Picnic on the Mountains

What a nice relaxing Sunday. Today all of us decided to take the Land Rover and 4 wheel drive it to the top of the mountains where we could have a picnic. We stopped and got a bucket of KFC chicken and headed up to the mountains. It was such a nice day for it too! The girls had a blast with the off roading on the bumpy dirt roads, as we bounced our way to the very top of the mountain! They were giggling in the back and going, "whoooooooaaaa" over every bounce! It was cute! When we got to the top, we stopped and took some pictures and then laid out some blankets and had our picnic overlooking an awesome view. Soon enough some other guys came up to go hang-gliding! (Is that one or two words by the way?) :)

We decided we would hang around to watch them take off the mountain! It was really cool watching them set up and get ready for the take off. We got some neat pictures of it too. After watching them take off, we headed back down the mountain and I took some video of us bouncing around on the ride back down. Then we went home and Michael stayed with the girls while I got some much needed Christmas shopping out of the way. :o) I swear NOBODY beats ROSS prices! I love that store! Anyway, here are the pictures of our little outing! It was fun :)

OMG!! Kori's First Poem! Age 8

Oh my goodness! Kori just brought me in this piece of paper and said, "Hey Mom, I wrote a poem, you want to see it?"

OH MY GOODNESS! Her FIRST poem and I LOVE IT and had to share. Here it goes:


By Kori Graham Age: 8 Date: 11-15-08

NIGHT TIME
The moon is out, the stars are bright.
I wonder what will happen tonight.
The sun's not up, the clouds are down.
No one knows when to howl.
I wish I may, I wish I might
See a shooting star that's bright.
It doesn't matter, it doesn't depend
How this night is going to end.

Halloween, Lobster, Birthdays and more.....

Well, I have been neglecting the blogging thing, so this may be a long one. :) It has been busy here lately. So here goes....
Halloween was fun! I will post some pictures. :) Kori was Hannah Montana (of course) and Gwen was (who else?) Dora! They were so cute. :) They went to two halloween carnivals this year!...

As for Halloween night, Mom, Dad, Wendy, Mat, Jaedon and Camryn all came over to our neighborhood for trick or treating. It was great. Jaedon and Kori even went in the haunted house this year. (there is a house in our neighborhood that turns their garage into a haunted house maze every year. It is pretty cool). All the kids got tons of candy. Little Camryn was so cute with her little Dorothy outfit and her tiny voice saying "Trick or Treat" and "Thank you". She looked adorable! Jaedon was Darth Vader, but he kind of gave up on the mask early on. :) He was so brave about going into the haunted house!

Then Wendy and the kids spent the night and the kids stayed up and watched the new Tinkerbell movie and ate popcorn and candy. It was fun. Here are some pictures:

Anyway, that was our halloween!!

Then, a few nights later Michael went lobstering and caught a bunch of lobster!! YUMM!!! So we went over to my Mom and Dad's house and had a lobster cookout. It was delicious. Those lobsters were so huge! He brought 7 home!! Check out these pictures!





















































Wow. Pretty crazy! Who would have thought those creepy looking things would taste so good? LOL. Anyway, we hung out with Mom and Dad for awhile and when we left we also took with us a new television set and Playstation 2! They got a new TV and a Playstation 3, so they let us take their old ones! Wooo hooo! Thanks Mom and Dad! :)

Then a few days after that it was my Grandpa's 87th birthday and my sister also turned 36, so we all went out and celebrated at Knott's Berry Farm's Chicken Dinner restaurant! :) It was great having so much of the family together and just talking and laughing it up. :)


























What a good time!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA AND WENDY!!

Last but not least, this last weekend we went and visited with a bunch of Michael's family who were in town staying with Aunt Linda's sister, Wendy. Michael's Aunt, Uncle and cousins (and many more) were all there and the kids had such a blast playing together. It was a huge party and we all just had such a great time. I am hoping to get some of the pictures emailed to me because I didn't bring my camera, but there were so many great pictures taken!

Anyway, it has definitely been a busy couple of weeks and I have finally gotten some time to update my blog. There is even so much more I could write about, but I will save it for my next blog, as I am ready to end my novel. Talk to you soon! :)

Man I am lucky :)

San Francisco weekend..... TOO MUCH FUN :)

Wow, I just finally got some time to sit down and blog about my San Francisco weekend :) What a blast!!! I feel like such a spoiled little princess :) It was so much fun.

So..... I packed up and headed to the airport Thursday night after work. Although I was only going to be gone a few days, I got choked up leaving when Gwen started crying as they were saying goodbye to me at the airport. I guess after I left, when they were walking to the car, even Kori was getting a little teary eyed. (Awww.... I feel loved)

Anyway... when I arrived at the San Jose airport, Justin and Ami picked me up and I got to see their house for the first time. Ami gave me the tour as their little kitties greeted me with some curious sniffing :) It was pretty late so we talked for awhile and just hung out before heading to bed.

Then the very next morning we woke up and had breakfast and headed out to the airport so that Justin could personally fly us to Monterey in the Cessna he rented out for the day!! HOW COOL IS THAT? (Justin has had his pilot license for about a year or so). He did all the preboarding tests and explained everything about the aircraft to me as we got in and prepared for take off! It was awesome. I got some of the flight on video too, which I will have to post on my youtube channel. It was really cool!

Anyway, we flew to the Monterey airport and then drove to Cannary Row. We had lunch right on the water at The El Torito. There were seals lounging on the rocks right outside our window and we could watch the little sea otters poking their heads up and swimming around. It was neat! Then we walked down Cannery Row and went shopping in the little shops where I picked out some little gifts to bring home to the girls. After that, we headed back to the airport and Justin flew us back home! I have to say both of his landings were incredibly smooth! He is definitely a good pilot and made me feel so comfortable about flying with him and explained everything to me. He was a great tour guide while flying as well, pointing out all the different land marks while we were in the air. I would have had no idea that the little orange dots below were a pumpkin patch we were flying over! It was was really neat!

After heading back, I insisted that they at least let me take them to dinner to a nice place, since they had so much planned for me this weekend and they were paying for everything the entire weekend! They suggested this trendy Vietnamese Restaraunt that has really good food and we went there. YUUUUMMM!! I had never been to a Vietnamese Restaraunt before and this place was delicious!! After dinner we went back to the house, where Justin bartended us some nice cocktails, then we all played on the wii, just cracking up and having a great time. It was so much fun.

Then, the next day Ami had already had reserved a whole day of pampering for us at the spa in downtown San Francisco! Oh not just ANY spa mind you, but the RED DOOR Elizabeth Arden spa!!! Justin drove us there and dropped us off and we had an entire day of being treated like royalty!!! An 80 minute swedish massage for both of us and manicures and pedicures all while lounging around in the most cozy robes! The pedicure even had a warm wax treatment for your feet and rose petalled warm water to soak your feet in! It was AMAZING!

After that we shopped around for a bit and got stalked by some crazy lady that was talking like a witch. She followed us down the street for awhile and into the mall while yelling gibberish at us and she sounded exactly like the witch from The Wizard of Oz. She was nuts!....

Anyway we went to the mall for a bit, and can you believe in front of the Bloomingdales in the mall they had this hilarious set up (see picture below) with some interesting looking men that you could take your picture with? (I guess to make it look like you were at some club in San Francisco). Apparantly they were advertising for some makeup line (guess I missed that part) Haha! We had fun forwarding this photo to Michael with a headline of "Look what your wife is doing in San Francisco!). ha. Good thing he is a good sport.

Anyway, after that we hailed a cab so that we could go to the Fairmont hotel and have tea and scones. It was so good and what a gorgeous hotel!! WOW. I seriously felt like a princess :)

After some more window shopping at some of the nicest stores in San Francisco, we headed back home for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.

Man! The weekend flew by. The next day was the day I had to go back home. It was Sunday already! Ami and I went and saw a movie called "Rachel Getting Married" before I had to head back to the airport for my flight home. Justin had it all set up the day before so I was in boarding group A, and was able to get a window seat on the way home. It was bittersweet to leave, as it had just been such a great weekend that passed too quickly, but I also knew my little girls and hubby would be waiting for me at the airport. That, they were... and both girls were carrying a red rose for me as I arrived and gave me big hugs and told me all about their eventful weekend with Daddy! Daddy looked all nice and dressed up for me and had big hugs for me also!! It was great!

Well, anyway, I guess I will end my novel now, but man I am so lucky to have such awesome friends (and family too)!
Thank you SO much Ami and Justin for an unforgettable weekend trip in San Francisco! I appreciate all of it so much and had an absolute blast!

This Week....

Well, I can't believe it has already been a week since my last post! Wow. A week goes by pretty fast and my goal was to try and post one blog a week at least.
So..... what has happened since my last post? Hmmm... not too much I guess.
-Kori lost another tooth. This was her first time losing a tooth, but actually knowing about the tooth fairy though, so I don't think it was as exciting for her this time. She even forgot about putting the tooth under her pillow.
-I just got Gwen's preschool pictures in and they are sooooo cute!!! She posed sooo good and gave a cute little smile, so I will have to make prints on the scanner at work and mail them out :) I will update this blog with the photo after I get it scanned too :)
-I had a parent teacher conference with Kori's teacher and she had only great things to say about Kori, so that was nice. :) Seriously though, Kori is doing so much better in school than I was at that age. She was cracking me up because she said they had a group project and both the boys in her group were just messing around and Kori was like, "CMON GUYS, we really have to get this done! Let's work on this project!" HA. It was good to hear, cause I was always the one wanting to mess around in those group projects instead of doing the work!

Not much else, I guess.

.......I just saw another blog today that completely reminded me of my girls. It was a picture that a mom took of her kids holding hands in the back seat of the car. SOOOO cute and it completely reminded me of Kori and Gwen. Once in awhile when I look in my rear view mirror I see the same thing and it just makes my heart melt when they hold each other's hand like that. It was cute that this mom got a picture of it. :)
Of course, alot of the time I look in the rear view mirror I see Gwen's leg reaching out to kick Kori to wake her up, or I hear "STOP IT GWEN!!" or "KOOOOORI, WAAAKE UP!! KooOOOOOOORRRRRIII!" LOL, so it only makes it that much more special the times that I see the cute hand holding instead. Ha.
I love my girls :)

Well, that's all for now! Talk to you later :)

>>>>> Ok, got the school pictures! Here they are! Aren't they so cute?? :)

Pinch Me Please! :)

Seriously, could somebody pinch me please? :)

Tonight was just a great night!!! It was too cute. Mikey called me up and said he was going to stop by the store and buy some stuff to make us all dinner tonight. So I thought, oh how cool! Sounds good to me! :) I picked up the girls and the two of them were so good tonight. Kori finished her homework with no problems. Gwen was coloring and Kori was helping her practice tracing her letters. Then Daddy started cooking all this food in the kitchen!! I didn't even have to make side dishes or anything! He even made me a little margarita with sugar on the rim!! The smells coming out of the kitchen were sooo yummy :) ........Then I went in to check my email and do some stuff on the computer for awhile and Kori comes in and says, "Mom! Check out what I did!"

I walked in our dining area and she had set the whole table up. She found a blanket and used it as a tablecloth and put a candle in the middle of the table with these little crystal gem like things for decoration, and had our silverware put in little napkins! IT WAS TOOO CUTE!..... (see picture below, although my camera is messed up and just doesn't do it justice).

Then, Daddy comes in and has these boneless pork ribs with sauteed mushrooms and corn on the cob!! It all ended up being served on our nice China! YUMMMMMMMY!!! Michael said a sweet little blessing and I sat there thinking how thankful I am for my AWESOME family.

Seriously.... pinch me somebody! What a great night and thank you lord for all my blessings. I just adore our family!

Random Thoughts

Wow. Cloverfield!! Best dang movie I have seen in awhile. Wished I would have seen it in the theater! HOLY COW, it was good. I'm kinda bored, Michael is in LA tonight, so thought I would play on the computer a bit without any guilt! :) LOL. I thought, I might as well post a blog on my new blogspot with my random thoughts of the day........ :)

1. Kori has the cutest, funniest smile right now with her mouthful of teeth all different sizes and coming in at all different angles. ha! ......Permanent teeth still coming in, while other baby teeth still need to fall out. So DANG cute! I hope they all come in straight :)

2. Gwen is such a little love bug. My favorite thing is when she squeezes my leg and gives me a big LEG HUG while I am making them breakfast, and sometimes at dinner too. Sometimes it startles me because I don't even see her sneaking up behind me, I just feel this big hug on my leg! SOOOO DANG CUTE!

3. I am super excited for my weekend trip coming up to see Ami and visit with her...... Window shopping in the city...... OH and Justin might take us flying! How cool! I know the weekend is going to be over so quickly, since time flies when your having fun, but DANG, I am excited!! Honestly, I am EVEN excited for the plane trip there! You know how some people dread the plane flights? I am picturing sitting on the plane by myself, reading a book on the way..... sounds dang good to me! (as long as I pick a better book than Catcher in The Rye this time). :o)

4. Catcher In The Rye- ???? WHATEVER!! ???? LAMEST BOOK EVER, SERIOUSLY!! WHY IS THIS BOOK A CLASSIC?

5. CLOVERFIELD : WOW! DANG GOOD FLICK!!

6. Hmmm... That is about it... Yep, I think that is it for my random thoughts today. Not much coming to me now......

7. I miss Mikey :(

8. :o( Tried to call him and got voicemail :(

9. Oh well, goodnight all! More random thoughts to come later! :D

Mat's 40th Birthday! Happy Birthday Mat!

Ok, so I am starting my own blog page, envious of my older, cooler sister who already has one of her own! :) So I guess I will start with last night, which was Mat's 40th birthday bash at Morton's Steakhouse. It was awesome. We had a whole room to ourselves at the restaurant! It was great watching all the kids together just having fun. They were able to get some of their energy out and run around a little since we had a whole room to ourselves! There were 13 of us all together including the kids! What a neat night. I would say the highlight of the night was my husband in rare form! Ha. I was driving so he ordered a Martini and ONE Martini he is already tipsy... and I was talking to Wendy about what a lightweight he is when Mat ordered him a 2nd Martini! HAHA! It was hilarious. He spilled twice that night! The first time he was able to save it by catching it mid fall, so it just splashed over the brand new loaf of bread the waiter just brought out! HA..... Then, after his second Martini, he went to help Kori cut her steak and after my REPEATED warnings of her cherry drink in front of him, (maybe I should have been more worried about him using a knife in his condition), he tried to move it to the side and spilled it all over because of a "mysterious" table ledge that was in his way. LOL! Okay, so to his credit, there really WAS a ledge to blame, although it was fun teasing him about it! :o) Of course when the waiter came to clean up the mess, Michael blamed Wendy for the spill, since it was right in her spot the drink was spilled! Anyway, it was pretty funny.
Overall it was a great night and so much fun with the family. I was so proud of all the kids and they all looked so grown up in their cute little fancy outfits! What a night! HAPPY 40th birthday Mat and thanks for the great evening!!