Summer Part 1

This summer is just flying by! We started it off by having an impromptu Eclipse party outside our house. We have the BEST neighborhood ever!

The second week in June Collin went to Scout Camp, Grace went to Jons parents and Jon and I went to Southern California. We spent a few days on Catalina Island:

The weather was cloudy and cold so we never even opened our dive bag, but we ended up seeing a lot that we hadn't planned on. The highlight of Catalina was renting a golf cart to drive all over the island. 

We went to LA next and to La Brea tar pits which we learned about in Homeschool last year:

We walked around the museums:

Then rode the ferris wheel at the Santa Monica pier:

San Diego was next. We ended up going to the zoo and the weather was perfect for it!

When we got home we hiked to Stuart Falls:

Where 18 years ago that weekend Jon proposed to me at this very spot!

Collin being awesome after climbing up to the falls:

 And the kids on the way home (I love sleeping pics!)

More Spring . . .

We barely saw Jon from the middle of March to the end of April. He was working on his AMAZING store for the Tahitian Noni (Now known as Morinda) tradeshow in Salt Lake. I could do a whole post just on the store, but just know that he did a great job.  This is him at one of the counters at the store showing us the collectible pins he designed:

We found out that Grace has a green thumb when Jon took her to get plants and she passed up playing with her friends to plant and weed and mulch with Jon.

Collin earned a bunch of Merit badges from scouts. I took about 10 pictures and his eyes were closed in EVERY one of them, so I think this is the best:

The tradeshow was during the week of Spring break so we weren't able to go anywhere, BUT we surprised the kids with a trip to California over a weekend. It was an early flight (Collins puffy eyes), but they were excited (Grace's eyes):

Collin ONLY wears turquoise and usually has these attached to his head lately, but at least I got a rare smile!

La Jolla beach. This time Collin has white earbuds. You know, more discreet . . . 

The bathing beauty. Collin was in the frEEzing water the whole time, but the rest of us stayed on shore:

It was a great trip, but way too short. Thank goodness there is so much beauty in our backyard to enjoy.

Spring

It's been another eventful month. I left my camera at our DUP (Daughters of Utah Pioneers) Spring Convention and haven't gotten it back yet, so these are just from my phone. Collin just finished the Geocaching Merit Badge so we got to go find some and hide one and we found a great new canyon to explore right above our house:

The boys went snowboarding every Saturday and some night runs too:

It ended up being a girls day for making Ukranian Easter eggs at my moms house this year. These are the things I missed while being in Texas! Grace pumped out 5 completely different and all beautiful eggs:

We had a girls dinner for my sister right before she had her baby:

And meeting Laura's baby, Ada when she was 3 hours old. Collin said he wasn't going to hold her and then kept saying it was his turn and was a natural. He was rocking and bouncing her like a pro:

Our neighborhood puts on a great Easter egg hunt for 3 age groups for the 3 parks in our neighborhood. It was awesome! Collin was bummed that he's too old for it now. But he did get to eat about a dozen donuts!

Grace hunting in the "upper" park:

And finding an egg in a tree:

My baby turned 10 years old this year! I have kind of gone through small children withdrawls for the last couple of birthdays with her, but I guess I must have finally accepted that there is no turning back. It was a good birthday. She "only" wanted the biggest, hugest stuffed moose ever, so we obliged:

She named it Hirvi (moose in Finnish) and takes it everywhere:

For her party she wanted a luncheon and to do an Easter Egg hunt. She wrote me a detailed menu:

And we got mountains of plastic eggs and candy for $20 at the post Easter sale. Yay! The friends from the neighborhood:

And after the hunt:

Feb. and Girls Trip

It's been a great month! We got some snow and Collin tried sledding down the hill we live on:

Gracie Loo made a delicious AND beautiful fruit pizza for us:

We got to meet some of my family for donuts at Branbury Lane for MLK day:

And I got a much needed vacay with 2 of my 3 sisters. We went to La Jolla for 5 days. We really didn't do much, but it was so great. Lots of sleep and good food and strolling around. We got to go to do work in the San Diego temple (click on "temple" for more info):

I mentioned good food. This was probably the best dessert I have ever had. A salted caramel chocolate tort from Whisknladle in La Jolla. I can't describe how wonderful this was.

We spent a lot of time either strolling along the beach or basking on it:

La Jolla Cove:

Lots of wildlife:

I love the sounds of waves:

This random picture is the only one of all three of us. Taken in Old Town San Diego by "my" pineapple fountain:

Me and Ems:

Back to the beach: Love it!

I did manage to put my feet in the frigid water. I don't care if the gulf is brown, it's WARM!

I loved the different colors of sand:

On one of our strolls. Me and Sarah (with Ems' thumb):

Too much fun. Can't wait for the next one!

January

I thought not homeschooling my kids would make my life less busy but it seems like it's even more busy now. January just flew by, which is fine with me because I always get the January doldrum blues. Collin and Grace both had friends come over throughout the month to work on Science Projects for the Science Fair. Grace and her friends grew plants, Collin and his friend tested which things burned best. No comment.

Jon was in Hong Kong for another 2 weeks and came home with malasadas from his day long layover in Hawaii. That's love.

We also had one good snow storm which the kids have been looking forward to all winter. They were outside all day working on snowmen.

I'll let you guess which one is which childs.

We also had a fun weekend getaway to Pocatello, Id. We swam in the huge pool (ok, the kids swam and we marinated in the hot tub), saw old friends and kicked back. We were only there one night but the kids set up for a few weeks, which was done in the first 10 seconds of getting there:

Looking forward to the upcoming events of this month!

Happy New Year!

Dear 2012,

Can we be friends? I'm not saying that last year was uneventful and full of changes, and I did learn a lot, but it would be nice to have a healthy calm year. Please?

We had a great New Years Eve. I haven't been up that late in YEARS, and I felt my years because it took me a few days to get over it. First we went to my sisters and ate good food and had got to hang out with my family - I took no pictures. Then we dropped the kids off and went to some friends of ours and walked in at the tail end of their Minute to Win It game. Jon made a name for himself that night by playing Junk in the Trunk and winning in record time. Enjoy: