Church Christmas Party - December 20, 2008

Cayden, Santa, and Grandma Fryer all smiles for Christmas Fun!

Carson, Santa, One of Santa's cute midgets, and Grandpa & Grandma Fryer!

Jaime, Keira, and Santa! This is the closest Keira has gotten all season to Santa!
Our whole gang with Grandma & Grandpa Fryer!

We had an extra special time at our church kids Christmas party! The kids each came up with something they wanted to give to Jesus, placed it in a box to hang on the tree and open on Christmas day! We also had Christmas story time, made our own nativity seen, sang Christmas carols, and the the highlight of the night was a visit and gift from Santa! Carson and Cayden both agreed that it was not the real Santa, but just Cody's Dad, Brother Tripp! They were determined to go to church the next day and check to see if brother Tripp had the same watch and ring on that Santa did the night before! Kids are too smart! Keira made a huge improvement and actually let me hold her as we stood right next to Santa! No screaming or crying this time!

Merry Christmas!

Well, Christmas has come and gone again. We've had a few large meals together with family, opened presents, ate more sugar than needed, and I finally have got almost all my Christmas cards out before the new year! Yeah! I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and there were not big disappointments from not getting what you wanted! Ha! What a busy time of the year it has been for all of us, but I don't want to leave out what we have been up to! That said, let this be a start to my holiday catch up!

School Holiday Party! December 18, 2008

Carson and class with their books from the book exchange!

Carson making his very own gingerbread house!

The finished product! Yum, yum!

Carson with his teacher, Miss Kim and her new baby, Jacob! We will miss her, as she will not be teaching anymore, but will have the wonderful opportunity to be a full time Mom!

Cayden and Jacob showing off the ornaments they made. Cayden sure does make a cute Elf!

Cayden and a few of his classmates eating their holiday junk!

Party, party, party! Cayden and Jacob.

Cayden and his third grade teacher! What a fun holiday party both Carson and Cayden had at their schools! The kids are already looking forward to their next school party, Valentines day 2009! The party is never over.

ZooLights & Holiday Party at the Zoo!

Jaime, Carson & Cayden with Santa at the Holiday Zoo Party! Cole (Cayden's buddy), Carson & Cayden having some personal time with Santa before dinner!

The kids looking at all the cool lights!

Jengo the talking giraffe!

Cayden, Carson, Jaime, and the life size orangutan!

Once last visit with Santa!

On December 6th we attended the Affinity Family Care party at the Phoenix Zoo! Thank you to Cayden's buddy, Cole, and his family the Stewarts (owners of Affinity Family Care) for inviting us to your Party! The party was awesome from start to finish! We had a blast hanging out with Santa, eating a yummy dinner by the lake, and of course Zoolights! The Phoenix Zoo transforms into one of the largest holiday lighting events in the southwest with 2.5 million lights and more than 400 light sculptures from small stars to life size giraffe, elephants and orangutans. The kids and I really enjoyed this holiday display of lights, and animals! We will definitely be back next year!

"Music in Motion" Dancing Tree Show at ZooLights

The Big Man in Red!

Keira happily dancing to Elf Tunes while waiting in line to see Santa! She must of forgotten about her visit with Santa last year!

Here is how much Keira enjoyed Santa last year (2007)! Smiling pictures happen all the time, but a picture like this is once in a lifetime!

Carson discussing all ten of his lists with Santa, and drilling him on where the reindeer and midgets are! Carson & Santa!

And this is the distance Keira kept between her and Santa this year! She would talk to him from a few feet away, but did not want any lap time!

Ho, Ho, Ho! It's the "most wonderful time of the year" again, as the song goes. The time associated with lights, candy canes, toys and Santa Claus! Santa has arrived at our local mall and we have started our weekly visits to chat with him! Carson was so excited about his first visit of the season with the man in red that he did his hair extra special for Santa (Only one side of his hair spiked up)! The whole morning before the visit Carson would bring sheet after sheet of paper, and then ask me to write down a particular item that he wanted for Christmas! He even added a few things that Keira wanted to his list!

As we pull into the mall blasting our Christmas Kids Bop CD , Carson throws his seat belt off, sticks his head out of the window, and then the sun roof in search of Santa's sleigh! He did find it:-) Once in line for Santa, both kids were happy and enjoyed the short wait dancing to the Elf tunes! From the looks of it I thought Keira was going to love Santa this year! Wrong! It came our turn with Santa and she stopped to the side of him and spoke to him, but when I picked her up to sit on his lap she screamed real loud!!! I sat her back down and she continued to speak with him from a distance! No scary Santa picture this year!

Now Carson on the other hand was something else! There was no one in line behind us so poor Santa got the third degree from Carson. After Carson discussed all ten of his lists he drilled Santa on everything, but the best was when he asked Santa where his midgets (Elves) were! Santa thought the midget question was the best one yet and had a hard time gaining his composure after that one! Now Carson has the whole family referring to Elves as midgets!

Adventures in Paradise - November 16, 2008, Day 3

Jaime attending church in Lihue, Kauai. What a cute little church!

Mark in front of the Lihue Ward church building.

A picture of Mark's breakfast, Loco Moco (popular local style breakfast) - Rice, meat patty, eggs and gravy! It was very unique, but overall good. I opted for the banana and macadamia nut pancakes! Yummy!

Swimming in the light rain shower at our resort!

Beach time at Kalapaki Beach!

Mark eating the famous Puka Dog!

Jaime giving Puka Dog a big thumbs up! This place was da bomb! We ate there twice!

The beautiful Wailua Falls!

My handsome hubby!

Tropical Dreams is the best ice cream on the planet, period.

Aloha! Day three in Paradise started with Mark and I attending church at the Lihue Ward (can you believe that we made it on time to 9 am church while on vacation?)! It was such a neat experience to attend church with the locals and a few other visitors. After Sacrament meeting they had all of us visitors stand and presented us each with a homemade yarn lei. All the members of the Lihue Ward then went to the front of the chapel and sang a special musical tribute of "Aloha" to us! What a fun way to welcome their guests.

After church we headed to Tip Top Cafe for some local style breakfast. The loco moco and banana macadamia pancakes were a hit with us! We then headed back to the resort for some pool and beach time . The weather was rather funny, it would be sunny and then all of a sudden it would get cloudy and sprinkle, then sunny again!

For a late lunch/dinner we headed down south to finally eat a Hawaiian style hot dog at Puka Dog (our last visit to Hawaii we came after their 6 pm closing time)! Puka Dog has been featured on the Travel channel and food network! What they do is stick a roasted dog into a bun that’s like a loaf of bread. Also into the Puka goes three sauces a lemon-garlic “secret sauce,” a fruity “relish” and a Hawaiian mustard. It’s a sweet-and-savory combo. Their fresh squeezed lemonade is to die for! I can honestly say that Puka Dog was the best hot dog I have ever tasted in my 31 years. You better believe that Mark and I went back a second time!

The rest of our day was spent doing some shopping and scenic driving! We visited the beautiful and ever so flowing Wailua Falls! This water fall had an amazing 173 foot drop! That is taller than Niagara Falls!

The last stop of the night was up on the North Shore in Kilauea! Kilauea Video, Ice Cream & Candy is the only place on the island that sells the Big Island-made, Tropical Dreams ice cream! Forget Hawaiian famous shave ice, Tropical dreams ice cream is the must have treat! My favorite after about 10 samples and two visits is the Chocolate Coconut Mac Nut. I'm still dreaming about it! It's no wonder why I gained seven pounds in six days while on vacation!

Black Friday "Fun" Day!

Start your engines! Carson and Taylor.

The coolest and wettest ride of the day! Check out Taylor, Cayden, and Hallie's faces!

Cayden, Taylor, Jaime, Carson, MacKenzie and Hallie free falling!

Carson, Hallie and Karlie spinning on the Magic Carpet ride!

Cayden, MacKenzie and Hallie on the Sky Diver! This thrill ride drops you 120 feet at record speed! It definitely gave these three something to scream about.

Carson and Hallie loved the rising and falling motion on the Sea Dragon, but my tummy didn't!

Karlie and Carson taking a spin on the flying bugs! Too cute!

Cayden, Hallie, Taylor, MacKenzie, and Karisa hanging on for dear life on one of the many loops, twists and turns of this wild coaster! Wow! I wimped out on this one, but have rode it on a previous visit!

My favorite ride of the day, Splashdown! I'm pictured with MacKenzie and Carson! Fun, fun!

Cayden is one crazy driver! Good thing he has seven more years to practice before he gets his drivers license.

Captain Taylor on his very own boat! There was lots of bumping and splashing going on with all of us out on the water!

The Patriot roller coaster was one fun and exciting ride!

Karisa, MacKenzie and I felt like escaping the holiday shopping crowds and working off the pumpkin pie at the same time, so we packed up the kids an took them to Castles N' Coasters (Arizona's version of Disneyland)! Papa Bear treated us to our first holiday gift of the season and paid for us all to go and have a wonderful time together as a family (thanks Dad). Fun, excitement and adventures were had by all of us! This is one place that is not crowded on Black Friday! We didn't have to wait in any lines, fight the crowds, and got to ride the rides over and over and over. We feel that there is no better way to kick off the holiday season and enjoy Arizona's wonderful weather than taking the family to Castle N' Coasters! Thank you to Grandma Cindy for watching Jaycie and Keira while we had fun!