Thanksgiving in Arizona

We had a great Thanksgiving in Arizona with Ry's family; aside from my eyes having an allergic reaction to my contacts (hence the glasses in every picture,) and my body deciding that once we hit Arizona it needed to get sick. We left Wednesday afternoon and drove straight through with a only two stops, it was a very LONG drive, but very worth the 75 degree weather. We ate Thanksgiving dinner at Grandmother Ray's, I guess all of the people and chaos distracted me from taking pictures. Here is a little run down of what we did:
Ashley and I waiting in line at Kohl's at 3:00AM on Friday, yep that's us! We then went to Walmart, Target, the mall and a million other stores; I got almost all of my Christmas shopping done!

Lights at the Mesa temple...

Beautiful!

In front of the temple with the fam

Playing with settings on my camera...

Saturday we went on a hike up to the hieroglyphics, it was a gorgeous morning. I'm so glad we made it to the top with the weather's cooperation, (last time we literally ran down the mountain because of the lightning).

We have been looking for a truck for a while now and we found THE ONE!! We absolutely love it and it was a great ride on the way home. Merry Christmas to us!

Vote for your favorite...

My girlfriend, (and amazing hairdresser), Mandi, took our family pictures yesterday. She is just getting into photography and did a great job. They turned out so cute, i am trying to decide which one for our Christmas cards, let us know which you like best!!

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My FAVORITE Holiday!!!

I love when Halloween falls on the weekend, it means more days that i can celebrate!

HALLOWEEN PARTAY

My mom got called as the new Young Women's President just in time for her favorite holiday, so you can guess that she went all out! She planned the best Halloween party for the primary kids, young men and young women, and i know all the adults that came had a blast as well. There were stations set up for decorating the kids Halloween bags, decorating sugar cookies, fish pond, doughnut bob, cupcake walk, and...

...my dad made an awesome spook alley. He had three different rooms; the first had a table that my dad made with a hole in it so a kid could pop his head through, it looked like he was floating, and tables with scary masks. The second room is the one above, my dad made a coffin and we wrapped one of the boys up as a mummy. The last room had a mini bed with two "dead kids" and strobe lights, it looked like a scene from Psycho. The kids had so much fun!

Once all the little ones left I taught THRILLER to all the Young Men and Young Women (and some of the adults), they had a great time and so did I!!!

THRILLER!!!

Every year at the end of October my favorite teacher, Jen, teaches Thriller at the gym. On the last day she teaches everyone dresses up and we go all out!

The whole class, don't they look fabulous!?

WORK

This is me at work on Friday, my costume wasn't really appropriate for work so what could be better than ratty purple and black hair with black lipstick?

SPINE IDAHO HALLOWEEN PARTY

Ry dressed up as a plastic surgeon and i was his patient, we got lots of laughs.

These our friends that i work with from left to right: Ry and I (pt and dr), Patti and Jared (witch and "horny little devil", Danson and Zach (Pam and Jim from the office), Nat and Justin (witchy and angel), Charish and Clayton (cop and robber). Everyone looked great!

After the Spine Idaho party we headed out to my parents to see them before they headed out to their Halloween party. I helped my mom find this AMAZING dress at the Halloween Bootique and she totally rocked it! Her dress had spider web lace and a sparkly spider in the middle and my dad was her pet spider.
Don't they look great!? They won best costume, of course:-)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Ry and i didn't feel like getting decked out again on Halloween, but i couldn't resist finding something Halloweeny to wear. I covered my face in diamond dust, so it sparkled in the light (just like a vampire) and then put those obnoxious teeth in, they didn't last long... i got very annoyed with them very quickly. We had seven trick-or-treaters this year:-) My cousins came to our house in an ambulance, my uncle was all bloody and my aunt was dressed like a doctor. It was hilarious!

Thomas, Lizzy, and Marcus Wood in the back of the old ambulance.

I can't wait until next Halloween, I loaded up on costumes at the Bootique sale and i'm super excited to use them next year. I am now in the Christmas mode, taking down my Halloween decor and listening to Christmas music!

Halloween Time in Disneyland

Last weekend I met my best friend, Randi, in San Fransisco and we drove to LA together to spend two fabulous days in the happiest place on earth, DISNEYLAND!! Our drive gave us some much needed catch up time and we enjoyed yummy muddy buddies along the way. We haven't seen each other in over six months, (see our shopping trip last April) and it has been way way way too long!
We got into Anaheim around two in the morning, found our hotel, and hit the bed like a rock. We woke up the next morning ready to find some breakfast and walk to Disneyland. We had Randi's iPhone with the map to show us where we could find a Denny's before we tackled the park... Maps make things look much closer than they really are; we walked SO much before we even found a place to eat breakfast. After we downed some very delicious french toast we trekked our way to the Disneyland entrance, yay!
The park and the weather were absolutely perfect!! Giant pumpkins decorated like Mickey, Goofey and the rest of the characters. Randi and I were in heaven, as you know we both have a affinity for Halloween and Disneyland, and those two together=pure bliss.
Obviously our first ride HAD to be Space Mountain, and yes, it was worth the hour and a half wait!!
Big Thunder!
On the Big Thunder roller coaster, what a blast!

We ventured over to Toon Town for some pictures, they are redoing parts of the park so the little rides over there were closed, still a great photo opp right?

Sleeping Beauty's Castle!! She is my favorite princess and the last couple times i have gone to Disneyland the castle has been closed, so i was SUPER excited that we got to go through it!
Snow White's house
Its A Small World, we both LOVE this ride despite being made fun of by our anti-disney Ry and Dara:-)
There were the cutest caramel apples, Minnie, Mickey, and Mickey Pumpkin---so darling!!
Our favorite: Indiana Jones (whoa, *urch* whoa *urch* WHOA!!!!)

California Screamin'!!! We rode the ride a few times in a row, no wait, whoop whoop!

I am not a huge fan of farris wheels, and this one you are in a cart that slides around on a track, SO scary! We felt bad for the couple that rode with us, we screamed...A LOT!
California adventure at night, we tried to squeeze in every ride we could before the firework show.

The firework show was by far, the MOST amazing show i have ever experienced. They used fabulous music, the villains, and instead of Tink flying, it was a ghost and the fireworks were so great! It was by far the best show i have ever EVER seen!!

California Adventure was decorated with lots and lots of candy corn, it was so cute!

We wised up the next day and drove to the park rather than walking, our feet hurt so bad from all the walking the previous day. We got some blister pads and brought two pair of shoes to rotate through so our feet wouldn't hurt.Our first ride of this day was the Haunted Mansion, since the wait the day before was two hours long! It was AMAZING, they have it completely redone as the Nightmare Before Christmas! We loved this ride and went numerous times!
Haunted Mansion faces

Our second ride of the day: Splash Mountain. Notice, our nice straight hair and fresh make-up...

By the end of the ride we were completely drenched, for some reason neither of us remember getting this soaked. Advice to future riders; the front is not the place to be if you want to keep straight hair and new make up in place.

Drenched with some Halloween villains.

The sunglasses helped with smeared make-up and thank goodness for bobby pins! We headed to fantasy land to ride the Peter Pan ride, the Pinnochio ride, and all the fun magical kiddie rides.
We literally sprinted to make it to this ride before it closed so we could squeak one last ride of California Screamin in before California Adventure closed. Luckily with some begging slash sweet talking and slightly glistening foreheads we got on and had the best ride ever! We laughed and screamed the entire time.

The Mickey pumkin head at night, SO stinkin cute!

One last ride on the Haunted Mansion

The last ride of the trip, followed by some serious Christmas shopping! We both got some really cute ornaments that i cannot wait to put on my Christmas tree and some great Halloween mugs that have already been put to use!

Waiting for the tram at the end of the night with our trusty backpack, our new Disney goods and sore feet. I had the time of my life and i'm so glad we planned this. I miss you already, thanks Randi!!!

Attention Fellow Shoppers!!!

I just got the greatest bargain of my life! I went to Bath & Body to get my free antibacterial soap with a $10 purchase; little did i know i would get so much more for free. They have a deal going on right now that if you buy two oils you get an oil warmer (a $15 value) FREE, so i thought to myself, "i am the best shopper, two free items". I went to check out and the guy that works there said that i qualified for their new Christmas preview book (another amazing deal in and of itself)... what does that mean? Well, he split my items into two piles and said if you buy these in two separate purchases then i get another item, ANY item in the store (under $13) for FREE, yes for free! So i got that cute pumpkin candle, sweet cinnamon pumpkin antibacterial soap, and oil warmer ALL for FREE and didn't spend over $20. They also have their three wick candles 2 for $20 and they have Christmas preview candles for $4 and Christmas wallflowers for $3, i may have to go back very soon and i hope all my fellow shopaholics enjoy these killer deals as well!!

Happy Golden Birthday!!!

Thursday, the 24th was Ry's golden birthday!! We both had to work and he wanted a really low key birthday; for those of you who know me know that that was SO hard for me because i LOVE birthday celebrations and going all out. I got up super early and made a yummy breakfast before we both had to go to work.

I sent Ry a candy bouquet at work:-) he was very surprised.
He said no presents, but i had to get him something, it just wouldn't have felt like a birthday, right? He got a pull up bar that he has been wanting forever, i know, not very exciting.

Just the two of us, we went to Applebee's for dinner, were too full for dessert there or the cake i made, bummer.

BIRTHDAY WEEKEND!

Since Ry just wanted a low key birthday i planned his birthday weekend up in Island Park, the most relaxing place on the planet, and it was just the two of us. We drove up Friday night as soon as Ry got off work and watched Kung Fu Panda on the way. We got to the cabin, unpacked and crashed for the night.

We woke up to the most beautiful morning ever!! Ry got up and made breakfast while i slept in, what a sweetheart! After breakfast i was ready to go to the frog ponds because i had a little surprise for the birthday boy and he had absolutely no clue. So i pretended that i brought one of my dad's guns when he sneaked a peak under the quilt i had it wrapped in, luckily he still had no idea it was for him.

While Ry was setting up targets i put a big red bow on his present and sang happy birthday to him. He said "wait i thought that was your Dad's" he could not believe it was for him, he was sooo excited!! I'm so glad that i was able to surprise him, he is the hardest person to surprise because he is such i little snoop.

Happy Birthday Ry!!!

Checkin out the amazing scope!

I'm not going to lie, i'm a great shot!:-)

After playing with the gun for a while we went over to visit my grandparents at Mack's Inn (they have a fifth wheel trailer and a lot there). I forgot to pack a sweatshirt for Ry so we decided we needed to go over to West Yellowstone to find one. Our grandparents came along, we went to the icecream shoppe and the candy shoppe where we saw two darling missionaries making taffy. I talked to them for a while and told them about Marcus, they were super jealous that he gets to brand cattle, and i guess they aren't allowed to tract there, weird huh? Talking with them made me so happy and it made me miss Marcus lots! After we took my grandparents back to their trailer we went back to the cabin and watched a movie (we watched a few this weekend,) it was SO nice to just relax and enjoy each other.

Our chili and cornbread candlelit dinner, so perfect and soo delicious (even though i forgot to add the egg).

We did not want to leave and cannot wait to go back!! Thanks Dr. Willey and Dari, and HAPPY HAPPY 24th BIRTHDAY RY!!!

Busy Weekend...

Yesterday we went up to Twin Falls for one of our good friend, Natalie's, wedding. Her grandfather is the temple president, and got to seal them , it was a beautiful sealing. The day was perfect, not a cloud in sight and it was the perfect temperature.
Such a gorgeous temple!!

Waiting for the new Mr. & Mrs. to come out...

Officially married!! They looked soo happy and we are so happy for them! Congrats Nat and Justin!!

Just and Nat grinning ear to ear, Nat looked beautiful and Justin look thrilled to finally be married.

We were trying to get all of Moroni into our picture as well, but could never get it to work.

After the sealing in Twin Falls we headed up to Boise to visit some of our best friends, Lucas and Holly. We ate at Changs, sooo yummy, and got the grand tour of down town Boise. There were so many great sales going on, too bad neither of the boys are avid shoppers. After wandering the down town area we went to the sub and Boise state, bowled, played pool, and pinball; thanks guys, we had a blast with you!!