The Jubilee of Trees

You may know it as the Festival of Trees, but in St. George we call it the Jubilee of Trees. Same concept as it's northern counterpart, just a whole lot smaller. We enjoy our small town St. George festivities anyway!


Every year we go to the Dickens Festival (in St. George) just to get our pictures taken with the best Santa there ever was! We have pictures with this Santa every Christmas since Brylie was tiny. Unfortunately we will be in Disneyland this year during the Dickens Festival and won't get our annual Santa picture. (I almost considered cancelling Disneyland when I discovered this dilemma!) Michael talked some sense into me, and with much regret I had to settle for the Jubilee of Trees Santa.



What is the scariest thing you can think of for a 2 year old?................................................................

Well Santa of course. Think about it. Old guy with a weird outfit and a beard trying to hold you on his lap. If I was 2 I'd run and scream too! Which is exactly what my little boy did. After a lot of convincing and bribing, I was able to get him to be in the picture with me sitting on Santa's lap and holding Cody. He still wouldn't take the candy cane from Santa and I had to get it and give it to him later.



We also had the opportunity to check out the newest life flight helicopter for Dixie. It was fun to look inside and get in a real helicopter. The kids loved it.

Trick or Treat

We had a fun Halloween trick or treating with cousins. First we went to my parent's ward trunk or treat. Thats the easiest and fastest way to get the most candy. And they got a lot of candy. Cody really enjoyed trick or treating this year, but that wasn't a suprise to us because candy really is his specialty. The boy has got a major sweet tooth. He walked right up to people and yelled trick or treat at the doors. If they held out candy to put in his bag he would bypass them and go to the candy bowl to pick out his own candy. We found out later when we got home that he was hoarding m&m's. Lots and lots of m&m's.

Sadie was a cute little cheetah. At our ward Halloween party I had painted a black nose and whiskers on her. After about ten minutes it was smeared all over her face from her finger sucking. I opted not to paint her face on Halloween.

I love this picture because I thought I had taken a nice cute picture of Brylie and Cody. After I loaded the pictures on the computer and looked at them closely I noticed Cody's face. He can be such a clown sometimes. Actually most of the time.

Colton had the Obama mask on as his costume and we got a lot of comments about it. One lady even gave him a whole bag of candy because she thought he had the best costume.

Cody carried his bag of candy the whole time. Even when it got really heavy. He wouldn't let anybody touch it for fear of never seeing it again.

Carving Pumpkins

Michael's sister, Cammie, and her family came to visit for Halloween weekend. We had so much fun with them that we need to make it a tradition to do Halloween every year in St. George with them! On Friday night the adults went to Thriller at Tuacahn. It was sooo good! I have gone to Thriller many times over the years, but it is by far the best at Tuacahn. The setting there just adds so much!

Saturday morning we carved our pumpkins. These pictures are really out of order but you get the idea.

Cammie and Sadie.

Cheese!

Our cute little pumpkin!

For some reason Cody decided it would be fun to stick his tongue out in pictures now. He did it in a lot of the pictures for this weekend.

Cody attempting to draw the face on his pumpkin.

We love the Beach!

My kids could spend days at the beach. That was their favorite part of our San Diego trip. We spent 2 days at the beach and they couldn't get enough.


There was only one problem. What do you do with a baby at the beach? Sadie hung out in her stroller or we carried her. We couldn't put her down or she would have eaten a lot of sand!


Nothing like a quick oreo break! Grandma brings all the good snacks!

Cody lived in the sand. He got in the water a few times, but mostly just did sand.

He's collecting seaweed in his bucket.

My brother, Carl and his son Ethan boogie boarding. They even convinced me to get out there and try it. It was so much fun!

Cody running from the waves. This was the first night at the beach and he wasn't so sure about the water yet.

We collected a lot of good seashells.

We love the beach and can't wait to go back again!

San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park

Tired of being the forever hunting widow, I decided to do things different this year! While Michael was deer hunting, the kids and I went to San Diego. My parents, my brother and two of his kids went as well. We had a blast! I think this could become a good tradition..... fun vacations during the hunt!

On the second day in San Diego we went to the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park. It ended up being really hot that day, but we had fun anyway!

Cody and Ethan.

Brylie and Brooklyn.

They had a big hot air balloon that Cody thought was really cool. No we did not ride in it. At the cost of $70 we opted to just pose for pictures with it!

There was this really cool area where you could buy a small cup of nectar and feed it to the birds. The kids liked that a lot. Cody fed his bird for a second and then took his cup and dumped it upside down. Enough of that!

They also had fun in the petting area. We bought some food to feed the deer and the kids thought that was so fun the way the deer slurped it up with their long tongues.

Even Sadie got in on the action.

So much fun on the merry go round.

We had so much fun. We'll have to go back again sometime!