LaCour's Day Spa

I'm so far behind on blogging. I don't have an excuse. I just kinda feel like blogging has ran it's course. I will continue to blog because it's my only form of "journaling".

In the beginning of February, I got this cute invitation in the mail.

So I travelled to the LA area to meet up with my mom, sister, grandma, aunt, and a couple cousins to celebrate my favorite aunt's (I know I don't have any aunts/uncles that read this besides maybe her) opening of her day spa.

My aunt Darlene, or better known as Dar Dar Medicine Woman, is a miracle worker. She has done massage therapy for years. I was so excited that she had the opportunity to open her own place.

The spa is in a beautiful Victorian house that she fixed up.

Sadly, this is the only picture I took inside.

Congrats Dar Dar on your wonderful achievement!

My mom and Aunt grew up just a few miles away from her spa, in San Bernadino. So my Mom thought it would be nice to go and see their old home (40+ years later).

We were also able to see the school my Mom went to.

It was a quick trip, but so much fun. I hate living so far away from my family so any chance I get to spend time with them, I jump on it!

Race Judicata 2/18/12

I'm finally back at it again. It has been almost 8 months since my last race. I took some time off from racing, but I was still running.

This race is the last race I will ever get to run in my 20's (I'll be turning 30 next month) so I wanted to give it my all and push myself further than any other races!

The race course was along the Clovis bike trail, which is where we run in the spring and summer time. It was our territory!

By this point the finish line was in sight so we were sprinting as fast as possible.

We placed! My running buddy, Kimmy and I crossed the finish line at the exact same time of 19:12. We beat our race time from 2011 by 6 seconds (I know that doesn't sound like much, but when you are already running as fast as you think your body can move, 6 seconds makes a huge difference!)


I am committed to begin my 30th year in the best shape I have ever been. I don't want my body to feel and move like a 30 year old!

Kyleigh: Head Shots

My beautiful younger sister is graduating college in May. She will be an interpreter for ASL. She needed a head shot for her portfolio. Since I didn't have my studio with me in Wisconsin, we laid a black blanket on the stairs at my parents house and worked with what lighting was there.

To see the other pictures, please click here.

Corder: Family

While visiting my family in Wisconsin, we decided to take some family pictures. This was my first experience of taking pictures that I'm in. We all had a blast!

To see the rest of the pictures, please click here.

Christmas in Wisconsin

We had a very busy end of the year. Less than 3 weeks after our trip to Hawaii, we packed our bags again (this time we replaced our swimsuits with sweaters and gloves) and headed to Wisconsin. I was so excited to spend Christmas with my family. The last time I was with them for Christmas was in 2002. Long overdue!

On our way there, we had a 8 hour layover in Las Vegas. James and I LOVE Vegas so we decided to take advantage of the time. We were there from 4pm until midnight- the perfect time of day to experience Vegas! We jumped on a shuttle to the strip and ate dinner. We then went and watched Cirque Du Soleil's Ka. As with all their shows, it was AMAZING! After the show we had enough time to walk around our favorite casinos. This was a wonderful start to our week long vacation.

My niece, Kenley has a birthday on December 22nd. We were able to throw her a family birthday party on the 23rd. Happy 3rd birthday crazy girl!

While she was napping, we decorated my sister's house for the party. She went with an Olivia theme.





She was so excited for her cake!


Everyone wasn't feeling too well on Christmas Eve so they all went to bed early. My little sister and I stuffed the stockings (to help Santa out of course!) and then played around with my camera. I have always loved the way my mom decorates the house and wraps the presents.








Kenley had a present made out of blankets. I reached to my neglected creativity and made her a bow with one of the blankets.

We used the stockings that my late Grandma Corder made for us. I was so excited to get to take them home and display them in my house.

This year all of the families got a very special present from James. He thinks up and then creates amazing games. We made a copy of a different game for each family.

My sister Kolbri, surprised all of us girls with matching PJs to wear on Christmas morning. Thanks!

On Christmas, Santa made a surprise visit to personally give Kenley a few toys.

But, she wanted nothing to do with him!

She talked to "Santa" on the phone on Christmas Eve and told us that he was a nice guy, but as soon as she heard the "Ho Ho", she freaked out. Maybe next year!

We rushed through our presents and ate our Christmas feast. Then the boys and my youngest sister (my Dad wasn't feeling well enough to go so he had a raffle to see which sister got to go) headed out to GreenBay to see a Packers vs Bears game at Lambeau field. James was beyond thrilled to go to this legendary field.


I was able to spend tons of quality time with my little niece. It broke my heart when she had to leave to go home.

Please ignore my hair in this picture! I forgot why I always wore pony tails in the winter while living in Indiana. The weather always makes my hair too staticky and clingy!

Kenley loved to look at herself on my phone so we made a few videos together. I'm so glad I did. Everytime I miss her, I just watch the videos. Here's my favorite, you can tell how much she enjoys it!

This last video is of us playing a game she got for Christmas. She is such a goof ball. Wait to the very end of the video, it's hilarious.


It was so nice being with all my family again. I hope we can someday move closer to them!

Family: Hou

Right before Christmas I was able to take pictures of this adorable family. We lucked out and found a few fall leaves still on the trees.

If you'd like to see the rest of the pictures, pleases click here.

2011 Family Pictures

Once again, we got our family pictures taken. This time we drove out to the very low Millerton Lake. Here are a few of our many favorites!

Our Thanksgiving in Hawaii

We had the amazing opportunity to go to Hawaii again this year! This time we were able to go with all of James' family- a total of 13 people. Watch out, picture overload and long post!

All of the "kids" decided to surprise James' parents with a lei greeting at the airport.


James' parents rented a beach house in Laie for all of us to stay in. We petty much had our own private beach. It was a very spacious house with plenty of room for all of the little kids to run around.

This is the view from the back lanai.

The backyard before the beach (with my niece playing with a broom).

The front of the house.


We were able to spend all the time we wanted at the beach. I am a beach bum at heart. I could spend every waking moment near an ocean and still feel like I haven't spent enough time at the beach.

As soon as we arrived at our house in Hawaii, I rolled up my jeans and took a walk in the waves with my nieces.


I was beyond thrilled to find a boogey board in the garage of our house. As a child, I would boogey board all the time! We had the perfect beach for this. We stayed on the windy side of the island so the waves were larger.

Everyone tried it, even our 8 and 6 year old nieces.



We drove down the road less than a half mile and stopped at the Hukilau Beach.




We also stopped at the Hukilau Cafe, which is supposed to be the cafe from the movie 50 1st dates. We were dissappointed, but we were able to have a hawaiian breakfast here.


For thanksgiving, we had a non traditional feast. I wish I had thought about taking a picture of all the yummy BBQ food, but I was too excited to eat. The men were busy on the BBQ!



James and I hiked diamond head with his sister and brother-in-law. It has changed a lot since we hiked it in 2008 (if you've been in the past, they added pathways up so you don't have to climb the 300 stairs straight up), but it was still a good workout.



The views were amazing!



I thought this picture was adorable. All the little girls love Uncle Jim!


I decided to work on a few projects with my nieces. The first was picture frames. We took frames, sprayed them with adhesive, threw them in the sand and then glued shells to it.

Madison's, Molly's and Megan's frames. I think they turned out really cute!


The second project I did with them was message in bottles.


We had fun hiking to a spot to throw them out into the ocean.


We are excited to see if anyone ever finds our messages and where int he world they are at when they do find them.

Uncle Jim had his own projects with the girls. One night he took all the girls into the kitchen and they made cookies for everyone. It was adorable hearing the whispers and giggles coming from the kitchen!



He also played angry birds with them.


We went to the Dole Plantation! This is one of my favorite touristy places. I just love the dole whip!

We took the train tour of the plantation. It was very neat and relaxing!

An attempt at a family picture.


There were tons of these trees at the plantation. Just like everything in Hawaii, they were very colorful!


Since we were staying right on the beach and I adore the sunrise, I thought I'd take advantage of being stuck on California time and take some pictures of the beautiful Hawaiian sunrises.







We all went to the Polynesian Cultural Center. It's always a fun, but long day.

We were actually able to get a family picture with most of the kids looking.

Uncle Jim and Molly making the fishy face while waiting to get in.

The luau. Always my favorite part. I just love the Hawaiian culture!



James and his sister went skydiving. I blogged about this already so if you'd like to see the actual pictures of James falling from an airplane, you can click here.

All the crazy people loading up to get on the airplane.




They made it!



We stayed less than a mile away from the Laie LDS Temple so we went there many times both at night and during the day.






We went to church while we were here. It was an amazing experience!

Afterwards, everyone went into the backyard to take pictures



And finally, we went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay.




Phew, that was exhausting! I'm sure i've forgotten something.

Thanks for the wonderful trip!!