fire fire fire!!!!

congratulations to my brother Andrew,

today he became an official fireman for salt lake city's fire department!!!! woot woot!!!!!

Andrew's next goal.... make it into the fireman calendar!!!!

happy mothers day!

one of the silly things about blogs is that they know no bounds, and yet all bloggers stand together squished in a tight little square blogging about the same event.  so don't be surprised, (if you keep reading beyond this point), that i'm adding my girth to the over populated blogging bubble by posting about the...

george amongst the pansies!

tulip festival at thanksgiving point! 

but maybe I can help burst the bubble just a little with an assortment of crazy photo's. my family did a little more then just smell the flowers!

sweet lovely dovey

we started like every other visitor hoping to catch some rays and ooh and awe at the rainbow of tulips on parade.  but that got boring pretty fast. my dad was the first to snap, he let andrew know that his "two lips" were just as thrilling as the tulips...

mckay was a close second....

clearly we would have to think of different ways to jazz things up for these two, (and get a little more participation out of mckay).  thankfully no one in our family likes to be out done by the other, here's how the rest of the tulip festival was spent...

a detailed description from left to right.  My mom thought it would be awesome to all join hands like gaggy lame-o's and frolic toward the camera while snapping a series of shots. it didn't work out and a second attempt didn't pan out either, we just got to look like a wacko family more then once... I spy george?... my mom thought she was so funny and would stop to take self portraits of herself... a robust mckay...bumming a ride with noah... yes, they are twins...mckay flaunting his manhood... three pansies... the last two pics on the bottom, andrew and mckay were showing us how to frolic, while my dad, mckay and matt proved they still had squatting skills.

we may have looked like visions of loviness amoungest the tulips, but our real skills were in sculpture...

my mom went first and then my dad one uped her, so she spent the rest of the shoot trying to come up with a better pose.  I think my dad won this round. james really is a lurp.

 we were pretty sun fried and worn out by the days end. but it was really fun! I now know why it was the number one thing to blog about! I hope you all enjoyed our tulip festival showcase.

george sure did!!

the most wonderful place on earth.....

we took a little road trip over spring break to bask in the hip sunny waves of california! and also to drop in on Scott and Jana and their huge family! hahah, just teasing five kids really isn't that many....

all the cousins in front of old town's cousin candy shop! 

 of course no trip to california would be complete if we didn't venture out amongst the crowds at the happiest place on earth!!!!! yes, we packed up the wee ones and made our way to disneyland!!! 

it was debated on the drive to the park who was the most excited.  I think we found it landed in a tie between these two...

thing one and thing two, just kept going and going and going an...

 it was the best two days ever! and we didn't waste one moment in the magical kingdom! from one ride to the next we raised our hands and screamed with delight!!!!!! (mostly jane) we spinned and twirled and twisted through the days!!! it was awesome!!!

the teacups were a majority favorite!!! whee!

here are the brave thrill seekers, (though the pictures may show otherwise) who ran from one big roller coaster to the next.  jane asked us over and over when she could ride the Matterhorn again and the dark roller coaster a.k.a space mountain.  in the famous words of Jane "i'm not afraid of anything". and she really wasn't!

all the j's plus scott on the BIG roller coasters!

Hannah, George, Macy, Olivia, Sam and I liked the smaller rides a little better. you can never go wrong with the classics. we yo-ho'd on pirates, flew to never land with peter pan, carousel-ed in the blue lagoon and king Arthur's court, drove wild with Mr.toad and chugged along with Casey junior.

fantasy land!

here are some of our toon town delights!

the trip was over too soon!!! we decided two days is not long enough when you are going to visit mickey and his gang! we are already wishing our next visit will come sooner rather then later and more family will join us!!! 

fun fun fun!

 and there was our easter vacation! george hopped home...

 and we all wished we were still there! 

to all who think disneyland is to expensive, to crowded, to hot or to lame then you don't know what you are missing! we had a fantastic time in california!!!!!!