More from Disney

Lookey, lookey!

I found another picture from our Disneyland/California Adventure trip.

They had Mater and McQueen out to get people excited about the new Cars Land that was opening soon (it opened in June).

I'm excited for when we go back (many, many, many years from now) and we can explore Cars Land!

The Disneyland photos that got left out

I think that's everything from this trip...who knows, maybe I'll find more...

I don't recall having this infamous backdrop for a disneyland photo before, so this was on my disneyland bucket list.

I stopped myself right as I landed from leaping into this box, with chocolate covered frozen banana in hand, David snapped a photo, and then ran back out so that the people waiting in line (that were fumbling with cameras and who was going to stand how) wouldn't notice that we jumped ahead of them.

I might have been 1% less accurate, but I still had the better score- whabam! The Midway Mania line was definitely worth the wait!

Waiting for our spin on the tea cups!

Birthday girl!!!!

Birthday Dinner at the Blue Bayou

It's true. While we were having the time of our lives in Disneyland on my birthday, we splurged and had dinner at the infamous Blue Bayou restaurant. You know, the one you float by on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride? Yet again, this was another item on my "Things that Giulia has never done at Disneyland and must be accomplished on THIS trip" list. 

candlelit dinner. in the mansion's backyard. right next to the water.

I know the bottom right picture is horrible. But those dots of light are the passengers of a ship passing by. Fun!

I got the salmon dish. BEST SALMON I HAVE EVER HAD. period. hands down. no argument. drooling just thinking about it.

Fantasmic!

On Tuesday night of our Disneyland adventure, we wandered over to The Rivers of America to catch the Fantasmic show! I think that's what it was called anyway. It was awesome! But the evil witches are really creepy and could totally be nightmare inducing for small children.

And then we went and waited in line for the AtroOrbiter ride, or something. The one for kids at the entrance for Tomorrow Land with space rockets and planets. Yah, we waited in line for that ride. Because, hello! I had never done that one before and I was on a mission to go on the rides that I had never been on. Mission accomplished, again!

Also, about an hour and a half ago, we got home from a double header softball games. It was the last game for a coed league and a team was forfeiting, so Turner made his own team so that league team could actually play their last game. Kinda feel bad about it now. We totally killed the poor team. hmm. Maybe we should be an official team, guys! Guys! Yes!? no? ...anyway... David and I both played well. We found out that D is a star pitcher. woot! And that Shelly, yes- little, dancer, Shelly, is down for softball. She even had a few homeruns!!!! fist pumps Chest bump!hoorah!

I just spent the last hour and a half looking through the blog instead of finishing my English assignment that's due tomorrow. It's just too much fun sometimes to look back and remember. ...I really should go finish school stuff...humunuh.

Last Day of our Reality Escape

Staying true to form for any escape from reality, we beach bummed it on Wednesday until we soaked up enough sun, built a sand castle, smelled enough ocean, and had enough sand between our toes.

I quickly snapped a photo and didn't bother to look to closely at how it turned out. After putting my phone away, David said, "I think I didn't quite get around to smiling for that one." I told him, "Oh no, it's fine. You were smiling. It's Great." When we were driving on the I-15 headed for home, I pulled out my phone and looked through the photos of our week and laughed when I came upon this. Sorry, love!

More from the best week!

These gems are from some time spent in California Adventure after our Magical Morning in Disneyland on Tuesday.

Tower of Terror

California Screamin', Woody!, Grizzly Falls, and Tower of Terror 2

It's Tough To Be A Bug!, California Screamin'

More from Disney

Tuesday Morning was dedicated to everything that we didn't get to on Monday and what I have wanted to do, but never done, in Disneyland. Hooray!

Splash Mountain at 8:10a.m. Giulia is 22! Fist Pumps!

Alice In Wonderland; The Adventures of Winnie of the Pooh- both of them= creepy.

Peter Pan was the bomb diggity! I loved it!

first Sword in the Stone pics!

The Best Week Evah!

I'm finally getting around to documenting one of the best weeks of our lives. Evah! 

It started out like this:

attractive? yes!

Then baseball games. 

Then packing.

Then Ridgecrest, CA to see sister Ashley and brother Levi. (Ash, need that one picture that you insisted on taking)

Then on to the happiest place on Earth!

Yes! We went to Disneyland. It was too good of a deal and perfect timing to just let it pass. You see, David won tickets for a family 4-pack of 3-day park hopper passes to Disneyland and California Adventure from the radio station. Yeeeehawww!!! We've been trying to win these babies for 3 years. Our Spring Break from school was coming up, David had two more vacation days from work to use, and it was muh birthday. Lots of good reasons to get out of town! We offered the tickets to our friends Talen and Tonya, but they couldn't get off work to come with us. :( So, we sold the extra tickets to pay for our hotel! Sorry to anybody that was really wanting them. But we didn't want to start any family feuds.

As our departure date crept closer we realized that this is the first vacation we've been on since our honeymoon. Just the two of us. No reunion, wedding, funeral, baptism, missionary farewell, birthday party to attend. Just plain fun. Just vacation! Ahhhhh. It was much needed. But that isn't to say that we don't love seeing our family as often as possible for whatever occasion! Because we really love doing that. :)

Picture time! (more to come once I've uploaded the rest. These are just from one day, my birthday!, from my phone. Still have 2 others days plus pics from David's phone. oy!)

1st churros! 1st ride of the day [Big Thunder Ranch] and 1st Turkey Leg!

Left to Right: on The Nemo Submarine; Star Tours line; Star Tours glasses; THE Castle!

the golden spike that marks the very center of Disneyland [also pictured- our sweet new Nikes]; birthday smiles and kisses while riding through Storybook Land

Davy Crockett and Captain D! We came home with one of these hats. Any guesses which one?

And that's it for now. :) LOTS more to come. 

Thank you everyone for all the sweet calls and texts on Monday. It was a perfect day!

Summer 2011 Wrap sei: Cabin Time

For 24th of July weekend we headed up to Joseph's family's cabin somewhere in Kolob. 

I've posted a few pictures from that already. 

Lots of just hangin' out and enjoying each other's company. 

David and I left pretty early Sunday morning because I was singing in church at 1. Funny story time (well, it's funny now). When I woke up, David was nowhere to be found. After searching the cabin high and low and not finding his body, I went outside to find that our car was gone as well. Once I calmed down and got over the crazy thoughts that were something along the lines of David being held hostage somewhere (oh the mind of a helpless wife at 6:00a.m. with no cell service and no car in a place she hasn't been before), I figured he was probably just gone fishin'. I tried going back to sleep but to no avail. I had got myself too worked up to be able to fall asleep plus I wasn't really sure if he was fishin'. What if something really terrible had happened and none of us knew? Definitely no sleep with all those thoughts.  So I sat on the couch and read. And I was livid. Mad because he didn't tell me where he went, mad because he didn't invite me (how rude!), and mad because I couldn't fall back asleep and I really wanted to sleep some more! Well, David comes in around 7:30, sees my face and asks me whats up. After unloading on him, he explains to me that he did wake me up and told me he was going fishing and asked if I wanted to come and I told him no. This upset me even more because, to this day, I had no recollection of him waking me up that morning. The joke was on me and my morning grogginess I guess. But Honey, next time leave a note!!!

so in love with this face!

boom baby!

some King of the Pole action

a simple game: last person on the pole wins

horseshoes! Team D&G won one round. Round two was boys v girls. The girls were ahead, but sadly lost in the end. It was close though! (and G never did get showered or dressed after Insanity that day. yum. Yes she made sure she got her Insanity on for the two nights they were there.woot!)

the face of a winner. ;)

Also, the boys went fishin'. Felicia and I drove around the whole reservoir trying to find and meet up with them, but our paths never crossed. Long story short: it was one of those things where if you went ten more feet before turning around you would have found what you were looking for. :) But it was a nice drive and we had a nice talk.

Also, Chelsie and Mame were there, even though by looking at these pictures you would think they weren't.

the end.

Summer 2011 Wrap tre

We all ducked out of the reception early to get packed and loaded into my mom's Yukon (thanks Mom!) and on the road to Pine Valley. We, the Henderson crew consisting of Joe,Feesh,Millie, D&G, and Zach, got there safe and sound late Friday night and all piled into the tent that the Panaca crew set up earlier that day before heading down for the wedding festivities. 

Saturday morning we got our fishing poles ready, and Giulia figured out how to use her VERY OWN fishin' pole. David insisted that she get one. Thanks honey!

 

After waiting for the Panaca crew that never showed up, we decided to get some fishin' done.

 

And boy did we catch some fish. Everybody caught at least two or three, actually it was more like five or 6. David was getting upset because I was reeling in more than him. tehehee

cleaning the day's bounty.

Zachy brought up his fish fryer (I don't know how we had room for that thing on the way up; David is good at tetris, and he's the one who arranged all the bags and supplies, so of course he was able to make room for it) and got to fryin' up everything for lunch/pre-dinner snacks on Sunday. It was tasty! Even David enjoyed the few bites he was willing to take.

Just hanging out. Not the best picture of anyone really. haha. But proof that the Panaca clan did finally make it Saturday afternoon with the trailer and all the food.

plum worn out from all the fishin'.

everyone except the parentals and Miss Priss, who was probably taking a nap.

proof of Millie's attendance as well as her "shoes" and only a snippet of Feesh's awesome shirts those three days. bahaha. :)

The Hammock Twist

He claims it felt really good on his back.

So good that he just fell asleep.

Well hello there my foxy husband who should be a model in the spare time he doesn't have.

Cabin time July 24th weekend.

{Tipful Tuesdays}

If you're in the Vegas area, you NEED to check out We Luv Locals.

They have some pretty sweet deals. Our favorites so far have been FREE STAYS at various hotels in the valley. We decided to try out a FREE room at Sunset Station a few weeks ago. Loved it! 

We hung out by the pool and finished homework.

Went to the movies [Captain America].

Went bowling. 

Guess whose high score that is???

yes, it'S is me!!! I'll probably never score that high ever again. And David will probably never score that low. ha!

The best part was having a freezing cold room! Seriously. 

handsome

Last Tuesday David scored another FREE room at the Green Valley Ranch Resort, the Terra Verde coupon mentioned yesterday, and 2 for 1 massages at the Spa.  Can you say STEAL of a DEAL? Since we don't want to put out the gas money and all the other expenses associated with vacationing out of town, we are loving these little one night "staycations".

Can we talk about GVR? 

When we were at the pool it really felt like we were in some high class resort in the mediterranean. Or something. It was so nice.

And the spa. OH THE SPA!!! Out of this world. We have never done something like that before. It had it's own secluded pool. Jacuzzi's. Saunas. Steam Rooms. Anything that you could need/want. Luxuriousness to the extreme. We will most definitely be going back again [if we can snag another awesome deal].

Also, we went to Harry Potter. Finally! The last few months we've had all the HP's lined up in our netflix cue. David needed to watch every single one before we saw the last, wife's orders. We finished 7 part 1 a few days after the final one came out, but our schedules hadn't allowed us time to go to the theater. It was driving me crazy that I had to wait 3 weeks to see the last installment.

We both loved it! However, I was fairly distraught through it all knowing that this was the last one. It's hard to come to terms with the fact that there will be no more new HP. The books started when I was in elementary school and the Deathly Hallows came out the summer before Senior Year. That's a lot of years of looking forward to a new book or movie! I'm getting kind of teary over the fact that it's done. [ok, not really. but I really am rather emotional about the whole thing] I keep telling David he has to read the books. There's so much more to the story that you just can't get from watching a movie.

Most of the casino/hotels in the valley have movie theaters in them, so it makes it way too easy to put out money to go to the "nice movie theater". We usually just go to the "ghettodome" for $4.25.

I'm getting distracted. 

What was the point of this post again?

right. Tuesday Tip: Check out We Luv Locals!

Eyes too big for the stomach; a double whammy!

 I didn't take any pictures of our camping weekend for the 4th. Well, that was a semi-lie. I did take pictures, with Felicia's camera. So I should say that I don't have pictures from the 4th fun, until I steal some from Feesh. 

Good thing though that Zach was on top of things and made sure to document this:

We caught the same fish!

We both felt a tug on our lines one right after each other. We each hooked the fish and started reeling in, excited to see who had the bigger catch. Soon enough we realized we were reeling in the same thing! No, we didn't cross lines. The fish took both our baits and hooks. Poor guy, as if getting hooked in the mouth isn't bad enough, he got one right after the other. I'm telling you, those trout were going crazy for the Pink Lemonade PowerBait. 

Other fishy info from that trip worth documenting: shortly after catching the above pictured fish, Giulia finally gutted and cleaned her other catches from that day. She usually just makes David do it, but she "manned-up" this time 'round. If you didn't know this already, let it be a service announcement for you: fish have sharp teeth! My thumb is just now recovered from the multiple bite marks left from breaking the jaw and pulling the gutsies down and out (if you've never seen a fish get gutted before, you probably don't know what I'm talking about, and I'm too tired to explain any better. hmmph). After that first teeth encounter, David informed me that putting my thumb farther down the throat would help prevent my thumb from being stabbed. And it did. Thanks for the heads up lovie. But in retrospect, I'm sure he did mention that when he was showing me what to do, I was probably just still shocked about how I was holding a slimey fish in one hand and a knife in the other and thinking that slimey fish feel real gross.

What Happened to the Month of May?

I had been looking forward to, preparing for, and anticipating the month of May for a long time. And then it finally came, and then it was gone before I had time to catch my breath. 

1st week of May: Finals. Veni. Vidi. Vici. Booyah!

1st weekend: Ashley's Wedding!!!!
LA getaway video coming (hopefully)
I was real busy running around doing this and that, so I don't really have any "Wedding Pictures" except these from the reception clean-up.

and oh! I just downloaded these! Thanks Ashley for being super awesome and making them available in digital format as well. :)

Because the next weekend was Erin's wedding, and the week in between was my week off from school before summer terms started up, and I wanted to spend some time with some special people that I don't get to see that often anymore, I didn't want to drive back down to Vegas just turn around and head north and back again 5 days later. So I stayed in Utah county for a few days hanging out with these guys.
...See below...
:D

His little snow boots were killing me.
The camera flash messed with coloring.
They look blue in the pic, but I swear to you they are purple!
Too funny.

Corrine and Gid after a fun bike ride to Andy and Jenelle's building property.

And then I journeyed to Idaho to see Paige!!! (and Geoff)

Paige (pictured above right) is more like another sister to me rather than just a cousin. We both got hitched when we were really young (not that we're old now), and now she's having a baby!!! I just can't get over it. People my age are having babies. 

Nothing too exciting was planned. We just hung out, got her baby stuff organized, and got our craft on making cute hair bows and shoes (yes, shoes!) for her little one.

Thanks for letting me stay and play you two. And Geoff, thank you for your delicious Pizza and Calzone. If you're ever in the Idaho Falls area or somehow manage to wander into Roberts, ID- you need to stop and eat at Lucy's!!!! 

P.S. Happy Belated Birthday Paige!

remember when your nick-name was Tacky?weird...haha.

Sharing the reclining chair. Watching something on Netflix. Eating cookie dough. Perfect girls night!
(excuse my awkward face) 

After Idaho I made my way down to SLC on Friday afternoon. I spent the night with Grandmama. :) I loved getting to talk with her. Thanks Grandmama, Bridgette, and boys, for making me feel so welcome! 

Grandmama found out that I had never been to Golden Corral, and was determined to fix that flaw in my dining history. I sent David this picture...

...and he was super jealous. Sorry honey! :)

Saturday morning I picked up David and my mom from the airport and then we headed down to the valley for Erin's Wedding.

2nd weekend: Erin's Wedding

Another cousin that's more like a sister than a cousin. 

So happy for you Erin and Matt!
video coming (hopefully)

While we were in Provo, we went over and grabbed the scoot from Joseph and Felicia.

 These are from our little test drive/ joy ride.

video coming

After Erin's Wedding festivities were done, we packed everything up- scooter and luggage in the bed, and Mama in the backseat,- and headed back to the heat. 

Then my summer classes started. I've stayed busy with those and piano lessons. 

For Memorial Day we went to Panaca for Miss Ch's graduation. David loves going home, so thank you Chelsie for giving us a good reason to spend the money on gas to get there! I managed to not get a picture of us with her. In fact, I managed to not take any pictures the majority of the weekend. Woops! Luckily David had some on his phone.
video coming (hopefully)

Saturday was filled with lots of basketball, sunshine, and watching Zach's softball games in Caliente. We also checked out J&J's Fast Food Joint and Kershaw-Ryan State Park. It was a fun day.

That night we went fishing at Echo Lake and I beat David in the number of fish caught. muahahaha.

The last one I got swallowed the hook, so we didn't want to throw him back out to just have him die. So we (and when I say we, I mean David) cleaned the fish and took it back to the house. Fried him up, and ate him. It was pretty tasty! :) 

Saturday night/Sunday morning it rained and rained. The temperature dropped about 35 degrees. It was interesting going from shorts and sunburns to hoodies and freezing noses. Sunday after church we all drove around exploring the fun spots around Panaca- white cave, cathedral gorge, and the spring. We went for a fun, COLD, four-wheeler ride and then rode around the sand dunes and back home.

we were freezing. :)

I should mention that we brought and pitched our tent in the front yard. And we loved it!!! We knew that lots of people would be in the house, so we decided to bring our own home away from home. It was perfect.

Monday morning David was super duper nice and took ALL the boys fishing. He showed them who was boss and caught the fattest fish of the day. It really was huge! But he didn't get a picture. :/ 

Monday before heading home, we took these two shooting.

After tearing up the targets we made, they started going for anything that moved. Birds, lizards, rabbits. They got lots of lizards.

Funniest story: David had an empty water bottle that he filled with sand and using that as "clay pigeon" for Prest to shoot at. Then they switched and David had the shotgun while Prest was throwing up the bottle. The shotgun kept misfiring. Except at one point Quinton points to the ground at David's right and shouts, "Lizard!!!" Without hesitating, David turned and shot and nailed the poor little guy dead on. The one other time D was able to get the shotgun to fire is when he spotted another lizard, shot at it, and ended up getting two lizards off the one shot spread. lol. After that, the two boys were all for driving further up wash and shooting the plethora of lizards. Oh geeze. It was pretty funny sitting in the cab and listening to the two boys outside. Good times.  

And then we went home with Preston and Quinton in tow. I think that was the fastest, most fun ride home from Panaca that I've ever had. Thanks boys!

 

And that's what happened in the Month of May.

:)