Lots of new posts playing catch up

So I really need to keep up on this a bit more so I am not ALWAYS playing catch up. We are hoping to get our computer fixed soon so this will not be a problem. I hate getting half way through then it freezes and I have to reboot. Anyway ... without further delay, a little of what has been happening at the Wright's ....

Field Trip to the Tramonto Fire Station

Savannah and her preschool class had their first field trip to the fire station. They were so excited. They got a tour of the fire house, (kitchen/bedrooms) but were excited about seeing the big fire truck. They all got a turn to climb up into the truck and try on a firehat. I think they all had a great time. Parents were welcome to tag along too. I almost think their were more parents/grandparents than kids. Oh well, the more the merrier right? I didn't get too many pictures because as luck would have it my battery was almost dead on the camera. I had to take a picture then turn it off. Guess I should have listened to myself when I said I probably need to charge the battery the night before.

Happy First Birthday Charlotte

I can't believe my baby is already one. Man it went by so fast. I would post back pictures of her making her grand entrance into the world but others don't find those pics as cool as I do. They are below in the slide show if you want to see them. Charlotte is so much fun to have around. We can't imagine life without her. She is such a joy. I think she is one of the happiest babies ever, (unless we are having pics taken by someone else, then of course she is grumpy). She is even smiley and happy when she has nasty ear infections. Its a good thing they come up a fever or I would have no idea. She loves her big Sister Savannah and also loves to push her buttons. She loves daddy and loves to say it all day long. I love hearing her talk but wish 'mama' would come out a little more often then it does. She is not quite walking yet, but I'm sure over the next couple of weeks she will have it down. We had a few of our good friends over and of course Uncle Todd and the girls to come celebrate with us. I think her favorite gift was the xylophone. (Thanks Pretti!) She plays with it everyday and is so excited when she actually hits it to make a sound. I think all the kids enjoyed her legos that she got. And she enjoyed knocking down all the creations they made. Thanks to Preeti for taking all the pics for us during her little party.

The Polar Express

We headed up to Williams, AZ to go on the Grand Canyon Railway's Polar Express. Savannah was so excited. Since the weather here in Phoenix isn't all that cold I actually had to buy her a new coat. The 3T one just wasn't working anymore. So her size 6 will work for the next 2-3 years and will probably only be worn about 5 times. We had the 8pm train and when we arrived around 7:15p it was 36 degrees out. We are such whimps now and freezing. On the train we enjoyed hot chocolate and cookies. Savannah even remembers that the elf gave the cookies and the chef gave her the hot chocolate. Charlotte was a little mad we were not giving her pieces of cookie quick enough. While heading 'north' we read the polar express. I should have brought our book along but I forgot. After going through the 'magic time warp' we arrived at the North Pole to see Santa with his reindeer outside waving. The train came to a stop and Santa climbing on board while the train reversed its engines. He came and talked to every child and gave them a bell. Savannah was a bit bashful and spoke very quietly to him and told him she wanted a digital camera. Charlotte was excited about the bell and became the town cryer and rang it wildly most of the ride back. To enjoy the rest of the journey back to the station we sang Christmas carols and Charlotte must have enjoyed all of our singing because she was soon fast asleep. When we got off the train we raced to the van since we are whimps, and it was now only 26 degrees. Thank heavens for seat warmers. We were hoping, especially Savannah, for a little snow up there like last year but it felt like winter with the weather. Next year we hope to go on Charlottes birthday and stay over night.

Chad was teasing Charlotte with a pretzel. He would pretend to eat it and instead of her grabbing it back with her hands she thought she needed to grab it with her teeth too. It quickly became a game as we waited to board the train.

I'm the Happiest Christmas Tree

Savannah was in a little dance class for the past couple of weeks. She loved going and it was great since her dance teachers house was just around the corner from Safeway. So I could drop her off and head to do grocery shopping while she danced, then I could come back and get her. She had her little dance recital the other Saturday and was so excited. She loves to dance and also sing. She had two classes and one danced to 'I want a Hippopotamos for Christmas' and she got to dance to 'I'm the Happiest Christmas Tree'. In between the dances they all sang Jingle Bells. Even though we practiced the words Savannah still made up her own and she sang it loud for all to hear. Thats okay though. Good job Savannah, we are so proud of you!

Savannah and her teacher Miss Tara

Tried to add video but it wouldn't load. I will try again later.

Meanwhile, in the back of the gym Charlotte was planting a couple of kisses on the bishops son. Or more so she was at the recieving end of things. It was really cute. I believe he about 16 months or so.

Twilight

So I braved all the teenage girls and went with some friends to see the midnight showing of Twilight. Coming from someone who did not read the books, I thought it was pretty good. Man all the vamps were hot. Wish I was a vamp man! j/k. I even wore my red contacts so I could fit the part. (too bad I didn't get any pics of them in) We went to dinner at the Olive Garden before hand. It was a good time and I'm glad I went. Thanks ladies for thinking of me and giving me the invite.

Thanks so much to my sweetheart for letting me go. He is so supportive of me going out with friends, he even bought my ticket to make sure I went. I love you Babe!

I had lunch with a snowman, because I'm NOT crazy

A little laughter and fun for your Thursday today. Make funny sentences for everyone in your family, just follow the instructions.
Mine: I had lunch with a snowman, because I'm NOT crazy
Chad: I danced with a banana, because that's how I roll.
Savannah: I jumped on a goat, because I'm not crazy
Charlotte: I ran over a fork, because someone offered me a million bucks!!
Funny thing is Charlotte 'ran' (crawls) over play forks all the time~ :)

Make sure to leave a comment telling us what your sentence for the day is!

Pick the month you were born:
January-------I kicked
February------I loved
March--------I karate chopped
April----------I licked
May----------I jumped on
June----------I smelled
July-----------I did the Macarena With
August--------I had lunch with
September----I danced with
October-------I sang to
November-----I yelled at
December-----I ran over

Pick the day (number) you were born on:
1-------a bird bath
2----- --a monster
3-------a phone
4-------a fork
5-------a snowman
6-------a gangster
7---- ---my mobile phone
8-------my dog
9-------my best friends' boyfriend
10-------my neighbor
11-------my science teacher
12-------a banana
13-------a fireman
14-------a stuffed animal
15-------a goat
16-------a pickle
17-------your mom
18-------a spoon
19------ - a smurf
20-------a baseball bat
21-------a ninja
22-------Chuck Norris
23-------a noodle
24-------a squirrel
25-------a football player
26-------my sister
27-------my brother
28-------an iPod
29-------a surfer
30-------a homeless guy
31-------a llama

Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:
White----because I'm cool like that
Black-----because that's how I roll.
Pink-----because I'm NOT crazy.
Red------because the voices told me to.
Blue-----because I'm sexy and I do what I want
Green----because I think I need some serious help.
Purple----because I'm AWESOME!
Gray-----because Big Bird said to and he's my leader.
Yellow---because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars
Orange---because my family thinks I'm stupid anyway.
Brown----because I can.
Other-----because I'm a Ninja!
None------because I can't control myself!

I had fun with this today. Hope you do too. What sentences did you come up with?

Extra SeaWorld Pics

Halloween Fun Pics

Major Blogging Drought!

So sorry that I have not posted in FOREVER! Our computer is having issues. I am hoping I can get through these postes without that computer freezing. So there will be many posts on here to get us all caught up to date. So lets go back in time to Mid October, the 15-19th to be precise.

AFLAC National Convention in San Diego.

So again, Chad has been kicking butt in Aflac this year and we got to go on our first National Convention. It is a trip to just congratulate everyone for doing a bit above and beyond. It changes every year and next year it is in New York City. We really want to go to that one since neither Chad nor I have been there. They literally just wined and dined us. It was so much fun! Again another added bonus was that we had no kiddos. Although I think Grandma Carter needed a vacation from her vacation when she got done watching the girls for 5 days. We are sure thankful that she was able to come, and the girls had a lot of fun.

Out of our Hotel window.

So our first day at San Diego, we had a great lunch buffet and got to just hang out until dinner. Aflac rented out the entire USS Midway for the night. We had a great dinner with a live band. They had all the planes out on deck and we were able to do all the flight simulators for free. I felt like I was inside one of Chad's video games. One of the agents from AZ was actually stationed on the Midway for 3 months before he was put on the sister ship. He said he was actually blown off the ship once. He was standing on the wrong side of the plane and when it spun on the platform the jet engines blew him off. Luckily he was able to be picked up by the helicopter hook. Normally they don't come back after being blown off. They had several 'shells' of planes that you were able to sit in.

USS Midway

Group from AZ-West


Our next morning we had the Prayer Breakfast. One of the things I love about Aflac is that they are a very religious company. At every meal there is always a prayer. Someone is asked to say it and they are all from different religions, even here at the local level when we get together there is a prayer. I love that. Anyway, at our prayer breakfast Kurt Cameron spoke to us. At first I thought (very sarcastically), 'Oh goody Kurt Cameron, yawn.' But he was great. He spoke a lot about keeping the Lord in your life and the importance of marriage. He spoke a little about his new movie which sounds Awesome by the way. He also told us he vowed to only kiss his wife when they got married. That also applied to movies. So (sorry to spoil a bit) but in the movie towards the end apparently there is a kiss between his on screen wife and himself. So that he could keep his promise, his wife flew in put on a wig and the dress so he could still be kissing her. I thought that was so sweet.




We then had a day at Sea World. Chad and I had a lot of fun. We felt a little guilty about being at Sea World without the girls. We went on the water rapids ride (like Rattlesnake Rapids at Lagoon) and you go under a waterfall! We were sure it was going to shut off when we got close. NOPE! We were soaked through. My cell phone got soaked so it did not work. I had to blow dry it at the hotel when we got back. The park was all decorated for Halloween and the Otter show was so cute for the holiday. Clyde was dressed as a rapper with a chain around his neck. They also did a little skit about Scooby-Doo and Micheal Jacksons Thriller.

Little Thriller Video. Pretty funny!!

They also had an formal awards night. It was interested to see peoples version of formal. Some of the gals there looked like they should be on a street corner. Oh well.



We also had a concert the last night, by Earth Wind and Fire. It was a little older for us and not in our generation of things but they were good. There are a few songs they have that I know but they didn't play ANY of them. We danced around a bit then headed for the hot tub. All in all it was a great vacation.

Debbie my pretend Mom. We had a lot of people think we were mother/daughter.

BOO AT THE ZOO

For Halloween the zoo does Boo at the Zoo. Since we have a zoo pass we went. I tried to get a few pictures of the girls in their costumes before we left but Charlotte wanted nothing to do with it. We had fun running around the zoo in their costumes.

DYED HAIR

So on Sunday the 26th of October I got some weird crazy idea to dye my hair. I had oodles of dye at my house that I had got for free. So I dyed it brown. Oooooo .... I hated it. It did not go with my complexation and my eyebrows just seemed to stick out. Only one person said anything about it, and I ran into lots of people I know. So either they counldn't tell ( I thought it was drastically different; refer to pics from San Diego) or it was so bad they thought better of saying anything. The pics are not as bad as it really was. Some of the pieces of my hair would not dye. So I had random chunks of blonde. Not pretty. So after buying a $20 bottle of shampoo to make sure I get all the metallic residue out I bleached it back to blonde after 4 days. Yes my hair is offically fried! It did look a lot better when I actually DID my hair. But still not to my liking.

TRUNK OR TREAT

We had our Trunk or Treat this year on the 28th. Since I was frantically trying to finish carving pumpkins for our decorations I did not get into costume this year. I was pretty bummed about it because I love to dress up. But since Chad does not, I feel like I am an annoyance to him when I dress up, and I feel stupid cause he thinks it is stupid to dress up (so what does that make me?) so I think I'm about done. I did wear my red contacts and funky eyelashes though. People thought I was just being a vampire with the upcoming Twlight movie opening. The girls had fun and we gave out little squeaky ducks for the little spooks and mini beach balls to everyone else. Who really needs that extra candy?

Halloween

We had a great time going trick or treating this year. I think Savannah was especially excited because her friend Karianna and her family came with us. One of our neighbors projects the Scooby Doo Cartoons onto their garage on Halloween. The kids got their candy from them and plopped down on the driveway to watch. Too bad it was at the other end of the street and they had lots more to walk. Our little witch and tinkerbell enjoyed themselves. Tinkerbell was especially fond of her glow stick.

Kitchen Play Time

The girls got a play kitchen from Santa last year. Charlotte is now really enjoying it. She crawls into the playroom and pulls herself up to the little kitchen. She loves to pull all the food out and put it into the sink. When I saw her in there I had to take a picture because she has her foot in a pot while standing there. Too funny.

Tag of unspectacular Quirks

The rules are:
* Link to the person who tagged you .... Amy
*Post the rules on your blog
* Write six random things/unspectacular quirks about yourself
* Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them
* Let the tagger know when your entry is posted
1. I hate to fold laundry. It may sit in the basket until it is time to do laundry again so I have to put it away because I need the baskets.
2. I have ADD when cleaning. I go to put something away in one room, and start cleaning up in there, then remember 'oh yeah I was cleaning in the other room' and go back to the original room. I seem to go back and forth and none of the rooms really get as clean as they would if I just stuck to the one room, then went on to the others.
3. I do squats while I brush my teeth.
4. I talk way too much.
5. I use the cruise control all the time. Even on surface streets, since it makes the car go to econ mode.
6. I sweat the small stuff. I let too many little things totally bug and aggrivate me.

As far as who want to do it, Rachel, Heather, Melissa, Andrea, Preeti, Beth

Cruise to Mexico

So last weekend (not the one we just had but before) ... Let me start over, Conference Weekend we got to go on a little weekend cruise to Ensenada, Mexico! Chad is doing so great with Aflac. He is in the top 5 districts in the state many weeks. That is awesome but even more so since he is a rookie district! Sorry I have to brag about my sweetie a bit. He kicks butt and Aflac has been so good to us. So since he has been doing such a great job, Aflac likes to reward you. He hit his requirements for State Convention and so we got to go on this little cruise for free! It makes it so much more fun when you don't have to pay for it. So we dropped the girls off to Todd and Anna on Thursday night since we had a very early flight to catch on Friday. We were up late packing until about midnight all the while knowing we had to get up at 3:30am to get ready and head off to the airport to get there early since we were on standby. (Aflac gave us $600 to use to travel to California. We pocketed the money and got some buddy passes from good ole cousin Kurt. We love Kurt!) So since we were up late packing we were bound to forget something. But I will get to that later.

We get up and head off to the airport. We did not get up as early as we had hoped since we went to bed late ... Soooo we missed the 6am flight. Luckily there was another one at 7:20am that I had checked on to just in case. We get into LAX and it is a nice day. A little chillier than Phoenix but the sun was shining and it was nice. We find a shuttle to take us to the ship. As our life flashes before our eyes as our driver nearly kills us many times we arrive at the ship a little more car sick than when we got into the van. We are WAY early, since we are not allowed to board the ship until 11:30 and it is 9:30a but we were able to pre-board and totally miss all the lines. Since we had time to kill we decided to wander through the Queen Mary. Somewhere between the airport and sickening van ride, the weather had gone south a bit. I was freezing! Okay so my blood has thinned A LOT since moving to Arizona, but the breeze from off the water added with the sun hiding somewhere in the clouds makes me cold. I was really glad that I remembered a light jacket, but it was in our bag which we had already given to the porter. Queen Mary was fun and we learned a lot about her. She was an amazing help during the World Wars and helped to transport many young mothers and their babies, as well as soliders across the Atlantic. It must have been hosting the Miss USA, United States, America or something since there were beauty girls all over with their little sashes. So we were constantly asked to get out of the way because they were on camera interviewing and such.

On the Queen Mary

All the pelicans lined up on the ropes

I was sent to the isolation ward. I would not have wanted to go to surgery on a ship!

The Carnival Paradise

Seeing if his arms were long enough to hold the ship .... nope

We finally get on the ship and it was really nice. We hung out with a few other Aflac Agents and then went off to discover. We played a little shuffle board (which is actually rather fun), played bingo, watched a few shows, I even was in the speed slots finals! I didn't win though. I would have liked the $500 prize. Oh well. I got a tee shirt out of it.







We stopped at Ensenada to port. It was Chad's first time in Mexico. He wasn't too impressed. Everyone kept bugging you saying, '4 shots of tequilla and 2 margaritas for only $20!' Chad quickly learned to say 'Los Mormon' and the guys would throw their hands up and say 'Oh sorry man.' It was pretty funny. We got out Rx at the pharmacy and got the girls some little dresses. Then we went to the bar with Chads Regional manager Shawn his wife Autumn and another agent and her hubby. They all had their beers and what nots while we drank our coke. We were pestered by everyone while we were hanging out. Then this guy comes to ask about shining our shoes. He would polish your white tennis shoes. It would take him like 10 minutes on each shoe. There was only one guy at our table that had on the right type of shoes. He was charging $1 per shoe. So Chad pays him for only 1 shoe on the gals hubby. It was really funny, so then he had to pay for the other one. But man he did a great job. Then all of the sudden the waiters came up to Shawn and start taking off his backpack (he was our pack mule for our drugs :) and his sunglasses. They say 'A guy inside bought you a drink.' He was another Aflac agent. Then put a giant sticker over his eyes, lean him back in a chair and pour some tequilla down his throat then have two guys pick him up in the seated like position and rock him back and forth. They almost dropped him on his head. Now, Shawn is not the type of guy you do this too. He was ticked. If they had done anything else, I think he would have punched the guys. I am so glad I don't drink.



We did get the 'Cruise Bunny' made for us with our towels. It is fun how creative they get with them. We did see a book they sold on how to make all sorts of animals.




We get back on the ship and just take a nice nap. Saturday night is the Captains night. So that means elegant evening attire. So when we went to pack for the Cruise everyone said, 'Oh you just wear your bathing suit and a tank top the whole time.' So that is how I packed. Note to self, you need to pack clothes for both the day and dinner. I did pack a nice dress but since we were packing late at night, I forgot the jacket that I wear overtop of it to make it garment friendly. The dining room that night was, if you had 'beach' attire you were not going to eat there. I really didn't want to eat pizza, fried chicken when I could have nice good food. So I was only half Mormon that night. I know shame on me. I will remember for our next trip though. My jacket along with Chad's windbreaker jacket were both sitting on our bed where we left them when we got home. Anyway, the elegant night was fun. It was great to get dressed up. Hard to walk in heels when the boat is swaying but was fun. We watched one of the comidians that night too.

Yup we bought the cruise pics. Us on the Captains Night.


Sunday was just a relax day and at the end of the day we found out that another couple that was on the Aflac trip with us from Flagstaff was also LDS. We should have asked sooner. Us along with 3 other couples played family feud in one of the couples staterooms that night. Good times. Then it was up and adam early to disembark. Our deck was scheduled to get off at 6:45am. They had to have all 2000 passengers off by 10am so they could clean and get the next cruise starting to board at 11:30am. Wow they run a tight ship...ha..ha..


We had a great time and thought I would post about it. It has been a crazy week since we got back getting laundry and everything back in order. Then getting everything ready for Super Saturday this weekend, and I won't be here for. We leave on Wednesday to San Diego compliments of Chad kicking butt and qualifying for National Convention. It is nice to be able to get away just the two of us. Well it is now 11:30pm and I have a busy day tomorrow to get everything ready and pick up my mom tomorrow night. So I know you all can't wait to read about our next trip. Hopefully if Chad keeps things up like he wants to, we will get to go to the Bahamas to the Atlantis Resort for a week in February!!!