Christmas

These are out of order, but I loved this picture so I had to put it on top. We go to temple square every Christmas eve to look at the lights and nativities. Our kids love this tradition. This was my favorite display. I think it may be new, or I have a terrible memory. I don't know if you can tell from the picture but the nativity scene is on water and there are tons of floating lights around it. It was beautiful.


Our excited children on Christmas morning!



Cute kids, huh??



Look really hard at this picture. You can see the Christus statue in the background, I like the way it looks like He is looking over my kids. It might seem cheesy, but I love this picture for that reason. :)

I hope you all had a great Christmas and that you all have a wonderful new year!

Marissa's dance recital

This is Marissa and her wonderful friend before their performance of one of the Nutcracker ballets. She did a great job and more importantly she had lots of fun. She takes dance at school so I had no idea what her dance was. I was so impressed, her dance teacher did a great job!

Triathlon, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Sushi

I had to make this an all encompassing post, since I haven't updated in way too long.

This is a picture of Me & Steve and our fabulous friends, Rhett & Julie. Julie convinced me to try my first triathlon this year, I then convinced Steve. The biking and running, no worries. Swimming??? Yeah, that was my struggle. I only got in a pool about 6 times before the triathlon, so I have tons of room to improve. It was lots of fun and I'm sure I'll do more next year. Steve is a much better swimmer and biker, but he hates running. The only place I beat him was in the running, he killed my times on the bike and in the water. I'm just really proud of him for doing it.

Yep, he's a boy and my mom made him a tutu. He always stands like this, so the tutu was very fitting.

This is my nephew Soren. He is incredibly cute, and I think I'm the only one who got a decent picture of him.

Colby (Ghost Rider), Marissa (Hannah Montana), and Colin (ironman). We had a great Halloween this year, I believe it should always land on a Friday. Whenever we asked him to, Colin would straighten his arms and legs and pretend he was flying like Ironman. It was hilarious

THANKSGIVING
Yeah, I didn't take any pictures. But we went to Audrey and Paul's house with my parents, sister and her family. It was great, good food, great people and I only had to travel 5 minutes to get there. Hailey and I made 8 pies, so we had tons of leftovers. My favorite this year was the blackberry, mmmmm, I need to make another one soon.



Last weekend we went to our friends house (Julie & Rhett from above mentioned tri). Rhett lured us there with his tempting sushi rolls. Well tempting for Steve. My former sushi roll experience was terrible, not very good fish. My friends from high school are probably thinking "Leah likes sushi??Fish??What?" But I have expanded my eating beyond quesadillas and fries. Anyway, I was excited to have the company so I went along. Turns out Rhett makes a mean sushi roll. I really liked it. He made some tempura fried carrots and shrimp. He used the shrimp in his spicy roll which was awesome. My favorite was the one with cucumber and avocado, it tasted so fresh & yummy. So thanks guys, it was a great night. Oh, and this picture isn't one I took, I just found it online.

One of the many reasons why I love my job

I love my job. I never know what my students will say. Here is my latest, favorite, conversation.

Student: "I'm thirsty"
Me: "Hello thirsty, My name is Mrs. Dozier." (I know, but 5 year olds still find it entertaining.)
Student: "My name isn't thirsty, it's _______ and I would like a drink."

I thought it was hilarious! I have never had a kid know how to respond to that.

General Conference

I love conference weekend. I love being able to hear the talks that are given and the testimonies that are born. I heard a talk yesterday (Joseph B. Wirthlin I believe) about being able to laugh when things go wrong. I have to admit I have always had a hard time with finding the joy in every situation, especially when things go wrong. So this was a good reminder for me. I also felt like there was a common thread in the Sunday morning session. We need to be more accepting of everyone around us. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a global church and we all have the Gospel in common. What I got from it was that we really need to focus on what we have in common instead of what is different about each of us. It was a great weekend and we finished it with soup at my parents with my brother and sister and our families. I love how my Dad takes the opportunity to bear his testimony when he has us all together. It has always been such a source of comfort to me. I am so grateful for the family I have! :)

Colby!!!

Happy Birthday Colby! Okay, so I'm a few weeks late, but in my defense I have been planning on updating my blog with an ode to Colby for the past few weeks. :)
10 years old, I can't believe it. He has turned into such a great kid. I thought this was the perfect picture because Colin adores his big brother and Colby is so kind to him. Colby is very patient with him and lets him tag along whenever he wants. He loves reading and can burn through a book faster than most adults. I love his imagination and the stories he comes up with. I think he should start his own blog just as a creative outlet. Anyway, I love you Colby! Thank you for being such a great kid, you make it easy to be a Mom.

Happy Birthday!

My little man turned 5 today! I can't believe how old he is, honestly, the time went way too fast. He is such an amazing little person. He is the most responsible 5 year old I have ever known, he always puts everything where it belongs, flushes the toilet and washes his hands (without being reminded), and always turns out the light when he leaves the room. I love how silly he can be and the hilarious one-liners he delivers (yep, he is just like his Dad). I feel truly blessed to have him in our family, he brings so much happiness to our home. Plus he always says,"I love you more than Colby and Marissa love you." Happy Birthday to my most favorite 5 year old ever! :)

Badwater

My friend Jarom raced in the Badwater Ultramarathon last week. It starts in Death Valley and ends up at the Mt. Whitney portal. I was part of the crew and was able to pace him for about 45 miles of the race. The entire race is 135 miles! It was one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced. I have never been so tired (only one hour of sleep during the entire race) but I loved every minute. Here are a few pics I took, but I really didn't have much time to take pictures. Our driver Rob Schopke took pictures and created a website from his truck as the race was going on. I thought he did a great job, so go to his website to get a better idea of what the race was like. www.triracer.com



Picture taken at the race start


How we dried Jarom's shoes


This is Badwater, where the race starts, the little white mark on the side of the mountain is sea level.


The crew and Jarom at the finish line.
The video is of Jarom's brother Heath, funny stuff!

Summer

Okay, so I may be worse in the summer with updating my blog. I thought "Hey, I'm not working, I'll be so on top of things." Ha-ha! But I have thoroughly enjoyed this summer so far. Enjoy the slide show of our various activities. Riding, dance recitals, zoo, Hailey's new puppy, Colin's preschool graduation, Hailey's high school graduation (btw she is now engaged to the cute boy she is pictured with!!!!), gigantic tree hauled in for campfire by Brian, pretty waterfall, pretty rose, swimming lessons and finally my beautiful new nephew Beckett London Turner.

Mother's Day present

Yes; I know I have a problem, but how do you resist this face?

Final Spring Break post

Here is what we did for the last few days of our vacation.


What kid hasn't wanted to do this. Colby saw all of the seagulls standing on the beach and couldn't resist.


This is at Montana de Oro state park. It was my favorite place to go when we lived here.



Again, Montana de Oro.



This is the crack we had to crawl through.......



to get here because the tide was too high to just walk in the cave.



Isn't she cute? She certainly had her eye on us while we were looking at tidepools.



Colin and Steve; this was the coldest day of the trip, but still a lot of fun.



The kids playing in their driftwood fort.



This is at Monterey Bay Aquarium.



I thought it was funny to see the sea otter just stare at its trainer. I think it really just wanted a treat.



There is the coolest jellyfish exhibit at the aquarium. They had more varieties than I ever knew existed.



I highly recommend a trip to Monterey for the aquarium alone. We spent the entire day there and had a lot of fun!
That was one of the best vacations our family has had yet, there is nothing like a good road trip.

Spring break continued

We had two choices for this trip, take our diesel truck and trailer and camp or we could rent a prius and go to hotels. After sitting down and figuring out how much each would cost we spent half as much on the prius (including rental) because diesel is totally outrageous anymore! This is the highest price we found for gas on our whole trip, it was in Cambria, but everything was more expensive there.

When in Rome! I love the central coast, sometimes I feel as though the entire "green movement" is a bit much there. I love the earth and yes, I do recycle and do my best to be eco friendly, I just don't like having it shoved down my throat.


Gum alley in San Luis Obispo! The kids loved it and even got to add their own gum. Did you know Seattle has one of these also! We found it last year on our anniversary trip. I wonder which was started first? I'm guessing Seattle.

The next few days of our trip were spent, playing at the park,

going to the zoo,



playing at the beach,


perfecting boogey boarding skills,

and going to Hearst castle! This is one of the "small" guest houses,

outdoor pool,

Main house, or Casa Grande,

indoor pool.

At this rate I should be posting about this week for at least a month!

Spring break

We had an fantastic spring break. Steve took an entire week off of work!!! That was the first time he has ever taken more than two days since we have been married (even when we had our babies). The kids and I loved having him to ourselves for eight entire days. We went to Atascadero and let the kids see all the sights of the central coast. Colby loved getting to see where he was born. I'm going to use this trip for several different posts because there is just too much for one! These pictures are from the first day, we went to see some tide pools above Cambria and then headed back to Morro Bay to look at the big rock, the boats (for Colin), and have some dinner.


This is Colby at Morro Rock



Colin and Riss- Morro Rock



Just outside of Cambria



The appropriate stance for tidepool watching.



This was a beautiful little crab I kept trying to tease out of the crack in the rock. This was the best I got. After seeing all of the crab, Colin decided he wanted crab for dinner.



Cute kids, don't you think?



After Colin saw this sea lion he decided he wanted to eat that for dinner. Perhaps we talked up eating good sea food too much earlier in the day! He ended up settling for regular, boring halibut; which he loved.
This is a video of a sea lion known as Bubba. He is friendly with people, probably because people feed him often. There was a restaurant a few feet away that brought out some fish for my kids to feed to Bubba, they loved it. In the video Bubba is referred to as a seal, the kids and I now know the difference!