Had a blast at Disney World

Hailey and I took the kids out to Orlando for a Disney World trip this past week and had a great time.  We have tried to always take the kids with us when going out of town, or at least as frequent as we can and we realized this time how much easier it has become at their current ages.  Hailey left about 12 hours before me as I had to get work done and she took Ady and Max.  She said they were the easiest ever to fly with.  I took Lucy late that night and she did not sleep once, but she was great.  I did not even have the car seat to strap her into as it would not fit so we gate checked it.  I am not sure exactly why I share all this other than their current ages really allowed us to enjoy this family trip a ton! 

Here the kids are being as calm as they can be on the first morning awake, just looking out at the park in the distance

This was the best Snow White ever.  She was flirting it up with Max big time and he had no idea what to say or do

"rolling" Kandell Style in the Disney Double Stroller that we made a Triple

Walking around Disney with 3 kids is no easy task at any age.  The weather was great, we all got sun burnt and thank Heaven for the Disney stroller rental.  Oh on a side note for anyone thinking about a trip to Disney World as opposed to Disneyland.  I would not suggest the extra money for the park hopper if you have kids under 9-10 yrs old.  We thought we would get to Epcot, Hollywood Studios, etc but these parks are not like in California where you can just walk to them quickly.  To get from one park to the next you have to take shuttles etc and it is very time consuming not to mention most of what young kids want to see is at Magic Kingdom.  So there, that is my money and time saving advice for anyone thinking about Disney World

I sure got my working out in each day. From sun up to sun down if I could not get 3 kids in the stroller, then one was on my shoulders it seemed.

They are trying to make sad faces as we are checking out of the hotel

These two princesses were in HEAVEN every day. 

I love this picture.  I think it really captures our spirits this trip, we all had a blast just being a fun family!

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Can you believe it is already March?

Hailey and I took a relaxing weekend getaway to Cabo Mexico and had a great time!

In late February Hailey and I had the opportunity to sneak away for a quick weekend of sun and relaxing down to beautiful Cabo, Mexico.  Most people do not realize that you can get their direct from Salt Lake and it takes just a bit over 2 hours!  We had a great time just relaxing and spending some time together.  We try to take our kids with us as much as we can when we go out of town, but I have to say, this time it was quite nice to just have some adult time!

Last weekend we took the kiddos skiing in Park City and hung out all day with the Desatoff family.  We went skiing at the Park City mountain resort and had such a fun time.  At first the kids, especially Adyson, were a bit overwhelmed by the difference in size between the Park City Resort and where they normally go at Sundance.  After a run or two it was much better.  There was one hill/run that was over 3 miles long!  Can you imagine?  I thought it was awesome to see how cousin Sophie played the roll of oldest cousin and I was so impressed with how kind and supportive she was being to Ady while Ady was struggling at first.  Way to go Sophie!  We had dinner with Mariah and Danny and all the kids later that night at a local sushi bar.

On the ski lift at Park City Mountain Resort with Mariah, Sophie, and Oliver Desatoff

Little Lucy and Hailey roasting Smores in Park City

The night before we went skiing we actually stayed in Deer Valley with the kids and they just loved all camping out in a room together.  You forget how cool the kids think it is to be laid out all over the floor in the same room with mom and dad.  They loved roasting marshmallows and making Smores too.  We had a great time.

Ady and her schoolmates doing their science project

Both Ady and Max had science fairs this past month.  I was able to attend Adyson's project and Hailey went to support Max.  What was really cool is that Ady and her class did something very similar to the project I did while I grade school.  Her class was trying to determine which soil types filtered water the best and also how to create wells to get water out from the ground.  I was very impressed with her and Hailey said Max did a great job too.

Ady continues to want to be in the kitchen as much as she can.  It is a daily request to help with dinner or make something.  She made the famous Smoot Family Flavor All the other day (similar to a home made ranch dressing) and here below she wanted to make cookies from scratch.  They turned out very tasty.

Ady loves the kitchen and cooking.  We rarely ever bake and these cookies were from Scratch!

Grandma Sue was in town the final week of February and is still here until tomorrow.  She has been spending lots of quality time with the grandkids.  My sister Lisa has been talking up the waffle luv truck so I thought I would take my mom while she was in town and she loved them.  Here is a link to their site.

We took my mom to the famous WAFFLE LUV truck while she was in town

Adyson has begun dance competition season and the two pics below are of that.  My sister Lisa brought all her kids (4 of them) with the help of my mom, over to Thanksgiving point to support Ady.  It was so awesome to see, Easton, Zach and Max all staring and oohing and awwing as the girls danced.  You would have thought they were more interested in Dance than a video game.  Anyway we are so proud of Ady, she took first place in her division both on her solo and team dance.  Way to go Ady.

Our little nephew Tyler looks like he could be my very own

Ady and her dance friends after their small group number

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it is already the first week of February 2014

Ady sipping hot coco at Sundance, man she is growing up fast

Boy oh boy where does the time go?  It seems like just yesterday we started a brand-new year yet here we are already in February.

The American Girl Tea Party at the Harris home after skiing

This past weekend Adyson went and had a ski lesson with some of her friends. It made me realize how old she was getting that we could drop her off at the mountain and then have somebody drive her home afterward.   We of course did not leave her all by herself, she was with an instructor and some of her friends but it did cause me to stop and just think about how fast she is growing up.  

Lucy getting ready to sip some tea at the American Girl Tea Party

After she was done skiing the Jodeeh Harris brought her back from Sundance to her house or she met up with Lucy and the girls and they had an American girl tea party which was very fun for them.

Speaking of growing up little Max continues to be a bit crazy at times but he brings so much fun and energy to our home.  Just last night he and Lucy were wrestling when he fell backwards and nailed his head on the side corner of an ottoman.  You should have seen how loud he was yelling and how read his face turned.  It scared me and him a little bit when the back of his head had a big knot in it but it was gone the next morning so that was our excitement with Max last night.  

Lucy is currently in this phase where she only wants to wear one gnarled up old and dirty white princess dress.  She continues to believe that she truly is Elsa from the Disney movie frozen. And she wants to put this dress on the moment she wakes up and she wants to put it on the moment she comes home from school and she wants to wear at any time we go out and did I mention she also wants to sleep in it?  

This sushi was great!

This past weekend Hailey and I went to the Bailey's home on Saturday to watch the UFC fight and have a sushi chef make sushi at their home.  The sushi was very fresh and the chef did a great job of preparing it.  

The Super Bowl of course was on Sunday and it was the Denver broncos versus the Seattle Seahawks and was one of the biggest blowouts in Super Bowl history.  The game was actually pretty boring but it was fun to relax around the house. While Max and I watched the Super Bowl Hailey, Lucy and Adyson made a hair salon and did each other's nails. The boys did boy stuff and the girls of course were doing girl stuff.  

Work continues to go well and I believe we have close to 90 loans in processing at the start of this week and the goal is to be over 120 or 130 loans by the end of this week.  It has been a much larger task then I initially thought it would be but we are also growing and progressing at a faster pace than I was hoping for. So all and all starting my own mortgage company has been a very good thing that's far.

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Two weeks into 2014

The wonderful Lucy, aka Elsa, at the Midway, Utah Ice Castles

Well I had a new year's resolution to try and post a weekly family blog and  am very close to 3 weeks behind.  Time is flying by and there is a ton going on.  Ill do my best to summarize the Kandell's happenings from the past couple of weeks.

Does it get any cuter or chubbier than this?

Love my Ady bug

Skiing with the speedster Max is always fun

The weekends have pretty much consisted of non stop skiing up at Sundance. Even little Lucy has gotten in on the action.  It's so much fun to ski with the kids.  They just love it.  Max is a speed freak and just wants to dive bomb the hills as fast as he can.  Adyson takes her time and does her turns and is cautious.  This past weekend we even got Hailey up on the mountain and she had not been skiing in 15 yrs.  it really is great to be out in the mountains as a family laughing, skiing, eating and whatever else.  We are certainly looking forward to the rest if the winter season.

In addition to skiing we have, well I have at least.  Really enjoyed our church starting at 9 am again.  It just seems like the days allow for more family time, get togethers and sheer relaxing.  

The kids, Ady and Max have started robotics class once a week after school and seem to really like that too.  Ady is in the heart of dance performance time so she is keeping way busy with that.

As you may have seen in the top picture, we spent one evening up in Midway at the Ice Caves and this was so cool.   The Midway Ice Caves are particularly awesome this year due to the hit Disney Movie, Frozen.  They have all these kids believing that Elsa made the ice castles.

Date night at the ice castles/caves in Miday, Utah

They look pretty cool with the lights behind them

Looking up into the ceiling

Well I sure hope to be able to post more of this stuff soon.  Life is great right now!

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oops its been over a month

It was October the last time I posted a blog and here I am, now 38 and a few days away from Christmas.  Where has the time gone?  Where has the past year gone?  I cannot believe how fast time just keeps on going.  The only reason I am even finding time right now is because Hailey and I are sitting on an airplane on our way back to Utah.  

We visited Chicago for a couple of days to celebrate my birthday and to do some last minute shopping.  

With the ease of shopping online these days it was actually really nice to spend some time getting stuff for the kids together.  It really helps to put you in the Christmas spirit being all bundled up in a city in the cold and just thinking about your kids and the time of year and kind of putting everything else on hold for a bit.

Putting things on hold has been tough the past few months.  One of our biggest pieces of information is that I left a mortgage company that I was part of for well over 6 years and have now started my own company.  Though this is very exciting, it has come with lots of work and effort and I am sure it will be that way for some time.  

The name of the new company is United Military Mortgage and well, just keep your eyes and ears open because it is going places.  Well, at least I hope so.

So this is our family blog so I want to keep it to that.  We celebrated Thanksgiving this year in our home in American Fork, though we normally head down to St George when it is the Kandell's year.  We had a 40th birthday party to attend for my cousin Weston out in California the day after Thanksgiving so it was easier to stay in AF this year.  Hailey did an amazing job setting the scene for a fun and festive Thanksgiving. 

 The Lovell cousins came over and believe it or not, we even all got in the swimming pool.  We were not in for long, but did spend some time in the hot tub.

Grandpa and Grandma Kandell were in town and Grandma Sue had all sorts of arts and crafts for the kiddos which was nice because it kept them all occupied for quite some time.

  Grandpa Jim and I loved spending time cooking and we smoked a turkey and fried one too!  There was certainly no shortage of food this year.  Hailey made her famous sweet creamed corn, Lisa did rolls and a brussel sprouts and well who knows, we sure ate well though.

Like I mentioned, Hailey and I flew out to California the Friday after Thanksgiving to celebrate the 40th birthday of my cousin Weston and that was a blast.  

We stayed at the Michels home in Encino and it was so much fun and brought back many great memories for me.  When I was first in college and had met Cat, now Weston's wife, I had the opportunity to visit that home many times and it is always so much fun.

Some other things we have been up to the past month or two are:
Family pictures

Adyson's and Lucy have had their first dance performances of the season
Max and Ady continue to do tennis lessons

Christmas programs for all 3 kids at Challenger
My work Christmas party
Hailey was actually in the hospital in and out for an infection she got in her hip. 

Elves on the shelves throughout the house

Christmas tree decorating in the kids rooms

I am totally wishing I had made the time to write once a week like I had been doing so well for a while and who knows, this may be a new year's resolution so that in 2014 I can do much better at writing and documenting what we are up to.  It is always so much fun to go back and read.

Christmas is just 3 days away.  Cannot wait

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Where have have the last 3 weeks gone?

I cannot believe how easy it is to miss just one week of blogging and then before you know it, you are almost a month behind.  To be honest, it is not like I have not been super busy, well WE ALL HAVE, so it has not been easy to find the time to share with you all.

Thanks to technology I have scrolled back in my Iphone camera to try and remember all we have been doing.

My very last post was our quick little jaunt down to St George and per the camera roll in my phone here is a bulleted list of all we have been up to.

• pulling all the edible and salvageable goodies out of our garden
• newly discovered Lucy video interviews
• getting in the Halloween spirit at Cornbellys
• Sunday hikes
• Carving pumpkins
• a family trip to Punta Mita
• Max and Daddy BYU football game

I will share a little blurb on each of these with you now.  

Pulling all the edible and salvageable goodies out of our garden

Tomatoes, basil, and lots of herbs

Our family garden was very plentiful this summer and as the fall has approached we have had to put sheets over the veggies (just the tomatoes) and we were able to extend the season.  We picked enough basil that we have bags and bags of pesto and we also roasted tons of tomatoes and froze them along with the pesto.  We are hoping for some gardeny goodness all winter long.

newly discovered Lucy video interviews 

Getting in the Halloween spirit at Cornbellys

haunted hayride at Cornbellys

Here is a nice shot of Hailey and the kiddos all ready to go on the haunted hay ride.  You have got to love that Lucy smile.  Cornbellys is so awesome.  Thanksgiving point has gotten better ever single year and has added all sorts of fun stuff for the kids, corn cannons, mazes, rock climbing, haunted stuff, games, food and much more. 

Sunday hikes 

These guys can be the best of friends or worst of enemies on any given day

As fall has set in we have made a kind of Sunday tradition of driving up the canyon toward the Draper temple and we found a hiking trail off the side of the road and the kids have loved it.  One week it was cold, cloudy and rainy but this past Sunday it was beautiful.

Carving pumpkins

We had a family home evening one monday at the Lovell's house and aunt Lisa did a family home evening lesson on the harmful effects of telling lies and Hailey and I brought pumpkins to have the kids carve.  It was a really fun time and we took seeds home and cooked them up and they were all eaten up within the next day.

a family trip to Punta Mita 

Harris Kids, Noble Kids and Kandell Kids in the Villa Luna Pool

Date night with Hailey at Sea Breaze

Can you believe this picture?

The highlight of October, at least as of now is our family and friends trip to beautiful Punta Mita Mexico.  This is the same house we went to last Christmas with Grandpa and Grandma Kandell.  We love it so much we went back and this time took two other families with us.  We went with the Harris family and the Noble family.  It was awesome to have so many kids to entertain each other and we parents had a blast too.  The food was great, the house as comfortable and relaxing as always and we had great weather too.  I feel like Punta Mita will be one of those destinations we will make a family traditional trip/vacation full of memories.

Max and Daddy BYU football game

BYU spanked Boise State this night

Max and I went to the BYU vs Boise State game and had a great time.  Here we are in the cougar store getting our gear on!  Max loved that little ball we bought and we threw it and played catch under the stadium at half time and he thought that was the highlight as there were so many other "older" boys doing it too.  He now wants to go back with his cousins Easton and Zach since they know how to play catch too.

Well as you can see October has been awesome so far and Halloween is right around the corner so we are very excited for that too.

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Our St George trip to Tuacahn

Mommy and Ady at the Mary Poppins play at Tuacahn

I am not 100% sure if this is an annual tradition yet, but it is beginning to feel like one.  This past weekend we headed down to St George with the car packed, bikes on the back and kids nestled away inside for a quick cousins weekend in sunny St George, Utah. 

We left Thursday night but were not able to get on the road until about 7:30 pm since we had to wait for Adyson to finish her dance classes in Orem.  I came home from work and Hailey had all the bags packed, art project in the car and movies loaded up.  She sure knows how to make the drive a bit easier!  I loaded the bags in, put the bikes on the tow rack and we were off.

Grandma and Grandpa Kandell were already down in St George and the Lovell cousins drove down Thursday night also.  As we were leaving there were reports of snow coming in and frost warnings so we were really excited to get down to the southern desert of Utah.  The kids did really good and Hailey and I laughed a bit as we watched Max struggle for about 30 mins in and out of sleep and you know how a kid will nod off the feel as though he was falling or something.  Hailey eventually climbed back there and helped him get situated so that he would quit falling onto Adyson.

We got into St George around 11:45 or so and the kids of course went straight to bed.  Lucy actually slept quite a bit of the way down.  The next morning the kids of course got up early and went right to playing.  It is so much fun to see them playing together and talking and carrying on.  Bike riding around the block is like the pinnacle of fun for the Kandell kids since we do not really live in a normal neighborhood.  So the kids were on bikes all the time.  The first morning there it is a tradition for Grandma Sue to get on her bike and ride to the local Mcdonalds where she is a kind of celebrity and to have all the kids on bikes riding along with her.  Other fun things included lizard hunting, making hotels and houses out of cardboard boxes and clothes pin people, Halloween cookies and art, BYU football and of course the main reason for the trip is the Santa Clara parade and the Tuacahn play of Mary Poppins.

spooky Halloween masks and bike rides around the neighborhood made for a good time

My mom and Hailey took just the oldest two cousins to see the play on Saturday night and they said it is absolutely the best play they have seen there and every year it seems to get better and better.  Adyson and Easton thought it was awesome and the boy in the play actually goes to Ady's school so she thought that was great. 

We also attend each year with all the kids, the Santa Clara parade and it is such a good parade.  We had the best spot this year and had shade and not tons of other kids trying to get our kid's candy.  Max cleaned house and was relentless enough that we had to slow him down a bit. 

Hailey and Max loving the parade

Max is loving his role as big brother and is showing Lucy the Princess Float coming down the road.

My favorite part of the parade is the fair food afterwords and I even ate curry goat from a Jamaican vendor this year.  The kids ate lots, listened to the live music and we all just enjoyed the sun!

amazing Halloween cookies Hailey made with the kids

Max is just chilling listening to the local music while Lucy and Saige hang out

Cousins hiking in a river bed that is dried out

Adyson and Easton in their spooky masks they made with Hailey

We love going to St George and spending some time (trying to relax, though with 7 kids under 9 it is tough) relaxing with family. 

I wonder what plays will be showing next year?

Max loving his ice cream sundae at Black Bear Diner

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