Well, it was a relatively slow week at the Skinner house.  No vacations.  Not even any athletic events!  We did have some beautiful fall days, which for our neighborhood means the return of the leaf hotel.

The kids get home from school and go straight across the street.  They even do their homework within the leaf walls they’ve drawn across the street!  This year they have added the use of sticks for money, so part of the hotel is the bank.  They also had a French day where they all wore paper mustaches.  Interesting stuff goes on over there, I am telling you.

Ben liked the nice fall days, too.

Halloween is getting close, too, of course.  Savannah and Sarah and good friend Hannah dressed up for their Young Women’s activity this week.

Will they dress up for the actual event this year, too, or are they too old for that now?  We shall see!

Megan’s school assignment this week was to make and decorate a haunted house.  Boy!  Did she have fun!  Look at all those details!  She drew on all those shingles on the roof, planks on the walls, and stones on the steps.  She spent a lot of time on it and it turned out really cool.  She is also learning the dance to Thriller at school so sometimes we get treated to some Michael Jackson dance moves in the kitchen.

This weekend it turned cold and rainy.  Blah, blah, blah.  That meant that I pulled out the warmer dresses for church today.  I have some really cute little girl dresses that are Bethany’s size now – cute corduroy and some nice, new plaid.  Nice warm stuff.  Do you think she was going to actually wear any of them?  No way.  She was getting weepy as I pulled out one after the other and she kept telling me “No!” until I pulled out one from the very far end of the closet with a velvet top and a satiny crepe bottom and she said, “Oh!  Thank you, Mommy!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!”  Too funny for me to even be mad.  She knows what she likes!  She keeps me laughing.

Live Writer quit working on me! I probably overworked it! Lol. So, I have to finish the old-fashoned way.

On Friday, we spent one more day at the beach and the pool. We flew the kite some more. That is what Kevin is doing in these pictures. Can you tell?

We played in the sand and Megan made a cool tower with the rocks.

We even checked out bikes from the hotel!

It was a fun day. Sad, though, since we had to say goodbye to the beach. "Bye, beach!!" Fortunately, we found something in China Town that allowed us to take a little of the beach life home:

Aren't they cute???? They're so small, they fit right on the palm of your hand. We're going to upgrade their residence as soon as we can. :)

Saturday we got up early and drove straight home. I am not even kidding. We stopped twice. Over 700 miles with eight kids, two of them under the age of three? The drive went so smoothly, we almost couldn't believe it when our familiar valley home came into view. Already? We did get the DVD player fixed in California. That helped.

What a great trip! We feel so blessed for having the opportunity to take it and that all went well for us while we were there!

And now, we are just grateful to be home. :)

There’s really just too much to write about.  *sigh*  That’s what happens when you go around doing too many fun things!  Last week we took the whole family and went to California!

Before we left, Cheyenne and Calianne had their last soccer games for the year.  Calianne plowed in front of people and held her arms out to keep people back while she got her chances to kick at the ball.  So cute!   Cheyenne dutifully ran after the pack as it went up and down the field.  If the ball happened to land in front of her, she would 1) look at it very carefully, 2) put her hair behind her ears, 3) bring her leg back to kick, and WHOOSH the rest of the pack would catch up to the ball and kick it away.  Then she’d laugh and run after everybody again.  They both had a great time and wore huge smiles throughout each game.  I have no idea why since neither one of them ever got many chances to kick the ball, but hey, whatever makes them happy!

Sarah also had her last tennis match.  She did really well, I thought.  They lost but they kept really close.  She has improved a lot in six weeks time!

On Saturday morning, we left for our big adventure.  We realized on the way down to Las Vegas, that our DVD player was broken.  Gasp!  We hadn’t planned any other activities for the kids during the drive.  Kevin, however, just bought a new techno-wow phone and it came with a free movie.  It inspired some real family closeness . . . These three did pretty well eating and playing Barbies.  They were excited to go to Grandma’s!

We stopped in Las Vegas Saturday afternoon to visit my family.  On Sunday, we went to church at my brother’s ward and had a nice meal with my mom and dad before we finished the drive and drove the rest of the way to the beach!

We own a time share week and this was the second time we have used it at Capistrano Beach at The Surfside Inn.  It is connected to the beach by a pedestrian bridge over the highway.  We love being so close to our favorite reason to be in California – the ocean!  On Monday, we played there all day.

 

 

On Tuesday, it was off to Disneyland!!  Here we are at “The happiest place on Earth.”

I have been working all summer on recalibrating my child awareness to eight instead of seven.  (It’s actually much more complicated than that, but I won’t go into an analysis of my psyche at this time . . .)  I have to say that at Disneyland, I finally perfected it – I could glance at the kids and know they were all there!  That felt really good.  Especially, since I had to do it alot!

We had a great time and went on almost 20 rides! The crowds were really small especially in the morning.

   

Disneyland is an amazing place and lots of fun, but it is physically exhausting, too.  We got to the happiest place on Earth at opening and by about 4 pm, there wasn’t a happy person to be found!!  Here are my “not-so-jollys” on the Jolly Trolley.

Heh, heh. (At least I can laugh about it.  What I wanted to say was, “What do you mean you want to go home??  Do you know how much money I paid to get us in here??  You are going to stay until the very last minute and YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE A GOOD TIME!!”)  Fortunately, Dad marched us all straight back to the Golden Horseshoe for chairs, food, and comedy and he saved the day!  Then we still had time for a couple more rides before heading back to the hotel.

On Wednesday, we relaxed at the hotel pool and back at the beach.

Ben came with us this time.  On Monday he had been asleep and stayed with Dad back at the hotel while Dad got some work done.  The first thing Ben did when I set his chair down was reach for the sand.  No, Ben!!  Don’t do it!!

  Oh, gross.  Doesn’t taste very good, does it bud?

Whatever!  He’s still happy!  You gotta smile for the traditional “Baby-eating-sand picture!” This was our sunniest day at the beach and we enjoyed it.  Like Monday, there was much wave jumping, sand building, and rock collecting.  I even got the kite out and flew with the seagulls.  Then we had a picnic.  :)

  

On Thursday we drove into Los Angeles to visit China Town.  Kevin went on his mission to Taiwan and speaks Mandarin and Savannah is taking Chineese in school this year.  It was great fun.

 

  We had lunch at The Golden Dragon restaurant which was packed with local Chinese.  We were the main attraction of the day.  “How many children do you have?”  “SEVEN girls?”  “What a cute boy!”  “What a large family!”  They brought us lots of food.  I think we all enjoyed the chicken feet.  !!!