Weekend Highlights

We went to the temple Friday afternoon/evening. Our stake was having a special meeting that evening. We enjoyed being at the temple and seeing the blossoms, daffodils, and few tulips starting to blossom. We got home late, but loved our time there.

On Saturday we woke up and discovered a Leprechaun had visited our house! The toilet water was green!! Then when he was hopping back into his rainbow, he dropped some gold chocolate! The boys searched and searched to find him, but couldn't. Tommy even made a trap in case he came back. Then we went up to play with our friends where we used to live. They're moving next month and we're trying to get together as much as we can. We loved seeing them and eating an awesome, delicious "green" lunch. The dads loved watching some March Madness while the moms took the kids to the park.


We also played some fun sports games on their gaming system (not sure what it was called). The boys loved it and now keep asking why we don't have those games on our tv! (The boys are boxing in this picture)


The boys had a jam fest Sunday afternoon. They were all playing and singing the same song...I just had to capture it...it was too cute!

Our life lately, with no pics

Our entire family has been sick on and off since we've gotten back from California. I am so ready for us to all be back to normal! I've had to cancel seminary and the boys and I even stayed home from church! It has been crazy. We've had some pretty great times in between the illnesses though. I haven't really taken any pictures, but here's the run down.

It is amazing what something new can do for you. I noticed Tommy's little undies were getting a too "little" so we went to Target to pick up the next size. He was ecstatic! He loved picking them out and then holding them throughout the entire store. Then at home, he and Damon loved laying out all the undies and seeing how cool they were. Barrett even tried helping Tommy change his undies one day and he said he had to ask Damon which one he was supposed to wear next...they had made an order.

Damon also got a new pair of shoes. Lucky for us, Target had a bunch on clearance. I tried to convince him to get the next size of the same ones he already had...they were marked down to $6.98 from $19.99. He found a pair of athletic shoes that he really liked. They were marked down to only $4.98!! I tried to buy both pair...2 pairs for 10 bucks!! He said he wouldn't wear the ones I wanted him to wear, just the ones he picked out, so that's all we got. He sure loves them! He's even wearing them right now with his pajamas:)

While we were in Target, we passed by the lingerie section. Damon noticed all the rows of bras and said, "Wow, there sure are a lot of mermaid things here!"

We've been enjoying some pretty nice weather lately. We've gone on walks around the neighborhood while Damon rides his bike. He loves riding really fast over the man holes (they are raised a little because we don't have a top coat on the roads...the development isn't finished) and thinks he's doing pretty awesome tricks! We've also made a lot of chalk drawings...Tommy loves sidewalk chalk. On one of our walks, I noticed a family that was moving and had a plastic side on their curb. It was still there the next day, then the next day was trash day, so I had Barrett come with to pick it up. Well, it barely fit in the back of our van and we had to drive home with the back open...but now we have a free slide!!

Barrett got off work early one day so we could take a picnic dinner to the park. Earlier that day Tommy and I had picked up some kites. The boys were super excited to fly them. It was so much fun! Tommy loved running and running and running with his Pooh Bear kite. Damon got really good and keeping his Spiderman kite in the air by himself. We all loved it. We played on the playground and ate and played some more. It sure was a wonderful evening!

We've been making St. Patrick's Day things. I love those packs of stickers you get at the craft store for a dollar. We've used our St. Patty's Day ones to makes a Bingo game and a matching game. We've made a big rainbow and cloud for our wall, a leprechaun head, marshmallow rainbows, and graphed Lucky Charms. The boys had a conversation the other day in the car about how they needed to trap a Leprechaun for his gold. It was pretty funny.

Damon's been playing around on our keyboard lately. I helped him learn some cool sounds like: laugh, scream, dog, fireworks, car engine, and church organ (I used this to play my sister's Haunted Mansion song and it was sooooo spooky sounding! The boys loved it).

Yesterday I was on the phone with my mom for a few minutes when I discovered Tommy had taken a pencil and drawn all over our walls. We have that yucky contractor's paint throughout the house, so if you try to wipe stuff off, it wipes off the paint. When I asked him WHY he drew on the wall he said, "Well, I found a pencil." So, find a piece of paper!!

And that's it...

Last Day in CA

We were sad to finally come to our last day in California. Like always, there were so many things we hadn't gotten done yet. I hadn't even made it into my dad's office! So, I went to see the girls at the office and get some new glasses, then returned a few things at the mall and stopped into See's Candies:) I had to go out of my way to pick up In N Out Burgers for lunch one last time too. That afternoon it rained a bit, but the boys were dying to play outside. I sent them out on the porch to eat granola bars, but before I knew it, Tommy was around the back side of the pool and running around. Oh well...have fun (except he left little muddy footprints everywhere!). They finally ventured over to the orchard to climb trees. I noticed how many blossoms had popped up since we'd first gotten there. The almond tree looked beautiful with all the blossoms on it! I wish I would have taken pictures of all the daffodils around the pool...it was so fun to look out the bay window each day and see more and more blossoms! We sure loved our adventures!




My parent's ward was having a carnival the day we were flying home. My parents were putting on the fishing booth, so we had been shopping with my mom for "prizes." They also talked about the carnival at church...which added salt to the wounds of my boys. They kept asking if we could fly home the day after. We finally just told them we'd have our own carnival and everyone would be in charge of a game. Tommy did musical chairs, my mom did the fishing booth, I did a bean bag toss, my dad did a clothespin drop, and Damon did a bowling game (with toilet paper rolls and a ball). I thought it would last 10 minutes...but it went a lot longer than that. We had a lot of fun! The boys decorated goodie bags and loved getting stickers, cookies, pennies, balloons, and other prizes from each game they played. They were really excited about the whole thing!

Grandma Weed made our family this bean bag game many many years ago and we still love to pull it out. The boys especially loved it this time!








Musical chairs



Well, now we're home and back to the real world. Our trip home was full of surprises! In the airport Damon mentioned that his head hurt, then later that his tummy hurt. When we sat down on the plane, he said his head really hurt, so I gave him some motrin. A few minutes later he looked like he was going to throw up so I got out the little bag just as the flight attendant was walking by. She asked if he was ok, and I told her the details. She got him pretzels and gingerale and later brought a cold paper towel for his neck. Luckily, he fell asleep, but towards the end of the flight, he woke up and threw up. When we landed, I pushed that little call button and our flight attendant friend came right over and helped me out...she was great...I wish I would have gotten her name! A lady sitting close by asked if I needed her help getting off the plane, which was really nice of her. We waited until most everyone was off the plane, then hurried off, but had to stop for Damon to throw up again. Anyway, we camped out on the floor far away from everyone in Denver and had a few more episodes. I called Barrett and discussed what our options were. I finally just headed over to our next flight and they announced the flight was only a third full. My prayers were answered...we could get on and not feel like we were contaminating the whole world. Damon fell right asleep and slept almost the entire flight. When he woke up, he threw up a little and the flight attendant gave me a couple garbage bags. Barrett picked us up and got us home. Phew...we made it. I said many prayers that day and feel like they were answered. We're glad to be back together as a family.

Yosemite

Another one of Grandpa's days off, we went to Yosemite National Park (his favorite place). We got there in time for lunch at Flat Rock, but the flat rock we used to eat at was in the shade, so we ate at a picnic table. We had the best boiled hotdogs ever and other tasty treats! We walked the short distance to the Ahwanee Hotel but it seemed like it was quite the trek. We had to stop every five seconds to let the boys climb on all the rocks...seriously, it got old. They loved it though. We also went to Yosemite Falls. We were surprised that there was water since there hadn't been much moisture (snow). On the way down from lower falls, the boys needed some prodding...so Grandpa ran ahead and left treats every so often for us to discover...they loved it! I hadn't seen Half Dome yet until we were almost at the car. I had to snap a picture of it with the boys, but we were in front of someone else's car and the sun was in their eyes...oh well, still beautiful. I couldn't believe that I hadn't been to Yosemite since Damon was one (and he stayed with Grandma). Our boys had never been. When they're older, we'll go back and let them explore the Indian Caves and do a few more fun hikes...ahh the memories!

Monterrey Bay Aquarium

My dad took a couple days off work to play and go on adventures. The first day we headed over to beautiful Monterrey, CA to go to the Aquarium. We had a great time! We saw sea otters, fish, hammerhead shark, sting rays/bat rays, starfish, leopard sharks, tons of other gigantic fish, sea horses, jellyfish, and lots of other fun sea life. There was even a play area that the boys enjoyed. They went down the slide, rode the sea horse things, and Tommy was the only kid there that wore the fish costumes and played with the puppets. On the way back to the car, they even found a tree to climb...then we discovered a homeless guy asleep behind it. We had a super fun adventure and it brought back a lot of memories for me. We stopped at In N Out Burger on the way home and enjoyed every bite. Tommy devoured about 1 1/2 orders of fries himself...dipping in ketchup, then taking a bite, then dipping and taking a bite. It was pretty funny.

Grandma and Grandpa's House

We had to change around some airline tickets last summer which resulted in us receiving credit. The bummer part...we had to fly by the end of March. I finally tracked down our confirmation numbers (we had about 5 different ones) and made multiple calls to Southwest to determine the amount we had. Turns out the boys and I had enough to equal one leg of a trip to my parent's house. So, away we went! Poor Barrett stayed behind for 2 weeks by himself with a crazy busy work schedule plus teaching early morning seminary for me. I realized this was probably the best time to fly for our family...no car seats (my mom had 2 that we used), no stroller, no unpredictable baby/blowouts/teething, and 2 boys that could kinda help and kinda take care of themselves. Pretty sweet.

We had a great time in California. The boys loved playing outside!!! They loved discovering all kinds of new-to-them toys and books and games. They found some dress-up clothes and loved wearing the hats and being cowboys. They helped my dad pick the few oranges off his tree and there was also one grapefruit for each of them to pluck off (Tommy pulled so hard he fell over!). My dad also put them to work digging holes...or something. Tommy loved watching the popcorn pop in the air popper. They didn't even miss their dad and would barely stop to say a quick hello on the phone. (I told Barrett that if he was the one who went away and left us alone, they would definitely miss him like crazy!) They were so excited to be somewhere else having fun with people they loved.