Downtown Disney Date

Brian and I took the opportunity to have a date night while we were in Florida, so we headed over to one of our favorite spots, Downtown Disney/Pleasure Island. We ate at the Rainforest Cafe, had dessert at Ghiradelli, and just enjoyed the fun atmosphere of Downtown Disney at night.

On the boat between Downtown and Pleasure Island

Checking out the new T-Rex Restaurant (soooo awesome!)

Florida Family Fun!

Well, we just got back from another fun Florida vacation at my parent's house. Have I mentioned how much fun it is having them live in Florida? Loads! Anyway, for the first time in 6 years, all of us were able to get together for a family reunion, even Nancy and Bruno (Aline's mom and brother from Brazil). Talk about total chaos, but we had a rockin' good time! I have to give a big shout out to my mom for the months of hard work she put into getting ready to host all ELEVEN of us at their house. Between making sure she had enough beds, bedding, food, towels, chairs, toys for the kids, etc..... All I can say is, THANKS MOM!! It's probably gonna take me awhile to get all the pictures up that I want, since we did a lot of stuff. But for now, I'm gonna put up some pictures of the family just hanging out and having fun.

The whole family

The girls having a blast in Nana's blow-up pool in the backyard.

Makayla all ready to swim at the big pool

Kylee giving Jason some pointers on the right way to swim.

Jenicca and Brian playing "catch" with Kylee

Brian trying to get the girls to hold still while I take a picture

Aline opening presents at the "surprise" shower we threw for her

Aline with her mom Nancy, and Kylee (Baby Alex arriving this fall)

Jenicca and Nana with the grandkids

Dad trying on his Father's Day gift - now he can get serious about finding shells at Santa Bell!

New Kitty....Again

I didn't really want to do a post about our new kitty, for fear we would jinx ourselves, but my sister insisted, and since I'm very afraid of her, I decided to give in. We got this little girl almost 2 weeks ago, and while some people might think we're crazy for getting one so soon after Tigger died, it's helped with our sadness, especially for the kids. Kylee and Makayla decided to name her Tinkerbell....apparently we can't get away from Disney names. Here's our little (s)Tinker....

She loves to sleep on Brian's laptop - probably cuz it gets so warm. So cute!

Kirtland

After our super-crappy week last week, I REALLY needed to get the heck out of here for a few days. Brian had to go to a conference in Cleveland on Thursday and Friday, so I packed up myself and the girls and headed up there to meet him on Friday. We stayed in a hotel that night, and then we spent all day Saturday at Kirtland. We've been wanting to go for awhile, so this was the perfect excuse. The town was even more beautiful than I thought it would be, and we really enjoyed all the sites and tours. I was so glad we went - it was so nice being in a place where so many important and wonderful things happened in the history of our church. A lot of our pictures turned out blurry - probably because of the rain - but here's a few:

The Kirtland Temple

A memorial to the members of the Smith family who died in Kirtland.

The original Newel K. Whitney store. Joseph and Emma's family lived in the top of the store for 6 months.

This was basically the Smith's living room at the top of the Whitney store, where many revelations were received by Joseph, such as the Word of Wisdom.

The sawmill and ashery-important for building the temple and commerce for the Saints.

The Johnson farm, about 30 miles outside of Kirtland, where Joseph and Emma's family lived for about a year. Many important revelations were also received here, such as the vision Joseph and Sidney Rigdon had of the 3 degrees of glory (D&C 76).

I wasn't going to put this picture in because it's so blurry, but this is us standing on the front steps of the Johnson farm. These are the very steps that Joseph stood on to preach from, the morning after he was dragged out of his bed by a mob and tarred and feathered.

This farm was one of our favorite places we visited - there was such a great spirit there.

Our Lost Tigger

We very sadly lost our little kitty Tigger yesterday in an accident at our house. Even though we only had him a short time, we all loved him and will miss him very much.

We love you Tigger!

My Haul

I've been preaching about coupons for awhile now and how much money you can save by using them, so I decided to show off the awesome haul I got today - all with the use of my coupons! And might I add that they were all printable coupons I used, available to everyone with a computer! So let this be a lesson to all the nay-sayers out there who say you really can't save much money with coupons. I beg to differ! All of the items in the picture below cost me a grand total of $23 plus tax.......TOTAL. Pretty sweet, huh? I saved $108!! I know the picture is a little blurry, so here's what I got: 8 boxes of cereal, 4 bottles of salad dressing, 5 jars of mayo, 5 jars of miracle whip, 10 packages of hot dogs (2 not pictured), 2 boxes of graham crackers, 2 boxes of Ritz, 2 boxes of wheat thins, and 3 blocks of cheese.

Now get out there and print your coupons! :)

Some fun pictures

Here's some pictures showing what we've been up to the past few weeks:

Brian and the munchkins playing soccer in the back yard.

Isn't this picture great?

Brian reading stories to the kiddies (get it?)

For some reason, our silly cat loves to lay right here on Brian. Looks comfy, huh?

The flippin' sweet patio table I found on Craig's List for $20 - it's bigger than our kitchen table!

Another day at the zoo

This was the best picture we could get of the girls in their dresses from Matt and Aline.

So typical.