History Lesson

Last night, we had our home teacher over. He was teaching us a lesson about the plan of salvation. He asked Jack, "Do you know where we were before we were born?" Jack thought about it for a minute and responded, "A long, long time ago, this wasn't Arizona. It was called Mexico."

Surprise Weekend in California

Last weekend, we took a much needed vacation to California. The best part was that we kept the whole thing a secret from Jack. He didn't catch us packing, he didn't seem to notice the cooler getting filled with food, and he wasn't even suspicious when we dropped our dog off at the cousins' house so they could watch him for a few days. I told Jack on Thursday evening that we were going to have to pick up Dad from work, so we headed up to his office with our loaded car and Jack didn't seem to think anything was out of the ordinary. When Ty started driving and took us on the wrong freeway, though, Jack realized something was going on. He kept telling us that we were going the wrong way and that he wanted to go home. When he started seeing signs for Los Angeles, he guessed that we were going to California. We told him he was right and that we had a hotel room waiting for us. That changed everything and all he could say was "Oh, Thank you! Thank you!"

We got into Anaheim at about midnight, but Jack was 100% alert and awake when he realized we were going to be going into an elevator. He gets so excited about checking into hotels. We all crashed until about 6:30 when Jack climbed in bed with us. Finally, we told him that we needed to get dressed and ready because we were going to Disneyland!

Brave little boy in line for Matterhorn

It was such an amazing day. The whole park was decorated for Christmas and Christmas music was playing throughout. I know I'm such a baby, but I teared up a few times. Jack's favorite ride: Peter Pan. Surprised?

Saturday morning, we slept in and hit the hot tub. I think we finally rolled out for the day around lunch time. The weather was a bit chilly, but we went to the beach and walked along the sand for a few hours. So relaxing.

After the beach, we went for a drive to do some sight-seeing. I actually ended up falling asleep for an hour, so instead of taking us to a mall (like we talked about), Ty drove us to West L.A. to find the Russian district. Yep. He found it. And this cute little Russian bakery, too:

Ty was in heaven. He got to chat in Russian with the two shop owners and sink his teeth into some authentic pastries at the same time. Of course, we stocked up on some things for the freezer, too. It was really fun and we didn't get mugged, so that's a good thing.

Thank you, California. We needed that.

Halloween

About two weeks ago, Jack saw Peter Pan for the first time and fell in love. I don't know why but he's just crazy about that movie. So, we made him Peter Pan for Halloween. Right before we left for the ward Trunk-or-Treat, we went outside for a little photo shoot and these are the poses he gave me:

Who is this kid? Seriously?...

We had a great time at the ward party and Jack loved playing with all his little friends.

This here is us with the "scarecrow." Ty dressed up like this and scared the pants off kids (and a few adults) all night long. Happy Halloween!