California

24 + hours in the car and the kids are still begging to go back to CA. Hotel room + hotel pool = best vacation ever right? Richie and I, however, are plenty content to stay put for a while. Although our kids were fantastic travelers, everything is inconvenient in the car, and it's soooo not my favorite. But we love Ross and Amanda so...we'd do it again in a heartbeat to share that special experience again. :)

We left EARLY on Tuesday morning to get to the Sacramento area by evening time. We enjoyed dinner with Amanda's family and drooled over their beautiful yard and home. On Wednesday, Richie kept Miles and Gwen at the hotel (out of the way) while Lindy and I tried our best to help everyone get ready for the reception that night.


The reception was beautiful and our kids looked adorable. (I'm totally biased) Miles and Gwen felt like royalty with their boutonniere and mini bouquet. The photographers there offered to take a few family pictures and I'll be excited to see how they turn out. We tried to keep them happy, out of the pool, out of the pond, out of the house, and out of all the prime photo ops. Gwen likes to be right in the middle of things. She had no problem striking up conversations with all of the strangers there. She was friends with everyone by the end of the night. :) The highlight of the night came when the dancing started. I got to snag a dance with Richie, Miles asked me to dance and even twirled me, and at one point, an emotional Richie told Gwen that one day she would grow up and get married and leave him. She proceeded to bawl like a baby and only calmed down once they danced for a while. The kids did great, but they were pushed WAY beyond their limits and it felt so good to go to sleep.


The next day we got ready and made our way to the temple. After some prep for the luncheon, prepping Tanner on how to care for all the small children, we attended the sealing and it was fantastic in every way. Watching Ross and Amanda is so fun, but I can't help it if it makes me a little jealous. I swear Richie and I just got married, right? Even though I wouldn't go back to that part in our lives, because that would mean we wouldn't have our 3 kids yet, I miss that newlywed stage. It's so...like a dream. Sometimes when the days are really long and I'm sick of being a human burp cloth, I fantasize about living in our TINY first apartment and working on homework together. I think that's the key to life; living it in such a way that you almost want to go back to a certain point in your life because it was so great, but choosing to stay where you are because it's even better!
Once again, I wish I would have taken more pictures. I've decided if I didn't have 3 kids to keep track of, I'd be really good at taking pictures. Oh well. Miles was sad that he couldn't come in the temple, so after some explaining, he said, "Ok, but when you come out, tell me ALL about it!" When we saw him after the sealing, the first thing he said was, "So, tell me EVERYTHING!" I went into as much detail as I could, and he just ate it up. :) Special moment.


More swimming at the hotel, more getting off our schedules and dealing with the whiny kids, more hotel breakfasts and on Friday morning we got on the road again. We took a little more time on the way home, and even stopped in scenic Elko, NV. ;) Really, most of Nevada was super ugly, but we were glad to find a park and museum to explore before getting in the car again. We made it! We all had a wonderful time, Ross and Amanda are officially married, and now we're just gearing up for the Bluffdale reception this Thursday. Go team!

St. George

We hadn't been to SG yet this year and I was starting to feel antsy. Luckily my 10 year high school reunion was coming up and provided a great excuse to get ourselves down there. This was Lindy's first time ever in Dixie; her first road trip actually! She did great and all the kids were in heaven with so many cousins to play with. We got to stay at Adrienne and Chris's house this time because the Wallaces are officially St. Georgeians now and are living at Grandma and Grandpa's. :) As always, I wish I would have gotten more pictures, but these few will suffice.

Gwen's favorite part of the trip was being Erma's shadow. Erma was sweet enough to humor her and let her sleep in her room with her and doll her up with make-up, nail polish, and perfume every day! Wow!


Miles's favorite part was being the shadow to Paris and his other boy cousins. He was officially introduced to Skylanders and couldn't get enough of all the cool gadgets his cousins have. I wonder what he'll ask for for Christmas....I didn't get a picture of them playing but here's a few of them at Paris's rain-gutter Rigata.

Lindy was just glad to have so many people pay attention to her. Thankfully, my family was willing to babysit a bunch so we could attend the reunion.


I got in some walking time with my sisters, Richie got some window washing time in, the kids got to run around with cousins at a splash park and a pool, I got to reconnect with old friends and show off my husband to people I haven't seen in 10 years...yeah it was a fantastic trip. We got on the road at about 6pm to head back and we hadn't even made it to the free-way ramp before all 3 kids were asleep. They stayed passed out almost the entire ride up, and then went right to bed and proceeded to sleep in the next day. They played hard! Whew!

Stuff

Lindy had her first taste of rice cereal the other day and she was not a fan. My other kids found it unusual, but still liked it. Lindy was gagging the entire time! We'll try again in a couple of weeks and see how it goes then.


The Wallaces came to visit! They were dropping off Ilah and Henry at EFY and made a pit stop here. We loved seeing them! I can't believe I didn't take more pictures.


Playing with friends! Jamie and Maddie-Lou came over with their new baby Nora!


Miles is always surprising me with his creativity. This is his Mickey Mouse Clubhouse drawing.

He has become obsessed with drawing rockets, after watching an episode of "Charlie and Lola". They are some of my favorite things he has drawn so far.

The Hair Cut of 2014

The other day during quiet time, Gwen asked me for some scissors to take to her room because she was building a ship with the stuff in our recycling box and needed something to cut the masking tape. "Sure!" I said. Rookie mistake. How naive of me! This is how she came out of her room.



I kept saying, "Gwen! Gwen...you.. Gwen!" Then I ran to her bedroom to find the entire floor covered with hair. Her white blonde hair, purple barbie hair, brown barbie hair. I mean, she really went to town. It was impressive. I immediately called around to see if I could get her hair fixed immediately, and thankfully a gal in our ward cuts hair in her basement salon. She let us come right over and she did the best she could, but eventually she had to chop most of it off. Gwen didn't seem to mind one bit. She felt very special getting her hair cut by an actual hair stylist. (Hopefully that's not incentive for her to cut her hair again.) Since "the cut" we have had many talks about who is allowed to cut hair, and what do we get to cut with scissors etc. I've also found that if we curl it and put a bow in front, it's actually quite cute...as long as you don't look too closely.