We're back kids!

It's been nice to take a little break from writing this past little while. Not that things haven't been exciting, in fact it's been very much the opposite. One of the best parts of the month was getting to spend a week with Val and Bill and all the babies. One of which we had never met and the other spitfire we had only met as just a little baby.

They rushed into our house puking up a storm, isn't that the rule on vacation? Oh and Kinsley was scared to death of us. To death. Of course after Chad offered up some ice cream we had pretty much won her over. While the ice cream my have md us all BFF's it did lead to a puke fest later that night all over poor Penny. Hiding behind toilet wasn't her best move to avoid the vomit. After all of Penny's peeing and puking and general ruining of things though that cat deserved every bit of puke she got. High five Kins!

Everyone in the house managed to make it though the sickness, I was the only lucky one who escaped, work happened to come in handy this vacation :)

Our plans were slowed down quite  bit and although we couldn't fit in everything that we had planned on doing we did quite a dang bit. Our favorite being rock climbing, duh. My personal favorite being Cade rock climbing. That little guy was a freaking champ. He climbed to the top of two different pitches and did so awesome! Bill got in on the action as well even after smashing his finger working on their car, and Val was the climbing superstar surprise of the visit. She kicked serious butt up on those mountains!

We had an absolute blast eating too much Café Rio, staying up way to late every night, visiting Zion's, climbing the narrows at pioneer Park, splashing around at the splash park and Children's museum and eating way too much goodies in general. In was perfect and we wish we didn't have to let them go home.

P.S. Pain pills are real kids, so please excuse any ridiculous spelling errors or grammatical fumblings. So basically just the normal....

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! We hope your holidays are full of fun, family and lots of cookies!

 

 

We are letting the teenagers take over our house while we party in Provo with the rest of the Portela clan. Chad's hoping the snow will magically melt and we can rock climb and we have one particular Christmas present we think everyone will really enjoy. Get excited peeps. We'll catch you after the holidays :)

I'm Baaaack!

I had a wonderful, amazing, marvelous Christmas! My parents and brother flew out to St. George and my sister and her husband came down from Provo. Aaaand, my grandparents are spending the winter down here already. The last week I've spent all of my time with my family, and it's been the best!

We picked up my parents and Taylor at the airport Sunday afternoon. After driving the strip and a pit stop for some Mexican food we were back in St. George at the Grandparents house.

Christmas Eve we braved the store to go shopping for some last minute stocking stuffers and groceries for Christmas dinner. I took over Grandma's kitchen to make all of our favorite cookies and Chad started a new tradition of making his mom's cinnamon rolls. We had KFC for dinner, and a piece of fried chicken may or may not have found it's way on to my plate, whoops.... mmmmmm. We then dragged Grandma out into the cold to see all of the lights at the St. George temple. On the late drive home Chad, Taylor and I managed to avoid getting ran over by the biggest tumble weed of all time.

Then we played dress up with all the animals while Chad stayed up until the wee hours of the morning finishing his delicious cinnamon rolls.

Ash and Pat joined us Christmas night where we ate too much, opened presents, took naps and played Christmas bingo. Grandma even had prizes for us all, Taylor was the big cash winner. I got some jerky and Chad and Pat played with Pat's prize of "go fish" into the night.
 

 

Wednesday we headed to Kneaders for a french toast breakfast and then braved the snow(?!) to take some pictures up at Pioneer Park. It was just a tad bit chilly out. We were happy to join the grandparents back at the warm house for leftovers and more cookies :)

We spent the rest of the evening playing pool, playing the piano, swimming, working on a puzzle and playing hand and foot.

The rest of the week brought surprise 2am visitors and a buffet of buffets! But that can wait until tomorrow! I hope that you all had wonderful a wonderful Christmas!

Blast from the Past

 

We had an awesome weekend visiting Ashley and Patrick in Provo. It was fun to go back and hang out at BYU for a couple days.

We played some killer ping pong games, ate out of vending machines, got free donuts at Krispie Kreme and played ridiculous games in the parking lot at night! Much to Chad's dismay there was no flashlight tag.

There was however a energy drinking competition. Chad was able to barely squeeze out the win. Whoever could finish their Monster the fastest without burping was the winner. Classy game, I know. Classy games for classy people. The best part was the couple sitting in the same area as us. I'm guessing we put on a pretty good show to keep them around as long as we did.

After an awesome Kneaders breakfast Saturday morning we went up the canyon and hiked around Bridal Veil Falls for a little while. My favorite part was the photo shoot that was happening. Someone was taking bridals in the falls. The poor girl was a cold, wet mess. It was fun to watch.

We were also able to squeeze in dinner with one of Chad's mission companions up in Salt Lake Saturday night. After a fun dinner we came back and continued the food fest with the Flynns :)

We had a great time and can't wait for our next weekend hangout!

We laugh in the face of Danger!

Ok, maybe not laugh. There was still some mild anxiety attacks had by every adult I think, but we conquered Angel's Landing! I know I mentioned it before but we made it across the crazy land bridge and onto Angel's Landing, with the two boys to boot! Remember how I said the people hiking last time were crazy bring their small children with them? Well, we were those people this time. And guess what? They did better than any one of the adults. No fear! Chad told them that he had done it before, and if he could do it they could do it. They really listened and believed their Uncle Chad, they could do it because Uncle Chad said they could.

While the nursery makes me never, I repeat never, want to have children, spending the week with Kristy and Dylan's kids reminded us that we really do love kids and they will most definitley be in the (far) future ;) I'm really not a baby hater, most of the time. They are lucky they escaped with their little girl, I had every intention of stealing her and keeping her for my own but I was at work when they left. Boo. I've also decided we need to have boys! It was too much fun to watch Chad with them all week. Not to mention the fun that Rukia had with them. Yup, I just said we need to have baby boys to play with my dog. I'm officially that person. And on that note I will end and share some of the awesome views from our journey to Angel's Landing.





On the way back from our hike we crossed over/through a river

Meatless Monday: Veggie Burger Success!

We had an AMAZING week last week. We played, hiked, and jumped all week long! It was fun to have people out here to show all the fun places we've discovered in St. George! Pioneer Park was one of the favorite places and we went there twice to hike through the narrows and scamper all over the giant red rocks.

We of course had to take everyone to Trampoline Land! The kids had a blast, and so did Chad.

We also made it to Zion's National Park not once, not twice, but 3 times! What can I say, it's just a really cool place. The third time we took Kristy and Dylan and the two oldest boys to hike up Angel's Landing. It was a steep and high climb but we ALL made it! There was a fair amount of panicing and anxiety but we all made it across! The kids were rock stars and did better than most of the adults :)

If I wouldn't have been at work when everyone left I would have stole this cutie and kept her as my own!

Emerald Pools

At the top of Angel's Landing!!!

Ok, onto the meatless potion of this Monday! We made these veggie burgers when Jared was here and I was a little concerned. This is the guy who doesn't like peanut butter for pete's sake. Ashley and I would have lengthy conversations with him as teenagers about all of the food he didn't like, fried ice cream? Come on Jared! So when I made these I was really worried that they were not going to get eaten... by anyone really, let alone Jared.

I was pleasantly surprised when I tried these guys out, they were really good. The texture was great from the seeds and nuts, gave it some crunch, and all the spices really gave it a wonderful flavor. We all finished ours and I threw the leftover "dough?" in the freezer. It made a great lunch 2 weeks later. These are definitley in our dinner rotation now, especially being able to freeze it. I've decided I need to start prepping our dinners better on Sunday so that we (I) don't cave and get take out after work. We also made these when all the family was here last week and they were a big hit again!

You can find the recipe here at OhSheGlows. That's where I stole the picture from because we were soooo hungry that I didn't remember to snap a picture. I wasn't kidding when I said these were good, we inhaled them! I didn't have any black beans on hand the first time so I just substituted white beans. Instead of using the "flax egg" I just used regular ol' eggs. I just added them one and a time until I got the consistency that I wanted. It's great to finally have a good burger substitute for the summertime!

Vacation

 

 We took the kids to Pioneer Park. It's basically the very northern side of St. George, so it's really close and a really fun place.

 The kids had NO fear. None of them! They were little rock climbers and managed to make it up, over and through everything Uncle Chad was!
 

Rukia was very confused as to where she should sit on the ride home. Frustrated she just leaped up onto the boys laps. You can see how happy they were about this. We were all HOT and just a little tired, so sharing seats with a big, hot, panting dog wasn't super exciting for them. 

  
 BFF's. They stopped moving for a hot second so I could snap a picture. They have been running and playing like crazy all week. They are having just as much fun (if not more, really) as all of us!

Penny on the other hand is freaking out. She does not like all the commotion from the animals and kids so she hides all day in our room. Since she's hidden all day in constant fear she's become insanely needy whenever Chad and I are near her. She is usually not very snuggly but as soon as I got on the bed she jumped onto my chest and started purring. Not normal for Pens, but very nice and very cute.