Girls Weekend 2011!

This post is not helping me get back to reality any sooner. I feel like I'm mentally still on a girls weekend getaway. It was SO much fun. The house was amazing. We were really living in a Pottery Barn catalog. We felt torn between never wanting to leave the house and heading out and about. We left my house Friday morning, which turned out to be bad timing with the tsumami warning that was in force on the coast. What are the odds? But we figured we'd risk it. Actually Troy called the Chamber of Commerce in Lincoln City to find out what was going on, and while they had to evacuate early that morning, everything was pretty much back to normal, other than some larger than normal waves. Here's a quick rundown of the weekend:

-Food. I love that my family loves to eat with me!

-The Beach

-Hot tub

-Staying up late watching movies in the ahem, media room :)

-Sleeping in. Or at least trying to. I think my kids have ruined that for me. I admire Carrie's skills.

-Social worker Kate buying food and dog biscuits for the guy we saw in the parking lot with his dog. He was gone when we came out. We then realized it was a bus stop and perhaps we was waiting for the bus. We tried to find more homeless people with dogs but to no avail. So my family was the recipient of Kate's gifts. Although ironically yesterday the dogs escaped and we can't find them and I think they're gone. More on that later.

-Being surrounded by too much seafood. Only Kate understands. We had steak while everyone else ate that stinky stuff.

-Shopping at the outlets and finally finding a coat I like AND a price I like!

-Pastries

-Birthday Party!!

-Explaining to Carrie who Jimmer is. Sigh. And watching the BYU game

-Dying my hair (thanks mom)

-Walks in the rain

-Mom making sure we weren't turning our backs to the ocean. Thanks mom :)

-Locking the car in the garage. Glad that didn't turn into a disaster

-Lots of laughing (the best part!)

I know the above shot isn't the best, but wasn't it so fun to pig out at 2 am? Really it was 1am, but daylight savings was in effect. Which really made me mad. I lost an hour I could've had! We felt like we HAD to eat the ice cream. We were leaving the next morning and couldn't take it with us, so what were we to do?

MY birthday pie. Got it, Carrie?! :)

Gourmet kitchens really are much funner to cook in!

Seals on the beach. I think they have the life. Basking in the sun. But I think not having arms would make me crazy.

Kate HAD to see the Lincoln statue.

Mousse made from the best chocolate. Thanks Carrie. I'll forgive you for the pie incident.

I think we established that the trip wasn't long enough. We need at least 5 days. Hear that husbands? I will say that I don't worry at all when I'm gone. Troy does a great job with the kids. I told him the only things I worry about are the kids eating zero vegetables when I'm gone and their teeth not getting brushed. (they can never seem to remember to do that on their own. You'd think after several YEARS of a routine they'd see a pattern.) But those are just little things compared to keeping the kids alive, which is really all that matters, right?

Happy Birthday Brooke!!

It's 4 days late, but Happy Birthday Brooke!!
I'm so glad that we were able to party with you on your birthday and be there to celebrate.

Brooke is such a wonderful person, she is beautiful, hilarious, loving and super easy-going.
She is the best oldest sister- and really set a wonderful example for the rest of us.

We love you Brooke!!!
Hope you got spoiled when you got home from your girls trip! :)

2 birthdays, visit from 2 Grandma's, and eggs!!!!

Abby eyeing her larger-than-life balloon...her only gift from her cheap-skate parents. C'mon...she's 2!!! And she got wonderful presents from her Grandmas!!!

She really took to her new baby from Grandma Lambourne! Here she is feeding it...

Her Doggie cake! (her current obsession)

Supervising me putting an outfit on her baby (she's a bit of an overbearing mother....)

Great-Grandma Gubler and Lizzie. Liz is wearing her new dress from Grandma Crowley! Liz is our talker, she never stops! Grandma's lack of hearing wasn't even a deterrent to her constant stream of conversation!

We drove to Overton, where Grandma & Grandpa lived as newlyweds. There was a Gubler Bridge!

At the Lost City Muesum in Overton. Pretty fascinating. They rebuilt this Pueblo house on top of the originial foundation. Kids can run inside and check out all the rooms. It's pretty impressive. Inside were a lot of neat Indian items, and even a guy there evaluating people's found artifacts. Think Antiques Roadshow. He was sitting, analyzing things people brought in. It was really interesting to hear him.

We stopped at Valley of Fire before Overton. We camp here sometimes, and so did the Gublers when first married.

Lizzie's birthday! What a card!

Her cake. She's 5!!

Also, we're getting eggs! All shapes and sizes, too!

Going out and checking for eggs is a highlight of the girls' day.

We Love Kate!

Can't let the day go without saying
Happy Birthday to Kate. So she isn't
so good at flying Dad's new helicopter!
(It got caught in her hair) We love
her strong, sweet, goodness.

Grandma's 87th Birthday in Vegas!

I took mom to Vegas for her birthday!

We enjoyed visiting the Lambournes

and seeing the sites!

We went to the Valley of Fire, and Overton, where mom and dad first

lived after they got married.
We went to the Bellagio for a birthday

lunch. It was great fun.

Mom kept looking for a 25 cent slot

machine, but couldn't find one.

SPOKANE

Right after Christmas we loaded up, dogs and all, and headed for Spokane. The day we got there was Grandpa Whittle's 100th birthday. Glenn and Cheryl put together a nice evening celebrating grandpa. Everyone was there except for Tani's oldest boys, Kyle and Carson who are serving missions. Grandpa is still going strong and has always had a funny sense of humor. He doesn't remember everyone's name, but he can still recall a lot of memories of his life. And 100 years worth of memories is a lot!

All the Whittle grandkids and great-grands.

I love this picture. The Whittle siblings are always quick to pull pranks-here they told Glenn this was going to be a 'make a weird face' picture and at the last minute they put on their normal faces while Glenn continued on with the weird face. :) I think this is frame worthy!

Oh, these girls. They are always up to something. It usually involves dance moves, hair flips and lots of giggling. I'm so glad Audrey has these girls to grow up with. She just loves them!

Alex and Addy (Tyler's daughter) are the same age. Although Addy's vocabulary puts mine to shame! She and Alex were have a piano competition. They kept telling each other they were playing the wrong keys and would point to the sheet music as if they knew what they were talking about. Well, maybe Addy really did.

Nathan brought their popcorn machine and treated everyone to yummy popcorn.

We were treated to an awesome snow storm while we were there. It was so beautiful! Alex and Cody loved stompin around outside til their hands were too cold.

Sasquatch and Duke (Glenn's dog) got to be good buddies.

Snow Football!!

Nice catch Troy! See below for post catch:

And here's another:

I think his words after this were "When did I get to be so old?"

Troy and Nathan were so proud of the deal they found on Seahawks Jerseys.

Anyway, we had a fun time. It's amazing how so many people can fit under one roof at Glenn and Cheryl's. And I think everyone got along too!

I am only a month behind.....These are out of order, so deal with it :)

Mmm...mom's sausage casserole. Amazingly, my whole family loves it!

I love these pictures of Audrey because she is HAPPY! I found this jewlery box at DI and repainted it and added some cheap jewlery inside. She was very pleased!

She loves the bathrobe mom got for her. She wears it to bed almost every night.

Waiting to come up the stairs. We told them they couldn't wake us up before 6:30am. To wake us up Devon played his trumpet, which is a tradition in Troys family. Troy told me they would get their intruments and play them super loud VERY early in the morning.

Santa came!