Saturday, March 22, 2008

Easter Celebrations!

After our trip to California, it was Easter! Boy did it come early this year. We had a fun barbeque and egg hunt at my mom's and dad's house. I'm so glad that they had an egg hunt planned, because our trip pooped me out and we didn't even color eggs this year! In fact our Easter dinner was spaghetti and salad!

California Adventures



Thoughts still to come, but enjoy the pictures until then.
Since then, when Lorenzo tells people about Grizzly Rapids he keeps calling it "Grizzly Bunnies." I finally asked him why he called it that, and he said "I mean Grizzly Rabbits." Funny!!

Huntington Beach



On Wednesday we drove to Huntington Beach. We pretty much just parked in the first parking area we found, not realizing how far it was from the pier. We had a fun picnic lunch and stroll along the beach as we made our way to the pier. We stopped at Baskin Robbins for a little treat before heading down the pier. It was a fun day, but not the relaxing one I had envisioned as I am sure we walked hundreds of miles!! :o)

We stumbled upon a ball of goo that come to find out was a beached jellyfish. No worries, we didn't touch it! Jason found an amazing sand dollar in the ocean, good eye! I found a few empty oyster shells, nope, no pearls! :o( I found a beautiful starfish, that was still alive, so I scooted it back into the water. There were many people walking around with these still living starfishes, I'm hoping that they were not keeping them, big meanies!!

We ended up being at the beach for 4 hours, longer than we had planned on. I walked away with really burned owie legs :o(!! We were so tired when we got back to the hotel that we scrapped our miniature golf trip we had planned on taking that evening, we hit the hay in preparation for CALIFORNIA ADVENTURES!!!

DISNEYLAND!!




Well, we had a successful and exhausting trip to Disneyland! We took Monday, March 17th at 2:45 am. Our crazy kids did NOT fall asleep in the car, yes, that's right they were awake during the wee hours of the morning.

The drive went great, the kids were real troopers. We had purchased a DVD player which worked out AWESOME. We hit some snow showers near Cove Fort, which was not fun to drive thru during the night. All in all the drive was very uneventful which is not a bad thing. We got to our hotel at about 2:00 pm California time, so we made great timing. We went swimming in the hotel pool and spa which was a great treat after being cooped up in the car for 12 hours. We had Hawaiin Haystacks for dinner, I had prepared everything at home so it was an easy throw together meal, and then we were off to bed in preparation for "D-day"!!

Disneyland was very fun and very exhausting! For poor Claire, the theme of the day was "I'm sorry, but you're too tiny!" She was so excited to ride Splash Mountain with Daddy, only to find out the she was just a hair too short, she was so sad that she sobbed and cried and carried on. We did have a fun time riding the Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, exploring Tarzan's Treehouse, riding the Mark Twain Riverboat, Storybook Island and many other rides. Me being pregnant and banned from many rides spent most of the time taking pictures and patiently waiting! :o)

One big tip though, no matter how old your kids are, or how well they walk...ALWAYS bring a stroller!!


Thursday, March 13, 2008

Lorenzo "Picaso" Ward

Tonight Overlake Elem. had its Night of 1,000 Stars, showcasing artwork and writings of its students. At dinner Lorenzo was telling us all about Picaso, art and such excited to show off his masterpiece. The kids had profiles done of themselves that they then decorated and wrote a class poem. Very CUTE!!



The poem reads:

Fases
We aLL have fAses.
Owr fases hAve mowths.
Owr fases have ises.
We all are diffrent.
That Makes us speshl.

The final stretch before DISNEYLAND!

I'm sitting here in denial that it is already the final days before we take off to Disneyland. I have to admit that I never thought we would really end up going. Back in December when I spontaneously suggested that we go "next year" I truly thought that somehow the whole thing would get swept under the rug and forgotten. Apparently I have two elephants for children and there was no way this was getting forgotten! We did finally break down and buy a portable DVD player for the car, I could only imagine the headache and frustration we would be facing with a 5 yr old and 3 yr old strapped in the car for 12 hours without one. We did a test run with it today, complete with the car adapter and headphones, I think (fingers crossed) that this will be a saving grace for the drive! We have a lot to do before 3:00 am Monday morning so I'm guessing this is the last post B.D. (before Disneyland!)

Our little trees!


So our nectarine and peach trees have come!! We are soaking them for 24 hrs in some root vitamins before planting them tomorrow. I know that they don't look like much now, infact nothing more than twigs, but someday we will be having nectarines and peaches come out our EARS!!

Saturday, March 8, 2008

The good weather streak has been broken!

Yesterday we had a fun filled, full of kids day! We had Oliver Grimes over while his mom went to the temple with the other members of the RS Presidency. He has morning kindergarten with Lorenzo, he is in Miss B's class. The kids had a great time having lunch outside, the weather was GREAT! I made them lunchables which is TONS cheaper than buying the real macoy and they loved them just as much. I think I will make them again for our pitstop on the way to Disneyland! When they were out there Brynlee came out to play and joined them. We also had Timmy and Sabrina over for their regular Friday visit. It was a crazy fun day!


Well today was going to be yard work day, due to the original forcast of almost 54 degrees and sunshine. However, apparently we've had too many nice days in a row and woke up to a cold and dreary day! :o( I guess poor Jason is basement bound another Saturday! We are now to the drywall phase of Lorenzo's room!!



Last night my mom & dad were in the area to see my sister's new baby. They stopped by with some Sam's Club pizzas, YUMMY! They also picked up some long awaited frozen Tilapia for me. This is the one thing I miss about switching from Sam's to Costco! We had a lot of fun, the kids had a great time!!

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Nesting or Spring Cleaning!?!

I'm not sure what bug bit me, the Nesting bug or the Spring Cleaning bug, but I am on a cleaning MISSION! The added bonus is that when we get back from Disneyland our house will be in tip top shape! I've been doing all the small projects that have just been overlooked. I finally put up the second set of curtain holdbacks for our master bedroom curtains. I also shortened the blinds in our bedroom so there isn't 3" of extra blinds just sitting on the windowsill etc.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

New Disneyland Counter!

I did not like the last Counter we had for our Disneyland trip. It was the only one I could find on the web, but it would only count down in month increments which is totally lame and takes the fun out of the countdown. So, I decided to make my own!! I found the castle image through Google and tweaked it in Adobe Photoshop, found a free image hosting site, uploaded it and created my own counter in SpringWidget!! Like the saying goes, "If you want something done right, do it yourself!!" :o)

Monday, March 3, 2008

Dodge Ball!






Friday night we had a little Family Dodge Ball night courtesy of our Elder's Quorum. Do to my aversion of flying balls (a bad experience at a single's ward volleyball game) I happily watched, cheered and took pictures. Claire got hit by a ball very early on in the kids round and opted to just play with the toys in the nursery room, maybe this aversion is genetic!! :o) Lorenzo had a fun time when he was NOT on the receiving end of a good aim and threw an awful fit when was, good to see that he has good sportsmanship!

A huge sigh of relief on our end, our dented car situation shows a huge light at the end of the tunnel. The son of the man that hit our car has given us money for a car rental and prepaid CST Autobody for the repair! We are set to have our car fixed March 31st! YEAH!!!

The countdown has officially begun for our Disneyland trip. We should be in the Magical land of Anaheim 2 weeks from tonight! We have our tickets to the park in hand and our hotel reservations made! The kids are so excited, they are happy that the hotel has an indoor pool and a "magic" sofa that turns into a bed for them. It's great that at the age they are at you can put the word "magic" or "secret" in front of anything and suddenly it becomes the most amazing thing EVER!!

My sister, Kathryn, had her 10th baby on Yesterday. Abigail Hazel was born at 2:10 pm and is such a tiny little thing, 5lb 10oz. I got to visit them today, what a cutie!! Only 5 more months until we have our own cutie pie to love! :o)