Santa Barbara

Me and Laura before the run.
Me and Laura after the race.
Earl Keith crossing the finish line.
Ken crossing the finish line.
The four of us happy and ready to leave Santa Barbara.

November 6 we went to Santa Barbara to do a race. The Guys ran their first marathons and Me and Laura ran our first half marathon. It was great. Ok so it was hard. I hurt my ankle and Ken ended up pulling something in his leg and of course ended up hurting but honestly I would totally do it again. I didn't do as well as I would have liked but I am thrilled that I was actually able to accomplish this goal of mine.
Next goal Is to do it again and do it in a better time.

Follow His Footsteps

Me andd Bethany. I don't know what is up with my eye but other then that it is a nice picture.

November 2nd was a very crazy day. Along with it Being McKenzie's 13th birthday that evening was the Marysville ward yw night of excellence. We did Follow His footsteps as the theme. It turned out beautifully. This was our first big activity not counting camp and Trek that we did since me becoming the yw president and It had me both nervous and excited. I am super excited to still be part of the young women organization. This is a fantastic group of girls

Help me she is a teenager

AHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Ok That is out of my system. I am now officially a mother of a teenager. Of Course I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming 13 yrs ago, but did those 13 yrs need to go by so dang fast. The child is just a few inches shorter then I am and I know that isn't saying much but still. Her hands and feet are bigger so it is only a matter of time before she is taller than me as well. (sniff, sniff).

Seriously I am very glad and thankful I get the great privilege to call her mine. She has been a huge blessing in my Life. Watching her grow up to this point has been wonderful. Getting to be her mother, teacher, gs leader and yw leader has allowed me to see her in all faucets of life. She is a wonderful daughter and sister.

And Boy oh boy is she happy to be a teenager. We had to celebrate her birthday early because tonight the Marysville young women are having their night of excellence. So we celebrated last night. We had chicken pot pie for dinner per her request and white cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate ice cream for dessert. And to make her even happier Ken and I got our avid reader a Kindle of her very own. For those who don't know a Kindle is an electronic reading device. It holds thousands of books on it. The version is smaller then mine and Kens but other then that is the same. We have loaded some books we think she would enjoy boy is she one very happy camper.

So Happy Birthday McKenzie Connie Colborn.

The Dissection of the "space alien"

Nelson holding The "alien"


Teacher cutting open the skin.
Nelson at the microscope.

So both Kenzie and Nelson are taking classes outside of home right now. Nelson is taking a class called mission to space. He is loving this class. Which i am thrilled about because he hates all other school stuff so I am glad he is enjoying some portion of learning. Maybe it is so fun it doesn't seem like a school class but I don't care he is enjoying it.
He comes home every week talking about this class. HE has had a spy and a game show hostess come. His teacher has done some sort of dry ice experiment. He is looking forward to the field trip they are going to be going on to the explorit museum of science. At this class his teacher brought in an"alien (squid) from mars" Wow was he excited he just thought was the greatest thing ever. He had no problems getting right in there and holding it and touching everything while others in his class were squeemish he was right there. He loved watching her cut the skin off and touching all the insides..

I am sad that a lot of the pictures are blurry but I will take what I can get.

our Halloween

Kenzie Helping Cali with her pumpkin.

Ken helping Nelson with his design.






My little monsters.
Clone trooper and Jedi night.
Kenzie drinking her potion.

Psyco clown.
Victoria Patino and Kenzie at the trunk or treat.

We ended October as usual busy. The kids had a blast carving their pumpkins and dressing up. They of course loved the trunk or treating as well.

Since Halloween fell on a Sunday this year. We stayed home Halloween night. We turned off the lights and watched the legend of Sleepy hollow and other Movies. It was fun.
And personally I enjoyed the quiet of just our family on Halloween. It for once was a relaxing Halloween.

My smarty pants girls

SO October was obviously a busy month but here was some news that just makes a mother very proud. Both my girls did very well on their state tests last year and were rewarded for it.
Woohoo!!! You go girls and keep up that hard work.

Kenzie's experiment

Kenzie was super excited she was actually able to one of the experiments in her science book. She was doing a chemical reaction test. Nothing exploded thank goodness however it was very cool to watch as different things fizzed and bubbled.
She loved being able to do this.

The Dixon Corn maze

The family at the beginning of the maze. Here we go.
Cali and Nelson starting off.
Daddy and Sammy heading down.
Me and Ken at the first break.


Sammy being silly.



So in October we packed the kids up and went to Dixon. really that is only a couple hour drive not a big deal. There is a huge 45 acre corn maze there that we all wanted to go to. Now none of us had actually been to a corn maze before so was doing a huge one a good idea? Absolutely! we had a map of the maze and it was great. It took us about an hour and a half to 2 hours to get through it. Everyone was given the opportunity to lead the group until they got us to a dead end then we switched places. Of course Ken was watching the map the whole time so we never got to lost. It was cool to reach the different platforms and see how far we had gone and try to figure out where we were going. The kids had a blast and so did Ken and I. We took plenty of water and a snack and had fun. I would so totally go and do it again. Next time we will have to take some friends with us.

Bishop's pumpkin farm

Me and the kiddos on giant pumpkins out in the field.
Me and My beautiful girls
Me and my handsome boys







Earlier in October. It was a lot of fun. We went with our friends the Keith Family. The Kids loved running around the pumpkin patch. They also loved the animals there were lots of babies there that evening. I loved the cider and the pumpkin butter that is some good stuff.(yum) Biggest regret I didn't go back and get some of both of those things, oh well something to look forward to next year.
We had a great day with friends and family. I love these days!