Merry Christmas!!

We wish everyone a very merry Christmas, and the best wishes for the New Year!!!!

Tens!!

Sal and I had our 10th Anniversary on the 1st of December, and he took me to this amazing restaurant, The Fort. It was so cute, and the atmosphere was so nice and quiet, yet fun at the same time. The food was amazing as well. I had a lamb shank, and Sal had a buffalo steak. It was a great night!! I can't believe that it has been 10 years, it went so fast, and although we have had our ups and downs, I wouldn't change anything for the world!! I love you so much!!

This is what they made us wear, then they did a huzzah for us with the whole restaurant!! If you can't tell, I am wearing a fox, and Sal has a huge buffalo hat on. (You can see them better in the next picture.)

This couple was there celebrating their 50th!! He came over to congratulate us, and to give us a little advice. He said, "No matter what happens, or no matter the situation, she is always right!!" They were so cute!!

Thanksgiving, and a little Christmas!

This year for Thanksgiving, I was so excited to have ALL of my family come to my house!!!! It was crowded, but so much fun!! So the total number of people was 22, 11 adults and 11 kids, amazing, but we actually got everyone at the table in my dining, and family room!!

And of course, the best part of Thanksgiving, we had a total of 12 pies!!!! Thanks Nikki for making them all!!

We decided that since the whole family was together, we would do our gift exchange, so we had a little Christmas in November!!

We decided to just get a fake tree this year, kindof sad after how much I loved my real tree last year, but I think it turned out pretty cute!! Mia, being the goofball that she is, put on her "socks"!!

And Poki found her new favorite spot!!

Birthdays

Ariana turned 9 on the 14th of October, and it just completely scares me that next year she will be a pre-teen!!!! Anyway, the day of her birthday, we just had a cake for her and opened some presents, she got some movies, a new scripture case, a new bike, and a couple of gift cards, and of all of it, the gift cards were her favorite!! She had a ball shopping for what ever she wanted, (I wonder where she gets that from?) and felt so grown up being able to pay for the stuff herself, she bought some clothes, a couple more movies, and some little kits that have makeup, and little notepads and stuff in it. Then the next day we took her and one of her friends to a place called Li'l Biggs. It is kindof like a Chuck-e-Cheese, with pizza and games and they had a bunch of bounce house stuff.

Then , Sal's birthday was the 11th of November, and we just had a few friends over for dinner, then had cake, and yes, I put all 33 candles on the cake!!

Tycee for some reason had her vampire teeth in, and Mia was wearing one of my old dance dresses, I have no idea why, anyway, it was lots of fun!!

Swimming Lessons

Sal did some work for this Swim School, and in return they gave our girls some free Swim lessons. They absolutely loved it, even Mia was so excited to go to swim class every week. I was so amazed at how well she did, she just took right off and did everything the teacher wanted her to do.

Jumping in the water
Learning how to kick with legs up behind her

Learning how to hold herself and walk along the wall

and learning how to swim under water

Ariana and Tycee almost didn't even need lessons, they could already do everything they were being taught, they loved it anyway!!

Well I guess since it has been a couple of months, it is about time for me to catch up. For halloween this year, the girls picked out these matching costumes, they just each picked their own color, so this was all their idea, I had absolutely nothing to do with it, I even tried to get them to pick other things, but they were adamant about these, which is fine, cause they are super cute!! Anyway, we started our parties with a trunk-or-treat in Sal's boss's stake, and they go all out!! Games, prizes, cupcakes, toys, and all this even before the trunk-or-treat begins. So they came home with bags full of treats from this. Then was our wards trunk-or-treat, and this year it was really big compared to last year being pretty small. They had a nacho supreme dinner, and games for the kids, then the trunk-or-treat.

Tycee did more handing out this night than she did getting candy!

Ariana was gone the whole night with her friends going around and around, so she made up for Tycee not getting much.

Even Mia wanted to keep going around, and she wouldn't even let me touch her bag to help her, she had to do it herself!!

I even got in the action with a VERY hot pink wig!!

Then Sal got some free tickets to Elitch Gardens, we even got VIP tickets, so we didn't have to wait in line, which was great for Sal and I so we could go to the front of the line, then just take turns on the rides that we wanted to go on. It was great! Ariana is getting to that point where she is getting to big for the kiddy rides, but not quite big enough for the big rides, so here she is not very happy about the kiddy swings, she did go on the big swings later and loved it. So I decided to let her try a roller coaster, just an up and down one, no upside down or loops. She was really nervous, but she did it, she was kind of scared during the ride, but she did great, but decided that she would wait and try again next year, or the year after!!

Mia is old enough now to go on the kiddy rides and she loved the boats!!

So this year we had a great Halloween and hope all you did too!!

Our newest addition!!!!

Our local animal shelter was overcrowded with cats, so they were giving them away for free, so we though this would be a good chance to get the pet that the girls have been begging for!! So we took them to the shelter for our family home evening one night and we met this little cuttie!! We had a hard time deciding between her and another grey cat, but the deciding factor was this one was only 8 months old, and the other was 2 years. The Hawaiian word for cat is Popoki, so we just shortened it and named her Poki.

She has taken over Mia's chair as her own, and then Mia put a towel on her as a blanky so she could sleep!!

Peaks and Gorges

Sal's brother and family came to visit for a week this summer, so we took a little camping trip. First we drove to the top of Pikes Peak which is 14,115 feet high, and silly me, I forgot my camera, but here are a couple that I stole from my brother-in-law. The drive is very pretty, but a little scary, it is a small dirt road that pretty much has a straight drop off one side. And it is so steep, that they actually have a break check about halfway back down, if your brakes are to hot, they make you stop and wait.

A very pretty little lake that was so clear and warm, but the chipmunks are crazy!! The kids had a hard time holding still for this next pic, cause there was a chipmunk that kept chasing them!! Then we went to Royal Gorge, it is a huge gorge that has one of the biggest suspension bridges in the world.

This is one of the little trains that takes you down into the gorge.

You are crammed into these little cages, standing only, then you go down the track very slowly!!

The view looking down, you can't even see the bottom!!

looking back up

A view of the bridge

now looking down into the gorge from the bridge

This is looking down between the cracks of the bridge, yes that is a real train down there!! This river is the Arkansas river.

And here is another shot of the bridge, those are cars on there!! It is 955 feet high, and 1260 feet long. It is said to be one of the top ten scariest bridges in the world, and we walked across it!! I couldn't stop walking though, cause if you stopped, you could feel the bridge swaying from the wind!!

There was this cute little area there that was like a little old town that had lots of fun stuff to play on, this chair was one of my favorites!!

Sal wanted a pic of him doing a hand stand on the bridge, crazy!!

And then, a very pretty sunset over the mountains!! Lots of fun!!