Family Outings

My family was able to come out to Cali and visit!! It was a last minute trip which worked out really well, as they got to be here for a full week vs. just a couple of days (I'll spare you the details). So, we visited the typical locations...or attractions, I should say; Knott's Berry Farm and Disneyland. SO much fun and SO very hot :)

In between the days of Knott's and Disney, my Aunt took us all out to "Pirates Dinner Adventure" in Buena Park, which is similar to "Medieval Times." All in all, it was fun. Good dinner, good entertainment...not much of a story line to watch but great acrobatics and good times.

I've put up a couple pictures from the rides. My family, particularly my brother, always does something funny for the camera...as you can see.

The other hilarious thing is the truly terrified look on virtually every ride from my nephew Chad. He got to be a "big boy" this year and ride most of the rides as he barely met the height requirement. He met his challenge of experiencing new rides...but I have to say, he was a little nervous most every ride but ended up loving them at the end. Of course, you can't tell that from the pics and video. I laughed at these for hours!!


This video is from a fairly new ride at Knott's, called "Sierra Sidewinder". You are put in these little "pods" that rotate throughout the whole ride. On each of these pods is a camera which videos the whole thing. The beginning part of the video is a small intro to the ride itself...eventually you can see Chad...having the time of his life. Don't worry about the stuff after they ride...as it's just more info about Knott's.

(Quality of video is low...sorry about that. You can't get Chad's true reaction but you can kind of see the fear in his face)

Personalities in Pictures

So, Jeff's Sister-in-law, Kristy, got this from her friend's blog and now I am putting it on mine :). This was too fun! I recommend that you do it!

The concept:
a. Go to flickr.com
b. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
c. Using ONLY the first page, pick an image.
d. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.


The Questions :
1. What is your first name? Heather
2. What is your favorite food? Mashed Potatoes (baked...french fries...I like it all)
3. What high school did you go to? Yucaipa High School
4. What is your favorite color? Red
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Patrick Dempsey
6. Favorite drink? Diet Coke
7. Dream vacation? Bora Bora
8. Favorite dessert? Brownies and Ice Cream
9. What you want to be when you grow up? A Teacher
10. What do you love most in life? Love
11. One Word to describe you. Compassionate
12. Your flickr name. Buckeye fan

Here are Jeff's:



1. What is your first name? Jeff
2. What is your favorite food? Pasta
3. What high school did you go to? El Dorado High School
4. What is your favorite color? Blue
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Will Ferrell
6. Favorite drink? Dr. Pepper
7. Dream vacation? Ireland
8. Favorite dessert? German Chocolate Cake
9. What you want to be when you grow up? A dad
10. What do you love most in life? Learning
11. One Word to describe you. Funny
12. Your flickr name. Luckyboots

Ohio Trip

Jeff and I got to go back to Ohio to spend time with family, but more importantly, see my cousin get married. It was SO great to see everyone, I just can't get enough of Ohio!! Nothing like being at Grandma and Grandpa's beautiful house with all of us together. We don't get the chance to see each other a lot but when we do, it is so much fun. Plus, I laugh a lot!!

It was a little crazy the first night as storms delayed my brother and sister-in-law in Chicago. There's a joke now that if you want to go anywhere, don't travel with my sister-in-law. For some reason, when she travels there is always something that goes wrong and it typically is delayed or cancelled flights. This vacation was no different as there flight was cancelled coming into Ohio and flying back home (there flight was cancelled keeping them in Denver for the night). Anyways, there was a huge storm in Ohio the night we got in. All night long we listened to rain and thunder and saw tons of lightning.

I apologize in advance for all the pictures :). Here's a few pictures of G and G's house:

The front of the house

The pond, looking toward their neighbors house

The good ol' tire swing

The backside of the house

Just part of the backyard

Some pics of the wedding:

The happy couple

The wedding cupcakes

Jeff and I (one of the MANY weddings we've been to in the last year)

Before the wedding, my brother wanted to visit a few grave sites of my Grandma's family...since he hadn't been in awhile. This particular grave site is my Grandma's brother who fought in World War II. He died about 2 weeks after his 20th birthday.

So, my cousin's daughter Ava is super cute and is a Buckeye fan in training. Seriously, every time she comes in the house, she seeks out Brutus the Buckeye. This one plays music, which she just loves to the point that she cries when it stops. Oh, and the family is training her on giving Brutus a high five and kissing Brutus the Buckeye...which she does. We're so proud!!

What can I say.....priceless!

One Word.....SICK!!!!

So, I was finishing the last post about Arizona and I walked into the bathroom to see this!!! What the heck is this? This is sick! Jeff's got a mustache?!?! Or "pimpstache" as he calls it.

So, I guess he's actually going to go out in public like this. No pleading is going to change that apparently...I've tried. Soooo, hope you all enjoy!!

Mom turns 60!!!

We recently just got back from a surprise trip to Arizona. Surprise....for my mom, that is. It was my mom's 60th birthday, so Jeff and I flew out there to surprise her. Friday night, my brother, sister-in-law, Jeff and I drove to pick her up. She knew nothing of what was going on. So when she opened the car door, she was excited to see Jeff and I. We then drove to a murder mystery dinner theatre, which was a little shady, but fun. We each got characters; I was Mona Ballad, my brother was Hugh Mongous, Jeff was Lou Zerr and I can't remember what my mom and Barby were. Anyways, Jeff was the only "lucky" one to go up on stage. The rest of the trip was very relaxing; filled with swimming, movie watching, Mother's Day dinner making, and a little bowling. I of course had the higher score for both games against Jeff :).... It's always fun to get to see the family...I don't get to do that much.

I know, I know....

I am WAY behind on updating the blog (obviously) and I guess I don't have good excuses. But, now that the camera is found I will try to update it as often as I can. It may not be as interesting as others since we don't have any cute kids of our own running around...but Jeff and I are still cute, so I'll try to put up more posts. :)

Do you ever have one of those nights?.....

Those nights where you go to bed early but still take forever to go to sleep cause you're thinking about your day (what you did, what you still need to do, etc., etc.)? Then you get frustrated because you're not falling asleep yet you should be asleep. Well, that's a typical night for me but this one was a little different.

I finally fell asleep around midnight but woke up to a loud noise 15 minutes later along with a very bright light coming into the bedroom window. Now, i'm fairly used to the search helicopter flying around and shining it's bright lights, after all I went to school in Riverside. :) This was almost an every night occurrence there, so I wasn't immediately alarmed. Once I came to, I heard some more noises beneath our window, not to mention a few cuss words followed by fast cars screeching into our alley. When I got up to look, I saw 4 cop cars with 8 police....as the search helicopter slipped away in the night after locating the men who tried to steal a car.

Apparently, after straining to hear the cops talk...outside our window...a neighbor saw the men and called the police. The men went running and chose to hide down our alley. Such a safe feeling! Not sure how many guys, but definitely more than one. And I'm not sure whose car they were trying to steal but all I could think about was how these men were outside our window and being pushed up against our garage to be handcuffed. The night before, a car alarm went off twice, sounding it's alarm FOREVER at 4:00 in the morning. Hmmm....I wonder if there's any connection. I thought I moved away from the IE...

Poor Jeff missed all the action...didn't see the bright lights or hear the loud noises. He woke up when I got up to check to see if all our windows were shut and locked. Needless to say, it now took me even longer to fall asleep and I was a little tired teaching the next day.

I guess it could have been worse, I could have waken up, not fully cloathed to the S.W.A.T team banging down our door with guns pointing at me insisting I was someone I wasn't. Right Nathan and Kristy?