...and now (finally) I'll explain the picture.

That is one of the most beautiful places Cameron and I saw on our 10th wedding anniversary trip. We went to California to stay at a nice resort in Windsor. We rented a car and drove down (to save money of course) but we were also able to drive a couple hours out of our way to see some famous stuff. That is the Bay Bridge. We waited at the toll gate for over an hour to see this huge bridge.
This is Lombard Street; a very steep road that is famous for it's 8 switchbacks wich make it one of the crookedest roads in the world. It is also famous because it has been on the show Mythbusters. Ever heard of it?
It was also neat to be in San Fransisco and physically be on those famous steep roads you always see in shows like Full House and lots of other movies.

And of course you should all recognize this one. We were rushed for time to get some pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was getting dark fast with the storm clouds rolling in. But I think it's a pretty neat picture none-the-less.

We checked into the resort late that night but still got up early the next day to go do a rather strenuous hike through some giant redwood trees.

After that workout we needed to eat, but we also wanted to drive over to see the ocean at Bodega Bay. So we drove around a town on the way, randomly looking for a place to eat. There were no fast food joints or for that matter any recognizable restaurants in the little town, and we almost past this place. We were so glad we didn't. "The Rivers End" was an incredibly romantic, tiny little place with an amazing view and even more amazing food. We felt very underdressed and almost didn't know what to do when we couldn't find any soda pop anywhere on the menu. You either ordered wine, really expensive water, or mixed drinks (luckily they had virgin varieties). It was the most expensive meal I've ever had in my life but completely worth it and perfect for the occasion. I would and will recomend that place to everybody.

We sat right next to that picture window there and this balcony looked out to where the Russian River meets the Pacific Ocean. So we got to enjoy the beautiful view from that picture I posted a couple months ago while we melted from the pleasure of tasting the most delicious food ever. Seriously we couldn't have picked a more perfect place if I'd done hours of research looking for one.

Anyway, that was in my opinion probably the best part of the trip, but there's more so we better move on. We did drive down to Bodega Bay after dinner but the storm clouds rolled in again so we took a few pictures in the cold and then drove back to the resort.

The next morning we were scheduled for some R&R. This resort pictured below was recommended to us for its wonderful mud baths and natural spring water pool. So we both had our first experience with mud baths. They use the ash and other mud stuff from the valcano the resort was built on and it's all really good for your skin. It feels neat too. Then you get to go sit out by the budda pond and relax some more. But we had more places to see so we jumped in the pool to try that out. It was weird not having any kids around...I mean none at all. It was the most quiet pool I've ever been too.

Lastly we went to have a tour of one of the many vineyards and wineries in Sanoma county. I swear we drove past 20 of them just to get to this one. But it was a beautiful place and actually a very neat tour. It was cool to learn how they make wine and champaigne, both back in the old days and now with more modern machinery.

Most of the tours closed at 6 so the rest of our final evening was spent just chilling back at the resort, vegging in the hot tub, cuddling while watching a movie, and getting some food to eat back at our room. We would have loved to stay and experience more new things but we missed our girls and were excited to get back home to them. So early next morning we got up and drove 11 hours to get home. But it was a wonderful trip to spend with my wonderful husband. Here's to 10 more years together, cheers!

Side Tracked

I have been meaning to update my blog this whole summer. So I finally get myself motivated to get it done and I get sidetracked updating pictures and changing around some of the fun stuff.

...Now it's late and my eyes are getting blurry so I'm just going to post this awesome picture and say there is an explanation to come soon. =)

An early Spring Break

My Aunt and Uncle invited us to go to St. George and party with them a long time ago. Lately, it has gotten to a point this winter where Cameron, myself(especially) and probably the rest of my family needed some nice weather and a short vacation so we took them up on that offer. The weather followed Murphy's law however, and rained on us all day Saturday and then cleared up and was beautiful as soon as it was time to come home. But we didn't let that stops us from having lots of fun. Here are some pictures in random order.

The girls were very worn out when bed time came. But they were extremely excited to be staying at a "hotel" as they called it.

The kids and the big boys had fun playing on the golf course just outside Lisa's back door.

Darts in Wayne's garage!

Computers and video games on the Xbox was another fun activity for the boys!

Scrapbooking was the activity of choice for the girls!

Swimming was fun for everybody!

Our next trip will be to Arizona to bask in the nice weather there and visit Cameron's sister and her family. We just need to scrape some money together for gas (it's a bit further away) and get some time off work so we can stay longer than just a 2 day weekend.

Chuck-e-CHEESE!

Erica has been dying to go back to Chuck-e-Cheese since we went there for Sam's birthday back in June. Knowing that, I made the mistake of telling her that was where we were going for her birthday. So she kept asking me if it was time to go every five minutes for about a week straight! Needless to say she was very excited when we got there and couldn't sit still long enought to eat her pizza or her piece of cake. =)

Sammy discovered the greatest game ever...Skee ball! She did very well at it and played only that game until she ran out of tokens.

Erica also had a great time and was very worn out when it was all said and done. Happy 4th birthday sweetheart. We love you!

P.S. I want to thank all of the family who came out to support her. I appreciate you coming even though it was busy and noisy and hard to converse with each other. She had fun and that's the point right. =)

Party like it's 1999!

We said we'd always stay in touch and so we decided to plan a party and get a bunch of the old roommates we had down at Snow College together again. But we didn't want to exclude the husbands, and then we didn't want to worry about babysitters, or big crowds at restaurants and so we decided to do a pot luck dinner at my house with the whole crew. Everybody had a blast eating navajo taco's, playing rock band, and simply talking about the past and the future.

The kids all played great together. We had 6 girls and one boy down in the play room! I couldn't get a picture of them all together. It was cute to see Samantha, who is a bit older than the other kids, playing the voluntary babysitter. =)

It was sad to see the evening end, so hopefully we can do it again soon.

A quick review!

Sorry, I am behind again...2 whole holidays behind this time. =) So we are just gonna do a quick review. Christmas was fun as always with lots of family activities. Here is Christmas Eve.

We are very grateful for what we already have and the things we have been blessed with this year. But I am sad to say that I got pretty sick in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve and wasn't feeling any better the next morning so I didn't take a single picture Christmas morning or later that day. It's aweful! I am really going to have to borrow some of the great pictures the rest of you took. Here are the girls decorating the tree a month earlier. Those are their favorite ornaments (Sam made hers at school).We also saw the lights at temple square. Many other activities took place this month, like going to the Treehouse Museum with cousins, making gingerbread trains with grandma, and game night for the Baldwin Christmas party.

Also during our time off we had a blast speeding down hills with one of the new toys we got from Santa. We tried a huge hill in Ogden but it scared the girls a bit so we tried a smaller hill closer to home and they had an absolute blast on that one. Erica got over her fears first and started going down backwards. Sammy also got braver and raced mom and dad down the hill. It was a TON of fun!

The were troopers climbing back up the hill each time and pulling there own sleds.

They had so much fun Cameron couldn't even shake them off the sled! he he he.

And then comes the New Year. We decided to try something new and different for New Years Eve this year and so we went down to a party at one of my best friends from my early child hood years. She lives an hour away and we didn't want to be driving home so late at night so we took our trailer down and stayed over night in that. It was neat to be able to do that. The party was lots of fun too. The girls were excited to play with all the other kids that were there. Overall a great night.

That's it for now. Enjoy every second of 2010!