thanksgiving ot'seven

so this year was the year to have everyone invade so cal and our house. the hunsakers and remaining heathfield laner's came down via the motor home and a 20 hour trip, being capped off by some rush our traffic. they got here Tuesday night.

Wednesday morning josh and i took the kids (makenzie, damon and ethan) to Disneyland. Rachel came along for the ride gratis and so did jean. we ended up getting on most of the rides that we wanted to.

part of the fun of taking the kids is to see how they react to the characters as well as the rides. one of the places that ethan loves is Mickeys toon town. there at goofy's house you can play in his backyard, there are slides, things to climb on, jump off and just let some energy out. one of the the funniest things that i have ever seen happened here. ethan loves the fact that there is a leaky hose that squirts up water, Ethan likes to fill his mouth up and spit it out. not only does he recycle the water but he guards that feature from all of the other kids in the area with his little lobster pinch. damon saw what was going on and got in on the action. well Damon does not believe in the "dispose of the water in your mouth before leaving the hose area." so damon would walk around with the water, cheeks to capacity. so i am over by the hose area and i loose track of where damon is at for a moment. i look over to the slide to see a man wiping something from his face and shirt. then i hear him say "that kid just spit on me." i am not sure, just then i see damon pop his head out and in that instance i put it together as damon goes down the slide, runs over to the hose and refills. i felt kinda bad not going over and apologizing but i was laughing too hard. don't get in damons way.
towards the end of the night we ended up over near space mountain waiting to see if the line would die down. after grabbing something to eat we were next this giant marble ball. it is 1000 pounds and floats on water. it spins around. josh and i kept slowing it down and spinning it in the opposite direction. our sons had a different idea of what would be fun to do with this giant rock that was constantly wet. ethan and damon would disappear to the opposite side of the ball that we were on and then lick the ball. they would stand there with their tongues extended and just lick it as it went around. by the end their shirts were soaked.
being down here around Hollywood, not that Perris is just over the hill from all of the studios but there is always the chance that you will see some stars. at Disneyland i have seen Ricky Schroder, and a few other not so famous people. but today was to be different we rode on the tea cups with Heidi Klum and her kids. her husband, Seal, was on the side taking photos. i wish that i would have been more attentive to snap up some paparazzi type pictures, but the only ones that i got were not too clear of them. in each of these pictures they are in them, or one of them is in them, just in case you were wondering. they had their faces painted up, so you could not recognize them right off. later that day i ran into some friends from BYUH who were visiting from Vegas.
on Thursday we did the turkey bowl at the park, only to relive the memories of that over the next few days, they were whisked away with the wintergreen smell and some icy hot, getting old stinks. cherisse and i, and we took the kids, went down to the storrs for thanksgiving down there while the rest of the dyers went out to long beach. it was fun to see the monsons and the rest of the gang.
Friday morning we decided that we were going to have thanksgiving with the dyers today. a few jetted out to see if they could find some black Friday deals. Adrian went and picked up luke who flew into Ontario. then the boys took the kids over to the march air museum, but before we stopped by the perris fair grounds to check out the kart racing. after looking at all of the displays inside we then went to look at all of the planes outside. the wind was blowing harder than my sister trying to save a buck on a sandwich in London. Claire and Emily were nice enough to take the kids back to the motor home. we then fought the dust storm to see all the planes. later that day we had the turkey with all of the fixings. i liked it because it seemed like there was the right amount of food, not overdone like the typical dyer thanksgiving. that may have been because my fridge was not bulging with leftovers until 2008.
so once the dishwasher was loaded the guys hopped in the white sienna and rode off west to the LA convention center to check out the auto show. the la auto show is one of the largest in the world. some of the highlights were the concept cars, the $1,000,000 lambo Reventón, the nissan g-tr, Aston Martin’s V-8 Vantage N400, the ferrari's, the $350.000 volvo (why), mercedes, and the Porsche display. old man dyer was amazed that there were no Studebaker's, spend most of his time checking out the Fords, Chevy's and the new Dodge mini-van, and left the show with the most free stuff. he also spent the most time schmoozing and asking questions like, "what is a scion? Dr. heder told me about that i think." afterwards we went in a long search of the Hollywood sign, only to find out that it was not lighted. the evening was capped off by driving by celebrity houses off of sunset. you know that you are not in turner anymore when someone does not have room in their garage, and has to park the Ferrari on the curb in front of their house.
7 am on Saturday morning some early risers kicked off the first ever dyer family fun run. i will have to post the results later. everyones favorite post run highlight was watching ashton burn up the asphalt.
later on we attempted to take family pictures which was mainly a battle of keeping the little boys out of the water and mud. good times trying to organize the brood to get some quality shots in the late afternoon. that night the condensed milk challenge was scratched but the 2007 ping-pong champion was crowned, Luke.
Sunday everyone was up early to make it to church, 8:30 am, and for tessa's baby blessing. cherisse's family sent the precedent by being there 45 minutes and they dyers rolled in to the chapel just in time. afterwards we headed back to our place for some food and to help pack up those who were driving back to OR and UT.

i would just like to say thanks for the help, time, effort, and the memories of this family function. thanks.

quadruple date

For the first time in recorded history Three Dyer siblings got together to go out for dinner and as an added bonus: it was FUN. Lauren and Ernest. Luke and Greta. April and Jake and Joanna (Greta's sister) and her husband Daryl. it was a quadruple date. We all met at April's house on a friday night and wend to the Mandarin for a chinese dinner. Everyone got along and we have a picture to prove it . I spilled water on Joanna and Lauren ordered tea...but other than that the night went well.

To add to the amazement we went back to the Smith house on Sanford and CHATTED. yeah we talked about the Dyers. We talked about the Joneses and we talked about Mitt Romney and we even talked about Dog the Bounty Hunter. Please remind me if I missed anything but my favorite part of the night was when Ernest did the australian irish accent of Greta at the bar....oh and when Lauren looked like she was going to cry about how scary spiders are.

The party lasted til almost midnight, when we were all sufficiently wasted off girl scout cookies and gummi bears. Everyone managed to tell a few stories, and the reputations of Mom's affinity for a song you can dance to and Dad's ability to measure within the nearest 1/32 of an inch were both discussed briefly.

real easter

In case this is the only Easter entry i think you should all know that lorenzo, ernesto, smiths and me (luke) were all at wendy's house in utah while all the frantic kiddies hunted out the plastic eggs littered over the yard. Little Kenna battled for the most eggs and I believe she won with her official total of "ONE HUNDRED" ...that's what she told me. It was a fun Easter with a wonderful church lesson about the TRUE meaning of easter followed by lots of food, candy and pastels. The time I had was equally as good as the potato salad which was Reeeeal very mmmMMM GOOOOd.

BREAKING NEWS: lauren is scared of soccer balls. AND spiders. Both of which will make her cry. Quote "Whay did God make spiders??!! Cry Cry sob sob sniffle sniffle Hold me Ernesto!!!"

MORE BREAKING NEWS: Post Easter pictures have been found of Makenna counting her "ONE HUNDRED" eggs which were actually audited and found to be only 52...and then "chief egg inspector" MOM looked them over for supposed salmonella, razor blades and rabbit droppings??? ...She then ordered kenna to "PAY dUEs" and give MOMmy her 30% commission to cover gas, birth, and the wicker basket handling fee. The blurred image makes it apparent that even then shutter speed of the camera wasn't fast enough to catch the tyrannical transaction. (I love you April and thanks for letting me stay with you. It was a lot of fun. I want a rematch of Memory next time I'm there.)

Disclaimer: the views expressed in this entry are purely objective and may or may not be based on actual facts. Actual facts are inherently boring so this entry is derived from pictures. pictures are the dots which i connect via my explanation. Photo journalism or libelous tabloids?? you decide.

smiths @ the coast

the oregon coast is not a beach

so here are some pictures that i found from our trip to the coast. those who could not make it i hope that seagulls come to your bed in the middle of the day and poop on your pillow.
what is better than the Oregon coast, besides any beach in Hawaii. you know that it is a coast and not the beach because there is no stripping down to any bathing suit nor getting any sun.
it was raining the whole way out to the coast and back for that matter but we pulled into this beach, roads end state recreation site, and the rain stopped. i think that was the only break in the rain all day long. so we walked around on the damp beach and tried to keep the kids dry.
Rachel kept falling down and she did not have a change of clothes so, not really how bout makenzie and Ethan. i only say this because Cherisse and i were one to one with them and Makenna was doubled up as nanna was in the car with Ashton. Luke was a little mopey but i think that was only because he missed his lady. like usual the parking lot was full of seagulls, no bread maybe next time. not much to do on the Oregon coast except walk around and take some pictures.
i would say overall it was a fun trip. we then headed up north after making the pilgrimaged to the Oregon coast outlets. hitting up the norm, gap, old navy, quiksilver, dress barn, and Columbia. (one of those does not belong, which one is it.) i think Lauren had a fun time. Rachel and Emily had a good time. i think that mom was a little bummed that we did not take her up on her deal for some safeway gas, and then held her debt card hostage for the remainder of the trip. did not make it to Mo's, but i am sure that was good like usual.

casa de smith's cumplido

if anyone can not figure out what the title says then ring up rachel and get her digging through the ol spanish/english dictionary.it is done. granted it is not the size of The 20 Year Dig @ Heathfield. Yeah i might razz dad here on this blog about the house and it not being done but here are some things that i want to point out.

• this blog is for fun.
• if something offends you, i will be more than happy to take it off. email me and let me know. austindyer@gmail.com
• heathfield lane was where all of our memories come from.
  
• if you want to look at the bad ones then fine but i am going to try and enjoy and have fun with what we grew up doing, playing, riding in, and so on. yeah we did not have a lot growing up but look at yourself now. where you have come from to where you are at now. granted we still have two at home who are at the bottom of the road waiting for the short bus to come and pick them up, but overall we are all doing great and should not complain.
  

a few highlights that i am sure will be added upon by april.
the garage is huge. 4 civics big and probably a suburban tall. the unfinished laundry room and extra bedroom is about 85% done. it is not like moving in and having 95% dirt floor in the basement. the 5% was the black plastic.
the pictures might not show it but all of the walls are not painted white. they are a cream color, sorry if i get the hue wrong or the description but i am open to send this to the editor.
nice carpet. not the cheap stuff that has been warming our feet as we grew up on heathfield. april pulled no punches when she went for the stainmaster 4005. once we found this out, ethan quickly pinched one off and wanted a diaper changed. i think that he was trying to get a little on the newly laid carpet but cherisse had her catchers glove on and defended the carpet well. nice padding underneath too.
unlike molly who is going to have the option to pick out everything in her custom home, when you have a tract home like this one and ours you only get options to pick out a few things. the smiths had many options to pick out including the shudders, flooring, bannisters/railings, tile. dyers in cali only had the flooring, and the dyers in oregon were limited by cha-ching, so what you see is what you got.
vaulted ceiling in the kitchen, living room. upgraded fixtures and i am sure i have passed over many things. rocker swithces. bumped (derived from a jean word meaning to move a wall in a direction to add space or character to a house) out the back of the garage to make it bigger.
these pictures were taken pre move in of course, sunday night. nice looking neighborhood. they must be like the 4th or 5th ones that have moved in on their street, many of the other houses are in some stage of completion. they moved in monday and tuesday and so things look a little different now.

nice job.