In-N-Out Kickoff Dinner

The week after Valentine's Day, Corey and I got to go to Anaheim and attend the annual Kickoff Dinner for In-N-Out. Corey has been able to attend a few of these before as the guest of his older sister, who used to be a store manager with In-N-Out. But this was his first one as a store manager himself.

It was all very fancy. They flew us down there and put us up in the Disneyland Hotel. Corey and I spent the afternoon walking around "Downtown Disney", which is the area between the hotels and the Disneyland entrance. There was a lot to see and we think our kids would be thrilled just to be there. We stopped in at the Lego store just to look around and went into another store to look for souvenirs but couldn't find anything we wanted to pick up for the kids. Then we went to our hotel room to nap and then get ready for the dinner.

We arrived at the dinner right at 6 pm, but didn't realize that the dinner wasn't actually until 7 pm, it was pre-dinner cocktails and hors d'oeuvres from 6 to 7--we had soda and some of the interesting .  Still, we walked around and tried to say hello to everyone that we really wanted to see--people Corey knew from his dad and people we knew from California and Arizona with In-N-Out and people who had gone on to Texas with In-N-Out.  It was really nice to see some old faces.

Then we sat down for a fancy dinner and the awards.  The food was very good, but I got so full quickly and was unable to even eat my dessert, which you see pictured above.  You also can't see in the pictures above my fancy red shoes.  It was fun to get all dressed up and we will get to do this every year (well, every third year they don't have a dinner but send all the managers and their guest to Hawaii if they meet certain goals in that time--so here's hoping for Hawaii 2014!).  Just one of the perks of management.

The next morning, Corey and I decided to order room service for breakfast before leaving the hotel for the airport.  Quite a few of the other managers were staying an extra day to go to Disneyland, some of them had even brought their kids.  We're hoping that we can do that too sometime, maybe not next year, but maybe in 2015.  Then the kids will get to experience the Disneyland Hotel.  We were very fortunate to be able to have had the same baby-sitter for the kids overnight that we had for our In-N-Out thing in January.  Things went well but we were glad to get home and the kids were glad for us to get home.

Big Baby Boy

Jonah is eleven months old now, as of February 11th.  He is such a cutie; we all just love him so much.  He loves to play with his big brothers and follows them all over the house.  Here, he is trying to play Harry Potter Legos with Travis.  Good thing he can't quite reach yet.  Legos is one thing the boys are always playing but Jonah is not allowed because of the choking hazard and he always gets so upset when he can't be with his brothers while they're playing.  He does have some old Duplo Legos of Travis and Eliza's that he will play with, but he knows it's not the same thing as the cool Legos that his older brothers are playing with.  I can't believe that he is almost ONE!

Valentine's Day

We didn't do much on Valentine's Day this year. I tried to make it a day for the whole family to celebrate. The older boys had their parties at school. I was going to have a preschool party for Eliza and Travis to invite some of their friends from church and play games, decorate cookies, etc., similar to some I've done in the past, but I never got around to organizing it, which is okay since I ended up sick all that week anyway.

I did do a special dinner for the whole family. I decorated the table with flowers and hearts. I also made a special valentine for each member of the family (minus Jonah--too little for valentines!) and put it by their plates. For dinner, we had a delicious meal of steak, steamed vegetables, rolls, and red jello with bananas.  I mixed up a special drink of strawberry-kiwi juice mixed with 7-up.  We had a big cookie cake from Mrs. Fields, of which I forgot to take a picture.  But it was a very nice dinner.  I think we'll make that a tradition rather than going out. 

Chair Train

During the week, we mostly just pick up the house every night so it is clutter free, but on the weekends we do more of a deep cleaning. The kids have chores that rotate each Saturday based on their weekly chore. One child cleans the bathrooms, one of them sweeps and mops the hard floors, one of them vacuums the carpets, and one of them picks up the dog poop in the backyard. Whenever they sweep and mop the kitchen floor, they have to move all the chairs to the front room. Often, they set up the chairs in a line and then play train. Here, they've even included Jonah in playing train.

Temple Square and Cousins

In January, we got to see some of our Fowles side cousins who were in Utah for a couple of days.  We met up with them at Temple Square and walked around, even though it was FREEZING outside!  The kids had fun.  After walking around Temple Square and spending time inside the Visitor's Centers, we also went to the children's section of the Church History Museum.

The four older ones in front of the Christus at the Visitor's Center

Jonah plays with the big blocks in the children's section

Travis, AJ and Maggie play fishing off the side of the model of Nephi's boat

Trying to get them to hold still for a picture in front of the temple

Pretty Hair

I am usually rather lacking in creativity when it comes to doing Eliza's hair.  Plus, I don't have the skills, can't even do a French braid!  Well, I did some French braids in her hair this past summer but it was purely an accident because I've tried many times since and can't seem to replicate it.  Anyway, I was pretty proud of her hair for church a few Sundays ago.  The best part was how her hair looked the next day, all frizzy and very full.  We thin-haired folks need all the help we can get!

Tubing

We haven't had a lot of snow this winter so far,  unlike last year where there was constant snow on the ground and it seemed like it was snowing every other day.  So when we had a decent storm blow through the 7th of January, we took full advantage of it and went tubing.  Corey was home that day, so that made it extra fun.

Jonah did not like his snowsuit.  He has quite a long body and short little legs and it was just the wrong proportions for him.  This was his only time wearing it.  He will probably not wear it again, so if anybody needs a size 12M snowsuit, let me know!

Poor Eliza wearing her older brother's hand-me-down snow gear.  She sure had fun tubing though!

Westley.  Not sure what the look on his face is about.

Travis was having a blast.

I did not get any pictures of Caleb, which is too bad because he was sailing down the hill on his stomach like a penguin and skipping the tube altogether.  We went home and had some hot tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, the perfect winter day out!