Happy Thanksgiving!!

We decided at the last minute to head to Oregon for Thanksgiving. We weren't planning on going this year since we just barely got moved into our house in Tucson, but as some of you know Weston's dad suffered from a ruptured brain aneurysm in October while he and Sandy were vacationing in Hawaii. He is now a walking miracle and his recovery has been amazing! Needless to say this gave our entire family quite a scare and we all wanted to be together to celebrate all that we have to be thankful for this year! I married into an amazing family and I feel so blessed to have each and every one of them in my life!



We decided to get a big group photo since it had been several years since we had one taken. What a good looking group we are! :)


Our family...don't be surprised if you see this picture again on your Christmas card. I don't have time to have another one taken!


Weston w/ his youngest brother Jon and our newest little nephew Ethan. He and London are 3 months apart and I'm sure will be best buds if their dads have anything to do with it! :)


Cutie pies...Elyse and Vella.


We had 3 tables this size set up in the family room to fit all of us!


Weston's brother Todd and his wife Jodie.


My "big" nieces and nephews...they're all taller than me now...how did that happen?!


Karey and I...hard to believe she was 4 years old when Weston and I started dating!


Since there is no shopping in Klamath Falls...our tradition is to go bowling on Black Friday! Logan and Carson both beat my score...granted they had the bumpers up! After bowling we took the little kids to see "A Christmas Carol" in 3D.





This is the look of a boy who just bowled a strike!


London getting to know his cousins!


The kids love to feed the horses apples!





London w/ my mom...AKA grammy!


On our last day Grandma Sandy was getting out the Christmas decorations and this is Carson trying to "help." I can't wait for him to "help" me w/ mine when we get back home! :)

Halloween Fun

Here's some pictures from our whirlwind Halloween weekend! First up... carving pumpkins! I like doing this outside...easy clean up!













Carson wanted a vampire...hmmm....maybe I've been talking a bit too much about New Moon lately? Logan wanted a ghost.


On Friday night our church had a huge "trunk or treat." Logan was a skeleton and Carson a Star Wars clonetrooper. London is just wearing a cute Halloween outfit...I haven't unpacked the baby costumes yet!


This is Carson before candy...I'll let you use your imagination for the after candy face! ;)




On Halloween night we went to Colossal Cave Mountain Park for their candlelight tour of the cave. They also had a Halloween Howl Carnival w/ haunted hayrides, hay maze, and jumping castle!


They made it to the end of the maze!


This was our spooky guide through the caves. It was really cool...they told us the history of the cave and we only had candlelight to guide us!


A friendly witch we saw.


The boys at the entrance to the cave...spooky!


Our horses that led us on our haunted hayride. Our favorite was the headless horseman! London slept through the whole ride...even the crazy chainsaw guy! The boys did great, they understood it was all fake and they had fun. They did snuggle pretty close to their dad though!

1st Day of School

The boys finally had their 1st week of school...better late than never right? They were both thrilled to start and I'm enjoying not feeling guilty that I'm ignoring my children while I unpack! :) Carson goes to preschool at Logan's school for 3 hours/ 3days a week. It's so convenient that I can drop them both off at the same time and place. It's a fantastic school that has a wonderful reputation and so far we've been really pleased! We feel very fortunate that the home we fell in love with is located in such a great district!





My big 1st grader!


My cute preschooler!


So excited for their 1st day!

A Summer Day at the Pumpkin Patch?

I was feeling a little sad about missing Fall in Minnesota and our annual trip to Lendt's Pumpkin Patch w/ our friends, when my neighbor told me about Apple Annies. I'm so glad she did because we had such a nice day! The weather was in the 90's...a little different than we're used to, but still nice. They have a HUGE corn maze and all the fun stuff you'd expect at a Pumpkin Patch. The only difference was we had shaved ice instead of apple cidar! :) It's nice to know they still celebrate Fall traditions here in the south. Now what am I going to do about Christmas?!;)



Forget snow angels....here in AZ we make corn angels!


Logan wanted to be buried in corn!


This is not just ordinary kettle corn...it's caramel kettle corn...yummy!


Look at all those sunflowers!


This is the corn maze that we did...pretty impressive huh?


My fearless leaders in the corn maze!


Uh Oh...if you read the sign it says we've reached the farthest point off the correct path. Can you say LOST?


London's having fun!


Hayride out to the pumpkin patch.


Nice stash boys!


Daddy found the perfect one!


Smile boys! Fall in AZ isn't so bad after all!

Our Traveling Summer

I'm blogging...w/ pictures...can you believe it?:) Sorry for the extremely long delay between posts, but I've been busy and homeless...remember? Also, let me apologize in advance for the obscene amount of pictures in this post, but I have 2 1/2 months of catch up to do here people! I was thinking about splitting this up, but i wasn't sure where to seperate it sooooo you're getting it all in one sitting! Sit back and grab a drink...you might be here a while! haha


Our 1st stop on our extended vacay was to the family cabin in Utah for the "BIG" Stewart Reunion. We do this every other year and it is always a blast! It's so fun to get the kids together w/ Weston's cousins and their families. A whole lotta Stewarts' equals a ton of fun!


Weston and I on our hike. Weston did a pretty good job taking this don't ya think?


This is Carson w/ his cousin's little boy Ty. Believe it or not they are only 2 weeks apart in age! Jen and I have taken pictures of them together at every reunion since they were born and Ty has always been about twice Carson's size!

Carson loooooves this swing! Who knew something so simple could be so much fun!





These wild flowers are all over the mountain.











With Weston's parents at Cedar Breaks.





I love this picture! There's nothing sweeter than a daddy cuddling w/ his baby.



On our drive back to Vegas we stopped at Zions National Park.










This is how we spend most of our time in Vegas!






The boys and I then headed to Oregon while Weston went to work in New Mexico.


Here I am w/ my dad and brother and all of our kids.


My mom w/ London.



While there I got to see several of my favorite girls from High School! Haven't we aged well? :) We had several dinners together and my favorite was our "mom's" slumber party! Miss you girls already!









While we were there my mom celebrated her 60th birthday! I hope I have her beautiful skin when I'm that age!





My mom and I took the boys to a county fair. Needless to say it made us REALLY miss the Minnesota State Fair! Not to sound snobby, but once you've had the best it's hard to go back! The boys just assumed that all fairs were supposed to be the size of a small city! Needless to say they still had fun!









After 5 weeks in Oregon we headed back to Vegas.


My friend Jen was in Vegas for the weekend so we went out to P.F. Changs...yummmm!



We decided that instead of spending the week in the hot Vegas sun we would head back to the cabin and see the fall colors. I had to get my leaf peeping in since I missed my Minnesota fall. Have I told you just how much I LOVE fall in Minnesota?


On the way there we stopped at this fun museum in St. George.




Here are some fun pics from our hike at the cabin. The aspen trees were beautiful!


London is snug as a bug in a rug!








On our last day in Vegas I put London in the pool. Surprise! He loved it. I guess he's going to be a fish just like his big brothers!

We spent a few more days in Vegas before...tada.....it was finally time to head to Tucson!! It was a fun, crazy, busy, few months and I'm so thankful for the time we got to spend w/ family and friends. However, it is sooooo nice to have a home again and just stay put for a while. I need a vacation from my vacation!!

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It's Official!!!

I can't believe I'm actually able to say this, but as of this morning we officially own 9 KFC's in the Tucson area!! Can you believe it?!?! Almost exactly one year after we agreed to this crazy adventure it's DONE!!!! The last 6 months have been such a rollercoaster ride between getting financing and dealing with the alcoholic/"schizophrenic" owner we bought the stores from. He was supposed to show up yesterday to the title co. to sign the papers and apparently got drunk and forgot all about it!!!! We gave him until noon today to sign and if he didn't show up we would have had the rights to sue him. It would have been such a headache if we'd had to go that route so thank heavens he showed up this morning!! I tell you what...if every deal we had done in the past had been this crazy...we would not be in this business! Now if we could just close on our house...we're going on 2 months of being homeless and I'm ready for it to be done!!!

My life as a gypsy

I just thought I would give you all an update on our move. We're still waiting to hear back on financing for the KFC's we're trying to purchase in Tucson. We never in a million years would have realized this situation would be so difficult. We're being told to hold off on making an offer on a house until things are official (in case things fall through.) Meanwhile Weston is leaving tomorrow to work in New Mexico for a few weeks while we're waiting to hear back. So all of our things are now in storage in Tucson and the boys and I are hanging out in Vegas for a while. We're probably going to head back to Oregon while Weston is in NM so I can see my family for a bit. So for the past few weeks we've been traveling machines! We flew from Minnesota to Las Vegas. Then flew from Vegas to Phoenix and drove to Tucson to look at homes. Then back to Vegas for a day before we drove to our family cabin in Utah for a reunion. Now we're back in Vegas until we leave for Oregon....whew...got all that! :) Meanwhile they have year round school where we're looking to move and school started on July 20th! So depending on how long it takes to close on a house...once we can make an offer...Logan is looking at missing the first 1-2 months of 1st grade!!!! Luckily he's a smart kid and I'm sure he will have no problems catching up, but of course I'm still stressed about it!! We could really use your prayers right now. I'm confident that it will all work out in the end if we can just make it through the next month! This dang economy just has to make everything so difficult!! I'll keep you all posted!