Lagoon

We promised the kids we'd do Lagoon this summer and it just never happened. We had baseball for so long that took up most of our free nights. And, of course, we had to coordinate around Greg's work schedule. But school started and the kids were quick to remind me that I hadn't made good on my promise. Greg, very coincidentally, brought home a Walgreen's Employee discount pass for Lagoon. It allowed 8 people to get into Lagoon at half off prices. So we called up our friends Sara and Richard and invited them to come along. We actually had 10 people in our group, but we didn't count our 2 babies. So we all got in for half the price. Now I do like Lagoon a lot, but I mean come on! Who do they think they are, Disneyland?? They charge so much. I remember when I was a kid you could get in for $12 with a can of Coke. Anyway, we went. On a school night. We picked the kids up from school on Wednesday and headed north straight from there. We got there around 3:30 and met up with the Haralsons and had a fun day. I was trying my hardest to convince the older boys to do some more adventurous rides with me, like Wicked and Colossus. But they were not up for it. STILL! I certainly have cautious kids when it comes to amusement parks. Now, ride down the hill of our street with no hands on the handle bars or trying to stand up on the seat all without a helmet seems to be no problem for them. So we spent a good chunk of the day doing the kiddie rides, much to my annoyance. But finally Sara and I had had enough and left the kids with Daddies and went for some fun. Thanks for coming Haralsons!

Candid moments with Sara and Richard.

Greg trying to convince Nathan that "The Bat" isn't as bad as he thinks.

YES more teachers, YES more books!

Good riddance hot summer!! I apologize to anyone who loves summer, but it's not my cup of cocoa. There are good qualities to summer, don't get me wrong. I enjoy family hikes, sleeping in, vacations, summer nights, and spontaneous trips. But by the end of the 3 months of all that luxury, it's time for routine and structure. I had a friend discuss the benefits of year round school that her kids do. They have 2 six week vacations in the year, with longer holidays. I thought that might just about be the perfect amount for my kids. Six weeks together is more manageable. At the start of summer we're all excited to be home and have a break from school life, but the novelty wears off. Fast. I'm accepting responsibility by saying I could do more on my part to entertain the kids and keep a more peaceful home. But having three boys quickly in succession inherently leads to competition and (often) contention. Anyway moving on.... School started on August 21 this year. A tad earlier than usual, it seemed. We got our school shopping done in the nick of time. Andrew is starting 4th grade this year with Ms. Grant and Nathan is starting 2nd with Miss Westover. And David couldn't bear to be left out of the pictures. He starts preschool in a couple weeks.

Yes Nathan is 2 years younger than Andrew but is noticeably taller than his big brother. It doesn't sit well with Andrew.

After the kids left, Elizabeth and I got down to some serious girl time. She sucked on my toes while I took a million pictures of her trying to walk. Later, Greg and I took the kids to the Cougar Kickoff on the soccer field. Just one big pep rally to get everyone fired up for upcoming sports. LONG, LONG lines to stand in if you wanted to meet the coach and players. We arrived a little late, just as Bronco was being driven past us out the gates in a golf cart. Hi, Coach. I was eager to get home and get kids to bed until I saw the Eric Dowdle booth. You might know that I am a huge Dowdle fan and own WAY too many puzzles of his artwork. I like puzzles and his are so fun to put together. He's a talented artist and it's like a huge where's Waldo picture. He adds fun, hidden things in his paintings and it's fun to look for them while doing a puzzle. Anyway, he just finished his newest one of BYU stadium so I guess that's why he was invited to the Cougar Kickoff. He signed my puzzle for me and we shot the breeze like old chums. His brother happens to be my parent's bishop up in Idaho. When I confessed my obsession with his work, he gave me his personal email address and told me to send him a picture of my family in funny poses that he'll include in his current painting of the city of Baltimore. He's almost done with it, but needs more random people to fill it in with. After all that, they raffled off a very large framed print of the stadium signed by himself and LaVell Edwards. My ticket number was off by ONE STINKING NUMBER. Oh well. Not sure where I would have hung a huge Dowdle portrait of the LaVell Edwards Stadium in my house.

One

She's one. Really? Yes, her birthday was yesterday. One year ago Greg and I welcomed this precious daughter into our lives.

And for the last year we have lived in a constant blur. It has gone faster than any other year of our lives. Not a day goes by that I don't look at her and marvel in the miracle of forever families and feel so blessed that she's mine for eternity.

The chocolate melt down. Stripped down for a reason..

Happy Birthday baby girl.

Also, having too much fun with a time lapse camera...

Cub Day Camp

I recently got to attend Cub Day Camp with the scouts in my ward. It was a first for me. Greg is our ward's Cubmaster and I sort of got volunteered to go be an adult leader. But Andrew was there and it was fun to go with him. Camp Jeremiah Johnson is so well organized. That was the first thing that impressed me. They certainly have the system down for organizing and moving hoards of little boys around their camp. And the staff was top notch. It was a fun experience. We shot bow and arrows, target practiced with BB guns, paddled rafts on the lake, made pioneer ropes, played Indian games, made a TeePee, played lacrosse, pulled a handcart up a mountain trail, panned for gold, and watched skits put on by the staff.

Scouting is such an admirable program and I've learned to love it. I was intimidated in the beginning but knowing that I had three sons to put through the program helped changed my attitude. I never paid much attention to Scouting as I was growing up with my brothers. That was their thing. But now that I'm the mother of my own boys I've come to respect and admire this amazing organization.

Bean x 7

Nathan is: Sweet, Sensitive, Compassionate, Considerate, Funny, Helpful, and Smart. Just seven reasons why we love our Nathan on his seventh birthday. There are more, of course, but today we are doing things in sevens. Nathan requested scrambled eggs and sausages for breakfast.

After Andrew's obvious delight with his Lego Black Pearl....

Nathan began looking ahead to his own birthday just a couple weeks later and started making requests for the Queen Anne's Revenge Lego Ship. My kids have very decided cycles of favorites. For a long time it was nothing but Star Wars. Suddenly without warning that changed to all things Harry Potter. Now we are exclusively obsessed with Pirates of the Caribbean. No doubt we'll cycle around again to the other interests, but right now we have sword battles between Jack Sparrow and Barbossa or Black Beard. It's fun listening to their imaginations run riot. So after scouring Utah county for the LEGO Queen Anne's Revenge without luck, I finally found it up in Salt Lake. I tried every Target, Walmart, and Toys R Us I could, but it was sold out everywhere. I was told it's a collectors item (as is the Black Pearl) and they have not been able to keep it on the shelves. The Pearl was in stock, just not the Queen Anne's Revenge. So we dashed up to Salt Lake quick and got it at a Toys R Us. Unfortunately Nathan was with me so it wasn't a surprise, but he was still thrilled.

After making a number 7 out of only 6 candles on his birthday cake, we had cake first, then let Nathan choose a restaurant for lunch. Greg had to work late so we did all our birthday celebrating in the morning before Dad had to leave. This year was Carl's Jr.

I am looking forward to the day that one of my children chooses their birthday meal to be somewhere without a play place, but knowing my kids, we might end up at Carl's Jr. until they're 18. At least it wasn't McDonalds. While in Salt Lake yesterday we stopped at Paul's work for a visit with the kids' favorite Uncle. Nathan fell down on a jagged metal pipe at the office and gashed his knee open down to the bone. At least I'm pretty sure I saw white bone along with rivers of blood. We found some gauze and wrapped it up. That was about the extent of the first aid supplies we could find. So we went to the store and bought all sorts of disinfectants and bandages. We debated about whether we should take him to insta-care and get it stitched. But in the end, after our amateur doctoring skills, it cleaned up pretty well and looked much better.

And it looks much better 24 hours later. It could leave a pretty wicked scar, but that's cool, right? Anyway, not a great birthday event, but he's such an easy going kid, it's not ruined his seventh birthday at all. I love you, Nathan! Happy Birthday, Bean.

And They Lived Happily Ever After

Greg and I recently celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary. We were married on a cool spring June morning ten years ago. It was early in the morning before the heat came in. The Salt Lake Temple was always my dream I was so excited to be sealed there to my sweetheart. If I had a little sneak peak 10 years into the future on my wedding day, I would have seen a happy, busy mommy with 4 kids still very much in love with her sweetie. (Sorry for the mush). Greg and I have been through many long years of schooling together, several moves, 4 beautiful babies, and a pretty charmed life. We asked our wonderful parents if they could help us out and watch the kids for us while we took a little trip. We planned this months ago and decided we wanted to return to Disneyland, which was where we honeymooned. So we booked our trip. We decided to add a little twist and fly into Long Beach, California first and hop on the Catalina Express and ride the hour out into the ocean to the touristy island and explore the town of Avalon.

Greg loves airplanes. So here's our airplane.

The boat.

Goodbye Long Beach. And here is the Queen Mary that is permanently docked. It's used for events, parties, etc.

After some mild sea sickness on my part, we got off in Catalina and went straight to Lover's Cove to snorkel. The main mode of transportation on the Island is little golf carts, but we decided to walk. It wasn't far to the Cove. They had lockers for us to leave our stuff in and we rented snorkels and an underwater camera. The tropical fish are so used to people they swim all around, under and through every part of you. Their slimy little bodies touched me constantly. And the fish food they gave us sent them into a feeding frenzy. The underwater sea life was so beautiful. Plant life, fish, rocks, everything was so beautiful. I'm not sure how any of the pictures will turn out. I took them to be developed the old fashioned way. They told me it would be 1-2 weeks to get the developed film back. How did we ever survive without digital, instant cameras? We wanted to go parasailing, but the boats were all out and booked up and it was almost closing time for several companies. We only spent one day there, so we were disappointed we didn't get to do that. Avalon is a beautiful town that is the ultimate tourist trap. After snorkeling we window shopped, had ice cream, watched the sea life around us. Dolphins and seals were out swimming in the bay.

Cute kids. Coming in to dock from the boat.

Snorkeling at Lover's Cove. You seriously had to make way for the glass bottom boats. They would honk their horns and expect swimmers to get out of their way.

Greg enjoying the view after snorkeling. After our day in the Tropics we caught the last boat back to the mainland and drove straight to Disneyland. We checked into the Grand Californian Hotel. We also stayed there on our honeymoon and it was fun to go back. It's a gorgeous hotel with access directly into California Adventure. And since we were guests of the hotel we were allowed one hour early entrance into Disneyland and California Adventure. We got fastpasses for the World of Color show at night and made straight for the new Cars ride. When we went to Disneyland earlier in the year for Spring Break, CarsLand wasn't open yet. I was so glad we got to see it on this trip. I can understand why Disneyland is so expensive. The detail and work that goes into this place is unbelievable. Cars was amazing. They recreated the whole main street of Radiator Springs and added some amazing rides. The most popular was Radiator Springs Racers. You basically go through the whole movie on the ride. Take a nice quiet drive up the mountain with Sally, go tractor tipping with Mater, get chased by Frank, get painted by Ramone in the shop and end it by a high speed race with another car full of people. I loved it and would have spent all day there. But even one hour early entrance to the park required us to wait in line for an hour. And later in the day it was up to a 4 hour wait time. Fast passes for the ride were all distributed and used up for the day by 9:00am. We did go a second time on the ride later, but we decided to hop in the single rider line which was almost as fast as the Fast Pass line, but we had to split up. I love Disneyland. It's probably my favorite vacation spot. And although it's a blast with kids, it was so fantastic to be there with just Greg. He didn't throw a fit and cry in ridiculously long lines or beg for toys from every single gift shop.

Room service! Yummy Breakfast

Greg at the Cozy Cone Motel

We ate dinner at the Blue Bayou and watched the folks on the Pirates of the Caribbean as we waited for our delectable meal. That was a first and really fun.

Finally got a turn on the Matterhorn. The ride had been closed most of the time we were there.

Waiting for the World of Color show to Start in California Adventure.

After a few days at Disneyland we left and headed to Los Angeles. We went to a session in the LA temple with Greg's cousins who met us there. Unbeknownst to us we chose the Spanish Session so I got to wear a headset. Greg speaks Spanish so he was ok. But I wasn't the only Gringo with a headset. After the temple we had lunch at a delicious little deli near the temple. We said goodbye to Candi and Sky and headed off to a Dodgers Game. Greg is a true blue Dodgers fan and this was his main input when planning our trip. Nothing more American than baseball in the summer.

Los Angeles skyline at Dodger Stadium.

It was a wonderful, relaxing, lovely trip and I'm so glad we did it. Love you, Greg! I missed my kids terribly and had some anxiety about leaving my baby girl who wouldn't understand where Momma was. Glad to see my kiddos when we got home.