Zach turns 3!

Zach turned 3 last week. Crazy! We had a fun lunch with Grandma and Grandpa and Melissa and opened presents before we headed down to Newport to go on a boat ride. We were happy to have them here for Zach's birthday! We miss having family around to celebrate birthdays with.

Zach got lots of fun toys. We even had to rearrange the toy room to fit his new toys! He loved opening presents!

Here he is playing with his fun new airport toy.

All month long, I have been asking Zach what he wanted for his birthday. Every time, he says, Cake! Then I ask him what he wants to do for his birthday and he says, Eat Cake! Well, he got his birthday wish. He was so excited about his cake, he ate 3 pieces!

Then the next day when I asked him what he wanted for lunch he said, birthday cake! Ha! He also wanted Roxy to come help him eat his cake.

Zach does not like to be contained. He doesn't like to be held or hold hands, he likes to do his own thing. He's very careful, but he likes to be free. He plays well by himself, loves to watch Dora, asks every day if we can go to the park and to Disneyland, is talking up a storm, likes to play games on my phone and call his Dad, loves to go meet Dad at the car when he gets home (and get inside and "drive"), still loves to play with doors, wants to eat cereal for every meal, and has the cutest little face. We love our Zach!

Never-ending summer

Here it is nearing the end of October and we are still trying to keep cool around here. I can't keep these kids out of the water. They love it! Even when I went into Cafe Rio, they found this fountain and couldn't resist playing in it.

They got soaked! And while the rest of the country is enjoying fall weather and pumpkin patches and cider, we are hanging out at the pool/splash pad trying to survive the 100-degree weather!

We did find a fun new pool though. It had a fun splash pad, waterslide, and 4 pools.

These kids love swimming!

Livelys come to CA

Matt's parents and sister came to California last week to go to Disneyland and stuff, so we went down to meet up with them one day. Emmy loved showing Grandma, Grandpa and Melissa all her favorite rides. And begging Grandma to buy her a treat! Ha!

Zach even convinced Grandpa to take him on the bumper cars. I love how he is looking up at Grandpa while driving around in the bumper cars. He sure loves his Grandpas!

It was sooo hot and crowded but we still had a fun time!

Then on one of the other afternoons they were here we went on a whale watching boat. We didn't see any whales, but we saw tons of dolphins. Emmy and Zach weren't too impressed with the boat ride (or their life jackets), but I loved being out on the water!

After the boat ride, we went to Ruby's Diner on the pier in Newport for dinner. What a fun place! We watched the sunset and enjoyed the cool breeze.

Emmy and Zach loved having Grandma and Grandpa and Melissa in California. Even though we only got to see them for less than 2 days. Emmy keeps asking when they are going to come back and says that she misses them already! And Zach kept calling them Bamma, Bampa, and B-wissa. It was hilarious! And he kept saying that Roxy (their dog) was coming too. To help him eat his birthday cake. Haha!

It was also fun having them here for Zach's birthday! We miss having family around for stuff like that. Come again soon! It was fun!

Be Our Guest

Time to plan your trip to come visit us in California! Our guest room is all ready for you. It's no 5-star hotel, but it's got a private entrance, comfy queen bed, bathroom and closet. Plus we will feed you and entertain you. You know you want to! (And seriously, we're dying for visitors.)

Rose Bowl

Last week we were able to go to the BYU/UCLA game at the Rose Bowl. It was really fun even though BYU lost. Matt was a nerd and insisted on wearing a Utah shirt to the game and cheering for UCLA (only because they were playing BYU...not because he actually likes UCLA). It was quite the experience. We'd never been to the Rose Bowl before.

It was huge! And we parked on a golf course, which was weird. There were quite a few BYU fans there. It was a great game up until the last few minutes. :(

It was probably one of the most expensive nights of our lives, with the tickets, parking, gas, food, and a babysitter, but when you have a chance to watch your team play at the Rose Bowl you take it!

The Utah football team is also coming to SoCal this year to play USC, so we will be going to that game too in a couple of weeks. Since we can't go to all the home games for both our teams like we used to, we'll have to do this instead.

And we found this really cool park in Riverside a couple weeks ago. It was amazing! It was a carnival themed playground and it had some really neat playground equipment. The kids loved it!

Missing out

We've been in California for nearly 6 months now. And I'm still struggling. Yes, it has gotten a little bit easier. And most of the bad things that kept happening the first few months have been resolved. But we are still struggling. A lot. And I'm frustrated about that. We really felt like moving here was our best option. I really thought that things would work out and we'd enjoy our time here.

We are trying to make the best of it. We're trying to take advantage of what Southern California has to offer. And some of it has been great. We've had some fun times. But I can't help but feel like we're missing out on a lot of things. And I hate that.

I hate that my kids are growing up without grandparents or cousins or even friends. It makes me sad to think about how they used to go out and play in the neighborhood with other kids and I knew they'd be safe. I hate that we live in a neighborhood with no kids. I miss seeing the neighbor kids riding bikes and scooters and playing and running around in their swimsuits through the sprinklers and eating popsicles on the porch. And I hate that our kids are missing out on having neighbor kids to play with. Even though we didn't have a ton of kids the same age as ours in our old neighborhood, I still miss seeing kids (or any people in general!) around the neighborhood. No one is ever home around here and when they are they just go inside and don't come out.

I hate not being part of family events or even knowing what's going on with our families. I feel like we're not even a part of anything anymore. That we're just forgotten. It makes me sad that Zach calls every male with grey hair "Bampa". It breaks my heart every time Emmy asks when she is going to get to see Rivers again. Or when we can go to the cabin. Or when she can play with her friend Avery.

And not only do I feel like my kids are missing out on having a decent childhood, I am so lonely. In the six months that we've been here, I think I've talked to another adult for more than a few minutes (besides Matt) maybe a total of 4 times. And it's killing Matt that he can't go to football games or talk about football with anyone around here because no one likes Utah football here. And he says that no one at work is very talkative.

I miss our old house. We've finally gotten most of the inside of our house fixed here, but it just doesn't quite feel like ours for some reason. And our yard is just depressing. We have been working on it for months and it's not getting any better. We don't even know how to fix it. It's so overwhelming. So the kids are missing out on having a decent backyard to play in too.

And I'm not getting much of a spiritual boost either because I spend church in the hall chasing Zach. And we haven't been good about going to the temple because of the kids either. I've been listening to conference talks most mornings during my jog, which has helped, but I feel like I need so much more.

I know I need to be better at reaching out to people and interacting with my kids since they don't have other kids to play with and spending more time working in the yard, but I just feel so overwhelmed by it all.

We are seriously hanging on by a thread. I hope someday we'll understand why we came here, but in the meantime, I hope we can figure out how to deal with all of this.

Mother/daughter---father/son weekend

The weekend of my muscular dystrophy race, Matt decided he needed to go back to Utah for the Utah vs. Michigan football game. To make it fair so that we could both do what we wanted to do, Matt took Zach with him to Utah and Emmy stayed home with me.

Zach slept in a bed for the first time ever and it looks like he never actually slept in the bed, but wound up on the floor. Ha!

Emmy and I slept over at my aunt Ginxie's apartment the night before the race so that she could watch Emmy while I ran. Then we went to Disneyland for the day. It was really fun being able to hang out with Ginx, Dawna (Ginxie's friend and my adopted auntie) and Emmy.

Dawna and I convinced Ginx and Emmy to go on the Goofy's Sky School ride. Emmy was pretty nervous and both she and Ginx screamed the whole time. Then when we got off, Emmy said, "That wasn't as bad as I thought" and Ginx said, "We are never going on that ride again!" Haha! Dawna and I were dying laughing. It was also Emmy's first time on Radiator Springs Racers. She had a look of terror on her face in the picture, but she loved it! (As a side note, we found out about some hidden fast passes to Radiator Springs but they were hidden in a mailbox that was right behind Goofy. So we had to stand in line to meet Goofy in order to find the passes. Ha!)

Anyway, I had a fun time and hopefully Zach had a fun time hanging out at Grandmas and with Dad!