Bay Area adventures, Jan. 2011

The famous Santa Cruz Mystery Spot

Believe it or not, he's standing straight up in this spot of the house.

look, we're mysteriously almost the same height on this level spot of ground.

I'm standing straight up on this table, but it looks like I'm falling...weird.

I got so dizzy in this house. Really cool place!

Day trip to San Francisco with the Irwins.

They went to Alkatraz while we went on a bike ride over the GG Bridge. We also walked by the pier and ate sea food and stuff...just getting in a bunch of stuff we hadn't yet done or wanted to do again in the Bay area while we still live here. Two days later, the Irwins moved to Utah :(

None of us are used to sea food, let alone crab... it was an experience.

They make cute animals out of sour dough bread and you can watch for the street.

Sunset from the hills past the GGB. Beautiful!

Our hard core bike ride through San Fran and across the bridge. So fun! We live in a beautiful area! I can't believe it took us almost 3 yrs to finally do this.

Christmas 2010 in Redding

Madsen family pictures:

The Madsen siblings. So cute!

Silly is easier for us...comes naturally.

Ok, serious now- this one's for the Christmas card...took us forever!

Dance/karaoke party time on the PS3...hours of fun!

Josh loves reading books - look how attentive he is... so cute!

Our favorite toy this Christmas! Look at the happiest woman ever to be a grandma!

Steph semi-dyed my hair (it's a PM shine that fades gradually). It was a pretty dark cherry red - Awesome!

She also did our eye lashes! It's so fun having a professional cosmo girl in the family!

10 K....Yes we DID!!!!

A few months ago, our friends Madison and Cody talked us into training for a 10K (6.1 miles) race here in the Santa Clara mountains. So we trained and trained and trained together. What we didn't realize was that the race turned out to be about 3 miles completely up hill hiking on a single file trail and then right back down the way we came for 3 more miles. It was killer! We were all sore for at least a week afterward. And Madison did all that while 6 months prego! Amazing! This was Mike's first race like this and he did so great! He got 4th in our age group! He's made for this kind of stuff! It's hard to figure out why you pay to go run a long way, but it sure feels great to finally complete a race like that after training for it - Victory!

Family Pictures

Mike and I spent Thanksgiving in Saratoga Springs, Utah with his family. We had a great week with the family and visiting some friends too. We also got Parker Family pictures taken outside in the freezing cold weather. What a cute family! I was so impressed that all the little kids were still smiling after 2 hours of posing in the cold weather without jackets.

Group hug!

I know it looks sunny, but it was freezing cold!

Mike and his siblings - what a good looking family!

Steve, Christina, Karen, Sarah, Janet, Mike

We also helped put on the annual Parker Gingerbread-making party. It was my first time participating in the awesome tradition. So much fun!

This tradition has gotten progressively bigger over the years. Now they have to hold it in the church gym so that everyone can come enjoy the fun.

Look at our cute little gingerbread home.

Some of our cute little nieces doing a little craft.

How do you like Abby's new glasses? So Cute!