERY LARGE line. As we neared closer to the doors, we could see that there was NO ROOM. And yet more and more people kept squishing on. It was insane. We pulled our little family circus over to the side and said we would wait for the next train that maybe would not be so full and should be there in 15 minutes. UH Huh.

We waited for over 45 minutes and then happened to hear one of the orange-vested UTA people saying to someone that it would be 2 more minutes. After 10 minutes, he came over and told her that it would be 3 more minutes. By this time it was just comical.

Then the train pulled up and we lined up on the sides of the door to allow people to get off. Then we were first in line and we climbed aboard and hurried and GOT SEATS! Hooray! And the the people started squishing in more and more and more. Like big people's bums were in our faces, it was that crowded. But hey, we had seats, right?? After sitting there for 10 minutes wondering why the train had not gone, another train comes and people board on it and then it leaves! What?? And I have to change Sidney's diaper because she soaked through, and we had this "super helpful ultra friendly" lady standing by us who "helped". :( Then 10 more minutes goes by and the announcer comes over the intercom and says we need to exit the train and go get on yet another one that has just pulled in. UGH! So we grabbed the kids and push and shove to get over there and of course there are NO SEATS! So we are stuck in the little platform at the top of the stairs with our 4 bigger kids, a baby stroller, one unhappy and tired baby and the two of us. And we get to then stand there for another 10 minutes before the train starts to move.

By now it is after 8:00, which is bedtime for our kids. Jenny and Rachel's ADHD meds have worn off and they are hyper and ornery. Sidney is hungry, but has already drank her bottle. Fun, huh? The good thing is that most of the people were understanding because their kids were tired and hungry too. The best thing I heard during all of this was from this nice-ish guy next to us that we kind of talked to. He said, "Screw the environment! Next time I will just drive". Everyone wants to encourage mass transit as a great alternative, but it isn't great when there are crazy delays and it is a horrible experience. We did get to see some of our neighbors and friends as they got off the train at the Layton station. (Hey Chris and Amy! Sure was fun, huh???)

We got home 3 hours after we got to the train hub. It is supposed to be a one hour trip on FrontRunner from Salt Lake all the way to Ogden. And we didn't even go all the way to Ogden. Remember, we got on and off at Clearfield, which is only about half of the way into the trip.

It will be a while before we try riding the train again. At least something good came of it though. Meghan said she is going to write "all about the stupid train ride" in her journal. It makes a mother proud.

Fun weekend!

I'm back! A fun weekend was had by all. Except for the part where my kids forgot ALL that they learned in swimming lessons and tried to drown themselves in the pool. Other than that it was all good. :)

Katelyn was beautiful in her white dress (which I didn't get a picture of) and so EXCITED to be baptized! It was great to be there to show our love and support of her.

I caught Rachel twirling in her dress as we got back to the house following the baptism. It was so cute that I had to take pics of it. And my new camera is so awesome that I think the pics are adorable!