N. Cali Trip Day #5

Today is HALLOWEEN! My kids have had a taste of what this day is all about....and they are ready to go GET MORE CANDY! To start the day out right....Dustin, Mike and Zach all headed to the movies to see "Puss in Boots" while Jen, Janice and Logan ran some errands. Then we all met back up for a quick lunch......then off to Janice's work for some trick or treating. Dustin had a surprise for the boys - he bought some foam pirate swords on Amazon.com and had them shipped to Jen's parents house...check out these two pirates!

At Janice's work our kids were able to find the bowls of candy "hiding" in the office area before the trick-or-treating began.

dum dum suckers....Logan's sugar of choice!

Now it was time to head back to Jen's parents home and carve our pumpkins. Zach and Logan took some interest of carving pumpkins at first...

But in the end it was Dustin doing the sole pumpkin carving...

We ended up using Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head pieces to decorate the rest of the pumpkins we had. The kids found that a bit more interesting at this point in the day (sugar high has worn off and no nap has been taken!).

Cousin Scott and London arrived and it was now dark outside...time to hit up the neighborhood for some trick-or-treating!

The kids ran house to house filling up their candy bags. After a few streets they were exhausted....but they didn't want to stop trick-or-treating. Good thing we brought Grandma's stroller with us! Nothing like getting pushed house to house to claim your candy!

Happy Halloween 2011!

N. Cali Trip Day #4

Today Jen's grandparents drove down to Jen's parents house - so it was a chill at home and visit with everybody day. Garrett, Renee, Scott and London showed up too. We took some pictures of all of us together.....

Logan by the pumpkins we picked out a few days ago....he liked these things!

The four grand kids together...

The four grand kids with their great grandma and grandpa McIlwain...

All of us....four generations!

Great Grandma McIlwain surprised the grand kids with Halloween candy...they were oh so excited :)

N. Cali Trip Day #3

Today there was a reptile show going on at the Sacramento Convention Center. We figured the kids would get a kick out of seeing all kinds of different reptiles - so we went. I don't think we realized how MANY reptiles there would be. There were so many different booths and they all had TONS of snakes in these containers they were trying to sell. Then there were all the people buying the snakes, walking around carrying their snake in its container, and people just walking around holding their snake with NO container. Both Dustin and Jen are anti-snake, so we were interested to see how Zach and Logan would react to all the snakes.

Logan had no problem getting close and petting a snake - check out Jen's face...she isn't quite so sure...especially since the lady handling the snake wasn't even paying attention!

Zach tended to like the larger creatures. The mini-alligators and the large tortoises.


We think Logan really liked the snakes. He tried to bust this one out of its cage....

Then he want to try and bust the hose out of the wall - maybe he thought it was a snake?

This just made all of us erie....yes it is real, and very alive.

We didn't stay super long....I think we were all afraid someone would yell, "my snake is missing" at any given moment - and everyone would have to witness us scream like little girls and run out of there as fast as we could.

Later on in the early evening Jen's parents ward was having their Halloween Trunk-or-Treat party. They have a huge park next to the church building - lots of open area for the kids to run and have a great time!

It was a potluck dinner - Dustin enjoyed the homemade chili.

They had several activities for the kids to play. Eating donuts from a string......face painting....and whack-a-mole (Logan is whacking Zach!).

They even had a 'cake walk' - that was the first time Zach had ever done one of those. He loved it even more when he realized he got a cupcake when they called his number!

At the end of activity - the kids lined up for a costume parade.....

Then the trunk-or-treating in the church parking lot began! Dustin ran off with Zach - with the goal to hit up as many cars as many times as they could to maximize the amount of candy collected. Jen went with Logan - with the goal of showing him how you trick-or-treat. Logan was just THRILLED to get candy....after a few cars he decided he was done and just wanted to eat what he had....

We went back to Grandma and Grandpa's car and Logan helped pass out the candy to all the other kids coming by.

Halloween is still two days away and my kids already have WAY TOO MUCH CANDY!

N. Cali Trip Day #2

Today started off with the kids doing lots of exploring at Grandma and Grandpa's house. There was lots to see and do. First the kids had to watch a movie on the big TV - sitting in the cool blow up chair.


Then there was the dog (Sadie) to play with....

And we had to FEED the dog some of our breakfast...

And we had to explore the dog house in the backyard...

Grandma had some crayons and books for the kids to color with...

All this fun and it wasn't even lunchtime yet! Today we decided to hit up Bishop's pumpkin farm in Wheatland. We went to this place last year during our California Halloween visit, but the weather didn't cooperate very much (cold and rainy) so we didn't get to spend much time exploring all the activities at the pumpkin farm. This year the weather was PERFECT...and we had ALL AFTERNOON to spend there. We decided the first thing we needed to do was get our pumpkins. We rode the hay wagon out into the field and everyone picked their own pumpkin.

Here is what Logan picked out...

Zach and Grandma on the hunt for the perfect pumpkin...
Zach picking a fresh pumpkin off a vine...

We loaded up all our pumpkins on a cart to haul to our car. Both boys wanted to help get the pumpkins to the car.

Zach was the big helper getting the pumpkins into the back of Grandpa's car...

Strong boy!

Now it was time to do more exploring at Bishop's - first we rode the train. The kids LOVE riding on trains. Here is Zach and Grandma hamming it up for the camera.

The kids found some tractor toys to play with - those were a hit for quite a chuck of time.

Then we found this HUGE caterpillar - everyone loved looking at it, and feeling the fuzzy fur. Both the kids ended up holding it!

There was lots more exploring done. Logan ended up checking out the pumpkin fields, while Zach went to the mining and slide area.

When that was done it was ice cream time with Grandma and Grandpa!

At this point - it was nap time for all. We had succeeded in wearing out both kids (and all adults!). It was time to head back to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

We prepared a traditional Twogood dinner of BBQ hamburgers. Logan helped supervise Grandpa in the backyard.

Garrett, Renee, Scott and London were heading over for dinner tonight - the kids were excited to see their cousins again. Grandma had a surprise for all her grandchildren...she had made SPIDER CUPCAKES for dessert!

I think they were quite a hit!