Happy Thanksgiving!

For Family Night before Thanksgiving we talked about the Pilgrims and Indians and the First Thanksgiving and why we eat the foods we eat, and of course things that we are thankful for and then finished up with making Indian hats and hand print turkeys. The kids had a lot of fun and a few even took them to school the next day.

Kenzie even made one for Sadie :)

I think it was Brinley (maybe Micailey) that took this picture of

Dad entertaining Macie during the crafts

SILLY FACE!

This year was a Smith year for Thanksgiving. We had lots of yummy food! We even had a new Nephew, Jack Thomas Nelson, born on Thanksgiving! What more could you ask for!

Brinley, Marion, and Mackenzie waiting to eat!

Diggin' in! Yum!

We have so much to be thankful for this year! Things are going SOOOO much better with the adoption! We are in a nice home. Rich has an awesome job that lets me stay at home with the kids! We have awesome family and friends! We live in a free country where you have the freedom to worship as you want! We have the gospel in our lives! And so much more! We are so blessed!

Disneyland!

You wouldn't know by this picture, but as soon as it started going up and down.... he started screaming! The more times he road it the better he got though! Then he was screaming to not get off!

Dallas n Kyson

Sorry for the blurry, but this would have been a cute picture

Our family.... this year :) .... in front of the castle.

Brinley's first time on Tower of Terror. She "liked" it but didn't LOVE it like Mackenzie did her first time.

This is "Mator and not Mator" in Jordan's opinion :)

He really likes "not Mator"!

What a stinkin cute kid!

Brinley and Mackenzie... also stinkin cute kids!

And there is A LOT of stinkin cute kids!

What a stud!

Cute Cohen

And cute Macie.... We were bored waiting for the big kids to get off of a ride

Brinley's first time on Splash Mountain.

She DID love this!

Argh! Me Maitey's! This be a bunch of cute pirate's if ya ask me!

And thar be the rest of the cute pirates!

(Yes I'm a little bias!)

Jordan, Kyson, Kenna, Cailey, Dallas, and Kenzie

Completely exhausted!

Every year when the kids ride Scream'in, they make funny faces as they go past the camera's. This time they were sleeping :)

The last day we were there :(

And on to Knott's Berry Farm!

This year, we were at Knott's on Halloween and it felt like we were almost the only ones there! It was so fun! We walked right on every single ride and stayed on if we didn't want to get off! It was a blast and we road everything in the park several times!

Huff n Puff is still a hit!

Micailey "snuck" on the Supreme Scream. She REALLY wanted to ride the Maliboomer at Cal. Adv. but she was too short. So she was way excited to get on here!

We had a blast this year! The kids did awesome! We had fun friends with us! My apologies to April for her side kick that was GLUED to her for every ride....every everything! "I want April to push me!" "I want to go on this ride with April!" And also thank you for all of your help! We'll have to do it again sometime!

The start of our California Adventure!

When we went to California, we stayed with Rich's sister and her family in Sta George. We decided to go and see some dinosaur tracks out in the middle of no where. To get there, you have to get through about 150 feet of pure sand and it's pretty deep. Our Yukon has 4 wheel drive but the switch is "picky" about when it wants to work and switch in and out. So of course, when we needed it, it wouldn't switch. So our bro in law drove our car and tried to get us through. Now, you have to know that our 9 passenger car was fully loaded with 9 people & luggage for 9 for a week. .... We didn't get very far before our wheels were spinning in the red sand! Luke has a tow rope in his Tahoe, so we hooked us up and he had to tow us across the sand.... a little nerve racking, but we made. After we saw the dinosaur tracks, we had to come back! So this time, Luke stops about 1 or 2 hundred yards from the sand and him and Rich traded cars again and he informs me that he was going to try it a different way!??? I informed him that I had precious cargo in the car and he was to NOT do anything crazy! So what does he do? Floors it and basically hydroplanes across the top of the sand on a side that isn't well traveled and rutted. Now THAT was nerve racking! All I could do was pray that we didn't catch a rut or something and roll! But we made it! ALIVE! And we saw cool dinosaur tracks too!

Dallas kneeling by one of the large tracks.

The dinosaur track "path"

Cohen and Cousin Bailey were so cute!

They ran around and held hands the whole time.

The next morning we got up and drove to California. It was Sunday, so we went to the LA Temple and walked around the Temple grounds. The kids had fun rolling down the big grass hill and playing in the fountains.

This picture looks funny to me because Jordan and Cohen look like we photo shopped them in or something. They look so little on the rock by themselves! Even Macie looks bigger than them! Our friend April and her 2 kids came with us. Makenna and Kyson are in the middle. This was a warm up to and awesome week!

Our family in front of the temple

After the Temple our plan was to go to the Santa Monica Pier. The kids were excited because that is where they filmed Hannah Montana. But just getting there took forever! There were SO many people! I don't know what was happening at the Pier that day but EVERYBODY
was there! So we decided to go to a neighboring beach and let the kids play in the sand instead. They had so much fun and got sopping wet and completely sandy!

MaKenna, Micailey, Dallas, and Kyson

The Santa Monica Pier

Jordan, but mostly Cohen, were not sure they liked the water!

Cohen pretty much cried the whole time we were there!

Smith Family Vacation 2009

Dad and Cohen

Trying to dust off! Luckily there are showers in hotel rooms!