Idahoan Thanksgiving

We were going to jump in the car right after school on Tuesday and head up to Idaho. Then a big storm hit so we decided to wait until Wednesday. The storm had passed but the roads were still very slippery because it was SO cold. It took us 6 and a half hours instead of 4 to get there. But once there, it was worth it!


Maddie and her cousin Calli were in charge of putting together the cute place settings and setting the table. At this age the girls love to help so it's nice for everyone.

I only had to make one thing, my trifle dessert. It was a pretty stress free Thanksgiving for me.

Tanner and Quentin playing The Farming Game while waiting to eat.

Seth heard we were eating at 2 so he made sure that happened. Good thing he has his watch!

Harry Potter Land

A couple of weeks ago, Jon had an NCTE conference(National Convention of Teachers of English or something like that). It was in Florida at the Disney World Resort. I thought maybe I should go with him. My parents took the kids from Wednesday to Sunday, which was pretty long, I have a hard time leaving them. We felt weird going to Disney World without the kids so instead we spent a day at Universal Studios to see Harry Potter Land. I don't think it's really called that but that's what I call it. It was really fun to walk around and do a roller coaster here and there. The main Harry Potter ride in the Hogwarts Castle was pretty amazing.

This is the scene when you first walk into the park, not the main park but the Harry Potter part of the park. It was 70 degrees that day so the snow definitely is fake.


There was a dragon roller coaster that was crazy, I could barely walk when I got off. I think I may be getting a little old for some rides.

We did all the rides twice and them explored the rest of the park then decided to go back to Harry Potter Land for lunch. I'm glad we did. We ate at the "Three Broomsticks". It was cool. We both had two butterbeers and felt a little sick afterwards. They are non-alcoholic by the way. It tasted like cream soda and then they added something like cream to the top that was really good and really sweet.


The lighting was pretty bad in this place so I'm not going to post the picture of me in this restaurant, but I'll post Jon. We brought back the kids some jellybeans that really had flavors like "ear wax, dirt, vomit" and some normal ones like apple and cherry. They ate all the gross ones first and left the normal ones. They said dirt really tasted like dirt. They tried to get me to try some but I was not interested at all.

The rest of the week Jon went to meetings and I scrapbooked, watched Alias season 1, and read a book. It was nice.

NEVER take off your wedding ring

Well, Jon and I have both gained weight since we were married, it's a sad thing. Jon noticed his wedding ring was feeling really tight and uncomfortable. I thought maybe we could get it stretched so he decided to take it off. He hasn't taken it off in a couple of years and he could not budge it. My ring still fits fine, I think I store my fat in other areas of my body.:) So he googled it and found out most jewelry stores use windex to slip it off, so he tried it. Nope. Another site said to tape your finger as tight as you can then slide it off the tape. Nope. So I called a jewelry store and asked if they had a tool to cut rings off and they sure did. I asked Jon if I could blog about it and he said sure. He usually doesn't read my blog because "he lives it," so I'll have to see if he reads this one about him.


Pretty tight.

The tool looks a little foreboding, it's like pliers with a little saw wheel.

He had to turn the crank for about 5 minutes, it didn't hurt at all...for me.

Then once it cut all the way through, he took some pliers and bent it apart.

AHHHHHHHH. Now in 4-6 weeks after his finger is normal again he can get sized and buy a new ring.

Climbing Wall Max

After Max's last Flag Football game one of the parents said she owned a rock climbing place and thought it would be fun to take all the boys there for a party. We didn't really know what to expect. Jon had church meetings so I said I would spend time with Max. I got to learn how to belay which basically means hold the rope that holds Max up and take in the slack. It was really fun. The first attempt Max only went up about 8 feet and wanted down but then he was dying to try it again and each time went a little bit higher.


This guy was teaching Max how to tie his rope, kind of important. He should pass off a scout thing for this knot, it was huge!

Different colors meant different difficulties.

Fun times!