DISNEYLAND ...and... WAY too much going on!

Obviously, blogging has NOT been a priority for me as of late! Sorry, for any of you who don't get to see us all that often & care, that I've kept you out of the loop!! I realized that my last post was from mid-July, so a LOT has happened since!

August was a pretty big month. I turned a whopping 26 -and I actually feel younger than I did turning 25, so I think that's a good thing. Rachel & Sam started school as well. At the end of the month, Chuck started a new semester at BYU, therefore stopping his job as a clinical engineer at Intermountain HomeCare. This semester is his first of the last three! One year from now we'll be getting ready for graduation!!! I can hardly wait for this period of life to be FINALLY over!

I am really enjoying the journey in the meantime, though. The kids are doing just great & I am having a lot of fun with Mary Kay, as always :)

September was pretty much just a month of getting into the swing of the new schedule & prepping for Disneyland!

On October 2nd, we left for Disneyland. It had been more than 10 years since I'd been and more than 13 since Chuck had been. Both of our families used to visit Disneyland ALL the time, so we were both SOOO ready to go back. It was so great to get to take our kids, who love Disney as much as we do. I think Sara may have enjoyed it the most! She is the most animated little girl and she laughed & giggled & wiggled the whole time.

We got to go with my family, so we still got to ride on some big-kid rides, too.

It was pretty rainy the whole time, but it was misty rain, so it wasn't bad. It made for shorter lines! On Tuesday night, we got to go to Mickey's Halloween Party & went Trick-or-Treating in Disneyland!! Our family is "almost" just right for the Incredible's Family: Sara's just a girl instead of a boy... but she's just the right age & has red hair, so we made her Jack-Jack anyway!

 It was so much fun to dress up, but the funnest part was unexpected -we got so many fun comments on our whole family being dressed up. There was even a family who asked for our picture! Their little boy is a big Incredibles Fan & he thought it was just great. We got so much candy, it was ridiculous! We even waited in line to see Mickey & Minnie in their Halloween costumes.

All of the characters couldn't get enough of Sara. She's just too hard not to smile at & touch her chubby rolls!

We took part of the day on Thursday to drive to Huntington Beach & show the kids the Ocean. They loved it! It was really fun to go back & play in the water. The weather had cleared up enough to at least play a bit. Rachel even got knocked over &; covered by a wave and it didn't even faze her! She just got back up & ran around, playing.

Sam came into the water with me for a bit, but decided he preferred playing in the sand.

Sara liked both the water & the sand.

 We really weren't planning on being able to stay too long anyway, but then I got stung by a sting ray.

 I knew it wasn't a normal cut from a shell or glass or something, because it felt like a really bad bee sting. I made it back up the beach, but when I sat down, I knew I wasn't going to be able to get back up & walk. Then, shortly, I went into shock, my dad called 911 who got the lifeguard to us, Rachel got really scared & I spent an hour in the lifeguard building soaking my foot in scalding hot water. So fun :) It still hurts a bit, but I'm just glad it was me & not one of my babies!

The rest of Thursday & Friday were our last days in Disneyland. It was so much fun to take the kids on all the rides & watch their eyes light up.

They loved the characters, but we didn't get to see too many of them because of the rain :( We decided we're going to work really hard to go back every year! The kids all loved it, we loved it and I can't wait to go back!

We drove there and back. We rented a Chrysler Town & Country and I fell in love! It was such a great vehicle with so much room! My dad set up DVD players in the back seats for Rachel & Sam. Sara slept a lot of the time. So, they all did really well on both trips. On our way there, we stopped in Henderson, NV and visited the strip. Not so much what I remembered it to be :( Pretty much porn everywhere, yuck. When we got back to the hotel that night, Rachel was looking out the window while we were changing into jammies & I told her she really needed to keep the window shades closed. Her response: "But Mom! I'm looking at the world!" I had to try really hard not to laugh because all I could think was, "Yes. Yes you are." The "world" was definitely what she was looking at.


Luckily, the next day was Sunday and we got to stop and visit the Las Vegas LDS Temple and the LA Temple before we got to our hotel across the street from Disneyland. The LA Temple had the visitors center open, so we got to go in & feel the Spirit. That was nice since we didn't get to listen to much of General Conference with the different frequencies while we were driving.

Driving home was just a straight drive, but it was fine because the trip home always seems shorter than the trip there. We mostly missed the post-BYU game traffic when we hit Provo. We got home, unloaded the cars & got pizza!

This week, I got really sick on Wednesday and it has royally sucked. I don't remember being sick like this since I was a kid (not including pregnancy, obviously :)! I'm still not feeling better, hence this blog getting updated while I miss church.

Hope you at least enjoyed the pictures of my adorable kids!

Problems with Pictures

So, apparently, I can't access the pictures I want to right now, but I'm working to get it fixed so you can all see how big Rachel, Sam & Sara have gotten!

Before I update you on what's happening, I'm linking to Little Birdie Secrets website to get an entry to win a Silhouette machine :) http://www.littlebirdiesecrets.com/ See July 8, 2010 post!

So.. what's happening around here is pretty crazy. Chuck & I realized that there is a light at the end of the School Tunnel. If he goes full time, there are only 3 semesters left! AHHH! We have decided to bite the bullet and just get it DONE. This means a lot of change. Chuck will be quitting his job at Intermountain HomeCare. No, he will not be getting another job right now. He'll just become my full-time assistant and a full-time student, bless his heart. I will be increasing my time working my Mary Kay business to work 20 hours a week. We've spent enough time dilly dallying on the decision for me to become a sales director over the last few years, we're ready to make it happen. I'm sure some of you will think we're crazy for doing things this way. We have such a fantastic setup with my parents, that, for now, we'll be continuing to stay here until Chuck finishes his degree in 18 months, as challenging as it may be.

I have had enough amazing things happen in the past with Mary Kay that I KNOW we can do it again plus WAY more. Both of us feel that this is what we need to do. Chuck REALLY just needs to finish his degree so that we can move on with our lives. We both know that we want me to become a National Sales Director before the kids start high school and that Chuck needs to be in CES (the Church Educational System).

We are both very nervous, but also very sure & excited for these changes to take place. School starts at the end of August, so that's when we'll start going crazy ;)

Okay, so here's some fun updating on the kiddo's:

Rachel & Sam will start school at the beginning of August and they're both super excited! Sara can roll over both ways now & is working on continuous rolling! She also scoots a few inches when she's on her tummy- she really wants to play with the other two! She has the cutest face when she's concentrating on something, I'll try to get a picture of it. Sara's also INCREDIBLY chunky!! Right now, I'm pretty sure she's about 17 pounds and she turns 5 months this week: beating both Rachel and Sam by about 3 pounds when they were this age, ha ha!

All in all, I'm so excited to finally be seeing the light at the end of so many tunnels. Of course, I wish it could all happen right now, but I know that if I can just be patient, we'll be in such an amazing place by Christmas 2011. Done with school, driving a Pink Cadillac (heck yes I'll drive it!) and IN OUR OWN HOME with a HUGE YARD!!!! (with no extra debt, of course)

A big, huge thanks to all of you for your love, friendship, support and for reading about my life :)