California and a wedding

The day after Christmas, Mom, Dad, Brandee, Arik and I all piled into our van and headed to California for my cousin, Spencer's wedding.  We got to know his (now wife) Alicia really well before they got married since she was going to school in Rexburg and he was in Provo.  They came to visit a lot last semester.  Anyways, we were able to go to their wedding in San Diego.  We had a lot of fun. We got some sight seeing in even though it was a quick trip.  One place we stopped at was Mormon Battilion.  Arik actually has family members that were in this group so it was even cooler for him.  Here are some pictures from the trip.

 

Who are those handsome men? (Dad, Grandpa, Uncle Alan, Arik)

 Aren't we so cute?  I sure do love this man. 

 No kissing allowed! 

Dad using the water pump.  Outside of the Battalion site they had us use a water pump and mine for gold.  It was really fun.

Aunt Julie playing peek a boo behind the wall. 

 When we got to our hotel, this sign was in the lobby waiting for us.  At first my dad thought that it was for someone else, like his brother the Colonel but nope it was for him.  How nice.  

 The night before the wedding we all got together for dinner at Ruby's on the ocean.  It was nice weather, given it was late December.  It was so nice. 

 Here's Brandee with her scrapbooking picture. 

 This was the cool table.  The ME Bowen girls, Bryonna and Krystal, Brandee, Arik, and I.

Then was the big day.  Aren't they so cute?  Kira just loves Alicia and was very sad when she found out that we were going to the wedding without her.  

 All the Bowens that made the trip!! 

 I love to see the Temple.  It is my favorite place on earth. 

 I thought that this was Brandee at first, but nope it is me being a dork. 

We did the car decorating.  

We all went outside to wait for them.  Some of us were slower than others to get out of the way. 

Spencer accidentally turned on the wipers and ruined the beautiful work that Brandee did.  He did feel bad about that.   







Overall it was a great trip.  We are so happy for Spencer and Alicia and hope that they have fun on all the fun adventures that they are undertaking in the next year!!

Christmas 2011

For Christmas this year my sister Brandee and I each flew our parents out to Idaho to celebrate with us.  It was much cheaper than flying all our families out to Texas.  My sister, Melanie, was in Virginia.  It was the first Christmas (not counting the ones with Arik's family).  That I was not with all my family for Christmas.  It was a little weird.  Mels Bells and her family, and Garrett were definitely missed. Arik also got sick on Christmas Eve (the start of all his crap) so he missed all the kids coming down to see what Santa brought and then missed about 60% of the present openings. 

Here are the kids waiting for everyone else to get ready. 

 Here is the traditional line up getting ready to head down the stairs. They are in order from youngest to oldest.  Aiden was much more alert and into it on his first Christmas then either of the girls were.  It made it lots of fun.  Order: Aiden, Bowen, Kira, MaKynzee, Lukas, and Brookelyn. 

 Here is a side pic of Kira's santas gift.  When she saw everything she busted into tears because the dolls that were out were not the ones she had wanted. 

 Good thing Mom got her all the other dolls in the end so then we were happy. 

 One tradition we have is the Nativity program on Christmas Eve.  We also went and sang at a couple of nursing homes.  We liked it so much that we decided that we wanted to start making the caroling at the different places a new tradition.  Here are pics from the Bowen/Jorgensen/Bagshaw performance.  

Getting ready for our entrances. 

 Mary entering in on the donkey. I think that the donkey ended up giving everyone a ride by the time the night was over.

 Baby Jesus was very big and could even hold his own bottle.  :)

 The only way to get Baby Jesus to work with us on this production was if he had food at all times.  So demanding.  :)

 The lovely Angel. 

 One of the shepherds came in early. 

 Here come the rest.

 Laying gifts at his head?  It worked.

 The whole group.

 Two good looking shepherds.

 The complete cast getting a round of applause.

 These two handsome boys were so cute and they play so well together.

 Yep, we are studs!

 And of course, the Christmas outfits/dresses.  So grateful for grandmas that buy us these.  Though, my mom might have to stop.  She is getting her 10th grand baby this year.

 Christmas was wonderful and went way to fast whenever we are with family.  Some cool presents we got: Leappad, XBOX 360 w/ kinect and lots of movies.  We were very spoiled.  :)

Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving this year was spent at Arik's sister's house in Boise.  The weather was so nice and our friends, the Lloyds, from Logan lived there and so they came over to celebrate with us.  It was so much fun to have all the kids playing together and the food was great.

Aiden with Grandpa looking over the ads.

 I found one Grandpa.

Anji and Toby have this fun see-saw airplane toy.   In this picture we were trying to lean over so that Lucy was staying down.

 

 Here we are trying get our bigger bottoms in.

 Here were all the kids on and Grandpa is trying to help up even out.

 This is where Aiden hung out.  He kept jumping out of his sock. (As you can see from the pic)

 What is Thanksgiving without a little ping pong?  Here is Arik trying to beat me.  :)

 We had a great time and sure love Thanksgiving.  It is Arik's favorite holiday of the year and of course, I love the shopping that follows.  It was also great to have the Lloyds there and it is so much fun to have them living closer to everyone and be able to see them so much more often.

Embedding games post

The post below this is for one of my classes for EDTECH. I can't embed flash in Wordpress so I needed to use this blog. Friends and family are more than willing to play the game.

Thanks.

Embedding Games