And Once Again

So, yes, we went to Disneyland... again. It must seem like we travel a lot-- but that should stop now that summer is over and all our planned vacations are crossed off. (I guess we'll need to start thinking about our next destination.) Anyway, we had another fun filled week at Disneyland. The lines were short and the sun was hot-- maybe even too hot. We even escaped to another Angels game versus the Yankees. We saw A-Rod and Matsui hit homers and the Yankees still lost so we were pretty happy. (We are pretty severe Yankee haters over here).

Here are some quick highlights:

• Chase was tall enough to ride two new rides which have quickly shot up to his favorites-- Grizzly Peak (pronounced Griz-uh-lee by Chase), and Mulholland Madness. I think we went on each of them a million times. thank goodness the lines were short.
• Listening to the Cougars-- LOSE to Florida State! This did not make us too happy and I am not even that big of cougar fan to begin with so I don't think I can ever cheer for them again!
• Playing the carnival games at California Adventure. We played for over an hour and had so much fun. Ethen was the family hero by winning at the IMPOSSIBLE baseball toss. He was pretty impressive by winning what we called the "trifecta" he won all three of the big stuffed animals and then one more for Chase. And he did it with not too many tries. People were stopping him asking his trick because they had wasted a whole bunch of money trying to win them.
• Riding Space Mountain-- it has been changed for the Halloween festivities and it is actually really scary. Almost Poltergeist like.
• The Trivial Pursuit ap for my iphone!!!! Made the drives a lot more fun.
• Riding Grizzly with my mom! She was quite entertaining to watch.
• Watching my phone like a hawk trying to follow my fantasy football ap! We did eek out a victory! Yay!

Anyway, all in all it was really fun. And yes, we are excited to do it again!

Better Late Than Never

Chase playing Nintendo-- notice that Teddy is playing too-- we even had to press two players!!!

The putting green.

Randy surfing! His fave!

For Labor Day we went to St. George. We stayed at my uncle Gary's house at night and then during the days we met our friends at Sand Hollow Reservoir to go boating. We had a blast. The lake was perfect, the weather was perfect, and the company was perfect. We wish we would have ha more time to play at the house we were staying at but we enjoyed the time while we were there. Chase loved the Nintendo and we got some putting in as well as a little swimming. We especially enjoyed watching the BYU vs Oklahoma game-- it was a great atmosphere for such a big game. I must say that you Cougar fans need to send me away to my uncle Gary's house for any game where they are playing ranked teams because I was at Gary's Yellowstone cabin when Ty Detmer and the gang defeated Miami! Anyway, I have tried to download pictures of Chase and a video of Chase surfing-- his first time ever! He LOVED it! But as I am computer illiterate-- I have given up trying and will have to have Randy help me when he gets home!

Where I Was

So on this hallowed day I have always wanted to journal where I was so I have a written memory of it for me and my family. So here it goes:

On September 11, 2001 I was on my way to work-- at that time I was teaching in Taylorsville at Bennion Junior High, so I had about a half hour commute. As I was driving there I was listening to KBULL 93 and after one of the songs the emcee got on and said that something had hit the World Trade Center and he was unsure of what was going on and that he would keep us posted. So I turned the channel to the AM dial and found that whatever station it was had Bryant Gumbel on straight from Good Morning America or something and he was giving a play-by-play of what was happening. I knew right then it was big, so I called Randy, who was still home, and told him to turn on the tv that something weird was going on. He did and he started reporting what he was seeing. He was blown away. The second plane had not hit yet but shortly after it did. We hung up because he had to get to school. That is when my dad called and we spent time talking about the craziness going on and that is when the Pentagon got hit. We were talking about all the planes in the air and all the possible planes being rumored to be hijacked. I was dying. Once I arrived at school I talked to a few teachers before running to my class where I turned on my tv and pretty much stayed watching the entire time. That is where we witnessed the towers falling and the news of the plane crash in Pennsylvania that we would later find out was filled with civilian hero's who would take the plane out of the hijackers hands. I have to admit that our principal got on the speaker telling all of us to turn off our tvs and return to our daily routines but I could not do it. I was glued to the images and would be for the rest of the week. My students all seemed pretty calm except one, Katie, her dad had left on a flight that morning so she was pretty shaken up about his whereabouts. We let her call home and he was fine. He had called her mom from Denver where the were forced to land during the crisis. I must say that day changed our lives forever. When I got home we decided to modify our date night plans-- it was/ is our anniversary that day so we did not quite feel like celebrating and I needed to stay by tv footage so we went to McGraths Fish House and watched tv while we ate. Then we went to my families house where everyone was. We watched footage there until we went to Lance's Little League football game. It was really nice to be around family during this. It is times like this that you appreciate every moment we get with them!

So, on that note happy Patriots Day-- and happy 12th Anniversary Randy!