San Diego part 3

After spending most of the day at the beach, we drove back to the hotel to rest a little. This basically meant everyone headed for the pool. Joseph was a little wary of going to the pool so we took a bath in the tub where he could control the depth of the water. By the time everyone got back from the pool they decided they were hungry and wanted to go to dinner. They also wanted to go see the San Diego temple since we didn't have time to go on Sunday. I was so tired (and so red) from the beach, I volunteered to stay behind while they went. Joseph had fun seeing the temple. They took a lot of pictures. I almost wish I had gone with them. But it was all I could do to drag myself across the street to Taco Bell. I would have died on the temple grounds.
Here are my boys being silly at the temple.

The next day (Tuesday) we went back to Sea World. Kallie wanted to ride on the Atlantis ride. Because it had been so cold Saturday, that wasn't even an option. So she and Merna headed off to get soaked. Joseph and Jace wanted to ride the kiddie rides again. Joseph rode the Elmo ride three times in a row. Only to be followed by the Oscar ride twice.

After the rides, the Sesame Street gang came out and sang a couple songs and then they were available for photos. Joseph had fun with Grover (he played with Joseph's hat making Joseph laugh heartily)
Here he and Jace are with Cookie Monster, Elmo and Zoie. They were so excited to see them.

Here Joseph is waiting for a dolphin to swim by so he can pet it. Josh and Kallie were able to touch them, but the rest of us didn't.

After petting the dolphins, we (Joseph and I) went to find his souvenir. He had thrown a fit on Saturday about a shark, so I thought that's what he would want. But he decided he wanted a killer whale (or a death fish, as he called it for a while). I think it's funny he wanted a killer whale since he slept through the whole killer whale show. But that's what he wanted, and he loves it.

He loved holding the starfish. He would have stayed here all day. He can tell you all about the legs and eyes that starfish have on their arms. Just ask him.

After our short day (ha, ha, we didn't leave until almost 6:00) at Sea World, we went out to dinner and took two very tired little boys (Jace actually slept all through dinner) home to bed.

The next morning we got up and packed. After our goodbyes we headed north.

I'm so glad these two get along so well. They had so much fun together. Joseph keeps telling me he loves his cousins Jace and Kallie. We're so glad he had company on vacation. It made it so much nicer for him.

Here are the two brothers. I think the one on the right is the cutest. Sorry Jake.

We drove to Anaheim (both families did, but Jake and Merna went to Disneyland and California Adventure. We just spent a couple hours walking around Downtown Disney)

Here is Joseph and his favorite sheriff.

Me with my cute boys.

Once we got to Disney territory all I could think of was my family. We plan on going to Disneyland sometime next year. I thought of all the trips (all two) I've taken with my parents and can't wait to be here with them again. I can't wait to be anywhere with them again. (Just a few more days til they come home) So this was a fun jaunt to think of my family.

Here's Joseph's first (and only) glimpse of the happiest place on earth. He wasn't to excited at this time, we were in the middle of a fight (he thought we needed to buy him some toys that were way too expensive for a little boy) But I sure enjoyed seeing that iconic train station.

We passed the Rainforest Cafe on our way back to the car just as the bird show started (it was just this lady sharing the story of this bird, but Josh and Joseph liked it).

That night we drove to Barstow. We spent the night and (after cruising for a bit on Route 66, sorry, no pictures) we headed for St. George. Upon reaching St. George we got checked into our hotel and unpacked, then we went swimming. In Barstow, we had gone swimming, but it was late (7:00ish) and we were tired. Joseph didn't seem too excited, but we got to St. George around 2:30 so we wanted to swim some more.

At first, Joseph didn't seem to excited. Josh would take him into the deep end and try to help him float. He wanted to spend more time in the hot tub than the pool. Finally he learned that his feet would touch the bottom in the shallow end. (At first, he wouldn't put his feet down at all), it took over an hour to get him out of the pool. We then walked to Iceburg for dinner (so yummy) Joseph fell asleep on the way and slept through most of the meal.

When we got back to the hotel, he didn't want to sleep alone in his bed (I think he was getting tired of being alone in big beds). So I laid with him for a while. When he fell asleep it was so cute we had to get a picture.

Here is my cute little sleeper. He had such fun and he was so good in the car. I love this little man.

My little reader.

Hiding from the camera.

It was so fun to go with my boys and spend time away from the normal. Joseph keeps talking about the killer whales, dolphins, sharks, starfish, sea lions, beach and ocean (ocean water is yucky)

Looking forward to our next vacation.

San Diego part 2

So Friday June 10 we woke up and left for San Diego. It was nice to leave Vegas in the morning and not deal with the traffic we had been stuck in the night before. We got to San Diego without much delay and checked into our rental.

I had found a cheap and (seemingly) nice rental online that was big enough for the seven of us (we met up with Josh's brother and his family). When we got there is wasn't as nice as it had shown in the pictures and I was a little disappointed but we were only going to be there nights to sleep so I didn't think much of it.

Our initial plan was to go to the beach that night after we all got there and unpacked, but Jake and family got stuck in traffic around L.A. so they didn't get there until after 5:00. By the time we got unpacked and did some food shopping, it was after 7:00, so we decided to feed our tired and hungry children and put them to bed.

Once we got everything settled we realized we had another problem. From the minute we unpacked the food, the ants came out and tried to make themselves at home. All our food was in bags or boxes, but the ant were crawling everywhere. Jake did everything he could to kill them, but they kept coming back. We decided to make the most of it, so we went on our way.

Saturday we went to Sea World. It was so fun. It was cold most of the day, overcast all but a couple hours, but I think the adults felt it more than the children. We went to the new Sesame Street Bay of Play and the little ones had a blast, Kallie liked it, but Joseph and Jace could have been there all day.

Here's Joseph on Oscar's Eel ride. It rocks back and forth and spins around. He was in heaven.

Joseph is pretending to be a sea lion. Don't they look alike?

This is at the dolphin show. One of the big jumps. Joseph loved watching the acrobatics of these amazing animals. You can see Kallie right in front of him (he looks like he's going to eat her nose). Joseph loved that he got to experience all of this with his cousins.

I think they are looking at a walrus (it swam out before I took the shot). Joseph and Jace could have stood here all day. It's so nice that they get along.

Saturday night we came home and cleaned up ants again. Then Sunday we woke up and they were in the middle of a festival. I swear, they doubled overnight. So we cleaned them up, got ready and went to church. It was so weird because I got to go to Relief Society. I haven't been in RS for about 3 years. It was so nice to sit and listen and not have to worry about shushing children or teaching a song.

After church we came home and the ants had tripled. Jake went off to talk to the landlord (we were in their basement) and we decided to leave. So Merna and I got on the internet and found a great deal at a Holiday Inn from priceline.com. We quickly packed and moved to an ant free zone. After getting unpacked we decided to salvage what was left of our Sunday and went to the Mormon Battalion site (totally worth it).

They have a presentation that takes you from Winter Quarters to San Diego and talks about the experiences the battalion had. There are many artifacts from the march, and all the stories come from journals kept by those on the march.

After the presentation they have a little courtyard where you can pan for gold (fool's gold of course), wash in a pump, and make bricks in an adobe oven. Again, the kids had a ton of fun. I think everyone on our tour were also members of the church trying to find something free to do on a Sunday.

Here are some pics from that.

Joseph and Jace making bricks while Jake and Merna watch.

Me and my hot man. It was so nice to spent a whole week with him. I am one lucky woman.

Posing out in front. "Jake, turn around"

It's located in Old Town and you wouldn't really think it was an historic site. It fits right in with everything else. But there is an amazing spirit here. I'm so grateful for those who sacrificed to be on this. It helped bless the saints and their westward movement in so many ways.

After we finished we went back to the hotel and ate dinner (thanks to the inventor of the slow cooker). We had sweet and sour chicken. You can see Kallie as she waits for the ice cream maker to finish making our sweet and delicious dessert.

Joseph trying to be silly. He does a good job.

All tired out and ready for bed.

Monday we went to the beach. It's the first time I've ever been to the beach on Mainland USA. Ever. I've been to the beach in Hawai'i, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay (that was just a walk on the beach with my companion). But I've never played on the beach on the North American continent. When Josh and I came to San Diego in '06, we did go to the beach, but it was so cold, I think I dipped my feet in the water and then sat for a few minutes and that was it. My family came to So. Cal in '95, but we only came to the beach on Sunday and it was in December, so not much playing. So it took me until I was almost 36 to play on an American beach. But it was tons of fun. Kallie and I went out into the waves almost as far as she could go (I have about 1 1/2 feet on her). We played out there for about an hour. Josh stayed on the beach with Joseph (they both thought it was too cold). While we played in the waves, we saw a few dolphins go by. They were a little north of us and they were swimming south. They were about 50 feet away from us. It was really cool.
Here I am again with my sweet man. It was getting hot out and I knew I already had a sunburn.

Isn't he cute with his farmer tan? You should see it now that he's partially sunburned. He shoulders have hand prints on them.

My beach baby. He LOVED the beach. He loved digging and throwing and running. Here you can see him completely covered in sand. Reapplying sunscreen was interesting. Oddly, he's the one with the least sunburn.

When it was time to go, Joseph took off running, (see him in is cute red trunks). Josh had to go chase him down. He had a blast. He keeps telling me about going into the ocean and the beach. He spent maybe five minutes in the water.

I'm so glad we got to spent time at the beach. I'm not a big beach fan. I like playing in the water, but I don't like getting sandy and dirty. But Joseph got to have so much fun. So did the rest of us. Joseph and Jace played in the sand, Jake went surfing and boogie boarding, Kallie and I (and even Josh and Merna) played in the water.

We still have a few days left. I'll do another post tomorrow to finish up the trip.

San Diego Part 1

As I was looking at all my pics from vacation, I realized they are not going to fit in one post. So we'll do this in a couple (or more) posts.

Our vacation started on Thursday June 9. We left for San Diego around 5:00 in the morning. Here are some pics of my boys in their half awake stages.

Oddly Joseph didn't try to take a nap until around 7:30. Both he and Josh slept for a couple hours while I drove and then we stopped for a break and some breakfast.

When we passed this truck Joseph got so excited. He had never seen tires this big before.

A little after we stopped for breakfast, we found this awesome rest stop. So we stopped and let Joseph run around for a while. Josh even got him up in a tree.

He has so much fun running around. We played hide and seek for a while (it wasn't that intense. Most of the trees were too small to hide behind so his hiding places were pretty obvious. But he was having a blast.) He had spent the last few days before we left asking when we were leaving for "cation". So the whole way down he kept asking if we were at "cation" yet. He was a lot better in the car than I thought he would be. There were no melt downs, no temper tantrums (at least not in the car) it was great.

Josh went off looking for lizards, but instead of finding them he found a colony of prairie dogs. He got the camera for a minute so here I am in all my "I'm traveling so there" ness.

Joseph loved looking in the holes to look for the animals. We never saw them really close, we got about 10 feet away a few times, but they'd duck down every time we tried to get a picture.


After all this fun we got back on the road, stopping for lunch right outside St. George. Because it was so early (we were only going to Vegas that night) we decided to stop and do some site seeing in St. George. So we stopped at the temple and took some pics. Joseph wanted to stay here by the fountain forever. He loves water fountains/falls/any type of water.

We went for a walk around the temple and Joesph got to walk up the steps and touch the door. I think after the fountain, the steps were his favorite part.

We went into the visitors center and went to look at the statue of Jesus. He really liked that. I wish I could have gotten a pic of his face when he first saw the statue.

We then went on the lookout for Brigham Young's winter home. After getting all hot and sweaty, we stopped in the square by the tabernacle and let Joseph run around in the water there. He loved it, we could have stopped there and come home and he wouldn't have realized he'd missed anything.

We went and toured the winter home. It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, but it was nice and cool. And it's always fun to see a part of history.

After that we took off for Vegas. We made a stop so Josh could look for lizards, and he found one. He let Joseph hold it for a while and they both had fun with that.

We spent the night in Vegas. Didn't do anything exciting. We were all tired from having woken up so early that morning. So we went to bed early and got ready for the next day. I'll publish those soon. (if not tonight, tomorrow)

We really had a fun time. Joseph hasn't stopped talking about everything we saw and did. I'm glad we got to take this time and spent it away from our usual grind. It was a very good experience.

Blame it on the Rain

Since I planted my garden last month, I haven't really done much with it. I've weeded about a dozen times, but that's about it. I blame it on the rain. First off, it's rained almost every day since I planted. Second, I just wanted to say that because I liked that song.

But beside that, look how well it's going. The peas are shooting up (some are over six inches). I think the two bottom middle squares are spinach and they look just great. The two on the end next to the spinach are beets and there are quite a few (still really small though). I believe the two top middle are lettuce and the two top corner are carrots. The carrots aren't coming up but I have some of everything else.
I also have four tomato plants that still need to be planted. I'm a little scared about that because of how cold it's been. Maybe next weekend I'll risk it.

But I'm proud of my garden. Hopefully this year I'll actually get a harvest. Good luck to me.

Joseph's Room

So I was laying awake in bed a few nights ago (dealing with a mild case of insomnia right now. So much fun) and I realized I had never posted pics of Joseph's new bedroom. These pictures were all taken before his dresser got put in there, but it still gives a pretty good idea of what it's like.


He's now sleeping in a toddler bed. We haven't had any problems with that. Except now he thinks "the sun is up, I need to be up" Not so fun at 5:30 Saturday mornings.

I love that he has a place for his toys that isn't in my living room. And he even plays in here some times.

The inversion table and big exercise ball going in this corner. Only because it's the only place in the whole house where there is room.

He loves his books (and his bookshelf).


His dresser is now along this wall and the chair is next to his bed. And that window in the kitchen? It's what reminds him the sun is up (it faces east) and wakes him up and unnatural hours of the morning. Needless to say, I'm not a morning person.

It's been great having him in his own room. He goes to be so well (most of the time) and he hasn't fallen out once (okay, only once, but I think he was partially awake and was trying to get out of bed at the time).

How does your garden grow?

Growing up we had a garden. We lived on a small lot, but my dad dedicated half of our backyard to a garden. Here you can see the different boxes where we planted vegetables. Against the garage we had strawberries (usually).

I remember Saturday mornings spent weeding. Late summer mornings spent picking, and afternoons spent canning and freezing. I love that we always had a freezer full of vegetables and cans of fruits. Not all did we get from our garden. My mom's brother-in-law owns a farm and we got corn, peas, peaches, melons etc. from them. But we had so many that came from our own labors. I know that my parents were so pleased with that.

I just know I hated weeding. I don't like the figuring out where everything goes, making sure it has enough water, and keeping it alive until harvest time. I do love knowing that I am growing my own food. So I planted a garden again this year. Last year I didn't get anything. I had some beets, but they froze before they got big enough. My peas died while I was at girl's camp. And my tomatoes never got bigger than a grape (no, they were not grape tomatoes).

So this year I talked to a few people in my ward. One of the blessings of living out in the boonies, everyone plants a garden. And we have quite a few gardening geniuses in our ward. (Thank you so much). I went pretty small. Right now I only have five things planted. I learned that some things do better if they are planted when it is colder out. So I have peas, beets, carrots, lettuce, and spinach.
The racks are for my peas. In the box you see in the background I want to plant tomatoes (when it gets warmer) and melons. Hopefully I can get a harvest this year. I don't like pulling weeds any more than I did when I was a child. But I do like taking a bag of peas out of my freezer and knowing that I planted and weeded and harvested it.

Now, if only I could have a desire to do the same thing with flowers.

Joseph's birthday

So for Joseph's birthday (back in February) we went ice skating. We went over the summer and he had a really fun time. During the month of December, almost every show on PBS kept showing people (or animals) ice skating in an episode. Joseph kept asking to go ice skating, so I told him we could go for his birthday.

He had a blast. He fell down a bazillion times, but mostly he just laughed and tried to get up again. We did get him to skate by himself a few times, but he was very insecure about that. We invited all his aunts and uncles and cousins, but the only person who showed up at the rink was Josh's sister Melanee. Joseph didn't care, he was having fun.

Here he is trying to stay upright.

Here we are (me, Joseph, and Melanee)

Believe it or not, he's laughing so hard he can't get up.

Trying to teach him he needs to put his weight on his feet, not on Daddy.

After skating, we went back to our church to have cake and ice cream. We would have done it at our house, but we don't have enough room for more than 6 people. My sister Kirsten, my brother Jeff, his wife and their girls came up for this part. Also, Josh's parents and his sister April made it too.

Sadly, this is about the best picture of the cake. I wanted a good pic of it, but left that up to Josh, He was photographing Joseph. Joseph is making a funny face at Grandpa. Luckily he had fallen asleep in the car on the way back from the ice rink. He was ready to have fun again. If you could really see the cake you could tell it's lopsided. I saw this online and I fell in love with it. It didn't lean the way I wanted it to, but it still turned out really well.


Jeff, Michelle and their girls enjoying cake and ice cream.

Michelle and my beautiful sister Kirsten. (all my sisters are beautiful. I sure lucked out)

This is his sneaky smile so you know he's up to something. My little boy is 3. I'm glad he had a happy day. He still talks about it. We'll see what happens next year.