Disneyland.

The whole entire Staheli side of my family decided to go down to Disneyland for a few days for my grandpa's "retirement" party. We had been planning it for a few months and thankfully the time finally came. There was a total of 27 of us that went and it was so much fun!!!! I will just explain the pictures instead of give a whole itinerary of our trip! And there are A LOT of pictures.

At "The Block" waiting for everyone to get to Cali!

Taylor loves to torment Gavin. It's hilarious.

Waiting to catch our shuttle...

The only reason I posted this was because my sister wanted to be in the picture. Look at her face! hahaha....

Heading into the park.

So excited to see Tiana... (at this point I told them she might still be in Lousiana)

The Hukill Girls

Makenna was so shy with the princesses. Camryn. Not so much.

I would twirl my dress too if I wore that.

Both of their favorite...

Their first rollercoaster

Gavs not scared at all.

Teacups. My sister took my place because I get sick on them.

Autotopia. Lame.

Gavs and his buddy

Our favorite ride

Gavs and Zurg

Look who I found!!! (one of my besties if you didn't know)

All tuckered out. Look at the drool!

See! Brent really was there!

Yay for Buzz!

Brent didn't fit in the rockets. So I had to go twice in a row.

Hanging on the beach.

So warm!!!

So tired!

Exhausted after all their play.

Another year....

Kenna has FINALLY started preschool again! And she loves it. I love it. I think Gavin loves it. She is going to the same place as last year, just a different teacher! And its three days a week... even better!!!

Crappy ending.

I forgot to say why it was a crappy ending... (besides having to leave the hubby up there).

So here is the story. I thought I would be smart and drive Brent's truck (which is a CNG) down to Vegas. Great idea because it costs about $12.00 to fill up. No joke. The problem. Not many pump stations around. Especially in Vegas. So I found one 10 miles away from the airport. No biggie.

Oh yes it was. I had to watch some lame A video six times (not by choice) before the special pump let me fill up. THEN! I saw a Panda Express on the sign as I was getting off. I was so excited. Except I couldn't find the dang restaurant. ANYWHERE. By the time I drove down the same street it said it was on about 30 times, I was bound and determined to really find it. I had GPS on my phone and was literally spinning circles.

Needless to say, I found the Panda

EIGHT.

Brent and I have been married for eight freaking years. I can hardly believe it. It seems like yesterday we were just two kids (literally kids I swear) in love, not being able to keep our hands off each other. OK, so maybe it seems more like a few weeks than yesterday. The ride has been awesome.

We aren't usually ones to go all out for holidays and stuff, but since B was out of town, I was able to get a little spoiled and go visit him on the weekend. My mom was great and took the kids while I went to see him. It was a short trip, but well worth most of it until the end...

Friday when I got there, we were able to check into our hotel and then go shopping in downtown. I thought the shopping would be amazing, and maybe it is in some places, but I couldn't find much until we hit a Ross. I know, totally crazy, but I found two cute shirts there. When we were walking back to the hotel, we (and when I say we, I mean Brent) stopped to see this dude in a full length bright blue unitard. I wish I had my camera. He was doing a puppet show, but it ended up looking like a porn. Seriously. It was crazy. So we left.

Saturday we slept in until 10:30 (yay for us!) and then we headed to our CONCERT! It was in the desert of Washington (it looked like Utah), called The Gorge at George. It took 2 1/2 hours to get there, but once he stood on the stage, it was SO worth it.... He as in KEITH URBAN! If you have ever seen him in concert, you will know what I'm talking about. He is A-MAY-ZING. Oh my gosh. So great.... And SO HOT! WANT TO TOUCH THE HINEY....

Sorry, I got off track a little bit. Anyway, so he performed and then some dude named John Mayer came out and sang a couple of Keith's songs with him... And then he (Keith) finished. And it was wonderful! And then John Mayer came out and did his concert. Which was great. But I'm not going to lie. We left early because it was 10:30 when his part started so we left after a few songs since we had a 2 1/2 hour drive BACK and didn't want to get killed by all of the wasted people getting into their cars. Plus we had to wake up super early the next morning. He was good, but kind of slarvey... but I guess he can be if he's a rock star. The only time I had my camera was at the concert so there are just a few pics.

PS. I know I look nasty. Let me explain. First off, my face hates Seattle. It hates everything really, but especially Seattle. So don't mind the zits. Second, it was an outside venue and we waited two hours before the show started. OK... enjoy! YAY!!!

Waiting with the drunks!

Our "seats"

Gross huh?

Lamp.

As I was finishing my last post (scroll down to next one for your viewing pleasure), Gavin gracefully walked into the office (mind you he has been asleep for 2 1/2 hours) and said, "I want my yamp (lamp) on". And walked back in. So I followed him with the camera to just show everyone how freaking cute he is. Especially when he is tired.

He laid down because he didn't want me to take his pic.

All tucked back in!

Enterprise.

So, I grew up on a farm. That's right. A farm. And when I say farm I mean this. My grandpa has a few horses, cows (we kept one and fed it bottles), my siblings and I each had a sheep that we sold for lots of money ($56 bucks), and my brother once caught a chicken that laid an egg. One egg. I got paid $1.00 per gopher that we caught in the hay field. We were real redneck I tell ya. Oh, and I don't ride horses.

I don't mind going to a rodeo every once in awhile. I don't like the dust, cow poop, or the rodeo clowns voice (have you ever noticed they all have the same fake yeehaw accent!?), but I love going to watch.

However, I DO love the overly expensive candy and pop, snow cones, and all of the girls that think they are all hot stuff in their short shorts and cowboy(girl) boots. If you want to see some awesome fashion, go to the Enterprise Rodeo. That is where we ended up spending the 24th of July this year! Gavin was enthralled the whole time. Every time a bull went back in after the ride, he would go "I want another one out!"

Kenna and Gavs went to chase chickens. Luckily they were kind of late and didn't catch one. What the heck would I do with a chicken!? We stayed for half of the rodeo (and still didn't leave until 10:30). Thanks for dinner at the Red Dog Cafe Dad (don't we sound real redneck!?) and the fun at the rodeo! It was a blast...

Eating at the Red Dog Cafe (I got my sisters good side hopefully)

Gavin's cowboy hat. He didn't want to wear a real one.

Kenna and Cam... aren't they so cute!

Gavs and Pepa. Best buds.

The chicken chase with my little bro.

Seattle and everything in between

I have seriously slacked a lot on blogging. Multiple reasons, which don't matter. Either way, I'm back at it and here I go with our latest vacay of Seattle.

We left last Wednesday at 5:30 AM. It was SO DANG early, but the kids thought it was greatest thing on earth to wake up in the middle of the night to go get on an airplane. When we hit Vegas (and the sun was up) Gavin said, "Yook Mom! The sun is awake!" We got all situated in the airport and then had to wait to board until all of the early bird "A" people boarded. Which unfortunately was half the airplane. By the time I boarded everyone had spread out and there wasn't a row left for the three of us. Meaning I had to get the flight attendants on the PA to tell everyone to scoot over because there wasn't room. We ended up sitting in front of these cute boys with one being named Gavin as well. The kids did AMAZING on the flight and we landed and Gavin saw Brent he said "Yook! There is my dada right over there!" It was super cute, considering he hadn't seen him for 3 1/2 weeks...

Brent took us down to Puyallup (I still can't pronounce it right) where my good friend Cori and her kids were staying! They graciously allowed us to crash their vacation and parents home for the few days we were there. Luckily they were there because Brent had a lot of work to do, so we didn't see him a whole lot.

Thursday, Cori, her sister Honor, and I decided to venture out and take our kids to the Point Defiance Zoo. There were 11 kids and 3 adults and it actually wasn't too bad of a day! Then we went to Cori's dads house to pick raspberries which Makenna refused to eat...

Friday, we went up to Anacortes (or San Juan Islands) and went to Friday Harbor. It was fun except the ferry ride home when Gavin wouldn't stop screaming "ME-MA!" (what he calls my mom) at the top of his lungs for the whole ride. I could have cut his vocal chords after that. We survived though and slept most of the way home!

Saturday we went to a beach called Owen's Beach. Now, if you haven't been up to the Seattle area, their beaches are not sandy or warm. Rather, rocky and freezing cold! But we still had fun and were able to take our sweat shirts off by the middle of the afternoon.

Monday we boarded the plane and came to warm, sunny St. George!!! Thanks to George and Judie for allowing us to crash their basement and to the Hench's for letting us tag along with them! We loved it!

Waiting to board...

Waiting to take off....

Sleeping (supposedly)

Getting ready to land...

Gavin and Gavin

I found about 15 of these pictures on the camera... What a girl!

Here we go!

The zoo (obviously)

Kenna and a goat

Their "real life" spider web

9 of the 11 children.

Kenna the hermit crab

Can you tell its a bit cold?!

I threatened no snacks if they didn't smile....

They smiled and got ice cream for lunch.

At the beach

Aren't they so cute...

Some of the girls

A real crab... Dead, but real

Sunday, we decided to give the Hench's a break from us, so we headed up to downtown Seattle and go to the Pacific Science Center. The kids loved it! There were so many different exhibits to go see. The favorite was the butterfly exhibit, where you went into this huge greenhouse type thing with tropical trees, ponds and so forth with hundreds of different butterflies that just flew randomly. It was awesome. They also had a dinosaur section, circus section, small planetarium, tide pool thing, and other hands on things! It was a blast.

Dinosaur print

They don't ride horses in Seattle

Dressing up in the circus

One of my highlights was our rental vehicle. They were out of the "standard" car, so we ended up getting upgraded to a Ford Flex. It is a funny looking car, but super nice on the inside and it was 'magical'. And this is what I mean by magical.

This is how the kids were most of the time in the car. Even when we went on a two hour drive one way, they both slept 1 1/2 hours of the trip. Both ways. Gavin even fell asleep one time at 9:30 in the morning... what the crap. It was awesome.


For any of you who are interested, this is what Brent's place looks like. I decided to give everyone a visual. (just picture this with a funny smell)

Living room/office

Kitchen (what gave it away)

Brent's bed. Love his bright orange sheets and bedspread. He picked them out all on his own!!!