Eclipse Party

Every year Jenne, Kathy and I plan a Twilight party. We rent a theater, hold a raffle and give out a ton of prizes. Not to mention we get to preview the newest Twilight Saga movie, with all of our closest friends, a day before it actually comes out! Now I don't want to break my arm patting myself on the back or anything... but after 3 years of doing this, we're getting pretty good :) We had a ton of fun planning and executing this years Eclipse Event, and we hope everyone else had as much fun as we did.

One of the coolest parts of the experience, which totally made everyone feel like true VIP's, was that while other groups had been lining up hours before the midnight premier showing (some had been camped out for more than 24 hrs), we were able to skate right past them in line and move directly into our Private Theater, for our own Private Showing, several hours ahead of the publics schedule. Can anyone say SWEET!

Come on in ladies... We're ready for ya :)

We emailed out an Eclipse quiz a couple of weeks before the movie, to test the ladies knowledge of the book. Those that participated were handsomely rewarded with prizes. We had hats, fleece blankets, the soundtrack, Eclipse candies, books, and much much more.

One of my favorite prizes was rewarded to the "Worst Quiz Taker" with the most answers wrong. Her prize was the Eclipse book because she definitely needed to read it again. To make the prize super cute we covered her book with this.

After we gave out all of our quiz prizes we moved onto raffle prizes. We had a ton of really cool stuff to raffle off this year because of donations and all of the raffle ticket sales. A few of my favorites were a set of 4 Twilight books, signed by Stephanie Meyer, an Eclipse cake made by Wendi Despain, a spa package which included a pedicure, manicure and a facial, and an Eclipse bag made by Jenne, Kathy and I.

Once all of the fun and games were over and after a Summit Security guard threatened us with our lives and practically strip searched everyone for hidden recording devices... It was finally SHOWTIME!

Here's a few of the News guys waiting outside of our theater to be the first to ask all of the ladies how they liked the movie.

Friends

After the movie we took our cake and and a few friends over to Jenne's house for a little after party.

Thanks for all of the fun ladies. And a big thanks to Jenne for taking a ton of pictures at our event this year.

See ya all in November 2011 :)

Lion King or Bust (Portland Trip Day 1)

All throughout this year my parents have been giving out $125 Lion King tickets to everyone in the family, as each persons birthday comes around. Seriously, all of my siblings and most of the grandkids have one, that’s like 20 tickets! (Holy birthday presents! Right?) The kids were super excited and have been counting down the days till it was time to go.

Well today’s the day! The car is loaded, kids are in, home made bumper sticker made by Kase, and we’re heading to Portland to cash in our tickets! Lion King or Bust!

On our way to Portland we made a little pit stop at Multnomah Falls.

(Kayleb, Drew, Hailey, Hudson, Kase, Alaina, Bryce, and Ky)

Here’s all of the kids waving after hiking up to the first bridge…

…And here’s all of the “LAZY’S” who stayed down below to wave back at all of the people up on the bridge :)

Cousins checking out the fish.

Hudson walking on the ceiling.

Once we arrived in Portland we had lunch together at the Olive Garden.

After checking into the hotel we had some time to kill before show time so the kids went swimming. We all know that a trip out of town, no matter what the occasion, isn’t nearly as memorable for the kids if it doesn’t include a Hotel Pool Experience. So, we made sure they got one. No excuses for grumping around on this trip. Waterfalls, Swimming Pools, oh yeah….and only the COOLEST Broadway Show around. :)

Then it was off to the big event!

I don’t really know how to put into words how cool this show was. We have been to dozens of productions and this was truly one of the best. All I can say about this AMAZING show was that it was….well AMAZING. Oh yeah, and did I already say it is probably one of the best Broadway shows I’ve ever seen. YEAH, I guess I did, didn’t I.

The animals and the costuming were out of this world spectacular and the music was fantastic and fun. The lady who played Rafiki was a native of South Africa and she was my favorite. She had awesome songs and a gorgeous voice. Loved it! Here’s a few pics from the play.

Here’s the whole fam sitting in row #3. Sweet! (Hudson’s is here too, he’s just sitting back hiding his pretty little face between Dan and I)

If you haven’t seen this show….find the time and spend the money. Well worth it. Even for the kids….you won’t regret it. This was a much loved night and vacation that was made possible to us thanks to Mom and Dad Rose. We love you and thank you for this awesome family experience.

Lion King or Bust (Portland Trip Day 2)

After swimming in the pool one last time this morning and eating a fantastic breakfast, we packed up and headed out.

First Stop….The Portland Zoo.

The real Lion King.

Notice above, the meat that the zoo keepers stuck to the glass for the lions to eat. It made for a super fun time watching the lion “hunt” for it’s prey and then lick the glass clean. Not a speck of meat wasted.

They have a cool Dinosaur Walk you can go on. Some 17 or 18 robotic dinosaurs which would growl at us and spit at us every corner we turned down. The kids thought this was a pretty cool section of the zoo. They even got to dig for fossils in one section.

Right about the time our feet and legs had just about given up and broken down on us we arrived at the much anticipated train ride around the park. Slow and simple, but a nice refresher from the walking and packing we had been doing for the past few hours.

The steam engine we were being pulled with had to stop at one point (pictured below) and “blow off some steam”. It was a loud explosion of steam that sent clouds rushing into the forest around us. Pretty cool really.

If Jax wasn’t being pushed in a stroller, we would just throw him to the next attraction. Either way, his little legs didn’t get too much of a work out. Ahhh, the advantage of being the baby.

We hitched a ride in the back of Leslie’s truck instead of waiting for the zoo shuttle to come and bus us over to our van.

We were all smiles at the way this weekend turned out. On our way home, we stopped in Hood River to eat pizza at Pietro’s Pizza. Kind of a tradition of ours most every time we make a weekend out of Portland. We like the pizza and the kids like the arcades, and it is perfect timing for a much needed potty break.

All in all…..a fantastic weekend. Thanks much to our Mom and Dad Rose for treating us to the Play last night. And thank much to the kids and cousins and siblings that made this weekend so fun.

Let the funny summertime pictures begin.

Now that summer time is here....there is no time for boredom. The kids find all sorts of fun things to do. With the heat and sunshine, the sprinklers and pools are fair game.

And when not swimming, the imagination comes out. Can anyone say,

"I am a robot. Number 5 is alive!"

Every ones kids do this, don't they?

Come and get your tickets... If you dare.

Hot off the press...ECLIPSE VIP PASSES.

(Designed by Jenne Kissell)

Twilight movies....another one is out and the tickets are ready!!! Jenne, Kathy, and I have spent the last few months planning and preparing for this years Eclipse Event. We've tried to make it fun for the 116 ladies who will be attending our event. We have stayed up many evenings getting into character to send out emails to the ladies disguised as Bella, Alice, Billy, Edward, Jacob, Rosalie, or one of our other favorite characters from the books. It's been a lot of fun!

We decided our VIP pass pick-up location and event had to be just as fun. We gave the ladies a few clues to where our secret location would be and warned them of the dangers they may encounter when coming to pick-up their VIP pass. Namely, "the newborn vampires". In fact, at the beginning of the trail head we even placed a sign which read... "Proceed with caution and please be sure you haven't been followed. Newborn vampires are closer than you think and who knows what they are capable of."

As the ladies traveled down the trail they came to three forks in the road. At each fork there was an arrow pointing to show them the way. Also at each Fork in the rode we placed a little "surprise" (one of our "Newborn Vampires" waiting in the bushes) for the ladies. Hee...Hee...Hee :)

I know, I know, you're probably wondering how we got these vampire models/actors to come out to our event and do this for us. Believe it or not it was actually fairly easy to get them to cover their faces in white paint, let us douse them in glitter and have them hideout in bushes for a couple hours. They took payment in the form of Dairy Queen for their hours worked. Besides....they are all head over heels for the books and shows themselves. They would have done it for free but the food was a bonus :) Right Boys!???

We didn't want to give anyone a heart attack so we thought we would take it easy on the ladies when they turned the first corner, something not to scary and easy on the eyes. So this is what stepped out from the bushes to greet them.

Our sparkly, shirtless vampire. Mr. Zach Armitage. And Yes, the sparkles were real, and vibrant. It was such a cool effect that Zach pulled off perfectly. (Lots of the ladies stopped to take pictures of him, and with him.)

As the ladies turned at the next fork in the road, heads still spinning from seeing our first sparkly vampire, out jumps vampire #2, Kayleb. Kayleb's job was to wait in the tall grass and when the ladies came down the path he would leap out of the grass and run, "gazelle like", through the field.

Kayleb was actually used as a distraction, because while everyone was looking at him on the right side of the path. Our 3rd vampire, Chad, would silently slip out behind the ladies from the bushes on the left and follow them.

Eventually they would realize they were being followed and then they would scurry down the last trail and run into our secret location, screaming and giggling all of the way. Everyone seemed to enjoy this little shot of adrenaline tonight:)

We did have a few casualties though. A few got lost and were searching for us on the other end of town, one sprained ankle from falling in a hole while running from a newborn vampire, one gal even sacrificed her newborn baby to the vampires as her bargaining chip to get away herself, and there were several soiled undies.

Totally Fun. Thanks all for contributing and coming along for the ride.