6) HALLOWEEN

As far as holidays go, Halloween is one of my favorites. There is really very little stress involved, no huge meals to prepare, no traditions that MUST be preserved, pretty low-key. You get to dress up and dress your kids up and dress your dog up if you want - or have one. You get candy for free and can scream at anything you want to or might find scary. You can stay up really late with a good excuse and watch scary movies or even "Thriller" videos. lol

Here's my very scary skeleton Tyler, too bad you could never tell that some of his face paint GLOWED in the dark - or it was supposed to. (His gloves did though.)

Add Ninja Jeffrey and Witch Bella and you have a foto nightmare. I don't know how many pictures I shot trying to get them all still.

Here's Ninja Jeffrey being really tough.

And here's Hippie Gusti with her Witch Bella. Doesn't she look more like an indian to you? lol

5) PLAYING ROCK BAND / FLIGHT SIMULATOR

We love to be entertained!! But making our own entertainment can be even better than putting on a DVD. Grandpa Rex has built a flight simulator in the spare bedroom and Jeffrey and Kyle had an especially great time playing in it. It was actually a little too advanced for Jeffrey to "fly", so Rex put in virtual skiing for him, which I didn't know till later. He called it ice skating the rest of the time though. Really had me confused, I had no idea why he kept wanting to go back to some house to ice skate.Jeffrey and Grandpa Rex winning the ski race.

Jeffrey on drums. He actually spent about an hour "practicing" by himself. He was so into it that his face was beet red by the time he was done.

Ally, Kali and Riley rockin out.

Jeffrey on base.

Rock Band with the cousins! Asher, Kira, Jeffrey, Kenzi and Kyle

Too bad I didn't get any pictures of Gusti and I or us with the Ally and Anita, but that would have been asking a lot to have someone stay up THAT late just to take our pictures. Keep on rockin ladies!

4) SEEING OLD FRIENDS

I don't have to add much more to the title, it was JUST GREAT!! to see some of my old roommates from BYU. Some of us hadn't seen each other in almost 10 years. Crazy how time as flown by. I would still say college was one of the greatest times of my life and you all played a huge role in that. I am so glad to still have you as friends and after all these years to hang out for a couple of hours or a couple of days and it is like no time has passed at all. Thanks for coming and visiting me and I can't wait to see you all again.

Gusti, Reni, Robyn, me

Jamie, Gusti, Ally, Anita, Deanna, me

Anita, Sierra (behind), Kelli, me, Paisley (front)

Anne, me

3) TAKING PICTURES

I must say, having a photographer as a sister, I guess I'm glad I love to take pictures, talk about pictures, look at pictures, I even don't mind letting Gusti take my picture. So we did a lot of the above and it was FUN.

Here's Gusti at her best... determined to do everything possible for "the one perfect shot."

Here's Tyler in "action". I'm working on my "action shots", getting warmed up for the upcoming soccer season.

This picture looked better in full size, but I'm to tired to take it out, so enjoy.

We really enjoyed the day at Wheeler Farm with all the kids. I didn't get a copy of those pictures home with me though, so here's one of just Tyler and Jeffrey.

I helped Anita start a blog, so I helped her with her picture too. I thought it turned out great!

Gusti's pumpkins were truly amazing. We couldn't lift them by ourselves, so it makes me wonder how many people were involved in steeling them from her porch steps the night after Halloween. At least they were considerate enough to wait for Halloween to be over.

Credit to Gusti on these incredible pictures. I could be an advertisement for fresh fall laundry soap or something. Truly talented!

I loved this picture too.

2) EATING!

It may sound rather odd, but Jeffrey, Tyler and I definately enjoyed all the different foods we got to try and rediscover while we were visiting. (That's the up-side, the down-side was of course barely fitting into my tight jeans by the time we went home.) So what did we eat?? EVERYTHING we could. My special request was seafood. (Hard to come by here.) So we went to the Peppermill Casino in Reno for Friday night ALL YOU CAN EAT SEAFOOD BUFFETT.

What a light show that was!!

Tyler especially enjoyed the parrot that was hidden up in one of the trees.

We all ate our share of lobster, shrimp and crablegs.

Mom's dinner wasn't complete without a baked potato, but Rex stuck to the seafood basics.

Gusti tried the diet version - just one shrimp. LOL Yeah right! Kira had pizza - what else!

A visit to mom and Rex's and Grandma and Grandpa's just wouldn't be complete without Grandpa's Barbecue, complete with all the fixin's - potato salad, baked beans and rice. But wait, where's Grandpa in this picture?? (Unfortunately he wasn't feeling so great.)


Jeffrey discovered American hotdogs. I mean, it's not like we don't have "wurst" here, ha, ha. I think he basically had them for lunch every day and sometimes again for dinner as is the case here.

Tyler would forego the "hotdog" in favor of just the bun.


Ally, Anita, Kelli (and her 2 kids) made it to the Olive Garden too! Oh what memories. Soup, salad or breadsticks Ladies?

Besides what I've already mentioned, we hit Krispy Kreme Donuts (the light was on), Ally introduced us to Sonic's Cherry Limeade, Gusti shared her favorite Café Rio lunch with me with sweet pork and to die for enchilada sauce. During our quick visit to BYU, Kelli treated us to a cone at the Creamery. Ally, Anita and I devoured a huge bucket of extra buttery popcorn and a diet drink while watching Mama Mia, at least most of the butter didn't land on MY hips, but on Ally's jeans - sorry we didn't share with you Kali, Gusti and Jamie. But we didn't leave you behind when we went to Cold Stone Creamery afterwards. And definately worth noting would be Anthony's Swedish pancakes on Sundays and Papa Murphy's Pizza on Fridays. Let's see, did I leave anything out?? ... Halloween candy!! Need I say more?

THE NEVER ENDING POST

Well, it has been awhile, but I have finally organized my thoughts and pictures into some kind of a scheme so as to share them here. I've decided on a top 10 list and since my computer crashes several times daily, especially when I am in the middle of a project, I will post 10 separate posts. This way maybe I will keep you interested enough to read all of them. The genious of blogging is that they are generally not novel length as this blog could have been, had I not seen the light to break it down...

MY TOP 10 REASONS WHY I LOVED MY VISIT TO AMERICA:
After #1, not listed in order...

1) SEEING MY FAMILY AGAIN! (This will always be my number one.)

Whether we were saying good-byes,

passing out kisses to Great-Grandpa Q.,

and more kisses,

and more kisses,

LOTS of kisses,

cuddling with the cousins,

or sleeping in Great-Grandma Q's arms,

whether we were at the park,

or doing homework,

cooking meals,

or just walking along,

visiting Reni's new domicile,

or having Sunday dinners,

catching up,

or jumping on the trampoline,

or playing in the leaves,

we just had a great time!! Thanks especially to my wonderful sis, Gusti for making it all happen. We wouldn't have been able to do it with out you.

TYLER'S FIRST HAIRCUT

Thanks for all your votes, it was close, actually a tie. When Gusti told me she wouldn't take his two year pictures until he got a hair cut, that kind of broke the tie. I just wasn't willing to pay 11 Dollars plus tip for his FIRST haircut, because I was pretty sure I wouldn't like it afterwards. During our visit with my mom, she offered to do the deed and I agreed. She did a great job and Tyler did his part well too. Thanks mom!