Snow UT, Bolke's in Biloxi, & a Thanksgiving dinner success

UTAH VISIT

So I found a steal of a deal on flights if I travelled to UT on Halloween.  The kids and I thought it would be great to go see some family for the weekend, so we hopped on a plane, and went and did our trick-or-treating there.

We visited both grandparents, and saw a lot of my side of the family.  We did a coupon scavenger hunt for dinner one night, a classic, as it was a yearly tradition growing up in my family as the Happenings book was expiring.  We went to dinner with Stu to El Farol, but the rest of the Curtis family was out of town on their many adventures, so we missed them.

As we were leaving, it started snowing and the boys were so excited to be able to run around in the snow for a few minutes. You see, now that we've lived in the coast of Mississippi for almost 3 years, and Nevada for the 4 years before that, they have been snow-deprived.  I was happy for them until they had to de-ice our plane, which made us miss our layover in Denver, and get home 10 hours later.  In good and bad news there's another story that goes along with that, and the airline ended up refunding all our money for another mistake they made, so the trip ended up being free!

The Bolkes (Blair's sister & family) were road tripping, and came and saw us in Biloxi for a week. We kept busy, busy, busy! We had a shrimp boil, and I made jambalaya for the first time, we roasted hot dogs, and had a campfire & smores.  We went gator watching, pier walking, park hopping, sightseeing. We strolled the streets of Ocean Springs and got Tatonuts. We spent a day in New Orleans and went to the Audubon aquarium there, and Cafe du Monde for beignets. We ate at The Shed and Darwells and the Beau Rivage. As you can tell, we had lots of fun.

and of course there are always pretty sunset beach photos when you go to the beach in the evening:

Annie

Dan joins the fun

Blair & Claire

The family at The Shed, eating some BBQ

 Xander was working on a science fair project. Experiment time.

 It was my very first time hosting Thanksgiving. Everything turned out (cooked the turkey in a bag), and Blair even got to join us for 1/2 hour and then had to go back to work.

Our friends, the Bennetts joined. Our husbands work together, and both had to work on Thanksgiving, so we figured it might just be us, so we decided we were fine with whatever worked out.

Claire and her little co-conspirator friend Jamie, who kept finding things to get into.

Birthday and New Orleans

Will turned 7!  His birthday was on a Monday, so we kind of celebrated all weekend.

"You smell like a monkey & you smell like one too."

We attempted to have a sleepover with 2 of his friends.  I thought, hey, these kids go to bed at 8, right? They should be out by 9:30pm.  They told me that they weren't going to bed, and boy they weren't kidding. At 3AM, yes you read that right, as they were running around the downstairs with all the light on like wild savages, jumping off couches and raiding the candy again, I finally separated them to go to sleep in different rooms, and sat out in front of the doors until they did.

Minature Golfing with the family, go carts, and bumper car things one day. Military festival with bouncies and cotton candy another day, and the infamous sleepover.

This last weekend, a trip to New Orleans. Can't beat the food down there.  Here's a restaurant we like. Blair got the Rajun Cagin Burger, and me a shrimp and fried green tomato poboy, which looked like it exploded on my plate after a few bites.

Beautiful New Orleans.  I did make sure to put a before and after at Cafe du Monde, where the kids lick their plates clean of the powdered sugar from beignets.

New Orleans Zoo

The last of the Summer fun: parties, gators, and food

So what's new around here? Well Xander turned 9, and had a b-day party with some boys from his primary class.

Summer is over! Noooooo. We had so much fun bowling and swimming every week, and cramming in as much fun as we could squeeze.  Here are a few more things we did.

We visited GATOR RANCH in a nearby town.

Xander had a memorable experience of getting peed on by an alligator when he was holding it.

We made it to GULF ISLAND WATERPARK, a fun place around these parts.  2 weeks later we went out to Baton Rouge to visit the temple and another water park and amusement park: BLUE BAYOU/DIXIE LANDIN'  It's pretty fun, because when we go we usually get a hotel and stay overnight while we stagger sessions, and make a vacation of it.

We visited our old neighbors, the Loftins, in West Point MS. We've visited before and the kids can't get enough!  What is more fun that riding horses, catching animals (chickens and dogs), shooting guns, swimming in a pool, hiking, and playing in the great outdoors for kids.  We discovered a tick on Xander the last day, but I got it out with some tips from my friend, who has some experience ;)

For Pioneer Day we made candles and scones with homemade butter & honey, and I happened to take pics, so I better share!  I also threw a baby shower at my house with some others for a friend Courtnie. Had fun making paper fans for the 1st time.

Visited the zoo a couple times in new Orleans, went skating, went to the Children's Museums here in town and up in Jackson, and ate lots and lots of food :) These pictures were zoo, skating, museum, Tatonut our favorite donut shop, a classic of Claire from when we tried the Italian buffet, and getting "fed at The Shed," a great BBQ joint out here, one of our many many times. 

The boys stared school at the beginning of the month.  I snuck in and took a pic of my big 1st grader.

Will got stung by a wasp the other day, and had an allergic reaction.
His arm doubled in size! We have an epi-pen in the fridge now, though they weren't too concerned since it stayed in the arm, and didn't effect anything else.

Summer Utah visit

Had a great Utah visit, and saw lots of people!

Lots of Grandma Diane time, mom & dad Curtis right before they went to New Zealand for a year, Vegas friends Lacey & Shannon, my cousins, Ikea, water ballon fight at Ria and Dallin's, sleepover with the boys' favorite uncles, grandparents, lots of cousin time for our kids, drive in with Danny, Dixie & Ben, Dan and Michele's pizza oven, movie time at Kristin's, our Biloxi friend Sabrina, college friend Jen, old neighborhood friends, Jared & Lisa from Vegas, visit at Wendy's house, Heritage Park, Asian festival, Natural History Museum, Wolf Creek, & our favorite restaurants. So glad we could see people and go make some memories with family and friends!

Disney 2013 & now summer!

We hitched a ride to Florida from our air force base here in Mississippi. Best part: free!

Fun that we could share our vacation with Grandma & Grandpa!

Before going to all of those parks at Disneyworld, we tried out Busch Gardens for the 1st time.

 Now, back to the construction zone of our house...

Any of you Utahns that want to get together we're coming for a visit for a couple of weeks at the end of the week!

Well, if you can't tell, I've gotten some new and updated software to make picture collages, and I'm quite excited.  Our old computer had the old version, and the newer computer didn't come with it & it was super expensive. Well, the stars aligned this week and they let me buy the upgrade for pennies on the dollar since I had the old grandfathered version of the program. Hooray! Now I should figure out a way to print these and start making some books!

Dauphin Island, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, WoW it must have been spring break!

Content at the beach

I'm free!

Making a sand volcano with Claire in it.

Thanks for the sand in the face Claire!

 WHAT?!! Those beach photos were from a camping trip???? YES! We live in a cool place where you can drive an hour or so and go camping with a walkway to the beach. This spot was in Dauphin Island, Alabama. We do have a beach a mile or so from our house, but it's cooler to go on trips to really nice beaches somewhere else, and not bring the sand in our house!

huge tent! Blair found an amazing deal on a big ole tent.

yes, a playground at the camp too!

Looks like the mountains. You wouldn't think the beach is just beyond those trees, eh?

Had to stop at the BBQ place with the pig out front.

 BATON ROUGE, LA

So where is the nearest temple to Biloxi, MS? Yep, 2 1/2 hrs away in Baton Rouge. We visited and then hit a children't museum there to make it a day.

Xander & Will making lotion, fun!

walking around Baton Rouge a bit

NEW ORLEANS

Another fun place is New Orleans, just an hour and a half away. We tested out the Children's museum with Claire on a day that Blair had off.

NOLA Zoo

We went twice within the last month.  It's such a great zoo! Here was a cool Pelican walking around. These things are everywhere down here-not just at the zoo.  This was the closest I've been to one though ;)

Love those pretty fountains

Will making a face for the camera.

Where are all my pics of the animals? I don't know, but the kids loved the leaves.

Oh, here's a monkey ;)

 EASTER

Yes I know this was a few weeks ago, it shows how often I post. The kids were lining up for one of the egg hunts here on base. 

great weather!

the loot

Check out the ultimate jello I made for Easter dinner with some friends!

 LASERCRAZE

The boys have been begging us to go to Lasercraze and play some minature golf and laser tag. We finally obliged during spring break, and found out they have a great family deal, so we can go more regularly to Xander's excitement.

I'm going to miss my friend Sabrina. She's AirForce & has been a member of the church for a year and a half or so & hangs out with us.  Moving to UT in a week or so for BYU, so hope she has a great time!

RANDOM: Do you find treasures like these in the wash from your boys' pockets? I could start a rock collection!

WHERE DO WE HANG OUT FOR A FUN TIME?
Maybe the mall.

Check out this sand sculpture at the mall by our house. 

To say that Claire LOVES the carousel at the mall would be an understatement.

The boys doing the jump tramps there.

We found a frog in the parking lot on the way home.

THE PRETTY PRINCESS...

has started tea parties and dress up.

Here she saw that her shoe broke.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!