Being Silly

 My silly boys

 The birthday boys at school 

 Turning 5 means getting shots at the doctor.  Seth limbed out of the building like he was a 90 year old man.  The office staff thought it was hilarious and his pediatrician even had a limping contest with him. An hour later he was running around with his friends, but once it was time to get ready for bed he  "suddenly" started limping again.

 This isn't silly, but we had an Ogilvie family party and their uncles gave them a globe which they love.  Their newest thing is to get videos about countries and continents at the library.  I'm learning all sorts of cool facts from them. 

This was cute to me.  They were supposed to be getting dressed for preschool, but when I came in they Brad was reading Seth a book while in their underpants.

Birthday Party

I pulled off my first "friends" birthday party and I'm deeming it a success.  We had a construction theme and I skimped on the food, but went all out on the goody bag.  Thanks to Maacha for helping us.

 They started with a bulldozer picture.

 Then they got to construct something out of toothpicks and mini marshmallows.  Everyone went home with their creations except for the two boys who ate all their candy.

 Then it was on to games.  Thank heaven for my friends who told me to have my party last an hour and a half max, because my estimate of how long the games would take was far too long.  We cruised through the obstacle course, ball toss, and relay race.

 Pin the stop sign on the construction scene

 Carter Blair stuffing his entire cupcake in his mouth.

 Seth

 The boys best friend Carter Jensen

 Opening presents.  Highlights included two new light sabers so that Dad can now play with the boys.  They reenacted the Darth Maul scene from the first movie, complete with Dan joining the two sabers into a double saber and being cut in half.  They also got Transformers, which was their favorite gift, water and nerf guns, play dough and books.

Happy Birthday!!

A shout out to Uncle Mark- Congrats on Medical School graduation, I'm really proud of you.  Wish I could have been there, but was obviously preoccupied.

Mother's Day

Dan stepped it up for mother's day morning and got me my favorite breakfast of french toast and served it in bed.  The boys picked out the sparkliest earrings they could find.  The Mother's Day song that the primary kids sing didn't go well for our children (audible crying and a bloody nose on stage), but fortunately we won't be there for Father's Day.

 I do love Costco, but for the record I'd much rather go to Hawaii

 The boys had a short Mother's Day program at their school.  We have loved Learning Dynamics and their teacher Mrs. Steiner.

Temple Gardening

Maacha works at the Draper Temple on the grounds crew and we got to come help pull up bulbs on Wednesday.  The boys job was to shake off the dirt from the bulbs I pulled up.  Not very many kids get to help do something like this and I thought it was neat that they got to see what their grandma does to help make the temple a beautiful and a special place.

Trip to the Redwoods

This land is your land, this land is my land

From California to the New York Island

From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters

This land was made for you and me.

We are well on our way to visiting all the places mentioned in the folk song "This Land Is Your Land".  We took a week long vacation to Northern California and saw the world's tallest trees.  We flew, and since we were camping we had a lot of luggage.  

 The iPad was a life saver in the airport waiting for our plane, bags, and Dan to arrive with the car.

  We spent the first night in San Francisco.  We were really close to Fisherman's Warf.  The lady who checked us into the hotel was of Asian descent and I they must love twin boys because she gave us a killer deal on the aquarium.  Another Asian couple we passed on a hike wanted to take the boys picture.  Our next trip should be to Japan so we could milk the boys while they're still super cute.

 We got ice cream at Ghiradelli.  It was amazing.  Brad wanted chocolate chip, but just picked out the chips.  The next time we went I wouldn't let him order ice cream, I just gave him my chocolate and he was happy.  What kid doesn't like ice cream?

 The boys were in heaven when we came to the beach.  They wasted no time and immediately started digging.

 The Redwoods are the world's tallest trees and they truly are amazing.

 Walking on a fallen log in Founder's Grove

 The view from our campsite (Humbolt State Park), first thing in the morning.  

 This is what the road looks like for the scenic drives- beautiful.

Rockefeller Forest

 This is just to document a good parenting moment, we brought their missed preschool work along.

 We took a major detour on a twisty two lane road, but the views were well worth it.

 Seeing the ocean for the first time (other than the Bay) and chasing waves

 The beach was the boys favorite, Brad's especially.

 We had such an amazing campsite that we stayed two nights.  We woke up one morning to see a whale.  We also saw a sea lion and lots of birds.

 This is Fern Canyon.  It's a slot canyon with walls covered in ferns.  It had rained that night so everything was wet.  I really felt like we were in another country.  This canyon is where Jurassic Park 2 was filmed and it definitely had a primal feel.

 A huge banana slug that I almost walked right into.

 These are Douglas Firs mixed in with the Redwoods.  They were aslo really big.

 Brad

 This is our tribute to kitsch.  Dan was truly annoyed that I made him take this picture, but we had time to kill and what trip to the Redwoods would be complete without a classic tacky picture?

 We found a star fish in one of the first tide pools we came to.

 I had never been to a tide pool and thought it was really cool.  I let the boys touch the sea anemones with a stick so that they would close in on themselves and they thought that was really cool.  We also found some crabs.

 Walking sticks proved to be quite popular with the boys.  This is Seth looking quite sporty.

 It was a really relaxing trip.  We all slept well in the tent, had great weather, no crowds, and amazing views.

Our last night was spent in San Francisco again.  As you can tell, by this point Brad and Seth were tired of having their picture taken.  Our adventure in San Francisco included seeing the sea lions at Pier 39, eating four meals at Boudin, including a sea turtle loaf of bread, shopping at Trader Joes, driving Lombard Street (the curviest street in America) and enjoying the view from Coit Tower.