Needing a Vacation from the "vacation"

For us Nevadans, we get a freebie holiday thrown into October called Nevada Day. So we decided to head over to Apple Hills in CA and beat the crowds (since we had the day off and Californians didn't). Apple Hills is a beautiful area full of apple orchard farms that set up pumpkin patches, spooky nature trails for kids, and bake shops loaded with the best pies, apple crisps, and donuts you've EVER had! So, we threw the kids into the minivan and cruised on over. We stopped at several of the apple orchards and gorged ourselves with apple pie, apple cider, and all kinds of other apple desserts. The kids had a blast playing in the leaves and (of course) eating dessert morning, noon and night.

After spending all day at Apple Hill, we drove to our friend's furniture store outside of Sacramento and did a little shopping, then headed back to the hotel to swim, eat dinner, and put the kids to bed (finally!)

On Saturday, we went to the UC Davis/South Dakota football game. Dallin's cousin's husband (you still with me?!) is one of the coaches for the S.D. team, so we went out to watch the game and support him. We had seats in the bleachers but after about 5 minutes of trying to deal with our 3 kids there, I decided it would be better for "everyone" (aka ME) if we just sat over in the grassy area where the kids could run around and enjoy themselves. So that's what we did.

We grabbed some dinner and headed back to Reno, which was about a 2.5 hour drive. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it was a couple of busy days. Even though we had a great time, we came back EXHAUSTED. I'm ready to begin my next vacation... without the kids, this time :)

Us "non-techies" join the tech world

Okay, it's 2007 and we don't have cable TV, a DVD burner, nor do we own an iPod (or know what it really DOES)! Heck, we just got REAL cellphones about 2 years ago. So I figured we better start throwing ourselves into the tech world whether we like it or not, hence this blog. I titled it The Reno 5 for several reasons: obviously, there are five of us. Five a.m. is the time Evan seems to be waking up these days, 5 is usually the number of different meals I seem to prepare for dinner daily, and five is the number of days I will be leaving my family for this weekend to visit friends in DC. Okay, it's really only 4, but I thought I needed one more "five" item to really sell this whole "The Reno 5" deal!

Having a blog might not be so bad, I figure. I can rant nonsensically (I have a feeling that is NOT a word) to an inattentive cyberworld about my bad days, and pretend I have an eager audience waiting to hear about my good days. On that note, this past weekend was one of those good couple of days. We decided to hire a photographer to take our family picture b/c we never seem to have any lucky doing it ourselves or asking a friend to take the picture. THe main reason is because of our eldest, Jacob, who can't seem to sit still for one second (literally). But this year, I had a plan. I hired a photographer with the fastest trigger finger in the west and planned on bribing my children unabashedly with M&M's after each picture. And to my surprise, my plan worked. Not only did we get a great photo of the ENTIRE family looking at the camera at the SAME TIME, but the fall colors were changing this weekend, so we even got a pretty background as well! Ah, miracles really do happen.

Then, we had stake conference on Sunday. I have to admit, I had to talk myself into going b/c having my kids sit on those hard chairs for two hours is next to impossible. But again, much to my surprise, they did great. Of course, I had to load them up with all kinds of sugary goodies whenever they got loud. C'mon, you know what I'm talking about: "Oh Aubrey, please don't cry. Okay, okay, here eat some M&M's" (leftover from the photo shoot from the previous day, of course). Or , "Jacob, if you scream one more time, I'm gonna... okay, fine, here have another fruit roll up!" So, they came out of stake conference with the best sugar high they've ever had, and Dallin and I came out patting ourselves on our backs like we had just scaled Mt. Everest.

On that note, I'm throwing in some pictures to make my first blog official looking and complete. Until next time...

Aubrey and Evan with bedhead!

Aubrey and Jacob at 4th of July parade