California Vacation

Disneyland
All the kids... is that a smile from Cru?!
Mom and Macey at the beach
Dumbo ride for all
Fun Newport Beach times... "I can't feel my legs" -Andi

We traveled to southern California for our family vacation this year and met up with our friends the Jenkins from Tuscon, AZ. We arrived on Friday and got settled in by taking a dip in the pool.
Saturday was our big beach day and we woke up to a hugely overcast cloudy day. We had already planned out the rest of the trip so this was the day to go to the beach. We decided to just bite the bullet and go anyway just to say we went. We headed to Newport Beach and surprisingly couldn't find one parking spot! We decided to take our chances and park in the Albertson's parking lot. After a little walk we finally arrived at the beach ready to take in the water... it was FREEZING! I forgot how cold it was so most of us just made it to our feet and that was it, except Treyson and Andi. The kids loved chasing the waves! Our lunch was just as fun... have you tried to make PB&J in the sand? Needless to say the kids ate "crunchy" sandwiches. They just couldn't resist putting their hands in the sand. And another funny part of our beach day was trying to figure out how to clean all the kids off from all the sand. We finally asked some locals and they told us that we could use their hose if we wanted, THANK YOU! I'm not quite sure what was more entertaining --lunch or the hose down?! It was quite the adventure.
The next four days consisted of getting up early to make the gate open to Dineyland and Legoland, but almost never actually making it. We were close though! All the kids had a blast, despite the usual nag for toys, the "I'm hungry" or "I'm thirty" or "I'm hot", and the worried looks from Caden for the scary rides! It's okay Caden, we still love you! We had a lot of fun with the Jenkins, thanks for planning it with us!

Annie Update

Well I was optimistic and was going to post an update a few days ago saying that things were mostly okay. She still is not eating on her own, Jon has to put the IV in her at night before bed (to get her 1200 calories to at least sustain life) and then Annie's parents are there to take it out in the morning. BUT yesterday morning we got word that she was running a fever and she was throwing up SO they called the doctor and he told her to head back to the hospital. AHhhhhh! She found out she has an infection so she is getting antibiotics and they are taking some other cultures to see if there is any others. I haven't heard any news on the baby, other than they are hoping to reach 36 weeks before they think of doing anything with her. Once the baby is out they will take out the gallbladder too, I guess. Not quite sure why they don't take it out now!

TWO Wheeling and Trailing

Treyson is officially riding TWO wheels! We are so excited for him! He has found a new confidence in himself and he is loving the new freedom of riding on his own. I know I had mentioned this before, but I wanted to show his picture and tell him how proud we are of him! Way to go TREY!

So now we are able to take Macey on our rides, she loves it most times, and usually just falls asleep!

Expensive Experiment

Matt and I love to watch the Next Food Network star and as one of their weekly challenges they were asked to pick an unusual ingredient to create a dish with Tilapia (fish). Well, Kelsey won with her Macadamia Crusted Tilapia with White Chocolate Buerre Blanc--sounds fancy, huh? And as a non-fish lover I thought it looked and sounded really yummy, despite the fact that it was fish. As some of you have had dinner and such with our family you know that we don't do seafood and we really wondered why... so we decided that on our next date we would venture into Red Lobster and let the experts cook for us and then decide if our relationship with seafood/fish would change. We finally got that chance on Saturday night! Matt decided to go for the gusto and get the Ultimate Feast --crab legs, lobster tail, breaded shrimp, and shrimp scampi and I opted for the tilapia winning recipe by Kelsey. I, myself, was very nervous!!! Our food came quickly, which I don't know if it was blessing or a curse... because I went right in to try my dish.... AND... I am still not a fish person. Matt ate most of his food, as did I, but our experiment proved that we really aren't huge fans of the sea friends. Oh well.

A Funny

Yesterday we took our Sunday nap and happened to all sleep until 6:30pm...oops! Since we were anticipating being up late we decided to watch the Miss Universe pagent (starting at swimsuits --just in time, Matt says) Well after they showed us all the remaining finalists in the swimsuit part we all had our favorites...

Matt-- "My favorite is Australia."

Treyson-- "I like ALL of them!"

We couldn't help but laugh! He's definitely a BOY.

FOURTH of July

We started our fourth of July out by taking a family bike ride (sorry no pictures on that I temporarily forgot where the camera was) because Treyson is riding his own bike on TWO wheels, way to go Trey! After we were hot and sweaty we decided we would go swimming and have a picnic at the pool so we packed everything up and headed to cool down. Treyson has been taking swim lesson so his new found bravery made him fearless and he jumped right into the pool without his floaties and started swimming. Cru swam a little, but mostly wanted to eat red vines, oops, we shouldn't have taken those out until after lunch. And Macey was loving the water too, until she was too tuckered out and decided a nap sounded great. We headed home for naps, ALL of us, and met up later with the Hendersons for a little BBQ. The kids played hard and were very anxious to head to the fireworks. Finally at around 830pm (or whenever "Band Practice" was over!) we headed downtown, parked at Brandon's office and walked a couple blocks to the park where the fireworks were. It was a lot of fun!! Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Rock ON!

Matt and Brandon (Henderson) having band practice!

We've ventured into the world of the Wii and found out we NEEDED to have Rock Band too. It's been great fun for Matt! I found out that I am pretty retarded when doing the drums so I might just stick to the back up singing!

Tagged

Tagged
"The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
I had just graduated high school... can you believe it's been 10 years already???
2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?
Work on my talk for church
Primary stuff...too much to name
Go to Old Navy and go shopping (is that a "to-do"?)
Plan my menu for the next 2 weeks
Possibly go grocery shopping... I'll see how I feel later.
3. Snacks I enjoy
Fruit --apples and peanutbutter, yum!
Lorna Doone cookies --soooo glad they came out with 100 calorie packs on those!
Salsa Verde Dorito Chips
4.Things I would do if I were a billionaire
Invest WISELY
Pay off all our debt
Go on an awesome vacation ...or two
Buy a slightly bigger home for CASH
5. Places I have lived
Tacoma, WA
Rexburg, ID
St. George, UT
Cleveland, OH
Ivins, UT
6. Jobs I have had
Cashier at Grandpa's Bakery
Teller at Key Bank
Host/Salad Girl at Olive Garden
Carhop at Sonic
MOM
7. People I want to know more about (the challenging part..not tagging twice)
I decided not to tag anyone... if you wish to be "tagged" go for it!

Cautious Optimism

We got news yesterday that Annie is doing much better! We've heard that before and then she has gotten worse so we are taking it with caution. She is now off pain meds, her heart rate is down to normal and so is her breathing. She is still needing a little oxygen, but has much improved. The baby is still virtually unharmed, amazingly!! Thanks to all for your thoughts and prayers... they were felt.

Annie

For those of you that know Matt's sister Annie I thought I would put a little post on here for her! About a week and a half ago she was having huge pains and it was bad enough that they decided to take her into the hospital to get checked out. Well, it turned out that she had gall stones, pretty painful I hear. And then that stone got stuck in the duct where the pancreas and gall bladder meet together and basically plugged it up. Because of that it caused her pancreas to get inflammed. Meanwhile (did I mention she is about 30 weeks pregnant???!!) her body is giving out a bit and her lungs are making it hard to breathe. (Can you give the girl a break, please?!) So as today stands she is in ICU taking it one day at a time. PLEASE keep her in your prayers if you can. We love you ANNIE! Keep fighting!!

Macey 3 Months

Happy 3 Months Mace!

You have dark blue eyes and auburn hair.

This month you went for your first swim and you loved it.

You are a lot more aware of your surrounding and you are starting to grab toys if we hold them close to you.

You hate to sleep in your room for naps, but love to snuggle with mommy!