Sei’s family reunions always consist of a family talent show. In the past Sei has rapped, Isabel has done her gymnastics routine or one of the kids sang a song. This year was my turn… I decided to take one of my hobbies and do something fun with it. I’ve been teaching myself American Sign Language on and off for a few years. I found a “glossed” version of Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” online and taught myself the signs.  I had so much fun learning this and I think everyone enjoyed watching it too. (Is Isabel just not SO cute!?)

We hiked the Y Trail.  We lived in Utah 7 years and never hiked it because I am scared of mountain lions. Well, Sei brought his duty weapon with him, so he could save us if necessary. It was a steep hike and Sei had to carry Livie quite a bit of the way. But we made it!!!

I also got to have dinner with friends!! Klin, Suzanne, Mikelene, and Gina all met me for dinner in Provo. Thanks Suzanne for taking the time to set that up!! It was so great to see them. It was my first time to meet Mikelene, so that was extra special!! Yep- I met all those awesome ladies online. So awesome.

The boys got to hang with their old neighborhood friends. I cried. Several times. Seeing them all together again and watching how they just picked up where they left off just made me happy and sad at the same time. I love that group of boys. They are all good kids. They used to hang out at our house. We carpooled. They went to church together. They are such a cool group of kids. And now I’m crying again. Boo.

Then came the long trip home… 1400 miles and 20 hours can make you go  a little mad…

It was a super great family vacay. We missed having Kelsea and Karlea with us, but we had a good time. Thank you to my parents who helped with hotels on the way there and back, Sei’s cousins Jasen & Joann for letting us stay with them and Sei’s parents for paying a chunk of our part for the family reunion. Love you all!

WHAT: Believing is just the beginning in Disney On Ice presents Princess Wishes!  Ariel, Cinderella, Belle, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine and Mulan all make their wishes come true in this collection of celebrated tales wonderfully told through artistic skating and acrobatics.

Audiences will be transported to a world where dreams really can come true.  With the help of the magical pixie Tinker Bell, the Disney Princesses embark on an adventure to find their heart’s fondest wish. Ariel dreams of a life above the sea, Mulan finds her inner strength, Jasmine discovers a whole new world and Snow White finds her true love.  Cinderella, Belle and Sleeping Beauty also find happiness in this beautifully imagined ice show.

Starting one hour before each performance, families will be treated to the Disney Princess Pre-Show, an exclusive fairy tale collection of gowns and treasures from the Disney Princess stories. This bonus experience is free with ticket purchase and includes a special appearance by a live Disney Princess.

To learn more about Disney On Ice, visit www.disneyonice.com, or visit them on Facebook and YouTube.

WHERE: Allen Event Center

200 East Stacy Road, Ste. 1350

Allen, TX 75002

WHEN: Wednesday, November 24 at 7:30 pm

Friday, November 26 at 2:30 pm, 6:30 pm

Saturday, November 27 at 11:30 am, 3:30 pm, 7:30 pm

Sunday, November 28 at 1:30 pm, 5:30 pm

TICKETS: Beginning Saturday, September 18, tickets are available at www.alleneventcenter.com, the Allen Event Center box office or charge by phone at 1-866-443-8849.  Ticket prices are $75 (Rinkside), $45 (VIP) and $30.

Funny #1:

I don’t really watch the show “Glee.” Although it can be entertaining I am bothered by the subject  content and the target audience. My 16 yr old sister watches it. I’m not really ok with a girl getting pregnant by one guy, but telling another that he knocked her up when he, uh “lost it” in the hot tub.  And the scene where this “conception” happens it is obvious he’s about to ejaculate early and the girl starts saying, “Think of the mail. Think of the mail!!” That just doesn’t really seem appropriate for teens. I would hope in my naive mind that my little sister didn’t get what was happening. But that’s not the point of this post. My point is…. One of the few episodes I’ve seen was when the football team does the “Single Ladies” dance on the field. You can kinda see it here:

I thought the football players dancing was hilarious and showed that one part to my 15 year old football player. Anyway… I play basketball 2 times a week and I brought Tristan and Alec with me to play on Monday. Tristan was bringing the ball down the court when all the sudden he stopped and started doing the “Single Ladies”  hand thing- twisting it back and forth and pointing to his finger. It was so funny. The other ladies I play with must not watch “Glee” either because they just kinda looked at him.  I was rollin’…

Funny #2:

My friend was hosting a bridal shower today and asked if I could come help get her house ready. I showed up early and vacuumed and then started mopping her floor. Livie and Taj were with me. Liv saw me mopping and this conversation took place:

Liv: “What’s that?”

Me: “What? The mop?”

Liv: “Yeah. What is that?”

Me: “It’s a mop.”

Liv: “Oh. A mop?”

My poor child. She had never seen a mop in action! LOL I clean my floor, I just don’t mop. I usually scrub on all 4s, but still… My 4 year old asked me what a MOP was!! Bad Mommy award…

I have a lot of catching up to do, but having gone of vacation for 2 weeks to Arizona and Utah… well, I’m just in lazy mode. So, here’s the Reader’s Digest version. I’ll give more details later.:

We went to the Grand Canyon and no one fell it. It sure is beautiful. The kids loved it. We hiked down a little, but figured going too far wouldn’t be smart since most of us had on flip flops…

We had a family reunion in Cedar City, Utah. There was some drama, but I like to stay out of that so I took a nap instead. I hadn’t seen my inlaws in over 2 years. It was good to see them again. We rented out an entire dorm at Southern Utah University. There was over 130 people there. The kids were in heaven staying up late with cousins. It was awesome.

We got to see and stay with our besties, Julio and Heidi.  We rode wave runners at the lake- which was an adventure in itself… That was my 1st time to drive a wave runner. I also learned what happens when a knee boarding rope gets sucked into it… Oops.

Stay tuned for part 2!!

• Seiuli, Tristan,  Alec and my dad are going to the Mavs/Laker game tonite. Tdog and my dad will be wearing Dirk jerseys while Alec and  Sei will have on their (*gag*) Kobe jerseys. I really hope the Mavs win!!!! This pic was taken at the American Airlines center after we went to the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert – which was rad!
• For Christmas I finally got what I have asked for since the 8th grade- Black Doc Marten boots. I originally asked for the 8-eye, but decided on getting the 6-eye. Sei (and by Sei I mean “I”) found them on eBay for $35. Can’t beat that!
• Tristan is ginormous.  That’s all there is to it. I mean, he ’s actually an average height- like 5′9″, but he is a SOLID kid. And considering he was shorter than me just 18 months ago… weird. His scout leaders told him he needed to wear his scout shirt. So, he tried it on… It’s a little small.
• Mary Kay is going well and I really enjoy it.  I never thought I’d do something with direct sales. But it’s been the coolest experience. Mary Kay is a company like no other. They are completely debt free and truly put God 1st, Family 2nd and career 3rd. It’s slowly helped pull me out of my “I am so depressed…” slump.
• We gave the kids a choice for family vacation this year: Sunny, Southern California or Utah. They all, in a matter of .00323184 seconds,  unanimously voted for Utah. They miss Utah a lot. I have to remember that they lived there more than 1/2 their lives. Texas isn’t “home” to them. Surprisingly I miss Utah a lot. I hate the weather and I never hiked or anything because I’m scared of mountain lions, but I miss my friends. I miss our awesome little neighborhood. I miss being 1400 miles away from certain people… Slowly but surely our home here is becoming the home to hang out at- like in Utah- with kids hanging out to play pool or air hockey or Playstation or football in the yard. Hopefully one day this will feel like home. I am thankful that Sei loves his job and that the kids have made good friends.
• It’s basketball season and I LOVE it!!! I love going to my kid’s games. My dad is coaching Isabel’s team this year- he coached Alec last year. Isabel is so much more confident this year and spunky. I knew it was in her!! No more pencil in the butt… Taj is signed up to play soccer which Sei is stoked about and Isabel wants to start gymnastics again. She was so rad, but got burnt out, not to mention we couldn’t afford it. But now she wants to try just tumbling- because that’s her fave event. There’s a tumbling/trampoline class/team here that I think she’d rock at!!
• I’ve lost 5 pounds in 9 days by cutting out sugar. It hasn’t really been that hard. Now if I can continue to lose 4-5 pounds every week that’d be awesome. I am an admitted carb-addict. I have horrible eating habits, so a very low carb diet is best for me because it helps me get my eating under control.

What’s been goin’ on with y’all???

Wednesday nite Taj, Livie, Sei and I were able to go to the circus in Fort Worth. And not just any circus- the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus! I had 3 tickets for Tristan, Alec and Isabel but they left town with the ex so my friend and her daughter came. It was great. The show was really amazing. It was 2 hours, which never seems like a short amount of time with Livie, but it went by so quickly.  The clowns were funny. The tigers were awesome.  The acrobats were insane!!! Taj is still talking about “the Spiderman guy who walked on the ceiling…” But my fave part by far was th

e Torres Family  Motorcycle Mania. OMGosh y’all- they had  SEVEN motorcycles inside a 16 foot steele sphere- all at the same time. I was so STRESSED during their performance- but in an adrenaline pumping way. It was AMAZING!!

Thank you Feld Entertainment & Mom Central for the tickets. The seats were awesome. We were 6 rows back from the floor. I couldn’t believe it!! It will be a nite my kiddos and I remember for a long time.

Really. They do. Bad. How do I know? Because while in Florida Isabel and Taj found a couple of crab legs. Not crabs- just the legs. So, what’d they do? They stuck them in 2 ziplocks full of water and stuck them in the bedtable drawer at the resort. I’m not sure how long they were in there, but I walked in their bedroom and was nearly knocked out from the smell. OMGosh. Y’all- it was BAD. I searched the room trying to find what was causing the smell. The kids were oblivious… “It doesn’t stink in here…” I finally found the baggies and hurried them out of the resort room. I dumped detergent on the carpet and vacuumed it up. It helped some, but the smell lingered for quite a while. Kids are so weird. What exactly were they gonna do with 2 crab legs?

….So, where was I? Ah, yes… I was at the beach. Everyday. For hours. It was so wonderful. That’s what we did the entire week. The resort was nice with a little village that had a park with swing sets and slides. We did visit the Gulfarium one day which is like a very mini-Sea World. The kids- especially Liv- loved the dolphins and petting the sting rays. We also ate great sea food, but I don’t really like fish, so I got more chicken than anything. We went to this cool restaurant called Fudpuckers. Yeah, say that fast 3 times…  They had alligators in a swamp area right there surrounding the restaurant. Taj pet an alligator and then 6/7 of my kids and 1 sister got to take a pic with an alligator with Kelsea holding the head, Taj holding the belly and Isabel with the tail. It was really neat. Later Taj and Livie fed the alligators with a fishing pole. Most of the alligators were so stuffed they ignored all the dangling meat, but Livie and Taj actually had a biter!! It was really a fun nite at Fudpuckers…

I attempted to skimboard on the beach. Yeah… I suck. I tried though, even after biffin’ it good a few times. And I pulled my groin muscle too. One time I fell so hard that all the kids came swimming towards me “Mom are you ok?!?!” Soooo embarrassing – especially since I wasn’t even hurt. They all thought I hit my head, but I only hit my shoulder blade. Then I noticed the people sitting near us on the beach were being entertained with my falls. Not cool. I should have faked like I was knocked out and floated out to sea…  I didn’t do too badly a few times.

Sei already knew how to skimboard- of course- and was bustin’ 360s. Alec was awesome too. He skimboarded all week with Sei and by the end of vacation could do a 270. I LOVE watching them interact together. They are like twins in the personality department for sure.

And Omar- I already told you on Twitter, but I had to let everyone else know that you were remembered while on vacay. Tristan bought Crocs- and we all know how much Omar LOVES Crocs.  Tristan picked some out and said, “Now I can have Crocs like Omar…” Thanks for setting such a great example Omar by wearing, to use your phrase “The Mullet of Shoes.” (*rolling eyes*)

During all this beach and skimboarding and eating Sei called the hotel Biloxi where Livie left her blanket and spoke to a few different people. Finally a girl named Jessica took an interest and said she’d check with housekeeping and search in the dirty towels… More later… I still need to tell y’all the crab leg story too…

Our vacation to Destin was so great. I really don’t know where to start. We left on Friday to make 9 of the 13 hour drive. Driving with 100 kids wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. That’s probably because Livie rode with my parents over 1/2 the time and it was wonderful. We drove thru Louisiana Swamplands which Taj thought was the coolest and we crossed the Mississippi River.  We stopped in Biloxi, Mississippi for the nite. The next morning we visited a memorial park- I can’t remember the name. But it had the USS Alabama Battleship, Air Force helicopters and more. The kids LOVED it!!

After checking out all the cool stuff we headed on. We stopped in Crestview or some other town that starts with a “C” to eat and that’s when it happened… Livie asked for her blanket. I knew at the hotel she had insisted on carrying it along with her “Gameboy” (aka V-tech toy.) But I didn’t remember seeing her with it in the car. CRAP. I dug thru the suitcase. Nada.  Looked thru my Yukon, my parent’s van… nada. Livie started to cry. I started to cry. I cried because it had been “her blanket” since she was born. I cried because I had all of my other children’s “fave blankie” from when they were little, but now I had lost Livie’s. She was more attached to this blanket than any of my other kid’s had ever been. I cried because she was sad and now we were going to be in an unfamiliar place and she wouldn’t have her comfort. I sat at the table in Arby’s and tried not to look like a crying dork, but Sei even said, “Babe, everyone’s gonna think we’re fighting…” Sei called the hotel and the desk clerk didn’t see it anywhere.  I cried some more. It was horrible.

But we continued on… and made it to Destin,  Florida. I tried not to think about the blanket at all. We unloaded our stuff- which I must brag… I was able to pack for a family of 9 in ONE big suitcase and a big duffle bag. I pretty much rock. When you know you’re gonna be in swimsuits and have a washer and dryer there’s no need to pack a lot. Anyway… we unloaded at our fancy resort with walk in tubs, changed into our swimsuits and headed to the beach. White sand, clear water… I was able to stop thinking about the blanket for a lil while….