Snow, Snow, Snow!

Doug took all the young men up to his parents cabin to play in the snow. Little did he know that he would be shoveling snow for nearly 3 hours just to get up to the house and prepare it for them to come. We had prior obligations that morning, (he came up Friday night) I decided to head up after all the youth were gone. (I know smart on my part eh?) We arrived around 5pm Saturday afternoon which gave the kids about an hour or so to enjoy the snow. The views were breathtaking. They played to their hearts content.

Taylor and Luke ready to head down the hill!

Jared wanted to bring his buddy Landon along as well....I think they both ended up flying into some trees. All they could talk about was whose bruise was bigger (aka tougher) than the other one. Silly boys!

Weston insisted on going down the hill with dad first. And there they..........

......Go! Literally ALL the way to the bottom. No, I didn't follow.

It was a quick trip. Two hours from the cabin door step to ours. The kids had a blast. We only got stuck in the mud once (I guess we need a tougher car than a mini van--ha!) But, most importantly no broken bones. Notice this adventure didn't seem to stop Weston. And in case any one is wondering, the cast will remain on for another 3 weeks. I don't know about him, but I want that smelly thing off!!

We Do Hard Things

Minnie, Marisol, Tishia, Jenny and Tiffany

Well, the official training for Ragnar Relay has begun. We bit the bullet Monday morning and trekked out to South Mountain (30 minutes away) in order to run hills. I definitely felt unprepared for the difficulty of it especially pushing Weston in the jogger. However, luckily Tishia offered to speed walk him up the hill so I could finish my last 3 miles of steep grade. It kicked my butt, but I did it. I ran 4 miles straight up hill and then 4 miles down. It just goes to show you can do anything you put your mind to. Gotta love our new running motto "WE DO HARD THINGS!" Bring on the hills, next Monday I'll see you there!

Double Digits

The annual pancakes made into the age they are.
Happy 10th Birthday Jared!!

My millennium kiddo has hit double digits! Jared is my happy, go lucky kid who loves to be active any chance he can. He does exceptionally well in school and has a way of making tons of friends. This year he had an entire week of celebrating.

Thayne, Logan, Jared and Landon

Monday we took some of his best buddies for pizza.

Jared was a trooper with numbing shots and a little laughing gas

Thursday he ended up getting 2 teeth pulled by Uncle Duane. Then out to the garage with dad to build his pinewood derby car.

Eating Fresh

Friday (his actual birthday) I took him to his favorite lunch spot, Subway. I even treated him to a hair cut that is normally done by me. He took in Krispy Kreme Donuts to the class. Dinner as a family ended at Claim Jumpers (his choice) and then onto Avatar in 3D!

Claim Jumpers with Grandpa and Grandma Clouse

Saturday Jared had a basketball game followed by the pinewood derby where he took 3rd in our ward. This is the BEST a Clouse car has ever done! We were all happy with that place because it meant we didn't have to move on to the stake for the top cars.

Pinewood Derby 2010
This photo includes new "missing" teeth and hair cut.
The "Gold Digger" inspired by Kayne West

We love you Jared and feel blessed to have you in our family!! Happy Happy Birthday Bud!

My Mini Adventurist

We managed to escape anything MAJOR other than minor stitches with all my kids until today. You would think a broken bone would have been caused by the monkey bars, riding a bike, or even jumping from a brick wall (all of the above my son does). But, no he managed to fracture his forearm at the growth plate having a pillow fight with Jared and his friend Landon.


I knew it was serious when Weston wouldn't stop crying. Normally, a hug will solve the tears from continuing to flow, but this time the scream of agony and pain lasted longer than a few minutes. Luckily Doug had a bandage to hold him over until the next day (when he casted it).

He wasn't too big on me documenting as you can see.

Weston sat so still without a whimper while dad took an x-ray and molded it. Thank goodness for daddy M.D.! Let's just hope this is the last we will see of broken limbs for a while. He is already back to riding a bike, climbing and jumping. However, he wouldn't be Weston if he wasn't back to doing his everyday things. He is definitely the adventurist of the family!

Kati's Surprise

Kati is one of the most genuine people you could ever meet. We have had a few birthday celebrations over the past couple of months and Denise headed up another one for Kati. Originally she thought it was just a few gals going to dinner. She had NO idea that so many people were coming to join in on the fun. We all met at California Pizza Kitchen. When it was all said and done I think there were nearly 30 girls!! Needless to say she was a bit shocked.

Here is the gang minus about 5 people who left earlier. Such a fun night out!

Happy 31st Birthday Kati!!

My Lego Junkie

From a very young age Jared has been infatuated building legos. It's definitely a trait he received from his dad. I am impressed that all he ever wants for birthdays or Christmas is a lego set. The bummer part is he has gotten to be so good that he only enjoys the larger ones (which tend to be a little pricey). This year since we only did one gift for each of our kids you can imagine Jared's only wish was to get a giant lego set.

From the minute he opens the box he doesn't stop until it's finished. He has been known to be cooped up in his room for hours at a time. This is by far the hardest one he has done yet. I would have thought it would have "entertained" him a little longer than the other ones, but guess what? He finished it within 2 days. All. By. His. Self.

Impressive if I do say so myself! I know for sure you wouldn't see me sitting patiently reading a manual to put this together. Way to go Jared!!

Texan Reunion

8 is great!

This year Doug and I convinced the Gordon's to head out to the happiest aka(craziest) place on earth for Christmas vacation. It sounded like a grand idea (and it was) other than the thousands of people that joined in our fun. But, sometimes you have to sacrifice in order to meet up with your closest friends.

The guys and all the kiddos (minus Luke)
Waiting for a table of "12" at Claim Jumpers

The night before we met up at our hotel. The kids were anxious with excitement. My boys hadn't seen the girls since the day we drove away from their house in San Antonio (1.5 years ago to be exact). I'll have to admit I was a tad worried they wouldn't hit it off like they did when they were younger, but once they saw each other and got the jitters out, it was just like old times. It's even crazier to think Taylor and Mackenzi were 4 and Maci and Jared were 1.5 when they met!

Warning this is just one of MANY self portraits to come of Ang and I.
However, this time we had to silly girls trying to jump in all of them.

Taylor and Mackenzi

Over dinner, we planned out our three day adventure so we could get the most out of the parks. Doug and I worried that our daughter would not be brave enough to ride anything (this was the case a few years back). Our first day we were full of energy and excitement (as you can imagine)

Double jogger, three kids. We're ready to go!
The first ride of choice, the bobsleds. But, before that a family shot.

They moaned, and guess what this is the happiest one I have! Go figure.

The lines weren't terrible for the first few hours, after that they got crazy! Thank goodness for fast passes, baby swap passes, and Greg & Doug who ran around getting them for us. The longest line we ever waited in was about 40 minutes long, I must say we had quite a good little system.

While the boys took the kids on Star Tours we ran for a quick Diet Coke.
The photo was a rarity since there wasn't ever a time people weren't walking by.

This was probably one of our worst decisions to wait in line for. We all got soaked and were freezing. Note to self don't ride unless it's hot outside!

The best surprise of the morning was while waiting in line for Pirates we were able to watch the Princess and Frog parade. It was darling! Definitely a must see.

The views are always better up on dad's shoulders.




Due to some time spent in line we had to get creative with entertainment.
The hand slapping game was one of the boys favorites.

Can you believe the line on Indiana Jones? Oh, my. Angie stayed out with the kids that couldn't ride due to their height and worked some of her motherly magic.

Weston and Luke slept like this for about 2 hours. Nice.

We had about an hour to kill before hopping the Monorail over to Goofy's Kitchen for dinner, so we pit stopped in Toon Town. Not my favorite land, but the kids enjoyed the roller coaster.

I thought this photo was so cool! This was the view waiting for the Monerail to pick us up for Downtown Disney. We planned on eating only one meal in the park (due to the expense) and managed to hold off the kids until dinner. I didn't say it was easy, but they did clean their plates!

Goofy's Kitchen

I was super bummed that the one and only photo of us was blurring. Grrrr..... This always seems to happen when I try and let someone take a group photo. Such is life! I was recommended by a few friends to dine here. It was pricey, but totally worth it. This was by far Weston's favorite place, he couldn't get enough of Goofy. It was an all you can eat buffet from macaroni to steak!

Goofy also liked Greg.

With full tummies we trekked back over to the park for a few more hours of fun. We ended the day (11pm) to be exact riding the Autotopia cars and Thunder Mountain.

And guess what? We did it all again the next day!

California Adventures

Our biggest mistake Tuesday was not knowing this was the day we could have used our early bird pass. Apparently they pick two times a week, which explained why it was majorly crowded from the get go. The kids were only able to ride the rockets before we had to venture over to California Adventures.

They held us back until right at 10am and we all sprinted to ride Tower of Terror. Weston included!

The kids were able to ride the Tower of Terror twice before heading on over to the Pier to ride California Screamin', Muholland Ave., Toy Story Mania and Soaring over California.

I wish I would have thought to take a better photo of the California Screamin' ride. It is such a great ride. Although after a few times, I was fine staying off.

Toy Story 3D was by far one of my favorite rides. I am not much of a 3D gal, but it was super fun! We grabbed lunch and headed over to the Aladdin show. We had nose bleed seats, but I found it still very entertaining.

After hitting all the major rides. We were all pretty tired and decided to stake out a spot for the Pixar Parade.

I was rather impressed with all the gymnastics some of the people can do. They were swinging on bars on top of the floats! Can you imagine trying to do stuff in these huge costumes? We jumped parks again and got on some more thrill rides. Walking around was the worst part. Just look at the people!

We tried to end the night early to get a bite to eat away from Disneyland. (which still ended up being 9pm) After all we had to gear up for one more day!

Disney Overload

Just when I thought there were no more photos, I found one more days worth! We woke up at the crack of dawn the last day in fact, we were the first ones at the ticket gate! It was pretty cool to see how they open the park. They let us in a few minutes early only to be stopped by another rope at the end of Main St.

We were fortunate enough to stay clear of rain until our last day. It drizzled ALL day long. We used our last day to jump between parks and hit all the favorite rides one last time. We were even there early enough to see them open the park! The kids had high hopes to sprint over to Magic Mtn, but unfortunately the ride was down the entire day. You would have thought the security people could have told us. Oh, well we burned a few calories by running.

Taking advantage of one more family photo by the bayou!
Are we having fun yet??

Jared and Maci wanted to ride California Screamin' again and Toy Store Mania, so after a few rides at Disneyland we headed on over to the Pier. These two ended up riding it a total of 7 times! Crazy kids!

It was raining so hard that we all were soaked. Jared didn't seem to mind at all.

Angie and I on the other hand were a little more vain :)

Hurry quick look happy in front of the sign. My kids at this point were saying NO MORE PHOTOS. Too bad cause mom likes them! After riding all the rides one more time we opted to spend the day shopping for souvenirs. The Gordon's headed back to San Diego to see his sister and family. We parted ways and decided we had so much fun we would become annual passport owners. It's only a 6 hour drive for us, why not?

One last self family portrait.
Disneyland 2009
Doesn't this say Happiest Place On Earth all over it???!!

Three days may have been one too many I think 2.5 would have been perfect. But, over all it was a great vacation and even better that our best friends could join us. Thanks Gordon's for coming, we miss you already!!