Halloween

Woo Hoo!!!!! The time is upon us to get all that last minute Halloween costume and candy shopping done! You have exactly two days so ready . . . set ... ... ... GO!!!!!!!!! So who else is excited? I sure as heck know I am! But I can't decide if I'm gonna go to my awesomely insane cousin's birthday party or trick-or-treating. Probably the party, though. So, guess what I'm gonna be for Halloween? Go ahead, guess! Ahem, I said, GUESS! OK fine, I'll tell you, sheesh! I'm gonna be a devil! It's an insanely cute costume!

But enough about me, let's talk about you guys!

So what are you gonna be for Halloween? And I really wanna know so comment and tell me! Well, if you don't know, here are some great costume ideas:
Bought Costumes from Wal-Mart:
-Whoopee Cushion
-Adam/Eve
-Fairy
-Bratz Pirate
-Devil (ME!!!)
-Angel
-Greek God/Goddess
-Queen/King/Prince/Princess

Homemade costumes (YAY!!! Creativity!):
-Robot (boxes and tin foil)
-Ghost (white bedsheet-cut eyeholes) (for a funky ghost use colored sheets) ;)
-Hobo (old button up shirt, messy hair, brown make up so you look dirty, brown eyeliner to draw messy patches and scratches)
-Headless Business Man (big white church shirt-pull it over your head, church pants)
-Girl (for boys only. wear a dress and do a girly hair do or a wig)
-Boy (for girls only. wear a baggy boy t shirt and baggy jeans, wear a baseball cap backwards with your hair pulled up in it)

Hope these helped! Have an awesome Halloween and get lots of candy!

School-most kids cringe at the word.

Yup. It's that time again. The one all kids dread. The time that ends our summer. The time everyone anticipates and hates at the exact same time. The time that requires extra shopping, that includes, but is not limited to, new clothes, new shoes, school supplies, backpacks, etc. The time that, well I assume you know what i mean by now. But, just for you less fast people, I'll add one more. MY MOST HATED TIME OF YEAR!!! Well, I'll start off by saying, I'm going to a new school. Again. My third new school in TWO YEARS! Yeah, it's that bad. Well, surprizingly, this new school isn't new because I moved. This one is because my parents wanted to get my younger siblings out of their old school because of events too elaborate for me to get into right now. So because of my younger sibs elaborate events, I have to go to a charter school. Yeah, the kind where you have to wear UNIFORMS!!! They aren't that tacky, but they do tend to hide my recently acquired prep style. I guess to some they can be a good thing because no one can tease you or be mean because of what you're wearing cause you're wearing the same thing. But then again, everyone has their own style and the charter scool doesn't allow that style to be shown. One plus is that we get to go do extra curricular stuff at my old school, NDJ (North Davis Jr. High). So I will be doing the after school program, Program CARE. Of course the only class I'll be doing is Dinner Theater, which, (duh!) is acting and singing and dancing. So, in conclusion, break out the wallets and get your shopping over with cause you've got three days and counting till the dreaded day! (for kids anyway. I'm sure parents have a party while their kids are at school) Have a good last three days of summer!

GIRLS CAMP 4 YW!!! (for those of u less informed peeps, yw=young womens)

I'm sure most of you already know what this is about, but I will say it for those of you slower people. I am writing about young women's camp that I went to a couple weeks ago. I'll start off saying young women's is an organization by the LDS (Latter Day Saint/Mormon) church. It is for girls ages twelve to eighteen. Now I know what you're thinking. "its just some wimpy religious thing telling you not to sin or you'll go to H*#@!" That is SO not what its all about!!! It's fun! We do games, sports, parties. We go camping every summer! And the best part (well actually the best part for me is the camping, but you know what i mean) is you get to hang out with lots of other teenage girls and you get to BE GIRLS!!!

So anyways, I'm not here to be a preacher. I'm here to talk about the CAMP.
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So a couple weeks ago my young women's group went caming up in Aspen Ridge in Idaho. This year it was just my ward. We did lots of activities there! We went horseback riding, canoeing, swimming, skits, hiking, and there was this thing at the lake (which was so small we called it Pond Josephine) called Pirates of *Pond* Josephine. What we did was we got to make teams and every team went out in a canoe. Then we would rock each others boats until they sunk. Last boat floating won. My wards team won twice out of four times! Everyone else's teams won once or not at all so we were the CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!!! Another thing we got to do was this class called the COPE course. What it was was a team building class. It was really really fun! First, we all stood on a log. Then we had to organize ourselves in order of birthdays. But, the tricky thing was, we couldn't fall off the log or talk at all! But, eventually we did it and we felt like we really accomplished something. Our next task was for every one of us to all have one foot on a milk crate and the other couldn't touch the ground. We had to hold that for ten seconds! It took us about a million tries-and about forty five minutes-of everyone trying to balance on it with one foot and the other in the air when we finally realized we could sit on the ground while doing it! We all felt pretty stupid that we couldn't realize that sooner! Our last task was at this huge pole. We had to form a human pyramid and try to get a tire over the pole and down it to the ground. I had to be one of the people on the bottom and so I was supporting the weight of about four girls!!! It was really fun though! The last activity I'll tell you about was this thing called the polar bear plunge. What we had to do was we sat in this bathtub that was in a river under a tube of FREEZING cold water. The water was coming straight down onto our heads! And the worst part was, we had to stay under for as long as it took to say the young womens theme! It was insane!!! But I liked it. I did it three times!!! We got to see them retire a flag, and when they did, there wasn't a dry eye in the house!!! Check back soon and I might get some pics in here! (suckish ones but, hey, nobody's perfect) I'm done now. So that means you can leave. What are you waiting for?!!?!!? GO!!! THAT MEANS YOU!!! GET OUTTA HERE!!!!! Oh just forget it! I quit! I'm leaving now!!!

Breaking Dawn (Twilight book 4) review!

OMGosh!!!!!!!!!! Best book in the whole series, by FAR!!! It wasn't as action packed as the others and not so intense either but I loved it with a love that even the biggest of Twilight fanatics would find odd!!! And for the record, I DID read it before you, Momma so HA!!! IN YOUR FACE!!!!!

ANYWAYS,

It starts with Bella telling you how she broke the news about her wedding to her dad and mom. Then it goes on to the night before when Edward is forced by Jasper and Emmet to go to the bachelor party. Their wedding is so amazing and romantic! I loved every minute of it! Then Edward takes her to the most AMAZING place for their honeymoon. I won't tell you where, that would spoil it now, wouldn't it? I also won't tell you what happened at the honeymoon that is so shocking you will soil your pants!!! Ah ah ah! No spoilers allowed! Looks like you'll have to read it for yourself. Well anyways, then it switches and Jacob begins telling the story. The part he tells is pretty intense. It's awesome! At the end it switches back to Bella but I'm not gonna tell any more than that. Sorry! Like I said, looks like you'll have to read it for yourself. Well, I'm gonna go! SO SHUT UP!

Vacation Pics: Vegas and the Stratosphere

OK. This is part 2 of our vacation pictures. Not sure how many parts there will be, but I hope it will end before you get bored. We start off this edition with a few more pics from the wedding (because I got some pics from my mom and dad and they had some good ones). We then have some from our trip to the top of the Stratosphere and a couple of the rides there.

This is why Chris and Kelly chose this resort for the wedding. Behind that mountain is Lake Tahoe. Beautiful.

Me and the prettiest girl at the whole wedding (sorry Chris and Kelly =).
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...and the kids.

Honey and Grampa were overdue for their afternoon nap.

Annie knows what is REALLY important.

I guess I had better include this one. This is me presenting the Best Man Toast (and me without a toaster...yeah yeah, bad joke but whatcha gonna do? =).

Now...on to VEGAS. Whoop whoop!!

Annie, Honey, and Grampa on the top of the Stratosphere.

View of Vegas from the observation deck of the Stratosphere.

Jordan and Zack...appearing suspiciously not up to something. I got my eye on you 2...

The spire of the Stratosphere...actually a rocket ride called Big Shot, at the top of which you are over 1,100 feet in the air. It is very cool because at the top of the ride, you can't even see the Stratosphere building below you. Wow. I almost peed myself (I think Emily did, but don't tell anyone...shhhh).

Aliens we encountered on the top of the Stratosphere. Gorgeous aliens, but aliens nonetheless.

A view of Vegas at night...1,000 feet in the air.

One of the thrill rides, Insanity.

The third ride, X-Scream.



Notice how overwhelmed they were with excitement...

Next post - video (bad, dark video, but video all the same) of one or two of the rides.

Vacation Part 1: The Wedding

In another post I said we would get some photos of our recent summer vacation on the web. Well, things got away from me and I never did post more photos, but now the wife and kids are out of town (HALLELUJ....cough cough...umm..I mean...gosh, I sure do miss them just to death - whew..nice save Chad..heh heh)

...ANYWAY

Here are the long awaited photos. I am sure that droves and droves of you, our loyal readers (all 3 of you) were checking back daily to find out what we did on our trip. Well, here ya go:

First off, Jordan and Emily went to work with me the day we left.

Here are Jordan and Emily pretending to be useful.

In all fairness, they actually did some work...here Jordan was working on a spreadsheet...Emily was working on her Nintendo DS...hard work to be sure!

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We went to Reno to start out because one of my best friends, Chris Palmrose (here in front) was getting married and asked me to be his Best Man (for whatever reason, I think he may have been drunk =).

(above, from left to right: Tim, Phil, Chad, Dennis I think...can't remember... I am just terrible, Kenny, and Chris)

The kids squinting.

Mom and dad.

Beauty and the beast.

Jordan just heard about the cake! Boy is he excited...

Excited? Not so much..

As you can see, Glynna was very excited to dance, especially since as Best Man I had no choice. You can also see that I am good at faking that I am enjoying it.



Quality father-son time.

Coming soon...part 2...

First Videos from the new Digital Video Camera

We got a new video camera. It is a JVC Everio hard-disc-drive camera (no tapes, no disks, just download to the computer). Here are a couple of videos. I am also trying to learn how to change video size in the computer because these short videos at native resolution are over 100 mb big. Wow.

Yeah, I know...woohoo...real exciting to watch the kids sitting on the couch. Hey, give me a break! I have a new toy and MUST MUST MUST play with it. It is a compulsion. Better than shoplifting anyway.

Okay, here is another one, this one is Jordan and Glynna working on my birthday present. I INSISTED on building it myself, but they insisted even harder that they wanted to build it as it was my birthday present. I am decidedly against giving WORK for gifts!

So that is it for now. Look for more fun videos in the future, and probably a few boring ones as well. IF we ever get the house clean, we will do a video tour for everyone who has not been able (or simply DOESN'T LOVE US ENOUGH) to visit. =)

Twilight. You'll wanna read it again, and again, and - well you get the idea

To sum up Twilight (New Moon, and Eclipse as well) in one word I'd have to say . . . . . WOW!!!! Awesome books!!!! Just as good as Maximum Ride, if not better. ;-) It's an amazing love story, with a surprizing twist! The main character, Bella, is in love with Edward, who, and I'll give you three seconds to guess. . . . . . . ooonnneee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .tttwwwooo . . . . . ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .. ... .... .... .... ..... tthhrree!!!! HE'S A VAMPIRE!!! He saves her on countless occasions! And, the best part is, that her blood has a better attraction for him than any other human. Every day he's with her he has to fight the OVERWHELMING urge to drink her blood, but in the end, true love conquers all!!!!! There's romance, fear, sadness, and, for you guys, a little bit (or a lot) of ACTION!!! The fourth book to the series comes out on August second, so be ready, 'cause these are gonna be snapped up!!! Oh and here's a helpful hint for you: don't pre-order it online. It's cheaper if you wait until it comes out and then buy it at Wally World. (or for you slower people, Wal-Mart) Also, be ready because the Twilight movie is coming out December 12!!! Me and my bud, Megan are going to see if we can camp out to be some of the first people to get tix! Hey thanks for reading!!! And remember, reeding maxe yoo samarterer!!!

Sigh...

Alas...My weight loss efforts are not nearly as successful as they have been in the past. Chad says I don't have the motivation I had before. (My 20 year class reunion). What he is failing to achknowledge is his wife's PRIDE. I DO have the motivation...I have a family reunion in three short weeks! hee hee. BUT, for some reason, it is not enough. I have truly given my all to this effort for two weeks and have not lost a pound.

My husband, (the creep), has lost 11 pounds (or more).

Today I walked three miles. I am training for a 5K in September with some ladies from my church. I have never done anything like that and I am kind of excited. I don't think I am interested in tackling a marathon or anything remotely close, but I can handle a 5K...hee hee.
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Chad and I work out at the gym most days, but once a week I train with the ladies in my ward. Some days I walk to our Wal-mart, buy groceries, and then Chad picks me up. Our Wal-mart is 2.7 miles away. Not too shabby.

Emily did an aerobics class with me a few days ago when Chad had to work late. It was STINK'N HARD, but I loved it. It was especially nice just spending time with my daughter doing something that is good for both us. That same day, while Em and I were exercising, the other kids were down at the pool so following our workout, I got in the pool with the other kids. I LOVE activities with my family that are active and healthy! It makes me feel good...and it is FUN.

Speaking of 'healthy and fun' family activities, today we toured Wheeler Historic Farm in Salt Lake. That was very cool. And a few weeks ago, we toured the Utah Pioneer Historical 'Village'...and loved it so much, we purchased a family pass. I will post pictures from both fun activities at a later date.

As usual, it is LATE when I am posting so I am too tired so scroll through hundreds of photos...fun, but...yurk...Too much work tonight...maybe tomorrow while kiddos nap. Well, I need to put my little darlings to bed. Duncan is spending the night with a friend. Jordan was watching TV, Annie has been at the park next door, and Emily just got home from a Raptor's baseball game.

Tomorrow and Saturday, we are rotatilling (sp?) our flower beds and our garden area. So much for a garden this year. Oh well...next year definitely.

In the words of "Bruce Almighty", LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE (to you all)...(That is one of my VERY favorite movies... maybe a little sac-religious (sp?), but PHENOMENOL message..."Be the miracle". Maybe it is from Jim Carrey's movie, "Liar, Liar"...Oh well, that is an awesome movie too. We like Jim Carrey movies for the most part.

Ok, I am rambling now. I am going to bed. Good night all.

The Cuz and her AWESOME BUDS!!!

Hey, y'all!!! Me again!!! Yeah, I know you are bored of me already but I just love blogging!!! (is that a word?) So I'm here to blog about the peoples I met at my sleepover with McCall yesterday. First, and probably most importantly, my cousin, Tara.
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She's thirteen and about a month older than me. SHE'S TOTALLY LAZY!!! And she's INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love her so much she's awesome!!!! One really unique thing about her is that she has an allergy (that I can't spell the word to) to the COLD! She gets hives. Thats what McCall meant about Tara with the whole bumps thing in my last entry. Now, on to McCall. She's probably just as insane as Tara! Maybe even more so. She is twelve but taller than me. She calls Wal-Mart Wally World!!! I think that is so fun! She loves to text!!! And, yes, she texts me all the time!!! Her mom is so AWESOME!!! (not as awesome as my momma, though.) Her dad is almost as funny as my daddy (and that's saying something). Now it's time to talk about McKenzie. She's thirteen. She has sexy fiery red hair!!! haha! I love her she's so fun! She's insane like myself, McCall, and Tara. We all speak in third person a LOT!!!!! Superstar likes speaking in third person!!! haha lol!!!!!!!! I also met a few of McCall's guy buds. There's McKay (did I spell that right?) and Mason (same question) who are brothers and they throw mean water fights!!! It's so fun!!! Then there's Tyler, who is a BIG FAT JERK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But all us girls agree, no matter how mean he is, he is HAWT!!!!!!!!!!!! There's also Tanner, who, is fourteen, and likes McCall, and he's pretty hawt himself! Well, that's it for now! See you very, very soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Da da da da!!! Superbuds!!!

Hey Superstar here with word on some of my best buds! Well, all of my best buds, actually, but still.
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There's Natalie, or Nat, Nattie, or Nate, as i sometimes call her. She is a year older than me but I love her anyway. She is an actress and singer like me and she sings everywhere, all the time, no matter how many onlookers there may be. She can NOT and I repeat NOT have caffiene or it will have a "Hammy Effect" as I like to call it. In other words, she will basically be so hyper that to her, the whole world stopped moving.
There's also Alex, who, basically is the freak with all the wierd nicknames. But, again, I love her anyways. She texts me ALL THE TIME!!! I love it but some people in my family might find it annoying. I basically live on my cell phone and I've only had it for, like, a month!
Here's another one of my texting buddies. Megan. She had blonde, curly hair but dyed it red!! She and I are going to a charter school next year instead of the same school my other friends are gonna go to. Stupid parents! They got me to go by bribing me with a cell phone!
That's my best friends for ya!! I'll be back later with a movie review or something. SEE YA!!!!!!!!

Hi I am the Super-staaaahr

Before I begin, my alien friend wants to make a few comments:

a;lfgna;retn;eng;anp[owsnpgbnp;awenb ;gt

I had to edit that because it was not appropriate for a family website.

Now, on to more important things.....
I am, as my title so clearly states, The Super Star. Like my daddy said, I love to act and sing. It WILL be my future career . . . no matter what those annoying peoples say!!! And by the way, if anyone reading this works with a T.V. company or movie producer, look me up!
I've acted in LOTS of different plays, performed in choir concerts, sung in talent shows, and, believe it or not, when I was in third grade, I starred as Mowgli in "The Jungle Book"! As you can see, I am a TOTAL diva!!!
My name is Emily or Emmie or Em, or Emmie lou (my grandparents call me that). My favorite of my nicknames, though, is what my daddy calls me. Peetyswie, or Pete, for short. One of my very best buds, Alex, calls me these wacky nicknames like Cheez, Bill, Jeff, well, you get the idea. I have athsma, which is a disease where it makes it harder for you to breathe than others. I have to use a rescue inhaler if I really need it. If my athsma gets bad enough, I could end up in the hospital. The last time I was in the hospital was around January 29. I'm thirteen, which means my vocabulary mostly consists of boyz, boyz, and more boyz, and a little bit of chocolate and cookie dough!! And, to comment on what my wierd older brother said, I LOVE ZAC EFRON AND HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL!!!!! And it's spelled Z-A-C, not Z-A-C-K, Mr. Smarty-pants!!! Well, I'm gonna end this saying JONAS BROTHERS ROK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And don't any of you deny it!!!

Welcome one and all...probably just one.

I wanted to kick this off myself, since I created it and all. I thought long and hard about having a blog site where my family could maintain a presence on the Web and provide for family (quite a few) and friends (at least 1 or 2) who are spread far and wide to get a glimpse of the happenings in our lives.

Therefore, welcome to the inaugural edition of the Todd Blog. We are the Todds (there are 6 of us) and these are our Blogs (likely to be 6 eventually, but don't hold your breath).

Let me introduce everyone:

First, and most importantly, there is....drum roll please....ME!!

Not.

Let's start at the top, see if you can guess the order of appearance of our bloggers.

1. Glynna (aka...has yet to pick an aka....wife, mother, picker of the nightly restaurant)
2. Chad (aka LogGrad98...creator of the almighty blog, eternal smart-alleck, picker of the t.v. channels)
3. Jordan (aka...has yet to...well, you get the idea...eldest son, newest driver, hence frightener of the mother)
4. Emily (ditto...eldest daughter, star of stage and screen, resident singer)
5. Duncan (again...youngest son, irritant to the eldest brother, collector of random things - but mostly knives and things found by the train tracks)
6. Analysse (same...youngest kid, otherwise known as the Spoiled One, and Irritant to All...although she is dang cute)

So that's the gang. We enjoy driving around the country, although recently it is cheaper to, well, do almost anything else. This year we went to Reno, Las Vegas, Hoover Dam (or Darn as the kids insist on saying), the Grand Canyon, St. George, and back home again.

We also really go for movies, so watch for our reviews. And, as you guessed I am sure from Glynna's brief description, our most favorite past-time is making restaurant owners RICH RICH RICH (again, watch for reviews). As a group we love chinese buffets, McD's (of course), and...best of all...SUSHI. Even Emily, who hates fish, will eat sushi.

See? How bad could it be.

That is enough to get started, I guess. I will let all the others introduce themselves in time (and probably force any of them that waits too long =), and give your their aliases...because I insist on aliases for all!

Bu-WAH HAH HAH HAH!!