New Bathroom

Shane decided one day that he wanted to redo the guest bathroom and this is the result. It came together very well and we are thoroughly enjoying it while we remodel the master bathroom. I think Shane might be a little bored between snow storms, luckily the Maintenance season is starting in a week so he won't try and remodel anything else.

San Diego

Imagine if you will four Beans together in San Diego for 4 days...mayhem may be to mild of a word...it starts with a Cross-word puzzle party at the airport food court in which it was discovered that Dad, Emily and I are horrible spellers and just downright suck at cross-words, we then move on to picking up Susie and convince her that the "Vacation House" that we are staying in is a small cottage behind a large beach house and to access our cottage with have to walk through the "main house" in the middle of the night while other people are staying there. Susie of course believes us and is in shock while we stand on the front porch in the dark trying to open the front door by force because it sticks. She soon discovers that we are messing with her and that we are staying in the large beach house. Shocked and dismayed by our foolery she vows to get us back, which to her delight in 3 days time we get ours, as upon our return from a day of shopping the tenants that were supposed to be staying in the large house arrive. To our dismay we are in fact supposed to be staying in the tiny cottage behind the big house. The pictures above are of the big house in all its beauty and our reaction to getting kicked out. Do these things happen to other people, I think not.
Some other events that peppered our adventure with excitement were as follows; Susie getting yelled at in a church gift shop for attacking me with a very expensive praying-mantis statue. Dad stealing a large ring of keys with a wallet attached from the same gift shop with the idea of "tricking" Susie and I into thinking we lost our keys...luckily he realized that the keys might not be ours as neither of us had a car and or house in San Diego, so why would we be carrying a large wad of keys? Too bad he didn't realize this before we left the store...
The best memories I have are of the adventures that I have with my family...I am so lucky to have such a wonderfully exciting family to have adventures with.

We Love the Snow!

We had a special winter surprise after the new year in the form of Hurricane force winds and a LOT of snow. It was one of those storms that really feels like a storm with the wild wind and heavy snow, power outages and car wrecks. It was a lot of fun. Shane worked really hard doing snow removal while Lily and I caught up on our movies and reading. Lily also helped me shovel the sidewalk, which was very cute. Emily, Lily and Michelle made a very special little snowman with M&M eyes, mouth and buttons, Shabone had fun eating the M&M's out of the snowman the next day.

Christmas

Christmas was very joyous in the Bell household this year. Lily was a little apprehensive about Santa coming into the house in the middle of the night but was thankful that he came on Christmas morning. She was so excited about Santa eating the cookies and drinking the milk that she was shaking. Shane was so excited about his new IPod Nano that him and Lily did a Christmas morning celebration dance. We got to spend Christmas Eve with Grandma and Grandpa Bean which was very fun. And we spent Christmas day with Shane's family which was also very fun. We all had a wonderful Christmas filled with family and love. We feel so blessed to have everyone in our lives and so many close friends and family to spend the holidays with.

Hawaii!!

We took a little trip to Hawaii with Shane's family. Lily packed her own suitcase including her piggybank, some diapers and of course the ever-important red cowboy boot, what would she do without it. We stayed on the island of Oahu for 10 glorious days and now we are back in Nevada to enjoy 40 degree temps, our tans are fading fast. We had a great time. Lily and Emily had a fun playing on the beach and in the pool. The adults had a great time eating and eating and eating. There are way to many fantastic restaurants on that island. Lily lived on the nachos that we got at the snackbar everyday, I didn't know someone so small could put away so many nachos. All in all we had an amazing time and we wish we were still there. Everyday Lily asks if we are going to Hawaii tomorrow, we lie to spare her feelings.

Halloween

This Halloween was the best so far. Lily was so excited to get dressed up like a little pink fairy princess and get free candy. We went to the Govenor's mansion, three sets of grandparents and trick-or-treating with her cousin and friends. She was extremely frightened by anyone dressed up like monsters, her cousins included. She is still afraid to go to Grandma's because she thinks the "monser's" will be there waiting for her.

Lily's Second Birthday Party

I decided that since we had a small party for Lily's 1st birthday that I would do something big for her second, so I rented a pony. All the other kids thought it was very exciting but Lily only wanted to pet it and kiss it. She only rode it once and that was for about 3 seconds, then she freaked out and squeezed the juice box she was holding directly into my hair and all over my clothes. Other than that mishap the party was a hit. All the kids got a hat, bandanna and squirt gun and had a great time chasing eachother around and shooting unsuspecting adults with water. The also decided that our greenhouse was a barn so they hung out in the 110 degree steamy greenhouse and would come out all sweaty and red-faced. Grandma Bean made Lily's horse cake and bandanna dress and they were both awesome. What would we do without Grandma's skills I don't know! We made tri-tip sandwiches for lunch and Shane and I cooked the meat the night before. We decided to cook four marinated tri-tips at once on the bbq which resulted in them catching on fire and almost burning down our awning. It was very exciting, Shane is still growing the hair back on his arm. All in all it was a great party and we want to thank everyone for coming, helping, bringing wonderful presents and for being a blessing in our lives.