Peterson Family Fun

Saturday, February 21, 2009

California Vacation - Day One - The Plane Flight

Our day of travel started off early. Reed, Riley and I picked up Grandpa Brad and Momma Lynn at 0700 am. We then headed to Payson to meet Annie, Casey and the boys at Mcdonalds for a quick breakfast (that required no dishes left behind haha!) and then it was off to the airport. Dad, of course, was a bundle of nerves claiming he couldn't relax and 'start his vacation' until we had made it to the airport. The lovely Utah weather gave us a cold send off as we drove in snow to the airport. Once we made it to the airport, 2 hours before our flight, we got all checked in and then we got to wait.

Mom of course brought her cross-stitch to work on.

Reed played games on his phone.

Grandpa and the boys entertained themselves with Austin's DS...

watched planes take off and just generally had fun and were cool dudes.

It was Austin and Zach's first plane flight. Grandpa got to sit with Zach...

While Casey and Austin sat together. Pay no attention to the look of terror on both their faces. It was a smooth flight and the boys actually enjoyed themselves once the plane got into the air.

Here is Riley, the seasoned traveler. He tried to be very reassuring by telling Zach and Austin over and over that this was his 4th plane flight. (WA, NC, and San Francisco were the other 3 in case you were wondering)

Here Andrea and I are in all our glory.

Yeah! We made it to the airport!

After getting the rental cars, stopping to eat and then driving from San Diego to Anaheim we were ready for a good nights sleep to prepare ourselves for day 2... DISNEYLAND!

Sunday, February 1, 2009

HEY IT'S 2009

Well Another year has rolled around and with it comes the challenges of what this new year will bring. But even though we are a year older, hopefully we are a year wiser as well. My wish for each of you, is that the last year has added a few more laugh wrinkles around your eyes and wonderful dinners with family & friends, have added a few more pounds around your waists to remind us just how great life really is. I know that we are in uncertain economic times but don't allow this one little aspect of who we are discourage us or frighten us from living life to it's fullest.
As Franlin D Roosevelt said "We have nothing to fear but fear it's self". Now on with 2009!

The first event of the new year is always Mom's Birthday. Oh look at that. The Cake is double chocolate - chocolate with chocolate fudge frosting. Hmmmmm..............Do you think this woman likes chocolate?

1....2...3....Blow!

After Dinner with Cake & Ice Cream of course, we had a rousing game of Stop Theif.

Full tummys and good family fun these guys look pretty contented.

Life is great!

The Winners or is Weiners!

Monday, January 12, 2009

A video for you

This is a great video I stole of of Marissa's website. It is a little long. Okay, a lot long actually, 16.5 minutes but worth the watch. And of course it has TJ Thyne in it who plays Dr. Hodgins on Bones one of my favorite TV shows. So what are you waiting for? Get to watching.

Maybe I was a bit too introspective when I was watching it but I really felt it had an awesome message to it. The main thing is how making people around you happy can make such a difference in everyone's life. But on top of that, I think this video shows the importance of appreciating the people who do that are out there making you happy. I can think of several people I turn to, when I need a pick-me up and after watching this I really want to go to them and thank them. I think that is something that I am going to try to work on but I wanted to share this with you all too in case you might be in need of a little inspiration. It really ties in with one of my all time favorite quotes that I have kept on my fridge for years.
'The best antidote I know for worry is work. The best medicine for despair is service. The best cure for weariness is the challenge of helping someone who is even more tired. - Pres. Gordon B Hinckley'

A Few Fun Pictures

I have some pictures on my phone that I have been meaning to post so here they are.
The first, thanks to the fabulous construction on I-15 I get quite a chuckle every night as I drive to work.

Does anyone else picture something like this waiting for them around the bend?

I don't know. Maybe that's just me.

Next is a picture of Andrea from a recent trip to Sam's Club, studying up on her life's ambition. It's a little hard to read but check out the title of that book.

And of course, I couldn't resist putting Santa's big mistake on here. See, all Riley asked for from Santa that he talked about for months and months was a scooter.
"Riley, what's Santa going to bring you for Christmas?"
"A scooter."
"What kind of scooter?"
"A gray one."
"Oh yeah? What else is it like?"
"Don't worry. Santa knows. It's cool."
This was an actual conversation between Riley and Andrea shortly before Christmas and directly after Santa had already gotten Riley his scooter. This conversation made Santa a little nervous because the scooter Santa had bought had orange wheels and orange handle grips.

Now you would think, oh that's no big deal, right? Well Santa thought so too. Santa thought that perhaps Riley's mom could point out all the things that weren't orange and that it would still be a pretty cool scooter. For the next part of the story I need you to look closely at the pictures of the box. See the BOY jumping on the scooter?

See the close up of the orange wheels and handles?

Well guess what color the scooter turned out to be?

That's right. Pink. And Santa didn't discover this fact until Christmas night as he slid down the chimney to set it up for Riley. No where on the box did it mention anything about it being pink. It was an orange box with orange wheels and handle grips on the picture and a BOY jumping around on it. Now, I am not trying to do any gender stereotyping here, but I just don't think it would fly for my little 4 year old who wanted a gray scooter to end up with a pink one. And since it was CHRISTMAS EVE there was absolutely no way Santa's workshop was still open to correct the mistake. So intead, I got to play villan and only let Riley look at the outside of the box until the day after Christmas when I could run over to Wal-- um, I mean Santa's village and exchange it for one that was most definitely not pink before I let the little guy play with it. Fortunately I was able to do this with relatively few tears and Riley never found out about Santa's mistake. The moral of the story is that from now on, Santa is going to make sure that all Riley's future presents are exactly what the outside of the box says they are - long before Christmas Eve.