Well I guess since it has been a couple of months, it is about time for me to catch up. For halloween this year, the girls picked out these matching costumes, they just each picked their own color, so this was all their idea, I had absolutely nothing to do with it, I even tried to get them to pick other things, but they were adamant about these, which is fine, cause they are super cute!! Anyway, we started our parties with a trunk-or-treat in Sal's boss's stake, and they go all out!! Games, prizes, cupcakes, toys, and all this even before the trunk-or-treat begins. So they came home with bags full of treats from this. Then was our wards trunk-or-treat, and this year it was really big compared to last year being pretty small. They had a nacho supreme dinner, and games for the kids, then the trunk-or-treat.

Tycee did more handing out this night than she did getting candy!

Ariana was gone the whole night with her friends going around and around, so she made up for Tycee not getting much.

Even Mia wanted to keep going around, and she wouldn't even let me touch her bag to help her, she had to do it herself!!

I even got in the action with a VERY hot pink wig!!

Then Sal got some free tickets to Elitch Gardens, we even got VIP tickets, so we didn't have to wait in line, which was great for Sal and I so we could go to the front of the line, then just take turns on the rides that we wanted to go on. It was great! Ariana is getting to that point where she is getting to big for the kiddy rides, but not quite big enough for the big rides, so here she is not very happy about the kiddy swings, she did go on the big swings later and loved it. So I decided to let her try a roller coaster, just an up and down one, no upside down or loops. She was really nervous, but she did it, she was kind of scared during the ride, but she did great, but decided that she would wait and try again next year, or the year after!!

Mia is old enough now to go on the kiddy rides and she loved the boats!!

So this year we had a great Halloween and hope all you did too!!

Our newest addition!!!!

Our local animal shelter was overcrowded with cats, so they were giving them away for free, so we though this would be a good chance to get the pet that the girls have been begging for!! So we took them to the shelter for our family home evening one night and we met this little cuttie!! We had a hard time deciding between her and another grey cat, but the deciding factor was this one was only 8 months old, and the other was 2 years. The Hawaiian word for cat is Popoki, so we just shortened it and named her Poki.

She has taken over Mia's chair as her own, and then Mia put a towel on her as a blanky so she could sleep!!

Peaks and Gorges

Sal's brother and family came to visit for a week this summer, so we took a little camping trip. First we drove to the top of Pikes Peak which is 14,115 feet high, and silly me, I forgot my camera, but here are a couple that I stole from my brother-in-law. The drive is very pretty, but a little scary, it is a small dirt road that pretty much has a straight drop off one side. And it is so steep, that they actually have a break check about halfway back down, if your brakes are to hot, they make you stop and wait.

A very pretty little lake that was so clear and warm, but the chipmunks are crazy!! The kids had a hard time holding still for this next pic, cause there was a chipmunk that kept chasing them!! Then we went to Royal Gorge, it is a huge gorge that has one of the biggest suspension bridges in the world.

This is one of the little trains that takes you down into the gorge.

You are crammed into these little cages, standing only, then you go down the track very slowly!!

The view looking down, you can't even see the bottom!!

looking back up

A view of the bridge

now looking down into the gorge from the bridge

This is looking down between the cracks of the bridge, yes that is a real train down there!! This river is the Arkansas river.

And here is another shot of the bridge, those are cars on there!! It is 955 feet high, and 1260 feet long. It is said to be one of the top ten scariest bridges in the world, and we walked across it!! I couldn't stop walking though, cause if you stopped, you could feel the bridge swaying from the wind!!

There was this cute little area there that was like a little old town that had lots of fun stuff to play on, this chair was one of my favorites!!

Sal wanted a pic of him doing a hand stand on the bridge, crazy!!

And then, a very pretty sunset over the mountains!! Lots of fun!!

Butterfly

Tycee started an insect section at school and started learning a lot about butterflies. They even took a field trip to the Butterfly Pavilion. During this time, we found a chrysalis (I learned from Tycee that it is not a cocoon, those are for moths!!) on our front porch attached to the rocks. So we watched and watched for a couple of weeks, and nothing happened. I started thinking it was dead, but finally, on our way home from Tycee's last day of kindergarten, as we were walking into the house, Tycee noticed the butterfly. It was beautiful!! I was expecting a Monarch or something more common!! We sat and watched it for about five minutes, even Mia sat and watched it, and kept pointing to it saying "pretty!" Then it climed up the wall and flew away. What a fun experience that was, to check on it everyday, and then lucky enough to see it when it came out. If we had been just a couple minutes later, or gone in another door we would have missed it!! Tycee was so excited!!

Isn't it beautiful? I love the blue at the bottom! You can see the chrysalis to the left, amazing that it fit in there!!

*I learned that this is a Tiger Swallowtail, usually found in the eastern United States, and that it is a female, the males do not have the blue on the bottom. How lucky we were that it came this far west!!

Camp-in

We finally finished our deck a few weeks ago, so we decided to camp out on it, so after getting all set up, and snacks and movies set up, it started getting really windy, and the tent almost blew into our neighbors backyard!! The girls were so sad, so we decided to just take the tent inside. We had just as much fun sleeping in the tent inside as we would have outside!!

Jungle Quest

Sal's company gave him some gift certificates to Jungle Quest for Christmas. We had never heard of this place, so Sal took a day off and we went. It is way fun!! It is a bunch of zip lines, huge rope swings, rope bridges, and rock walls, all for kids!! They can just keep going as much as they can for an hour and a half. They were a little nervous at first, but after a while they were doing tricks! You can see Ariana flipped upside down on the swing. Lots of fun!!

Can't touch this!!

Christmas of course!

We got this tree at the local grocery store for $30, (after looking at tree lots and not seeing anything under $60) so we didn't think it was going to be that great, but after it started warming up, it really plumped up!! I loved it!!

Mia even got in the action of decorating, but it didn't take long for her to just take them right back off!!
The final product!!!! It was so pretty!! And smelled really good too!!

Christmas morning, they came in my room about 7:00 and we made them lay down for another hour, then I made them wait until I could get the camera ready so I could get this great shot of their faces!!

Lots of Wii games, movies and a few new dolls, and this cute little quad that we can't get Mia off of!! Over all it was a great Christmas, not a lot, but it was so nice to have Christmas in our own home!!

Merry Christmas!!

We wish everyone a wonderful Christmas, and very best wishes for the new year!!!!