The Honeymooners

Chillaxin at the fountain at the Paris Hotel, Las Vegas

After the craziness of the wedding Jason and I spent 8 sun-filled, fun-filled days in Las Vegas and Disneyland sans kids. It was a blast. Jason had never been to Las Vegas and I hadn't ever been to California Adventure. We spent two nights in Las Vegas at the Monte Carlo hotel, then three days in Disneyland at the Disneyland Paradise Pier Hotel where we enjoyed a private entrance to California Adventure, then back to Las Vegas to finish out our week at the Beautiful Treasure Island hotel.

Our first night in Las Vegas we saw that Rodney Carrington (one of our favorite comedians) was in town for one final night so we ran down to the concierge to see if tickets were still available and sure enough they were. We went and saw Rodney at the MGM Grand that night and I've never laughed so hard in my life. My stomach hurt for two days after from laughing so hard. The following day I spent many hours dragging Jason up and down the strip shopping at the millions of stores there. He even took me to the top of the Eiffel Tower at the Paris Hotel. 500 feet above the Las Vegas strip, it's exactly half the size of the real one in Paris, France.

The Eiffel Tower, Paris Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada

Brandi at the Arc D'Triumph, Paris Hotel


Looking Down 500 feet to the strip below from the top of the Eiffel Tower

The Magic Kingdom

On Tuesday we headed off to Anaheim and spent the next three days like two kids in a candy store at Disneyland. We rode every ride, saw the Parade of Dreams, caught the fireworks show over the castle, saw Fantasmic and fell in love with the "Soarin' Over California" ride at California Adventure. Jason even convinced me to ride the California Screamer roller coaster the goes upside down and the appropriately named "Tower of Terror" ride. I was scared to death, but it was so much fun.

Taking a break on the Train Ride



Scared to death on the California Screamer

Awww Pluto! (See what's in my hand? Authentic Disneyland Churros.. the closest thing to heaven on earth besides my husband)

Me & my very own Prince Charming in front of the Castle

We headed back to Las Vegas on Thursday night and I was reminded why I no longer live in California- THE TRAFFIC! It took us 2.5 hours to go 30 miles. So what should've been a 4 hour drive, took us more than 6. We had opportunity to catch the "Tournament of Kings" show at Excalibur (it's like Medieval Times), the "Sirens of TI" show and the dancing fountains at Bellagio. We crammed a lot of activities into 8 short days but we were glad to get the chance to spend some time with Just Us 'cuz you never know if we'll be able to do it again, at least not until the kids are grown and gone. We had an amazing time and will have many many years of memories, laughs and souvenirs to remember it by.

Showgirls at the Tropicana. I asked them if I could take Jason's picture with them LOL


The Dancing Fountains at Bellagio

Our Life Together Begins This Day...

At least that's what the napkins at the reception said. It's finally over... months of planning, stress and freaking out and it lasted all of a couple hours. But it really was a dream wedding because I married the man of my dreams. Check out the pics of the big day below and for a more complete album I've uploaded everything to photobucket in 2 albums because they wouldn't all fit in one:
http://s262.photobucket.com/albums/ii118/Brandilinam/Wedding%20Pics/Wedding%20Pics%202/

http://s262.photobucket.com/albums/ii118/Brandilinam/Wedding%20Pics/



My handsome groom... take a look 'cuz chances are good you'll never see him in a tux again


The bride


The bride at Millenial Falls


Daddy & Daughter- just a few minutes before I walked down the aisle


speaking of the aisle...

Halloween

So I have a little bit of a fetish for Halloween... Hence the costumes for Jason & I, pumpkin carving, and the reigning cubicle decorating champion at Fieldstone Homes. This year I stole a little tradition from my mom's friend Kristi and decided to do a Halloween breakfast for the kids. The table was set with Halloween placemats, halloween plates, skeleton hand goblets, plastic spiders and even plastic vampire teeth. Our breakfast treats were "Monster Gut Orange Pancakes", "bleeding brains (green eggs & ketchup)" and "bloody punch (orange juice with red food coloring)" Both Jake & Madi thought it was super cool and it was definately a fun start to our Halloween festivities today. We're off to trunk or treat with the ward at 5:30 and even Jason is getting into the spirit by taking a strobe light, pumpkins and the fog machine to pass out Candy from the truck.

Celebrations

October is a busy month for us with 5 birthdays in the immediate & extended family as well as Halloween. My 29th birthday was on the 28th and we celebrated complete with cake and ice cream thanks to my sweet husband-to-be.

My awesome Tinkerbell Cake, Jason went and ordered it all by himself

The beautiful roses delivered to me from Jason & the kids

Us on my 29th BDay

In the midst of the busy season we did manage to take a little time out to "celebrate" Halloween by carving pumpkins. The kids thought it was great fun to make a mess all over the kitchen table and squish around the pumpkin 'guts'. Jason, on the other hand, took a different approach to pumpkin carving this year....

Sawzall pumpkin carving... Look at Madi's face.. she's saying "Honestly Dad.. sheesh" While I admit it did get the job done to get the top off, it wasn't practical for any actual pumpkin carving. He resorted to the old fashioned plastic saw.

Jason drawing a face on his pumpkin after putting the power tools away.

Jake and dad carving Jake's pumpkin

Me helping Jake draw on his face

Jason, Madi and Jake pumpkin carving

Our little family of pumpkins in the light

Pumpkin Family all lit up

Jason's Vampire Pumpkin

Jake's toothy grin pumpkin

Brandi's spider web pumpkin

Madi's Silly Grin Pumpkin

Time Flies...

Why do I feel like life just gets crazier every day? Maybe it does.. or maybe we just have alot on our plate right now. I just haven't found time to sit down and blog lately so I'll try and catch up on the reader's digest version of things now.





Rollin' into Tennessee





Jason and I took off a week to Georgia and Tennessee to go meet his family. We left the kids with Steve & Angela and went flew down just the two of us. I now understand why he misses it so much sometimes. It's absolutely beautiful there, just green and lush everywhere you look and for the history buff in me, it's a fascinating place.




Cruisin' down the street



Green trees as far as eye can see

We spent one full day just doing all the things WE wanted to do. We went to Rock City and Point Park and Chickamauga Battlefield and rode the Incline Railway and went to Hamilton Place Mall and the Tennesse Aquarium , visited the Southern Belle Riverboat and even went to the Corn Maze.

On Saturday we had a family BBQ at the park where I got to meet all the brothers & sisters, aunts, uncles & cousins. His family is amazing. Really down to earth, good Southern Folks. The six days we were there just flew by and before we knew it we were leaving behind the gorgeous 75 degree weather and headed back to the wintry 40 degrees in Utah.



Monuments at Chickamauga Battlefield. 34000 people died on this hallowed piece of ground. The bloodiest battle of the civil war was faught here.




Cannons and monuments at Chickamauga







Awww... so cute.








Rock City Gardens









Riding the Incline Railway






The 72% grade of the Incline Railway straight to the top of Lookout Mountain





Petting the stingrays at the TN Aquarium. That water was FREEZING!!






Don't Fall in!





Brittany (Skipper's Daughter), Shelby (Jamie's Daughter), Mikey (Skipper's Son), Me & Jason at the Tennessee Aquarium






Shark Divers at TN Aquarium. The kids loved this, they could ask questions while the divers were in the tank.





A Real Southern Belle





Southern Belle Riverboat



Downtown Chattanooga as viewed from Point Park






Civil War Memorabilia at the museum at Point Park





Jason trying to read the clues for which way to go in the corn maze





Brrrrr... look at our pink cheeks at the corn maze







On Saturday the 25th we attended the Workman Family Annual Halloween party. Jason wasn't sure he wanted to dress up but when I found the pirate costumes in Provo I just couldn't resist. We all went to Canton City Chinese Restaurant in Vernal and had a great time seeing everyone! Well off to Wal-Mart to get pumpkins to carve for tonight. Take a look at our pics from the Halloween Party!









My little Madi Geisha



Jason's crazy pirate face and my little Gracie geisha.





A more subdued pirate


SpiderJake... ah... SpiderMan




My little costumed family





PirateGirl... or 80's girl.. what's with that headband anyway?



As a final note- Jason and I went and got our marriage license on Monday... one day before my 29th birthday so for all of posterity to read, I was only 28 when we got married MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Alright so if they look at the date they'll realize I was 29, but hey a girl can dream right?