So You Think You Can Dance

We love the show So You Think You Can Dance, so when I saw a flier for a workshop featuring dancers from the show I had to sign Kenzie up. One of my all-time favorite dancers from the show was going to be there, namely Twitch!!! He is such a great dancer and has such a fun personality. If you aren't familiar with him, just go to YouTube and watch some videos, he's awesome!

Anyway, the workshop was on Saturday from 8-5. Kenzie was able to learn choreography from three different dancers from the show, Twitch, Lauren, and Legacy.

Her first class was with Twitch. He taught a really cool hip-hop routine. It was much harder choreography than Kenzie was used to, but she had a lot of fun with it and has some new moves to show her friends. Twitch was a great teacher and really fun to watch.

Her second class was with Lauren. She taught a jazz contemporary routine. Kenzie wasn't all that fond of the dance style, but learned a few moves that she really liked. Lauren is a fantastic dancer and it was really cool to see what she was capable of.

The last class was with Legacy. He also taught a hip-hop routine and actually ended up using the same music as Twitch so they could add the two routines together. Legacy was recently a backup dancer for Justin Bieber, so he spent a large part of the class doing his best Justin Bieber impression. It was very funny! He also showed off some of his moves at the end and it was absolutely amazing!

After the classes, we all gathered together to sing Happy Birthday to Twitch and they brought out cake for everybody. Then we were all able to get pictures with the three of them and then line up for autographs. We were able to get a shirt signed and a poster. It was a very long, but very fun day!

My goal by the end of the day was to get a picture of me with Twitch for my new profile picture on Facebook. I was a little worried it wasn't going to happen, but right before we left there was no one around Twitch, so we were able to talk him into it. I seriously felt like one of those teenage girls that gets all starstruck by their favorite celebrity, but I just couldn't help it.

Hogle Zoo

Since the weather was gorgeous this week, we decided it was the perfect time to go to the zoo. We brought our niece, Amaya, with us since she hadn't been to the zoo for a while and really wanted to go. We ended up buying a membership because it was only a few more dollars than getting all 7 of us in. Hopefully with the membership we'll actually make it down a few more times this year and experience the animals in different times of the year. I've heard they are much more active in the winter, so we'll see. It was our first time going to the zoo without a stroller and it was heaven! It's such a different experience to be able to get through the crowds without pushing a large stroller everywhere you go. Brooklyn and Kaden did get a little tired, but overall it was so much better. We rode the train and the carousel while we were there, had a picnic lunch, and saw most of the animals. It was a long, but fun day.

Brooklyn had told me that she didn't want to see the gorillas when we were there because she had a nightmare about a gorilla biting her foot. I thought she would get over it by the time we got there, but as soon as we went in the building to see the gorillas she started crying. She was so scared even though they were behind a glass wall.

Here are a few of the highlights:

Where do I begin?

After 5 months of no updates, it's hard to know where to start, so I guess I'll just go back to May and move forward.

At the end of May my mom underwent heart surgery and my grandma passed away. That put a bit of a damper on the beginning of summer and I don't really feel like it began until the end of June.

Right before my mom went in for surgery, Kaden had one last field trip with his preschool to Discovery Gateway. We rode the train down and enjoyed a couple hours there and then went to lunch with Les. We had a great time together.



Kenzie also had a puppet show at the end of May. Her group did a really good job and it was fun to see all of the kids creativity with their puppets.


Kenzie, Kaden, and Brooklyn were all a part of a dance/tumbling recital at the end of June. It was a hectic two days of dress rehearsals and performances, but it was a lot of fun to see all of their hard work pay off.


At the end of July, Kenzie and Kaden started school. Kenzie is in the 6th grade and Kaden is in Kindergarten. They both have great teachers and are doing really well in school.


We also took our first camping trip of the summer at the end of July to the Uintah's with Les's family. We were able to spend time with his parents, four of his brothers, all of his nieces and nephews, a couple aunts, one uncle, and a few cousins. The kids had a blast floating down the river. It was great to finally get out and have some fun after the rough start to our summer.


In August we celebrated Kenzie's 11th birthday. I surprised her by decorating her room for her while she was at school. It was fun to see her reaction, she even got a bit teary-eyed, which in turn made me teary too. It was well worth the time and effort!



A couple days later, my mom ended up back in the hospital after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke (bleeding in the brain) which wouldn't stop because of the blood thinner she takes for her mechanical valve. It was very scary to go through something like that again and very stressful. She was in the hospital for over two weeks and I tried to make it up there everyday to keep her company. She's doing really well again, thank goodness, and hopefully we won't have anymore scares like that again.

Cody started school in August as well, unfortunately I didn't get a picture of him on his first day. He started the 8th grade this year and he's definitely noticing the difference in homework this year.

We woke up to a surprise one Sunday morning at the end of August. Our very large willow tree in the front yard had blown over in the wind. It was quite the site. Luckily it was too short to hit the house, but it was very close.


Over Labor Day weekend we finally were able to take a camping trip with my parents. We went up to Flaming Gorge. We spent time in the boat, hiking, and just relaxing. It was a much needed break after the craziness of our summer. Cody's friend Nate came with us for the weekend for his very first camping trip ever. It was fun to have him around and Cody definitely enjoyed the company.


Brooklyn started preschool a couple days after getting home. She absolutely loves it! She wishes she could go to school everyday like the other kids. I just can't believe my baby is in school. I'm kind of stuck between emotions on that one. On one hand, having some alone time is pure bliss, on the other, I'm sad that my kids are growing up so fast.




In a nutshell, this has been the past 5 months for our family. It's been quite the roller coaster ride. Hopefully this will be the last marathon post for a very long while!

Has it really been 4 years?

How did my baby go from this.....



to this.....

I can't believe that Brooklyn is 4. This boggles my mind to think that my baby is getting so big. Of course, I've been around to witness it, but I think I must have been in denial that she's really growing up.

To celebrate her birthday, last Friday we rode the train down to Salt Lake and had dinner at California Pizza Kitchen and then got some candy at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and wandered around Gateway for a little while. On Saturday, we had a birthday party for her and she got lots of fun presents. A few of her favorites were a Barbie and Ken doll, a fairy princess costume, and a Tinkerbell scooter.

A few of Brooklyn's favorites right now are dancing, singing, playing games (she's really good at Memory), watching Dora the Explorer on TV, and the color pink.

Brooklyn is such a sweetheart and we love her very much!!! Happy Birthday Brooklyn!

What we've been up to.

My new goal for the blog is to be more consistent in updating it, we'll see how it goes. I'm going to attempt to update once a week, which is way more often than I have been, so wish me luck.

Since our trip to Disneyland, our lives have gotten back to normal and we're just as busy as ever. In March, Kenzie had a dance competition at Weber High. Their team did really well and got quite a few trophies. A few days later she danced during half-time at a Utah Jazz game. She's done this quite a few times now and she really enjoys it. We rode the Front Runner train down to Salt Lake and Les met us down there. We had to be there early for dress rehearsal and then we went to dinner before the game. We got back to the Energy Solutions Arena quite early and were able to watch the Jazz players warm up and then watched the cheerleaders and jazz comp team from Kenzie's dance school perform the pre-game show. We just missed the opportunity to get pictures with President Monson because we took too long to follow after the other dancers, but we were able to wave at him as he left. During the game, Kaden and Brooklyn were more interested in trying to find the Jazz Bear than actually watching the game, so as soon as Kenzie was done dancing we left to go get ice cream. She did a great job and we're really proud of her.


In early April, of course we celebrated Easter. We had my brothers and their families come over for dinner and an Easter egg hunt. The kids had a great time trying to find all of their eggs. My mom gave each of them their own color so everybody ended up with the same amount of eggs in the end. We ended up hiding a few of the eggs a bit too hard and the hunt took longer than we thought it would, but it was a lot of fun.


We also celebrated my mom's birthday on Easter and had cake and ice cream for her. She even got to blow out some candles. Hope you had a happy birthday mom!!!


Brooklyn and I were also able to go on a field trip with Kaden to a dairy farm. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera because I had taken the SD card out of it for a lesson I was teaching in Young Women's about temples and had filled it up with temple pictures for my digital frame. The kids had a great time and they even got to pet some calves.

Hopefully I can come up with enough stuff to write about on a weekly basis. I'll keep my camera with me in hopes of capturing some really cute stuff! Until next time......

Disneyland!

As promised, I am actually blogging about our trip to Disneyland.

For anyone that had talked to me in the planning phase of our trip, you know that Disneyland was not my first choice of a family vacation. My kind of vacation is Yellowstone or Oregon, more nature-like. Of course, I would have felt like a horrible mother if we had never taken our kids there, so the planning began.

We decided to leave for our trip on Friday night, the 19th, at midnight so the kids would sleep the majority of the way there. We planned on stopping in Las Vegas for breakfast. So, Les came home from work early and went straight to bed while I packed the car and got everything ready to go. I kept the kids up until we left by watching Disney movies. Everyone was super excited to get on the road and we headed out the door just after midnight. Unfortunately, a few of the kids and I had picked up colds before we left, so sleeping on the road wasn't working out very well for us. Also, just outside of Filmore we ran into some horrible snow and the plows hadn't made it out yet. We were traveling about 25-30 mph along the freeway and trucks were pulling off left and right to put on chains. We made the decision to pull over in Filmore and get a hotel for a few hours so we could get some much needed rest and let the plows get a chance to clear the roads a bit. We slept for about three hours and were on the road again by about 8AM. We grabbed breakfast at Burger King and were on our way. The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful and the kids tolerated it quite well. Let's just say that the idea to leave at midnight seemed good at the time, but in hindsight was probably a really bad one, but live and learn right?!

We arrived in Anaheim at about 5 and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Homewood Suites and were very impressed. The rooms were great and the service we received was wonderful. I would highly recommend this hotel to anybody going to Disneyland! There was an L-shaped couch in the room that folded out into a bed and Kaden found that once the bed was pulled out he could stand the cushions up next to it and make kind of a fort out of the rest of the couch. He chose to sleep there the entire trip, it was pretty funny. Cody loved it because he got the whole sofa bed to himself. We tried to research different restaurants before heading to California to get an idea of where to eat. We ended up eating at a local Italian restaurant called Carolina's that was just down the street from our hotel. We were able to walk, which was a nice break after being in the car so long. The food was pretty good, but our service was horrible. I'm not sure that I would really recommend it to anybody, but it was a fun experience.

On Sunday, we spent our day at Huntington Beach. It was kind of chilly and it looked like it was going to rain, but the weather held out for us and we had a great time. We built sandcastles, flew kites, and just ran around and had fun. It was definitely nice to get away from the Utah snow and have a fun day in the sun. We decided that a burger sounded good for dinner, so we researched good burger joints in Anaheim and ended up at a place called Paul's. Well...it was pretty much just Crown Burger with a few extra things on the menu, so nothing really special, but it was good.


Monday was our first day in Disneyland. We decided to drive instead of using a shuttle bus since for our family it was the same price and we liked the idea of having our car to come and go as we pleased. Disney parking is awful!!! They have people directing you to the spot they want you in and we ended up in the furthest spot from the little tram that takes you to the main entrance as possible. We were only able to make it through Tomorrowland and Fantasyland that first day as there ended up being a lot more people there than I thought there would be in February. We had a great time and the kids absolutely loved it. We took a break midday for lunch at the hotel, we had bought the stuff for sandwiches and chips. We ended up staying at Disneyland until almost close and went in search of a place to eat. We had wanted to go to PF Chang's, but the wait time there was about an hour, which just wasn't going to cut it with a bunch of tired and hungry kids. We walked down the street and ended up at Bubba Gump's. Any fan of Forrest Gump should definitely hit up Bubba Gump's sometime, it was a pretty fun atmosphere. The food was pretty good, but nothing spectacular. It was freezing cold in the restaurant though. Our table was the closest one to the door and they kept the doors wide open the entire time with a cold breeze coming through. We headed back to the hotel exhausted and ready for bed, and also looking forward to another fun day ahead.

On Tuesday we decided to take our hotel shuttle bus to Disney. This was a slightly better option than driving, but again we were dropped off at the furthest point from the main entrance and our driver was awful. We spent most of our day in California Adventure. We had watched the news that morning and found out that Captain EO was reopening and there were people that had camped out overnight just to see it. We wanted to avoid that mess as much as possible, so California Adventure it was! There's a lot of construction going on at California Adventure right now and really there aren't a lot of rides over there. We were able to get through all of it in one day with time to spare. Kaden and Brooklyn really enjoyed Playhouse Disney Live and Cody and Kenzie really liked the faster rides they had over there. Kenzie's favorite was Tower of Terror and Cody's favorite was California Screamin'. We made the mistake of taking Kaden on Tower of Terror and the name fit his reaction, he was terrified! I felt so bad. He ended up questioning every ride that Brooklyn wasn't allowed to go on after that just to make sure it wasn't too scary. Brooklyn didn't feel good most of the day and I don't think she remembers much about it at all. For dinner, we ended up at the Rainforest Cafe. I wanted to have one night that we went to a themed restaurant for the kids. This was the perfect place to keep them happy. The food was pretty good, nothing too special, but the atmosphere was a lot of fun.


On Wednesday, we decided to take Anaheim Resort Transit to get to Disneyland. This was such a better way to go. The route is #1 which meant you were dropped at the closest possible stop near the main gate and it also ran every 20 minutes. We finished the rest of Disneyland that day. The crowds were gone and we were able to get on every ride almost immediately. We had been trying to get Brooklyn over to see the Princesses since we got there, but the line was always at least an hour wait, so first thing Les grabbed her and ran over to get in line while I took the other three kids to do the rest of the rides. Brooklyn was able to meet three of the princesses and on their way back to meet up with us they ran into Jesse and Woody too! She was a very happy girl that day. The kids and I went on Big Thunder Mountain, Haunted Mansion, and Pirates of the Caribbean while we waited for them to finish. It was a lot of fun. We ended up back at California Adventure for a little bit catching a few more rides and watching the Pixar parade and then decided to call it a day a little earlier than we had been. For dinner, we ended up driving a bit north to catch a BBQ place we had read about online called Lucille's. We had thought it was a local restaurant, but apparently it is a chain restaurant that we just don't have here in Utah. The food was great!!! Unfortunately our service was awful. I'm glad we tried it out, but it would have been nice if our server remembered we were there!


On Thursday, we rode a few of the favorites at California Adventure and finally road Soarin' Over California. It was pretty busy the other days, so we got in line first thing to be able to do it. Kaden was convinced that it was going to be scary and cried the entire time we were in line. It took a lot of convincing to even get him buckled in, but he finally gave up and ended up enjoying it. We also made it over to catch Captain EO at Disneyland. We were going to avoid it like the plague thinking it would always be really busy and they weren't offering Fast Passes for it, but we tried it out and we actually only had to wait about 15 minutes, not too bad. Once we saw it, I asked the kids if they would have been willing to camp out overnight to see it and they said absolutely not!! I'm sure we must have thought it was the coolest thing back in the 80s, but really it was so dumb! We wrapped up early again and decided to head out to the beach again to catch a sunset. There is a restaurant at the end of the pier at Huntington Beach called Ruby's. It has the coolest views and we were able to catch the sunset right from our booth. The food and service were excellent! We all got shakes to end the meal and they were fantastic. This experience was definitely worth every penny (which was quite a bit). One of the pictures below is Les's cherry Coke, which he said was the absolute best he had ever tasted!


On Friday, we spent time in both parks trying to finish up things we hadn't done and riding on a few favorites. We were able to catch the street party at Disneyland and the Aladdin Musical Spectacular at California Adventure. We were hoping to catch the fireworks that night as it was the only night they were going to show them on our trip, but they were canceled due to weather, what a bummer! We did get to see Nicolas Cage at the exit of Indiana Jones, but we didn't have our camera with us and decided we didn't want to be all weird and go bug him for a picture with our phones.


We had a lot of fun trying to track down the characters while we were there. We ended up having better luck at California Adventure than at Disneyland because of the crowds. Every character had a line just to be able to get a picture, but the lines at California Adventure were much shorter.



Here are a few of the fun photo ops we just had to take advantage of. We are such tourists!



We ended our trip with a night in Vegas. That was such a bad idea. Kids on the strip at night is just not good at all. I had this great idea to take the kids to a bunch of the free stuff to see on the strip and then eat at a buffet. Unfortunately, the atmosphere in Vegas is much different now than what I remember when we visited a few years ago. We did end up seeing the lions at MGM, M&M World, the fountains at Bellagio, and the statues at Caesar's. We ate at the Planet Hollywood buffet. The food was mediocre at best and there were just too many people to feel comfortable with the older kids getting their own food. Of course they loved the dessert bar, so I guess all wasn't lost. We decided to forgo the breakfast buffet we had been looking forward to because we really never want to step foot on the strip again, it was just nasty! We ate breakfast at our hotel on Sunday morning and then we were on our way home. We stopped in Salt Lake for dinner at Roman's Macaroni Grill and had to laugh when we got our bill as it was half of what we spent on dinners in California, and we even got dessert! Crazy!!!

I would say our trip was a great success! We all had a lot of fun. Even I enjoyed it despite all the crowds. I miss the warmer weather and wish spring would hurry up and get here.

Another marathon post

Once again I have gotten several months behind on my blogging, so here is another very long post to get you up to date. I wanted to do this now because we are leaving for Disneyland next week and I wanted to be able to blog about that as soon as we got home, so here we go!


First up we have Black Island Farms. Kaden's preschool class went there for a field trip again this year. Brooklyn got to tag along and they had a great time. We went on a hay ride where they learned about different vegetables and each got to pick a pumpkin. Then they played in the courtyard where there was a train, bounce house, slides, and animals. It was a lot of fun.


Up next we have Halloween. Les and Kaden dressed up as Mario and Luigi, which was super cool! Les won a prize for his costume at work. Kenzie was a hippie. We tie-dyed her shirt and Grandma Garr made a vest and turned some old jeans into bell-bottoms for her, she was way cute! Cody was a zombie. We didn't ever take the time to really work out his costume, but I think it turned out pretty good for a last minute attempt. Brooklyn was a 50s girl and looked super cute in her poodle skirt that Grandma Garr made for her. I was a gypsy, but most people thought I was a pirate, but that's okay, at least I dressed up! We had a quick party at my parents house and then came home to go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. The kids got a ton of candy which disappeared very quickly!



It was that time again to get a new family picture taken, but unfortunately we waited too long and didn't get a chance to do outdoor pictures again like I had wanted to, so we decided to have my cousin take our picture in front of my parents fireplace. It didn't turn out too badly, but I think we will give it a go again in the spring.


Next up, pictures with Santa! At our annual Peterson Family Party Santa comes each year and brings a bunch of yummy candy, but you have to sit on his lap in order to get some. Brooklyn and Kenzie went right up and were pretty close to the front of the line. Kaden wanted absolutely nothing to do with Santa and wouldn't go near him. Cody waited patiently until close to the end of the line, but it was worth the wait!


In December, Kenzie, Kaden, and Brooklyn had dance and tumbling demonstrations. This is Brooklyn and Kaden's first year doing dance and tumbling and they have been having a blast. Brooklyn was kind of nervous up on the stage, but she did pretty good once she got going. Kaden had fun showing off for us. Kenzie is doing really well with both dance and tumbling. I wish I would have gotten better pictures, but it's hard when they're constantly moving.


The next pictures were taken at Grandma and Grandpa Peterson's Christmas Eve party. Brooklyn got this cute purse with all kinds of fun stuff in it from Aunt Ruth and she decided to share with Grandpa Garr. He's such a good sport!



And then it was Christmas! Everyone got a lot of really fun presents this year. Cody and Kenzie's favorites were their phones, Kaden's was his robotic dinosaur, and Brooklyn's was her Three Musketeers Barbie. My mom got us all Laser Tag guns. We're looking forward to the warmer weather so we can really try them out, but we've had fun chasing each other around the house and hiding behind furniture. Les got me a Quickutz Silhouette SD, which for those of you who don't know is a really cool digital cutter that I can use for my scrapbooking. I've had a ton of fun with it already and I can't wait to learn more about it so I can make all sorts of fun stuff!


Les took Kenzie, Kaden, and Brooklyn sledding with our neighbors. He said they had a lot of fun, which they must have because they were gone for a really long time! I was able to catch up on my reading and relax on the couch since I wasn't feeling well. I'm bummed that I missed out on the fun, but I'm not a big fan of snow so they probably had more fun without me!

And there you have it...four months worth of fun with the Buchanan family. Of course we have done many other things in the past four months, but these are the things we actually took pictures of. I know I'm not the greatest of bloggers, but I hope those of you who read this enjoy the quick catch-ups every now and then.

Coming soon.....Disneyland!!!!