"Nana, will you put my hair in a black, Japanese, wrestler ponytail?" - Max
Hinckley turned 7 on August 26, 2008. We celebrated ALL day long! It was great! Hinckley absolutely loves the zoo so we started the celbration off there. Eventhough it was the 3rd time we had been to the zoo since we moved here, Hinckley still had a great time and watched all the animals like it was his first time at the zoo! If you will notice from the slide show, Cinthanie was not in the best of moods that day so she didn't have a great time like the rest of us but I had fun trying to take photos of her! LOL! She laughs about it now but was pretty mean at the time! Oh well, her loss!
We had fun at the zoo and Hinckley had a great time later opening his presents. After dinner and presents we went to a place called Game World where there are bumper cars and a play area which you will see in the slideshow as well. Hinckley and Max love the place - the rest of us tolerate it! How can you not have fun watching your kids having fun?!!!
Happy 7th Hinckley, we love you!!!
Right after the July Convention in Layton, Utah we went to Lagoon for 2 days. It was the first time we had been together as a family in almost 4 weeks...boy did it seem like a l-o-n-g time! We all had a great time in Lagoon just being together, laughing, having fun and GETTING WET!
One funny thing that happened while we were there was when Greg Sr went with the older kids on a ride and Cinthanie and I stayed in the kids section with Maxwell and Hinckley. Max and Hinck came off of a ride and Hinckley told me they were going to go on a ride that was just next to the one they had gotten off of. I told them to go get in line and gathered up the stroller and Cinthanie and went over to the next ride. But Hinckley and Max were NOT there! Cinthanie and I looked all over but Hinck and Max were no where to be found! I tried to keep cool and not jump to conclusions, but after searching for a few minutes (it seemed like hours) I decided it was time to get help and called Greg on the cell phone (that was a very difficult phone call for me. How do you tell your husband you have lost your children?!!) and went to file a missing children report! While I was in the office filling out the paperwork (yup, you have to waste time filling out paperwork when your child is missing and you want them found NOW!) Greg called and said he had found them. I started crying, dropped the pen and left the office as fast as I could!
When Hinckley told me that he and Maxwell were going on the next ride I misunderstood what he was telling me and THOUGHT he said they were going on the ride right next to me but he actually told me they were going on a ride that was quite a ways away. I didn't realize this and told them to go ahead! When we all got together again I told Hinckley, "If you ever get lost like that again, tell someone who works here that you are lost and tell them my name and Dad's name and they will find us." Hinckley just looked at me and said, "But mom, we weren't lost, we knew where we were!" LOL! They didn't even KNOW they were "lost" and we were looking for them frantically! I started to tell Hinckley never to wander off like that again, but it then donned on me that this was MY mistake, not Hinckley's! He had told me where they were going and I had said yes! Boy, I learned very quickly that I need to slow down and LISTEN to what my kids are saying...ALWAYS! After it was all over Hinckley said, "Ya know mom, when you said we could go ride the ride alone, Max and I got in line and the worker didn't ask us where our mom was and we were all alone and I thought, "We're by ourselves, no mom to tell us what to do, we can do what we want, THIS IS THE LIFE!" What a little toad! I thanked my Heavenly Father from the bottom of my heart that day that HE watched over my boys and kept them safe when I made a mistake and I also thanked Him for such wonderful, independent little boys! And, I try not to tell them what to so often anymore, although I am sooooo good at it! Ha! Ha!
Ultimately we all had a wonderful time and are looking forward to returning next summer!
Here is a slide show of some of our fun pictures from Lagoon -
Petralia family here! - It has been awhile since any of us added to the blog, I decided it was time to do so!
It has only snowed twice this month and neither of these snowfalls were bad at all. It was all gone by the next morning! We are hopeful things contiue on this way. (Below are some photos of Max playing in the FIRST SNOW OF THE SEASON)
Well, we have successfully finished up Kyani's San Diego convention 
in the middle of October. It was Annaleese's first big event with a lot of responsibility and she and her co-workers were able to pull off an awesome convention! Distributors have been saying it was the best they have ever attended! - Greg and Annaleese are both glad to have that finished with, and are now working hard planning the next event which will take place in January, in Las Vegas Nevada. We are eagrly looking foward to this. (On the left is a picture of our family and the founders of Kyani, Dick and Gayle Powell, at the San Diego Convention Center where the event was hosted.)
Greg Jr. attended his first dance here at Hillcrest Highschool! He went to Homecoming and had a blast. Now Sadies is next and he has already been asked by 2 or 3 girls! (And the kids thought they would have a hard time making new friends...) - He thought long and hard on how to ask the girl in a really creative way, and finally came up with an idea! - He dressed Hinckley up like a banana and took him to where Hayley (the girl) works. Once there, Hinckley told Hayley "my brother will go bananas if you don't go to Homecoming with him!" Then left without telling Hayley who his brother was! She had to find out it was Greg by him wearing a yellow polo the next day. - It was very cute and although Hinckley said he was embarassed, he did a great job! (Below is Hinck in his Banana suit, Greg with his date, and the video of the asking process!)
Halloween has also come and gone. It was a really fun holiday this year! Usually our family
will go out to dinner and a movie, but this year, the kids opted to stay at home, decorate the house really creepy, and scare trick-or-treaters. Unfortunantly Max was the only one who ended up getting scared and not many trick-or-treaters showed up to the house! - We were amazed at how many parents joined in the festivities though. EVERYONE was dressed up and all decked out! It was quite a sight. - We were lucky enough to be able to get our trick-or-treating done the night before at a ward activity. It was nice for the boys to get some candy and experience dressing up, but it was also nice being able to stay inside the next night and just enjoy in each other's company. (To the right is Hinckley and Max all ready for Halloween! We finally convinced Max to wear ONE costume. At one point he had declared he was going to be a scarecrow, Batman, pirate! And below are Max the scarecrow and Hinck the very serious cowboy. He would not smile because he said cowboys don't smile!)
-The Petralias-
WINGAPO!!!! Greetings from the prodigal daughter in St. George!!! :) I found out about this family blog and decided I'd let you all in on what I've been up to!!! :) I just resigned my lease for my apartment and will be there until the beginning of April at least! I'm still working at Pasta Factory and am looking for a new job like a mad WOman. The pictures I posted in the slide show are of me in Fish Lake with Gerrick and his family at the end of July! We went for Gerrick's birthday and had a blast!!! ENJOY
Lynnette and the kids arrived at their new home in Idaho Falls early in the morning on Monday, June 23, 2008 - Greg and Lynnette's 24th wedding anniversary! They had planned a trip (Greg's business trip but lots of fun stuff to do) to Yellowstone the same week so Tuesday afternoon they were headed to Jackson, Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park. While in Jackson Greg went white water rafting (Lynnette missed out on a lot of fun because she decided she had children back home who needed her so she didn't dare risk her life on the white water rapids of the Snake River! LOL!) Greg had a lot of fun on the rapids and dove out of the raft at one point and was almost left behind to face the rapids alone! Luckily he is a strong swimmer and made it back in the raft before they hit the rapids! The raft Greg was in was tossed and thrown around on the water but stayed afloat through the rapids and the rest was "smooth sailing!" We went back to the point where there are some really big rapids (called "Lunchtable") and watched a number of rafts go over the same place Greg's had gone a few days before and within the span of about 30 minutes we saw 3 rafts flip in the midst of the rapids! One poor girl fell out just above the rapids and was pulled under and "rode the rapids" freestyle to the end! She came up on top of the water at the bottom and seemed to be alright and someone pulled her to shore a little down river.
Old Faithful was beautiful, although it didn't seem as big as it did when we were there a year ago, as the wind was blowing so it didn't really get to reach it's full height before the wind blew it off in every direction. I have included a picture here of Greg and Tyler... when we were walking back to the car from Old Faithful Greg ran into Tyler Cox, a Priest from our Santa Clara Ward in the parking lot! He was there with his family taking one last trip before he leaves on his mission (his farewell is this Sunday.) What a small world!
We had a great time in Yellowstone and Jackson while spending time with our Kyani friends and celebrating 24 years together.
Greetings!
We packed up Vinnie (the cat) to take him home to Idaho! It was a long trip. He had to be tranquilized because of his fear of cars. He did well until he fell out of the carrier! We scooped him up, put him back in, and stopped at Grandpa and Grandma Clark's to give him another tranquilizer so he could make it the rest of the way. He is finally home in Idaho and will put his long hair to good use in the winter.
While we were in Idaho, we went shopping, to the zoo, and took pictures of the Temple grounds and falls. Here are some pictures to show some of the thrilling things we did!
Bye for now...
The Cloves
Dear Family...
The past few days we have been visiting the Petralias in Idaho! It was wonderful to see them, and we all had a blast! We went shopping, to the zoo, and bowling. On the way home, we played a lot of exciting games with Grandpa and Grandma Clark and stayed the night on their waterbed! We had fun, but it is good to be home!
Hey everyone! We have now been here for almost a month and we are finally starting to get settled in. It seems like the boxes will never stop coming! Once we get through a room full of boxes, another round comes along... We have boxes coming out of our ears!!
The 2 younger boys have made a couple of good friends that they really enjoy playing with. They like to go across the street and play "war" in the empty lot.
Cini has also started making some friends from the ward. We aren't sure if they will end up in the same school but it will be a good opportunity for her to make even MORE friends!!
Greg is looking forward to school and getting to know his peers. He is really excited about the Italian Club that they have at the highschool and is ready to get involved.
Everyone else is doing well and is looking forward to the future!!
Hope all is well!
Much love,
The Petralia's
The 4th of July was our first Holiday in our new home. It was different here than it is back home. People do their own fireworks that would normally be illegal back home (the kind you can only buy at Moapa!). They shoot them up in the sky above the houses so you can actually just sit in your front yard and watch someone else's fireworks. It's CRAZY! Along with that, they have been lighting off fireworks since the last week in June. - The next door neighbors were lighting off fireworks last night (7/13/08). I guess everyone really likes their fireworks to be seen... or else there is nothing else to do here...
We aren't as exciting as the rest of the locals (what with our completely legal and very small fireworks and all...), but the kids really enjoyed themselves. We spent our 4th fishing, and eating pizza (the kids didn't want the traditional hotdogs... and we left our barbeque back home!).
Although they do have an awesome firework show that they put on over the Idaho Falls, by the temple, (on the news they estimated 100,000 people to attend the firework show! That is about twice the population of Idaho Falls.) we all missed not being able to sit on grandma's lawn and watch the fireworks with everyone. Maybe next year everyone can come up HERE and watch the big firework show (anytime between the last week of June and who knows how far into July would be fine!).
We managed to celebrate in "Petralia Style" with our own little fireworks in the front yard.
We hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July weekend - miss you all!!
