The One with Pictures of Kaden

He's growing up!  Sniff.

I have soooo many funny pictures of Kaden!  And memories.  Probably because he's the oldest grandkid in the family.  Some of them are even from my first camera- which used film!  Since I don't always have exciting news to share I thought I'd post a few memories.  I'll apologize for the random order of this post now, I'm reminiscing!

On the houseboat at Lake Powell.
This must be where Makayla gets her posing from.

When Amy told us she was going to have a baby (obviously Kaden) I was sooo excited!  I was 13 and he was the first nephew.  And we can all say that Kaden was very entertaining to watch grow up.  He would repeat or do anything you told him to, literally anything.  Flied rice anyone?  -Sadly no pictures with the Japanese hat :(

Too cute!!

 For some reason Kaden loved these gloves of mine.  He's eating a slushy here but I also have a picture of him sleeping with them on.

 Wow do I look amazing in this picture.  This was the night before Amy and Kaden moved to North Carolina.  I'm sure Kaden wouldn't have smiled so big if he knew he was leaving his favorite aunt!

 I guess Kaden's always been a video game addict.  Proof.

Favorite Kaden Quotes:

"Pink Spiders"- said slowly and with a lisp.  Ha ha!!  Kaden said that once when my friend Aaron Burroughs came over and Aaron would repeat it all the time!  No idea where it came from.

Cindy- "Give me a big milk."

Kaden- "Chocolate!"

Cindy- "Give me a little milk."

Kaden- "skim."

I was driving home to Safford with Kaden in the backseat and taught him the milk song to keep him entertained.  He said skim in the tiniest little voice.  I almost had to pull over I laughed so hard.  Do we have that on tape?  We should!

"Good night Aunt Cindy, good night Aunt Grandma, good night Aunt Mommy, good night Aunt Uncle Dude. Good night good night good night good night good night."  -appropriately named "The Good Night Song"

Favorite Kaden Memories:

Just for proof that Kaden would do anything you asked.  Especially if you told him it would be funny.

Yep, that's a mylar balloon!!

Kaden is such a smart kid.  My sophomore year of college I took Kaden and Makayla to our annual Chemistry "Magic Show."  It was interactive as well as educational so we (the demonstrators) asked the audience questions.  I was surprised myself when Kaden would shout out correct answers.  He must have been 6 years old and my friends all thought we were cheating and I was telling him what to say until he got the question right that I asked the audience.  Then everyone said "child genius." 

 Again, so cute!!  And you can definitely tell he lives in AZ.  Brightest sun ever!!

I took this picture one night before going to look at the temple lights during Christmas.  I always wanted to put it in a photo contest because Kaden's expression is so classically funny!  And look at what a sweet sister Makayla is.

LOVE it!!  This may be my favorite picture ever!!

And finally, I LOVE that Kaden wants to be a scientist.  It's a great goal :)  You're going to have to put in some hard work, but it will totally be worth it.  I know you can do it Buddy!  Love you Kaden!!!

   

The One with the Ring!

No, Justin hasn't been pretending to be Gollum again- last night I lost my engagement ring!  After school we went to the gym like usual and then realized we could make the last Captain America showing at the dollar theater.  We've been wanting to see that movie since it came out last summer but somehow never seem to be quite able to work it out.  Or it gets sold out, like last week (we saw Cowboys & Aliens instead- way better than I thought it would be!).

Anyway, I always take my ring off to work out and was putting it back on in the car on the way to the movie when... it fell.  I heard it bounce around under my seat (the passenger side) and figured once we stopped I could just look under the seat and pick it up.  No such luck.  I actually dropped Justin off at the front of the theater to buy tickets and went looking for a parking spot.  This meant that I didn't actually have to open the passenger side door and hopefully could prevent my ring falling out of the car.  I stuck my hand under the seat from both the front and back, slid the seat as far as it would go either direction, rummaged around, used a flashlight and didn't find anything.  I did earn a few cuts on my fingertips.  Apparently my car is pretty clean but sadly, no ring.  Finally, I did get out (very carefully) and repeated the procedure from a better angle.  Again, no luck.  However, I did find a slit in the carpet underneath the seat where the final bolts were attached during assembly.  I found two pennies in there (both of which faked me out thinking I'd found my ring) and finally decided to run to the theater.

I told Justin I hadn't found my ring but I thought I knew where it was.  We still had a few minutes before the movie actually started which was good because I was quite distracted trying to think of the best way to find my ring in that hole underneath the seat.  By the way, Captain America is really good!  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Although I will admit that all of my favorite movies this year have been based on comic books.  This may further solidify my "nerd" status but I've never actually read any graphic novels so I'm nowhere near Sheldon Cooper.

After the movie Justin helped me search again, but we came up empty-handed.  By now I was starting to feel a little distraught, as you can imagine.  We decided to drive home and see if we could remove the passenger seat.  That was the slowest, most careful, least-amount-of-road-rage drive I have ever taken with Justin :)  When we got home we unbolted the seat (which was much easier than I thought it would be, thankfully) and I immediately saw a shiny diamond.  My ring had fallen around one of the bolts!  Yay!!  Just after I found it, I saw two people slowly approaching us.  Our landlords had seen some lights around our truck and thought it was getting stolen or something.  How nice of them to come check for us!  I would have been terrified to go check out what I thought was a burglary in progress.  What good neighbors!

I'm so glad to have my ring back!  And this was a reminder that now is a good time to get my engagement and wedding rings soldered together.  Oh, and probably that we've been married long enough I should change my last name :)

The One with Halloween!

I am so excited about our costumes this year!!  We went to our first Halloween party last night and I took some pictures just so I could post them for you all!  I love using our interracial marriage as a basis for costumes and this may have been my best idea yet!

Funniest Couple Costume- Cindy & Justin

Border Patrol Agent & Illegal Immigrant

Scariest Costume (playing off Cindy's own ridiculous fear of sharks)- Erin & Jack

Great White Shark & Attack Victim

Honorable Mention to Jack for wearing tights!

Funniest Individual Costume- Thayne (center)

Human Cannonball

Thayne cracks me up!  He honestly has a costume box and pulled some items out.  Between the water polo cap & the goggles he decided he would be a human cannonball.

Most Romantic Costume- Kristie & Jarvis

Wesley & Buttercup

Jarvis is probably the best Wesley I've ever seen (other than Cary Elwes) but no honorable mention- those aren't actually tights.

 

Best Foreign Costume- Brad

Brazilian Mailman

Brad served his mission in Sao Paolo & Justin served in Rio so I think Justin was the only one who was able to recognize this costume right off.  I guessed Bob the Builder :)

I had to throw this picture in too!

 And some extra pictures of Justin's full costume :)  This was all I dreamed of and more!

And yes, he is holding a bag of beans.

Thank you Justin for being such a good sport!

Happy Halloween!!!!

The One with the Punkins

Halloween is a big holiday here in Utah and Justin and I have been joining in the festivities more as each year passes.  What I've enjoyed the most is pumpkin carving.  I had some really great ideas for this year but all Justin wanted was a "face."  I suggested a special face- Darth Vader :)  He was ok with that.  Then I may have taken it a little far but look how cool!!  Oh and we got another small pumpkin for just a face.

Secret weapon- backward Star Wars!

This one shows the faces better.

And this one shows the backside better :)  I think it turned out really well!

I love our punkins!!

The One where Fall has Fallen

It is definitely getting colder here in Utah.  While we were at FACSS two weeks ago the first snow fell on the mountains and it is still hanging out up there.  While I don't necessarily like the weather that comes with changing seasons or the fact that we will soon be stuck with indoor sports/activities only, I do enjoy the beautiful fall colors.  Justin and I went on possibly our last bike ride of the year this past Saturday up Millcreek Canyon.  It was gorgeous!!  Changing aspens are by far our favorite trees.  I love the splashes of color they add to the side of the mountain.

Dog Lake (again)

On the trail!

 

My silly husband!  Justin really wanted a picture of him throwing up leaves :)

 

This last picture is actually of Grandma Sabol's fence.  After we got back down from the mountain Justin and I went over to help her rake up some leaves.  It didn't look like there were that many but we filled up the whole trash can!

I think I am actually going to miss mountain biking this winter :(  The more we go and the better I get the more I really enjoy this sport.  Sadly, I did not break my record to the top on this trip but I did previously set a new one- 40 minutes 31 seconds!!  Here's a picture of the bridge that really isn't that small, but is the bane of my trail riding existence.

Both sides just have such tight entrances and who wants to fall 2 feet down into a creek?!  This time it was covered in leaves too which made it extra tricky.