A Christmas card for you

I was really bad about sending out Christmas cards this year. I wanted to get professional pictures done but things just kept getting in the way. I was always seeing free cards from websites that I would have done, but didn't have pictures at that time. Once December hit, I decided to just forget about it and just use a family picture we had taken on our Anniversary. So for those of you who didn't get a Christmas card, which is most likely all of you, here you go :)

A quick run down of what happened in our lives this year:

- Continued living in a hotel in Eden Prairie, MN through March

- Flew to Boise in February to see family and for my brother's wedding!

- Moved from MN to Oklahoma in March for Clay's next wind project 

- Went on a much needed family vacation to California and Catalina Island in June

- Found out we were pregnant with baby #2 in July!

- Flew out to Idaho for Quinn's wedding the beginning of November while celebrating our 5th Anniversary!

- Found out we'd be having another BOY!

- Clay left Mortenson Construction and has been settling into his new job with Enel Green Power as Assistant Supervisor allowing us to settle down here in Oklahoma!

- Kort will be turning TWO at the end of this month!

With Clay switching jobs leaving him with no paid time off built up, we sadly couldn't go out to visit my family this year in Boise. However, Clay's family is headed our way for New Year's so we feel very blessed to be able to spend time with family for the holidays. 

Merry Christmas!

A place to call home

Renting a place in Enid is so hard. I think I've mentioned all this in a previous post so I'll just move forward. We finally found a house to move into! We decided it was best to continue renting for a bit while we saved up more for a down payment and make sure things went well with the new job before we wanted to really "settle" here for years to come - although it's definitely cheaper to buy than rent.

We were oh so lucky to find this beauty. It has three bedrooms and 2.5 baths. A backyard for Kort to play in, and a big garage so we can put Clay's tool bench and everything else.

We moved into it the last week of November. We got rid of our rinky dink futon, which sadly broke on us after only having it for 7 months. We had saved up for a new set of couches for a while and had been eying the sactionals from LoveSac. We figured Black Friday deals was the best time to get them, so we got them ordered, and got them a week later!

This is how our living room looked while we set it all up!

That following weekend Clay was flying up to Minneapolis to pack up our storage unit and bring everything back to us! It had been over a year since I had seen anything. We drove to Tulsa the night before and stayed in a hotel. Clay got up early Saturday and flew out. (Kort and I went Christmas shopping the rest of that morning). One of our friends had picked him up from the airport. There were supposed to be two other guys that said they'd come and help. They never showed up :( Our friend had prior obligations set so he had to leave about an hour after unpacking, so they got all the big and heavy stuff packed into the truck first. Can I just say 

THANK YOU, RYAN!!!!!

You have no idea what a blessing it was to have you there. Everything would have fallen through if you weren't able to come. 

Although it did take Clay about three more hours to pack everything by himself, he got it done. It was already 7:00 p.m. and he just thought he might end up staying in a hotel and drive back all Sunday. Well, there was supposed to be a huge snow storm that night, so he made the decision to just head out for the long trek. About a couple hours after he left, Minneapolis had already gotten hit hard with the snow. Through the whole 13 hour drive, Clay probably only got about twenty minutes of weather. So glad he left early! And the next morning, well, Minneapolis had about a foot of snow already. I can't imagine him driving through that for that long of the trip. 

The following Tuesday, we were once again blessed to have guys from the ward show up to help unload the truck. It took them 40 minutes to do it all. THANK YOU!

Now most of these guys were military, which they have the blessing of being moved and don't have to do it themselves. So for them to come and help us move, 

I was indeed grateful.

Now we're all moved in, minus organizing and unpacking the odds and ends boxes. Just in time to get ready for Christmas! I decided to at least do the 12 days of Christmas, so that will probably be my next post on what we did!

Grateful

Thanksgiving seemed to just come and fly by! It was at such a crazy time with our lives so sadly I didn't get any pictures. We were blessed to be able to have dinner with our friends, the Clark's. It was an amazing dinner with yummy turkey, homemade rolls that were to die for, store bought pumpkin pie (I didn't dare attempt to use my homemade pumpkin puree for the first time), mashed potatoes, green beans with bacon, and the list goes on.

That night we decided we really didn't need to get anything from the Black Friday sales so we opted out from the mad rushes. We figured either people would drive 2 hours to the city to shop, or basically Walmart would be absolute chaos being about the only real shop at one stop store. Well, early morning came around (we're talking 4:00 a.m. early) and I had to relieve myself (sorry, tmi) and I could NOT go back to sleep for the life of me. I figured I might as well be productive, so I got up and got ready and headed to Walmart. Got there at 5:00 and it was pretty much desolate. Things were still on the shelf and didn't look like they had been hit. Come to find out though that it was a mad rush at 8:00 p.m. when they opened the night before. I got what I wanted and hit some other stores which was pointless. Anyway, it ended up being a long day without that extra sleep!

It was a fabulous Thanksgiving, especially having Clay home for all of the weekend. There are many things that I am grateful for.

Clay's new job - better hours and stability that allow him to be at home earlier and spend more time with the family.

The Temple - seems like it had been a long time since we had gone but we got a double dose at the beginning of the month with doing an endowment session and going to the sealing. I felt such a relief stepping inside and instant warmth and peace. I know that's where you can feel closest to our Savior, as He has walked those halls, as it is His house.

Family - sometimes you take it for granted living so close to family. Now, being 24 hours away, you definitely cherish the time you do have to visit.

Children - As much as I may get irritated or frustrated with Kort, I can't help but be so thankful for a strong, healthy child. I don't know how Heavenly Father has trusted me and Clay to raise His child(ren), but we are beyond blessed. It makes me wonder what I did with Kort to continue keeping His trust and begin growing and raising this new baby and grow our family.

Testimony - This is one thing that no one can ever take away from me. What I have come to gain a knowledge of about our Savior, Jesus Christ, is the best thing I could have. To know that families can be eternal, to know that we can live with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ again . . . I am truly blessed.

My eternal companion - I can't imagine life without Clay. He makes me laugh everyday, even if it may be him taking forever to get me out of my stubborn shell that day. I know he loves me - he shows it. He loves Kort and is the best father for him. He is my rock.

I know there are so many more things to be grateful for, but without those things, my life would be incomplete. I am grateful.

Idaho trip

I am just about a couple months behind on blogging! Yikes! I'll see how much I can catch up on while Kort is napping.

Back at the end of October, we flew to Idaho. I've already posted some about that so I'll just focus the rest on the wedding and other random things we did.

Quinn & Kaitlyn
Married in the Rexburg, Idaho LDS Temple
11.02.12
(They stole our anniversary date)

But it was the best way to spend our 5th Anniversary - to share in a sealing of family members, reminding us what we did that same November day. Perfect weather just like ours as well. 

We also went to dinner with these two crazies. What a blessing it was to have them make it for the reception as their flight schedules were all messed up due to hurricane Sandy just that weekend before. I'll also put a plug in for Brandon and Barb and Leland - they had tickets to fly from Vegas and they all ended up getting the flu super bad and couldn't make the flights :( We sure missed them.

On one of the days off, the guys were working on putting in a road/driveway where the new house will be for grandpa and grandmacita :)

Kort and Grandmacita in their matching hats!

This was on our flight home from Denver. We got a row all to ourselves so Kort got his own seat. Once he was buckled in, he was asleep before we even took off.

So in a previous post, we had bought that van. Clay had to get to work by Tuesday, so he drove the car all the way back to Oklahoma in 24 hours - with 3 hours of rest on the way. What a trooper! So in the meantime, Kort got to play and visit with the cows. I absolutely love this video!

Old Navy

I have an account with Crowdtap, which is basically a survey/sample site. The more I started answering questions about Old Navy, they gave me the opportunity of sampling one of their products. They sent me a coupon for myself and a friend to find a sweater that's hot this season for free! I was so excited to get something new to work around my prego belly :)

I got a cardi sweater and ended up buying a belt with it to keep me wrapped up on those cold days, which surprisingly have visited us in Oklahoma!

It was fun to get out shopping with a friend without being distracted while Clay watched Kort at home.

Thanks, Old Navy!

Good-bye and Hello

This summer had been a lot busier than it seemed to be. Maybe it seemed to drag on because I was sick through most of the latter part, but Clay was also putting in extremely long hours at work. He had worked a 90+ hour 6 day work week and him and some other guys had actually figured out how much overtime he was working and what his hourly pay would have boiled down to if he was paid hourly. It was roughly around like $3.15/hr. Absolutely pathetic. 

We both knew this was going to be our last wind project because we just couldn't do the long hours anymore, we needed to settle down a little more permanently because of this baby coming, and I just wanted some stability, as well as Clay did. So, the option at the time was to figure out what we wanted to do next with Mortenson - try and get back into the FCG group that we originally started in, or try and get into one of the offices to be more settled. 

Clay went back and forth with the main guys of each group seeing if they had any positions opening up anytime soon. We had been told so many things that we thought we'd end up in Virginia for a while. Then it was North Dakota or Iowa. Or we could have gone to the Seattle group. I also thought that Clay would enjoy working somewhat with his old boss in the Phoenix group. As for me, I hated not knowing what we were going to do, when we would be moving, and where for how long. 

Out of the blue, one of the guys Clay works for (he works for the owner/company of the wind farm) commented that he should apply for the assistant supervisor position of this company, Enel, and work aside him which he is the supervisor of the wind farm. We looked into this company more and asked about its benefits, etc. and then thought long and prayed hard about this. 

I was at the point where I wanted to get out of Enid. I just wanted to move anywhere else. I didn't want to live in Oklahoma, of all places, for the rest of my life. So I may just have had a little bit of a bad attitude in thinking about this position. 

A little about it - it would be a permanent position. We wouldn't be moving in 6 months or a couple years. This position would be running the wind farm for as long as it was there. That's what we wanted. Clay was to the point where he wanted something more consistent - not the type of job where it's different stuff/tasks everyday - that's what's been giving him so much stress. Also, it would be a 40 hour work week. No Saturdays or Sundays, which Clay pretty much has been working every Saturday and lately most Sundays. Anyway, the list goes on of the pros with this company and position.

So what the heck, he applied. 

To make a long story short, from the application process to the end, it probably took three months to find out he got HIRED!!! 

What a relief! I finally know what we're going to be doing with our lives for quite some time now. We are moving out of this apartment (thank goodness!) and moving into a HOUSE the weekend after Thanksgiving! We'll rent for a little bit so we can save up to hopefully buy our own house in the near future :) Finding a house to rent has been an adventure itself. The rental market here is crazy! Because of all the oil workers and air force base, it's very much a demand so once you find something you like, IF you find something, you better pounce on it fast! We definitely lucked out. 

So here's to our future - with Clay being home earlier than 7:00 p.m. and having time to spend together as a family!!!

As for our old company now, MORTENSON, they've been incredible. 

Great company to work for. Clay has been lucky to work with wonderful people and we've met some great friends along the way. Although the wind group wasn't exactly the route we thought we'd end up in, it in itself has helped us out tremendously. It has gotten us completely out of debt, been able to save up an emergency fund, and even buy a new (used) car and still stay out of debt! (Thank you to Dave Ramsey as well!)

Don't be jealous that I joined the mini-van club. I'm cool like that. You can thank me later when I haul all your stuff around town that couldn't fit in your sedan. 

We had originally planned to get another Accord from the same guy we bought the one we have now. However, he was a bust and did not help us until the last minute, which the cars he found was out of our price range. Clay kept hounding me saying it would be a good idea to just get a mini-van. I said I would NEVER own one, and stuck to that. But as I was getting desperate to find a car (maybe not that desperate), it just made sense to get a mini-van. Clay's parents had picked us up from the airport and it was SO easy to get Kort in and out of his car seat in their mini-van. And with my belly ever growing, it made it a lot more comfortable to do so. Then we found this pretty. And we bit the dust. Purchased. New mini-van owners. Let's just say it's kind of hard adjusting to a bigger car to drive, but I sure love it. Now you can make fun of me. I don't care.

Here's to Enel, Clay's new company, with high hopes for our future here in Oklahoma!

(Now there's no reason why you can't come visit us now. No excuse to say that you don't know when you could because we'd just be moving again . . . cause we won't, for a while :))

C + J = #2

For around two months this summer I wore these puppies day and night.

They look just like sweatbands.

But they helped my sanity.

My MIL asked me one morning via skype if I had just gotten done working out because I was wearing these "sweatbands". I told her no. Then I quickly made something up as to why I was wearing them. That's when I knew I had to be tricky on what to tell people if they asked me what they were.

Then one afternoon I was at a playgroup at the splash pad with Kort. My friend asked me out of the blue if I was pregnant. Dead end. I quietly told her "yes" and she went on to explain that she thought I had been because of these seabands. She'd wear them for traveling due to motion sickness and she knew of people wearing them during the first trimester of pregnancy to help with the morning sickness and nausea. 

Well, my friends, yes, I am pregnant with baby #2!

I have already announced it on facebook. But, I want to document it on here so I don't forget because obviously (to me) I don't write in a journal so this is what I have for remembrance. So to start from the beginning . . .

Clay and I felt it was the right time to continue on with growing our family. With Kort, once I got on my thyroid medication, it took two months to get pregnant. I didn't know how it would go the second time around because my period was still kind of messed up, but nothing like it was before the medication. I heard also that it was harder the second time around. 

Well, our trip to Catalina Island had come. I was prepared to be miserable right in the middle of the trip - if you catch my drift. So I thought it would be fun just to be stupid and draw this in the sand: 

C+J = #2.

Never did I think it would ring true.

I never did become miserable that week. 

And about two weeks later . . .

(sorry if this grosses you out)

I put a puzzle together for Clay to find around the house to find out the surprise!!!

I still couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the double line. I was in shock. There's no way this could happen again. I thought being pregnant was a one time deal. It was done and over with. Even though we wanted more kids, it still didn't seem like reality. I started tearing up and said a quick prayer to my Heavenly Father and thanked Him for this miracle happening.

The rest is history.

So, after about two + months of suffering through major fatigue and 24/7 nausea, I finally started to feel better about the 15 week mark. Kort was still taking 2 naps throughout that time which was a tremendous help so I could get in that much needed rest. 

At that 15/16 week checkup - I had to go by myself - the doppler wasn't working so the doctor just did a quick ultrasound to check the heartbeat. We got a pretty good look at what our little babe would be - and how could you miss such a thing!?! I felt bad because I knew before Clay and he wasn't even there. He was for the 19/20 week u/s however and we both saw!

PURE BOY!!!

(I won't already embarrass him so no gender shot, but trust me)

We headed to Idaho a couple weeks later. I was going to have a "gender reveal" party with blue food, etc. but time just ran out. So no creative way to announce. I wanted to do something for Halloween though and incorporate my belly since it's getting "out there". I don't even know how I came across the idea, but I decided to do Dr. Seuss' Thing 1 and Thing 2. Kort was obviously Thing 1, and my belly was the Thing 2. I was going to get Clay that red and white tall hat but procrastinated so we didn't quite have a full family costume. 

(There was supposed to be a white background of the circles so it's hard to see)

And since the Things have blue hair (other than for me - ha ha), I found this darling crochet tutorial and made Kort's hat!

Now, to finish off this super long story to bring it up to date, sadly, I have only taken one belly picture, and it wasn't even for my belly - my awesome sis in law and I were making maxi skirts so I took a picture of how mine ended up, which just so happens to partly show my belly at 21 WEEKS!

I'm huge! AHH! Yes, it's true you are much bigger quicker after your first one ;)

Pumpkin Patch

This last weekend we decided to hit up pretty much the one and only pumpkin patch close by us. Nothing like our Farmer John's pumpkin patch in Austin, MN last fall. They just loaded a bunch of pumpkins and dumped them in the front of this school and decorated it. It was nice to just let Kort run wild for a little bit, even though it was in the 80's and didn't feel like fall at all. We ended up getting a couple little pumpkins and one big one. We could have probably paid half the price from ones at wal-mart, 

but it was the whole experience that I wanted :) 

Freezer Meals

Ok. I'm completely a newbie at this. I wanted to try doing freezer meals to
1. Cut our grocery bill
2. I'm sick of cooking once 5:00 hits
3. Do it sometime in the future

I decided the night before shopping to gather a menu. There's plenty of resources out there, but I'm really picky with my meals so I found some good crockpot recipes. I got all the recipes together and put a shopping list together as well. I'm so glad Clay was home this weekend to help watch Kort otherwise I would have been a complete mess.

Just before I was going to get everything started, I realized a rookie mistake. I bought frozen chicken. Now how are you supposed to cut chicken to freeze it? You surely can't thaw then refreeze it without cooking, which would have defeated the whole purpose of my plan. I was completely bummed out. So to make a long story short, lesson learned to buy fresh everything first. However, I did have a pork roast and round steak not frozen so I was at least able to make 4 freezer meals. Maybe one of these days I'll find someone who is a pro and can help me out and we can do a day of freezer meals :) ha ha

Sunday drive

Clay heard at church that the scouts were going camping at the Glass Mountains, just outside of town. He wanted in on this because, well, you know Oklahoma, there's no mountains anywhere so where just was this special place?!

We took off and threw the destination in our phones. This is what we came upon. 

It had to be the place.

Not quite what we had hoped for. Oh well. We got out and took a walk around. Stretched our legs, and were pretty much back on the road minutes later. 

I guess this is as good as you're going to get out here on the plains. 

Hope those scouts have fun camping :) 

It was then that Clay decided he couldn't live here for the rest of his life. Me neither. Ha Ha Nice Sunday drive, however. 

Twister

For Clay's last rotation weekend, we wanted to try and find something to do outside of Enid. I heard about a fair and parade in this town called Pond Creek, population like 500? I don't know. The parade wasn't too bad. Nothing compared to what I'm used to for Burley's during fair week. I tried to get Kort to get candy, mostly for myself :)

We tried to find the fair grounds but never did. So, we had another plan. About half hour north of there was the Twister Museum. You know, the movie?! In the town of Wakita, Oklahoma. Kort fell asleep on the way there and it was lunch time. We decided to just look up a place there on the GPS which was appropriately called Twister Cafe. Sounded fine. We get there and it's practically desolate. And that cafe? Um, totally shut down. Luckily we found a little grocery store/convenient store and bought some nasty pizza and chili dogs. We made it to the museum/little building and took an hour tour while Kort made the place even more like a twister, tearing everything apart.

Wakita's water tower. The one you see in the movie.

Location map of places filmed at, all pretty close to Enid where we live.

The outside of the "museum".

Bill Paxton's pinball machine :)

The original Dorothy from the movie.

Aunt Meg's house before and after the F4 hit.

What the crew did to the town of Wakita. Literally made it a disaster. And to top it off, they left it like that for 2 weeks after filming, just in case they needed to come back and fix scenes.

It was actually pretty cool checking out all the stuff and hearing stories about the movie, since I actually knew the movie and like watching it. There have been people from all over the world that have come to the museum. There are actual storm chasers around here from England which made them stop by as well. Don't think I'd drive/travel 10+ hours just to come check out the museum, so it was pretty nice that we lived so close to check it out.

Labor Day

I thought it would be fun to explore a little more of Oklahoma, so I wanted to go check out Tulsa. I thought the zoo would be fun to take Kort to, so I kind of had that planned out. Well, after 94 hours and 7 days of work later, I didn't think Clay would want to go anywhere and would just want to relax. So I put those plans on hold. It was going to be 100+ degrees so we decided no on the zoo, and Clay wanted to get out of the house, so we opted for OKC instead.

Bricktown was our new destination. Come to think of it, we drove past the Thunder's stadium, and I didn't even get a picture. Guess that means we'll just have to go to a game this season to get one :) The only thing I can compare Bricktown to is a mini downtown with a bunch of restaurants - the party place after the games. They have a riverfront type thing similar to San Antonio (of what Clay told me) that you can take a water taxi on. We just ended up stopping at Bass Pro Shop and finding a place to eat lunch.

We ate at Jazmo'z Bourbon Street Cafe just off the riverwalk. Pretty good food, I got chicken fettucine alfredo, but I wouldn't get that again, even though it was good. Half the plate was full of grease after I almost finished. Clay got an appetizer of "alligator bites". He said it was just fried meat and had me try a piece. Dumb blonde of me. It was real alligator meat. Nasty. Ok, so it really wasn't all that bad, just really bland.

We had parked a ways away at the Botanical Gardens and I had planned on maybe letting Kort play in their splash area and us walking around. Well, it all lasted about 5 minutes until it was sweating hot and we just hopped in the car and left. Kort was getting cranky so I told Clay to just find a Target and they could take a nap while I went in.

Oh how I have missed Target! Well, the one we found quickly on the GPS was similar to the one we had in Austin, MN so not big and not a Super Target. Oh well. Kind of in the ghetto area too. I felt good when I walked into the store. However, that feeling soon dwindled as I wasn't finding any great deals. I then realized the one main reason I have loved Target was for their clearance and couponing. Don't get me wrong, I love all their stuff, I'm just a cheap-o and rarely buy full priced items there. I left the store with only the purchase of a bottled water for Clay.

Kort never ended up falling asleep so we headed home and entertained him with a water bottle and twizzlers. He went to bed early. We bought Battleship and it was AWESOME! Rihanna wasn't too bad of an actor and Liam Neeson is brilliant as always. It was such a great day though to be able to spend with Clay, seeing how I pretty much hadn't seen him for the last week. Good thing it's his rotation this weekend and it's fair time here!!! Yee-haw!

18 months (actually 20 months) check-up

Trying to get Kort's 18 month check up was a joke here. The process was ridiculous, but alas, we got an appointment . . . 2 months later. So here we are, 20 months old. 

Here's Kort's stats:

Height: 34 inches = 78%

Weight: 26 lbs. = 43%

Head Circumference: 48.3 cm = 55%

Still the same tall and skinny dude! I didn't realize they needed a check up at 15 months, so we obviously skipped that, so Kort got 3 shots, which he screamed for them, but he relaxed a few minutes later and was fine the rest of the day. I hate seeing him tear up. 

Here's a quick rundown of his daily schedule.

7:30 wake up, mommy be lazy, eat breakfast, get dressed, get 8 oz. whole milk

10:00 nap time - he still gets tired in the morning and will take about an hour nap

11:00 playgroup on Thursdays - that is, when we have the car and feel up to going

12:00 lunch time - 8 oz. whole milk plus lunch

2:00 nap time - this one usually varies - he'll fall asleep on his own, or not, so I put him to sleep, which he doesn't nap as long

5:00 dinner - 8 oz. whole milk plus dinner

7:30 get ready for bed

Yes, that's the basics. We lead a boring life so it's time for me to whip out all the things I've pinned on Pinterest and start doing activities with Kort :) Good idea, eh? ha ha We've gone to the splash pad a couple of times, walk around our apartment complex, go shopping, went to the park for a picnic, so not totally pathetic. Most days Kort doesn't get to see Clay, but when he does, he loves watching out the patio door for him to walk by and then run to the front door to see him walk in. 

For his check up, they had me score with a yes, sometimes, or not yet on things he's accomplished or progressed with, such as how many words he can say, his personality skills/traits, interactions with toys/kids, etc. We got the results back and apparently he's too low on some so they have what's called SoonerStart which helps toddlers through 36 months with developmental delays. Well, I definitely wouldn't consider Kort to have that, but it's free so whatever help is given, sure. On the questionnaire the ones I put Not Yet on were things I haven't even tried with him, but it still rates/scores it the same, so I think those were the ones that are considering him to have a delay. We'll see what happens. I blame myself for anything like that because I just don't get him out enough to interact with other children and he's always cooped up in the house like I am, so it's my fault anyway. 

Kort's doing great overall. He's still super active and won't give me a break! 

New things he's doing:

*Throws and kicks the ball

*Folds his arms for prayer and says "may meh" for amen

*Signs please, thank you, all done, and more

*Learning to use a spoon/fork

*Stands on his head and sometimes rolls over

*Will spin in circles saying "pin pin pin" for spin

*Still not a huge fan of large amounts of water, but loves splashing during bath time

*Loves to hear Skype ringing/calling

*Is pointing at everything!

*Takes his shorts off all the time

What a hoot he is to have around! I figure there's always going to be something that's hard to handle with a child. First it was sleeping, then it's eating, and yadda yadda yadda. It's never ending, but I still love our little monkey no matter what!

California Trip

Now that it's been months later after taking a much needed vacation, I think I should probably post about our memories before I forget them!

Monday (June 25th) we hung out in OKC and went shopping. We checked into our hotel, had dinner, and just relaxed. We had a 7:00 a.m. flight in the morning, so that's why we decided to stay the night instead of getting up at 3:00 a.m. to make the flight.

Tuesday morning, we tried to keep Kort asleep to at least the airport, but uh, that never happened. He didn't fall back asleep until during the flight - which was perfect anyway. We got into Orange County Airport around 9:45 (11:45 our time) and took the shuttle to get our rental car, which was a Mazda 3 - pretty nice, but too small for what we'd buy, but it was perfectly fine for the next couple days. We found an In-N-Out immediately!!! YUM! Our next destination was the shop for Clay's scuba trip. We drove to Venice Beach and while Clay was getting fitted, Kort took a long nap :) That took a good hour. I had previously planned to hang out at Newport Beach and check out that Temple, but since it was now out of our way, we were super close to downtown L.A. and the Temple, so we drove there and checked out the grounds and Visitor's Center. So pretty! Add another Temple to our list that we've seen! We also made a quick stop on the beach in Venice. I wanted to find the popular spot where you see everyone biking and roller blading, but I had no idea what area and I was just wanting to get out of the car. It was fun to watch Kort enjoy the sand for the first time though! We checked into our Anaheim Hotel, got settled, and then met up in downtown Disney with Barbara and crew (Brandon, Leland, and Barbara - Barb's mom) for dinner at Napoli's. We got these ginormous pizzas which were really good. We went back to the hotel after while everyone else went back in the park.

Wednesday morning Clay and Brandon set off for their scuba trip on Catalina Island. Kort and I left with the other three to hit up Disneyland! Kort was already asleep before we even got to the front gates. It wasn't bad having Kort there. The rides have parent passes. So I stay with Kort outside a ride while everyone goes through the standby line. Once they get back, I can take someone with me through the fast pass line to go through quicker. This way you're not wasting hours waiting to go through :) It was nice. In the meantime, whoever had Kort would walk around, go on kiddie rides, or whatever. Kort did fantastic on those rides, like Winnie the Pooh, Little Mermaid, The Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and a few more that he could just sit on my lap and see all the colors! We were able to get a Hopper pass and go into California Adventure Land and go on Screamin' California and Soarin' California! Kort wasn't a fan of the carousel, by the way :) Clay and Brandon met up with us for dinner and Clay took Kort home so I could go back on some adult rides. We only ended up going to Tower of Terror, but that was perfect. The park also had this outside club that was an Alice in Wonderland theme. It was pretty cool.

Thursday Clay and I dropped off the rental car at LAX to pick up his parents and take a shuttle to the Catalina Express Ferry. We met everyone else there, ate some lunch, and boarded the boat. Catalina Island was amazing! We walked maybe a half mile or so to our hotel and just relaxed the rest of the day checking out the "beach" (there wasn't much area of sand so it was pretty small), going to dinner and exploring.

Friday morning we played in the sand before we had our underwater glass submarine ride scheduled. It was actually pretty cool. You could buy "torpedos" of food to shoot off once we got around a bunch of fish. It was amazing how fast the fish would swarm to the food. I've never seen so many fish in my life, and right all around us!

That afternoon Carol watched Kort while the rest of us went snorkeling. Can I say I looked pretty dang hot in a wet suit? JUST KIDDING!!! Our guide was great. I'm glad we had a guide, and wet suits. I was pretty much freezing by the end of the tour, well at least my ears were frozen and hurt. Once you stepped in the water, a couple feet out there were fish swimming all around your feet - and you couldn't see them outside the water. Fish were constantly all around you throughout the whole trip. We found some sea urchins and a sea cucumber - basically a really big, slimy worm. Nasty.

That night after Kort went to bed, Brandon, Barb, Clay and I checked out the town. We had fun visiting the different shops and walked to Descanso Beach. They had cabanas and chairs all out, but they were soaking wet so we just enjoyed them - this was all in the dark. Oh, and we might have had a picture taking fest making stupid faces. That was plenty of fun! We walked around the Casino, which isn't a gambling one, only a museum and movie theater. Great night away from the kiddo ;)

 Saturday we decided to rent golf carts and drive around the town around the huge homes, past the zipline, up to the highest point we could on a road, and overlook the Pacific Ocean! It was just gorgeous! We also saw a bunch of deer right off the road towards the end of our drive. We took a bus to the Botanical Gardens. HA, that was a joke, probably because it was in the summer so it looked like a desert. At least we enjoyed a hike. The guys also rented some kayaks for an hour and enjoyed paddling around the inlet, while us girls got ready to lay out on the beach :)

That evening was time to sail back to civilization to the main land. Good thing I got a hoodie because it was cold on the way back! Barb insisted on being a taxi and taking turns driving people back to the hotel so we could save money, but it took probably 3 hours total from leaving to getting everyone back. Oh well. We checked into our AWESOME Disney Marriott Hotel - BEST Hotel I've stayed in (except once for in Coeur d' Alene;) ). We ate at Red Robin - YUMMMM - late that night.

Sunday morning everyone parted ways and took a bus to the airport and left for home.  The night before I was trying to find out where we caught our bus for the airport (I ordered cheap tickets from getawaytoday.com - cheap Disney tickets, etc.) and the hotel internet was retarded as we could only check it from a computer in their business lounge. And then, our flight tickets through priceline had changed our flight to a later time so I tried confirming and printing our tickets the night before and so I was making all these phone calls trying to get it figured out which I ended up not. Very frustrating night with nothing figured out. Well, the bus ended up picking us up outside the hotel, so that was nice. We got to the airport early, thank goodness, because it took about an hour and a half to get our flight figured out. After that everything was just peachy. We got back to OKC late and picked our car up from the hotel and about an hour into the drive, we came into one of the towns along the highway and Clay forgot to look at the speed limit and the ONLY car happening to drive towards us was a cop. PO PO pulled us over! Luckily we got no ticket, but the warning he gave Clay went into the system so next warning = ticket :( We finally got home and went to bed! So nice to be home. Great vacation. Maybe next one we'll get together on a house boat at Lake Powell - anyone got connections there??? :) Really. Ok, now that this was a novel.
Hope you enjoyed our adventure, if you're still reading :)

*If any of you know how to make collages for blogger, I'd appreciate any feedback :) I've always done it on photobucket, but it's so confusing now with all the "layers" and that whole process.