Saturday, February 28, 2015

Our Home

I really love our house. I wish we could take it with us. But of course, we can't so if you know of anyone who would love it too, please send them our way.

















Friday, February 20, 2015

2 coasts in 2 weeks

Matt also has a job offer in So. California, so we went last weekend to check it out. It was a last-minute idea and a quick trip, so it was a little crazy, but that's our life right now.

We braved the long drive with the kiddos. On the way there, they did great!

We stopped for ice cream at the Big Red Barn and Zach was in heaven. He also got ice cream everywhere!

They were so excited to finally get to the hotel. And the next morning they were so excited to wear shorts and sandals.


On Saturday, we dropped the kids off at my awesome Auntie Ginxie's house so we could go check out some areas. We passed a candy store just before 9 a.m. and there was this line of people outside the store. I guess that's what happens on Valentine's Day. Ha!

The kids had a ball with Auntie Ginx going to the park and swimming and making cookies. She was so awesome to watch them for the whole day! We drove up to Redlands to check it out. The Redlands temple was nice. There were areas that were nice and areas that were not so nice. In the same vicinity. And the houses are so expensive there! I'm still so confused as to what we should do though.

We promised the kids we would take them to the beach, so Saturday afternoon/evening we fulfilled the promise.

They LOVED the beach so much!




Since it was evening, we didn't get them in their swimsuits, but they played in the water anyway! We watched the lovely sunset...it was beautiful.

And then the disaster hit. There were no hotels anywhere within 80 miles of where we were. I guess because it was Valentine's Day, but seriously EVERYTHING was full. So we ended up having to drive all the way back to freaking Barstow to stay in a crappy Mexi-hotel full of partyers for the night. We thought we were going to die. We almost just kept on driving home.

But the next morning we decided to go back and check out the wards and more of the area. Poor Zach fell asleep 10 min before we go to church.

Probably the best and most beautiful part of Redlands was the tons and tons of citrus trees everywhere. They were so gorgeous and smelled so good. If we move there, I'm planting some in our yard!

I even snuck in and picked an orange and a grapefruit. :) They were delicious!

We found a better hotel that night that was closer to where we were looking. The kiddos loved swimming in the pool!


And Emmy LOVED having her own big bed. She went to bed better at the hotels than she does at home. And she kept saying good night to everyone for about 10 minutes. It was pretty cute. And she ate about 10 pieces of bacon for breakfast.

We also went to dinner at some people in the ward's house on Sunday night. It was SO nice of them to have us over and we picked their brains about everything. The kids were turkeys at their house though, and it was embarrassing.

The drive home was pretty bad. The kids were done and so were we. They were pretty whiney for quite awhile. They finally fell asleep about when we hit Fillmore.

Anyway, now we've really got to decide what to do. I wish someone would just tell us what would be the best option. Emmy does keep asking when we can go back to the beach....and when we can have a grapefruit tree in our yard....

Primary

Even though it is a lot of work, I mostly enjoy Primary. These kids are so cute. And church goes by so fast. I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve as Primary president even though I really didn't want to at first.

We've been working on getting the kids to bring their scriptures. A few weeks ago, we had everyone except one bring them!







This whole thing has taught me to never say no to a calling. Even though I didn't think I could do it. And I probably didn't do the best job at it, I have enjoyed it for the most part and learned so much.

February

Just some random February happenings....

When I went to Florida, I left the kids some treats. Clearly they were ecstatic about them. Ha!

Also when I went to Florida, apparently Emmy wanted to dog-sit Grandma Lively's dog. So Roxy came over for a few hours. Emmy really wants a dog or a kitten, but I just can't bring myself to get a pet. So dog-sitting will have to do.

Emmy was the hit of the dentists office. Seriously they were all raving about how cute and good she was. They gave her this giant balloon and she was so excited about it.

Zach and Emmy "helping" me do some yoga. This is why I get up early to exercise...

Several years ago, Matt gave me this big purple furry thing for Christmas. I'm not really sure what to do with it. I tried to get rid of it a couple weeks ago, and Matt made me go back to the DI trailer and get it back out. So I guess purple log is staying.



Thursday, February 12, 2015

My Super-awesome Florida vacation: Part 2

Item #2 on the agenda for the weekend (after Harry Potter world) was Disney of course! We only had Saturday and Tuesday to do the Disney Parks, so we hit Epcot and Magic Kingdom on Saturday, and Animal Kingdom on Tuesday. (Hollywood Studios will have to wait til next time, we didn't make it there...oh well.)

We started off bright and early at Epcot. We went straight to Soarin over California, which I thought was funny that they had that ride in Epcot in Florida. But I do love that ride, so it was great. And we had a funny middle-aged lady right next to us who you could tell it was her first time on the ride and she was hooting and hollering almost as good as the Chinese grandma we had once on our row in CA.

We went on few rides. The Finding Nemo ride was pretty cute and they had an aquarium just outside the ride with dolphins, huge stingrays, and manatees.

We went to the World Showcase around lunchtime and had a sampling of deliciousness from several of the different countries. We had fish n chips in Britain. (Although a seagull snatched half of Caron's fish right out of her hand!)
We had crepes in France.

I wore this silly hat in Arabia or whatever it was...

And we had nachos in Mexico. And we ate them while listening to a mariachi band. There were also some really cool drummers in Japan. And they were women. I also saw a little girl dressed as Mulan and it was the cutest thing.

Then after lunch we hit Magic Kingdom. Oh how I love that place!

We did all the classic rides. Except Splash Mountain. We didn't want to get wet because then we would be cold. I love that they still have the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse in Disney World!

I also loved that they had Gaston's Tavern. My only regret was that I didn't get a cinnamon roll there and some LeFou's Brew. Next time!

I loved the floating lanterns near Rapunzel's Tower.


And of course the fireworks! We ran from the fireworks to the new ride, Snow White's Mine Train so that we wouldn't have to wait in a 2 hour line. Disney World was pretty crowded, so we did spend a lot of time waiting in lines. But we got to do pretty much everything we wanted so it was ok.

We stayed at Magic Kingdom til about 11:30 and walked about 12 miles that day!

On Tuesday we hit Animal Kingdom, and saw Dug and Russell! I was a dork and made Caron wait in line with me to get a picture with them. I just have a special place in my heart for Russell ever since Zach was born. :)

They also had this really cute Wilderness Explorer program all over the park where you could earn badges and stuff by doing different activities throughout the park.

The main ride, Everest, was pretty darn cool. The roller coaster even went backwards for part of the ride...something I totally was not expecting! But so fun!

We also saw the pretty awesome Lion King show.

And the safari where we saw tons of animals.

Check out that African cow with the huge horns!


And the kimodo dragon!

They had this awesome "Tree of Life" with all these animals carved into it.

It was pretty cool. We also made sure to get a Dole Whip, and the best part is that the African band was playing "Waka waka" while we were eating our Dole Whips. Perfect!

I just loved Disney World! And then Tuesday evening, Caron's work stuff started and I drove up to Jacksonville to meet up with Matt. It really was such a great vacation and a REALLY wonderful break!!!