FFA Scholarship Auction

I have come to love being part of such a tight nit community. Travis was born and raised in the little town of Kuna, ID. It's not so little anymore, but it is still a tight nit community. And this community pulled together for another hugely successful Kuna FFA Scholarship Auction. Every fall the FFA puts on a free dinner, silent and live auction for the community. The items auctioned are donated by local business, community members and FFA students. There is everything from home grown potatoes, cloth children books, homemade quilts, chickens, BSU and Vandal baskets (those create quite the bidding war), work benches, and the list goes on. It is a fun family activity and a great way to support the FFA. I vowed that I wasn't buying anything this year b/c our budget is pretty tight, but I caved a bought a sweet Christmas present for Travis. I just couldn't help myself. :)

Curtis wore his dad's favorite shirt and thoroughly enjoyed chocolate milk and ice cream!

My little monkey is getting so big! (he'll be 1 next week!)

I love his halo!

Chocolate Cake!

I came across a recipe for a three layer chocolate zucchini cake at Purple Chocolat Home and thought that it sounded great and looked like it would be easy enough to make. I decided to have my niece, Sammi, help me while I watched her and her sister Bentley. Sammi and I made the cakes during the babies morning naps and then made the frosting and frosted it while they took their second nap. Thought you might like to know that we didn't ignore the little ones to make a cake. :)

Granted, mine didn't turn out as pretty as theirs, but it sure tasted good.

It was great fun. Sammi thoroughly enjoyed making the cake with me and getting to lick beaters and scrappers.

She added a nice touch with green and red sprinkles. :)

Even with supervision, Curtis and Bentley sure made a mess! I've never seen so many toys and stuff on the floor. They also emptied off two book shelves filled with movies and cd's! Despite the mess, everyone had a great day!

San Diego and the Wedding!

Sorry it's taken so long to finish posting about our trip, but life is crazy! Well, maybe not crazy, but a little busy. Anyway, after the crazy weekend with Doug, I decided that Curtis and I needed some down time. The poor little guy had gotten very few naps over the last few days and I was just exhausted. We did however take time to go to the beach! It was a bit chilly so we didn't stay long, but Curtis loved the waves washing over his feet as the tide came and went. He however was not a fan of getting sand in his mouth! There was also a nice family next to us that let Curtis play with their toys.

After the beach we got to meet up with some friends of mine from UC Davis and have lunch with them. It was really nice catching up and just amazes me that you can go for years without seeing someone and it seems like nothing has really changed, even though we both have a kid now!

Over the next few days my mom and I helped Shelly finish getting stuff ready for her wedding. It was fun and weird all at the same time. It's one thing to say she's getting married, but it's another for it to be reality. She has always been my little sister and it is hard for me to realize that she is old enough to be getting married! It just doesn't register. I'm sure those of you who have younger siblings know what I'm talking about. We had errands to run, a backyard to get ready for the reception, which turned out amazing thanks to her FIL! He did a great job stringing up the lanterns. I got to give her the wedding night talk. Thankfully she has married friends that had also talked to her. We got our nails done and just had some fun time together. It was also nice having my mom there. We are all great friends and I love it!

Finally the comes and I'd love to say it went off without a hitch, but that would be a lie. Fortunately, nothing catastrophic happened and they did get married, which is all that really matters. The sealing took place in the gorgeous San Diego Temple! It took place almost an hour late due to some poor planning on part of the temple workers. (No worries, I still believe that the church is true, but Travis questions the validity of that temple. :)) B/c of the luncheon that was planned there wasn't much time for pictures at the temple, but the photographer got a few anyway. The luncheon was great! David's family picked a great restaurant and it was fun spending time with my older brother and his family that I rarely see.

The happy couple!

Curtis and his dad!

The reception was great. There was authentic Mexican food! The lady even made homemade tortillas right there in the backyard! Awesome! The cake was about 30 mins late to the reception and I stepped in to help finish putting it together. A friend of Shelly's did the cake and nothing went her way that day. But, it looked fine and everybody loved it.

Travis enjoyed chatting flower with the gentleman that did Shelly's flowers. I didn't get many pictures at the reception b/c I was too busy running around making sure Shelly had a perfect night! And she did!! Mission accomplished! My SIL and some of Shelly's friends even decorated their getaway car and gave them a nice goody basket. (those pics are on my mom's camera)

All in all it was a great trip. I loved seeing and getting to spend time with my family and soak up some California sun, but in the end I was happy to come home. Dorthy was right when she said, "There's no place like home". And it's true, no matter where your home is, it's the best place to be. :)

Boot Camp Graduation: Part 2

Getting to the graduation was an adventure in itself. The MCRD is only 15ish minutes from Shelly's apartment but it took us over an hour to get to the MCRD. We had fun watching all of the traffic craziness. There were two sets of train tracks that were pretty busy that people kept stopping on. There were some crazy intersections that people kept stopping in the middle of. People not going to the graduation really couldn't get to where they needed to go. Big semi work trucks were honking up a storm to get people out of their way. The funniest was the car in front of us. They weren't aggressive at all. Finally the driver and passenger got out of the car and traded places. My brother was ahead of us a bit and asked Shelly if they were having a Chinese Firedrill. Unfortunately, neither of the people in the car looked like they were having any fun. In fact, the woman, who had been the passenger, looked furious. Needless to say, she got the job done much better than the guy with her. We eventually made it to the MCRD and got good seats in the bleachers.
The graduation was very nice. They had a few speakers, the Marine Band played a few numbers and the recruits marched around the parade deck. The poor recruits had to stand in formation the entire time, over an hour, in the sun. One of the guys in Doug's platoon actually passed out! He started to stumble forward and the guys next to him had to grab his arms and hold him up until some of their superiors could come and take him off the parade deck. We talked to Doug about it earlier and it turns out that it was the Commander's son that passed out! Doug just couldn't believe it! I'm sure that he's not going to live that one down. The medics managed to fix him and he was able to return to his platoon for the inspection march and the end of graduation. After the graduation ceremony, Doug went and picked up his bags and then we took some pictures.


A relaxed Doug and his luggage.

Doug and Michael making Shelly feel short.

The whole Halladay clan (minus Travis)

Once we were done with pictures Doug insisted that we go to In'n'Out so that he could have a 4x4, animal style fires and a strawberry milk shake.


It was gone in under 5 minutes. But I guess that they are only allowed 4 minutes to eat in boot camp and apparently he is still in that habit.

All in all, it was a great time. It was great to see Doug and see how much he has grown. I also got an update from my mom that he went to church with her and bore his testimony in sacrament meeting. I really hope that he has had a change of heart and has found his testimony and that he will continue to strengthen it.

Boot Camp Graduation: Part 1

As stated before the first part of this trip was to go to Doug's boot camp graduation. It was two great days, aside from it being a little warm and getting sunburned. Thursday was Liberty day. This is the day before graduation when the family and loved ones get to see their marine and he tgets to show them around the base. The days starts with The recruits doing a run in their short little shorts and then the families watching a presentation while the recruits go change. We were late getting there and missed the run and decided to skip the presentation and just go sit in the grand stand and wait the 20 mins for the recruits to come back. For whatever reason the 20 mins turned into an hour! I thought that marines were supposed to be punctual! Fortunately, Curtis was being a happy camper.

Anyhow, they eventually came and we got to see Doug in formation with his platoon. That was cool. Then they were released and we got to give him BIG HUGS! This was really special for my mom because Doug wasn't too fond of my parents when he left for boot camp. But he wrote my parents every week while in boot camp and really had a change of heart. He went to church every week, which is big because he hadn't been going for some time. It was just really great to see the change in him.


First thing on the agenda for Liberty Time was to go to the luncheon that LDS Branch put on for the recruits to show their appreciation for their sacrifice to serve their country. It was a great lunch and Curtis thoroughly enjoyed it too. I fed him some lunch and then he decided that he wanted to eat the ketchup coated hot dog bun. He ate the whole thing!


After lunch the recruits participated in a cake cutting tradition where the cake is cut with a ceremonial saber and then the oldest marine feeds cake to the youngest marine to make sure it is edible. The cake was deemed edible so we all partook.


After lunch, we went and did some shopping. Doug wanted to buy things for the family and he needed some clothes and he wanted a lap top. Really I think that he was just excited to have money and to spend it. Fine by me! He bought Curtis a cute little dog that he spit up chocolate cake on before we even bought it. That's my boy. Doug was also very excited about getting to eat a cheese and berry danish!



It was a great day and very enjoyable to see Doug and hang out with him. He's grown a lot; emotionally and spiritually and maybe even a little physically. But he will always be my Juggie.

San Diego Vacation: Leg One

Curtis and I have run off to San Diego for a week and a half to celebrate some great accomplishments. First, my youngest brother, Doug, is graduating from boot camp on Sept 3 and then my little sister, Shelly, is getting married in the San Diego temple on the 10th. Originally I had planned to just fly to San Diego with Curtis. It was going to be great fun keeping him happy on a three hour flight! Instead, we just flew 1.5 hours to Sacramento and then drove 8.5 hours the next day, with my mom, to San Diego. Crazy, I know, but that is just how things worked out.

Here are a few highlights from this first part of the journey. Uncle Randy and Auntie Debra were kind enough to take us to the airport and help me get all of my stuff to the check in desk. I was so proud of myself for getting everything in one suitcase and a diaper bag. But I still had to take the laptop, a car seat and Curtis in the stroller!


After successfully getting the suitcase and car seat checked we headed through security. I must say that I'm pretty good and speedily making it through security with all of my stuff and a kid. After getting scanned and then having the security guy check the contents of Curtis's sippy cup, we headed to our gate. (to check the liquid the hold a test strip above the open cup and then pour some liquid on it. we passed the test) Once at the gate I realized that our flight didn't leave for an hour! What was I going to do with a very mobile kid for an hour! Well, I had some toys for him, but really I just let him crawl around.


People didn't mind and I'd scoop him up and bring him back before he got too far away. His favorite part about waiting was finding a cat in a carrier. It belong to this older couple and they were happy to let Curtis look at their cat. The cat on the other hand wasn't too happy, it kept hissing and batting at Curtis from inside its carrier. I finally told Curtis that the cat was done being looked at and that we needed to leave it alone. Finally our plane arrived and we got to board. Now, not to disrespect any BSU fans, but really, an airplane??


Anyhow, Curtis did well on the flight. He passed the time by putting the tray up and down and doing the same with the armrest. My two favorite parts was that the seat next to us was empty and that the flight was only 1.5 hours. Mr. Curtis didn't get an afternoon nap and was getting hungry. We made it to Sacramento without mishap and had a great evening with my mom and grandma.