60 Years for the Hunters

My wonderful Grandparents celebrated 60 years of marriage in November. I consider myself blessed to have the most amazing Grandparents a girl could ever have. They have taught me so much and I enjoy every minute with them, which is always full of laughs.

My mom and aunt had this written up and put in the newspaper.

We went to Olive Garden in Santee for lunch and took up two large tables.

Allison is trying to get Nathan to smile. I think she was successful.

Rachel decided that pasta tastes better if you put it on your fingers first.

My mom made this awesome quilt with pictures of all of the family members on it. She did such a wonderful job.

One of the best parts of the day was that Brianne flew in from Idaho and my nieces and nephews were also able to make it (which was all a surprise for my grandparents). It was a great day with family to celebrate two of the most wonderful people around!

Zoo

During November and December we headed to the Zoo twice with Becky and Grant. On our first trip there, we went to the giraffes right at feeding time and Grant and Rachel both got to feed the giraffes.

Grant wasn't really afraid at all.

Rachel wasn't quite so sure but still gave it a try.

The kids spent a lot of the time running. We let them out of their strollers and just let them go for it and they had a blast. We spent about an hour right here and they ran nearly the entire time.

They posed for a lot of pictures and were so cute about it.

Becky got under the foot of the elephant first to show the kids that he was squishing her. Grant immediately came to her rescue and helped her out.

Then it was Rachel's turn to help Grant out.

Finally it was Grant's turn to help Rachel out.

Our little baby seals peaking their heads out of the holes.

They even drove the helicopter.

Rachel fell asleep in the stroller as we were walking around so we decided to walk around Balboa Park to see if Grant would fall asleep too. When she woke up, we were right next to a Christmas tree so we took a couple of pictures next to it.

The second time we went to the Zoo was to go and see "The Little People" show.

The kids kind of enjoyed it. Rachel was way more into it than Grant.

What they really enjoyed was doing their own running, dancing, and playing after the show though.

Halloween

Before we headed out to go trick-or-treating, we took a few pictures of Bedtime Bear at home with her pumpkins.

Then we headed to the Stephens home.

We started off with some yummy pizza with Emma and Jacob.

Then we headed outside for some pictures with Luigi, Bedtime Bear, and Snow White.

They are so cute together.

They all had a great time trick-or-treating. We saw lots of Chargers fans. (Daddy's who volunteered to stay in the house and hand out candy and watch the game instead of going out with their families.)

They even met an Oompa-Loompa and the wicked witch from Snow White.

Noooo Snow White, don't take it!!!

It's okay, it's just Peter (Marie and Tim's boss who came out to surprise us in a very creepy witch costume).

This is as close as Rachel would get. She was a bit freaked out.

Snow White tried on one of Luigi's mustache's and looked a lot like Abraham Lincoln.

They had quite a bit of energy after we got back from trick-or-treating, even though they only had one piece of candy each. Rachel ran in circles for at least 20 minutes with this puppy with Emma chasing after her.

She has a quad of her own at our house and has been scared of it...until now. We went out to our garage and she rode it the next day and loved it. Thanks to the Stephens family for having us over again.

Big Horse Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze

In addition to Bates Nut Farm, we also went to Big Horse Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze...twice. We only did the corn maze the first time though.

Big Horse is up in Temecula and we met up with Rachel's Grandma and Grandpa and the Fearing family the first trip.

We got there before the Fearings and Rachel really enjoyed looking at the animals and pumping the water while waiting.

We got a few pictures in the pumpkin patch before heading over to the corn maze.

Rachel and Grant running to the corn maze (they didn't know what they were getting into).

Before we entered the corn maze, we were shown what it looked like so we would have an idea of where we were going. We were stuck in the beginning (at the bear) for such a long time. We kept finding the same markers #1 through #3 over and over and over again. Once we got past those, we flew through the rest of the maze.

It didn't help that these two wanted to explore and weren't on the same mission of getting through the maze as we were.

They were good troopers for awhile, but since it all looks the same, they got over it pretty quickly.

They Fearings brought Grant's tricycle, which helped us move along a little bit better.

This is one of the markers that was supposed to tell us we were going in the right direction. When you see this one over and over though, it wasn't really telling us we were going the right way.

When we finally made it out, we headed over to use our tickets that we bought in the beginning, only to find out that they were shutting down. This is why Rachel and I headed back the following weekend with Grandma and Grandpa...to use up our tickets.

Instead of going on the things that cost money, the kiddos had just as much fun (if not more) playing in a pool of corn.

The following weekend we headed back and this was the best picture I could get in the pumpkin patch. She was jumping down to start running to the corn pool.

Between the two trips to the pool of corn, I found corn kernels for weeks falling from clothes, shoes, etc.

Corn angel.

Rachel got two balloon animals with some of her tickets.

She wanted to go in and drive the real helicopter and was disappointed when she was only allowed to sit in the jumpseat.

We went on a tractor ride.

We rode the ponies 3 times and she loved it every time.

When we left, we went back to Grandma's and Grandpa's house and baked cookies. She really enjoyed putting on piles of sprinkles.

And of course had to taste test to make sure that they were okay to eat.

The cookies came with a mask that Grandpa had to try on first.

After making cookies, we carved Rachel's two pumpkins. We got the small one from the Stephens Pumpkin Patch and the big one from Bates Nut Farm.

Rachel would not touch it with her hands and was overall pretty disgusted with the stuff.

She was pretty good about helping scoop out the guts with the spoon though.

The finished product. I think that they turned out pretty cute.