Been on the road again...

We have been traveling fools this past month and it has taken me a few days to recover.  Total, the kids and I have spent 21 days and way more than 50 hours in the car on "Great Adventures."  I'm so grateful that our kids are good travelers.  First week of October I took the kids (by myself - I'm was feeling pretty brave) and went to California to be with all of Officer's family.  It was a very last minute trip and unfortunately there was no way officer could get off work, but the kids and I had a really great time.  

While we were there we got all 21 grandchildren together for a picture, went to a sticker factory, the Jelly Belly Factory, Apple Hill, and really great pumpkin patch (I can't remember the name right now), celebrated birthdays, ate lots of yummy food, and played around with all the turkeys, deer, lizards, fish and anything else that the cousins could catch.  

We went home for a week and packed our bags for Arizona to see Officer's brother's family.  It was another "great adventure" in the car and to break up the trip we stayed one night in LasVegas. 

 

  

Officer and I had never been so it was kind of fun.  We got there early evening and left the next morning so we didn't see all the sights.  We stayed in "the castle"  we told miss peanut and then walked part of "The Strip,"  went to the M&M store and ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe.  The next morning we were able to drive over the Hoover Dam and then drive back and go over the new bridge that bypasses it.  It was pretty impressive to see from below, but driving across we were hoping to have a cool view of Hoover Dam, but unless you stop and hike a little (which we weren't to thrilled about because it was windy cold and with two small kids; one of whom was throwing up that morning.) its just like any other boring old freeway.

    

Once we got there we were able to enjoy lots of time with cousins and lots of Halloween parties.  We had pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin pinatas, even magic pumpkins, trunk or treats, bounce houses, BBQ, costume contests...and the parties just kept going - so did the sugar rush. Seriously I can't believe how much candy we had and really we only had one trick-or-treater.  The weather really was beautiful and we got to spend lots of time outside for the parties and at the parks and at our nephew's football game. My sister and brother in law took us to this fun little place called POP the soda shop, where it is literally just all different types of sodas from all over the world even.  We brought quite a few home and it's been fun to try them.

   

We also celebrated our twin nephews birthdays.  My sister in law was so sweet to make miss Peanut a cake too because her birthday is coming up this month.  2 out of their 3 birthdays we've been there to celebrate, so it was cute to watch all 3 of them sing and blow out candles.  Officer and I got the chance to go to the Mesa Temple one day and I was also able to meet up with 2 of my college roommates that live in the area for lunch one afternoon. It was so fun to catch up;  we ate at this cute little restaurant and then stopped at Sprinkles Bakery for cupcakes afterward.  It was such a treat to see them again...and the cupcakes were sooo yummy too! 

 

We made our way home driving through beautiful Southern Utah and stopping in Salt Lake overnight to visit Grandma-great and all of our other family there.  I must say I'm glad to be home for a little while, I was really missing the fall weather.