Stress....

Hello dear friends,
Sorry I have been MIA. I have had a ton going on. Spring sports have me completely overwhelmed. Most days we have two things going on and often at the very same time. There is cub scouts, Swimming, Diving, three kids in soccer...

This week has been especially brutal. Jacob is being baptized on Saturday (for our church). Which really is a celebration though somehow my desire to make it special has made it very stressful.

Lindsey is in a drama class and her final play is being performed on the same day. She is also celebrating her 11th birthday this week. Whew!

The twins had a performance for preschool today which was absolutely adorable but ill fated. They got white paint all over their orange shirts for the costumes like an hour before the performance. I threw them (though not literally) in the bath to remove the aforementioned paint. Somehow they took an entire bar of Dove soap and dissolved it in the bath and most especially their hair. This stripped their hair of all natural oil and made it one million and ten tangles. Nothing would make it untangle (except maybe another bath and an hour of conditioner which I could not do). So we brushed what we could (while all three of us cried) and headed out sporting pony tails that hid about a half a million of the tangles. We were almost late, our shirts were damp and my nerves were long gone! DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME! Who knew bar soap was so terrible.


Sometimes when I look back at the big moments I remember all the things that went wrong and the stress we experienced to get there and not only is it funny but it was totally worth it. Behind all the perfect pictures was often a terrible day. Filled with things going wrong and many going right. The journey of life is rarely a smooth one.

So that's where I have been. I have tons of pictures and posts almost ready but haven't had the time to do them justice.

Kill the bill…

Whether you wanted the health care bill you can probably agree that having your husband take your kids to the capitol all day on a Saturday would be a great thing. I also thought it was a great lesson in being active politics.

The protested “kill the bill”and later that week the bill got put through they were pretty mad!  I guess that is the lesson in being active in politics.  It makes you care more. That is always a good thing! Thanks Alan for teaching them that and for a relaxing Saturday!

Eight

Happy Birthday to Jacob!

Eight things I love about you...

1-Your kind.
2-Your handsome.
3-You want to do what is right.
4-You are a great brother.
5-You are cheerful and happy.
6-You love sports.
7-You are affectionate.
8-You show grattitude.

Eight things you like to do at Eight...
1-Byu
2-PSP
3-Being Outside. You are outside rain, snow, or shine until dark everyday.
4-Sports Soccer,Football, Basketball, diving. You have been on all these teams this year! Whew!
5-Foods-Strognauf, Cheeseburgers, Bacon.
6- Love's Subway and In and Out.
7-Play play play. 
8-Movies

Laguna Beach

When we looked at the weather before we left for Vacation. It wasn’t good. Rain every single day.  Driving there we hit a terrible snow storm. But somehow each day turned out wonderful. Our beach day was no different. We arrived to overcast skies (quite common at any beach early in the morning) that soon burned off to reveal a perfect beach day. Pretty amazing in February!

 

 

It took two seconds for my crazy kids to run right into the Ocean. Didn’t matter how cold it was. My kids are fish.  I grew up going to the beach all the time and I am not sure I was ever so brave!

 

When I say my kids I should be more clear. Some of my kids. These two weren’t so sure at first and who could blame them it was cold!

 

Since I stayed in my sweat suit all day even when the sun did come out. I guess they get that from me.

While they went to the tide pools….

We checked out the park right on the beach. Swinging on the beach was perfect!

 

The sun finally did come out.  Below are some of my favorite pictures of the day. The girls finally did get very comfortable playing in the sand and surf.

 

Hailey

Sydney finally got more interested…

   

 

When they boys weren’t in the surf they were playing football with their Dad’s.

It was really the perfect beach day… Until Lindsey came out of the surf gushing blood. At first it looked a lot worse than it was and it only turned out to be a smashed nose from body surfing. She did have a a lot of blood and a scraped nose to remember the event with.

Grandma and Grandpa spent the afternoon at the restaurant above the beach. Enjoying the view.  We went up and had lunch with them, it was so good.

SeaWorld

Day four was SeaWorld and after spending 2 days at Disneyland and one at Universal Studio’s we were pretty tired. Thankfully SeaWorld was a slower pace and not crowded in February.

 

Feeding the Manta ray’s was a highlight. Can’t believe my wimpy girls did it.
 

There were star fish..

and no Shamoo???  The show was cancelled because a trainer in Florida was killed. I guess its insensitive for me to be disappointed but when you never have been to Sea World before and the biggest attraction gets cancelled it is bad timing.

At lunch time we sat by the rapids ride and enjoyed watching people get soaked. It became apparent that every 10-15 boats that went through had the bad luck of going through a waterfall full blast. In most cases a sensor was hit and the water fall would turn off just before they went through but we noticed that every so often it wouldn’t turn off. Those people would get soaked!  As we began to leave Alan offered to take the kids on the ride.  So I quickly ran around to watch. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Alan’s face. He knew right where the waterfall should have turned off and it didn’t. They went through it full blast.  It was pretty miserable because the twins were soaked all the way to the underwear. Like they had swam in a pool in their clothes! It was probably the highlight of SeaWorld though.

After we headed down to Laguna Beach for dinner at Johnny Rockets. Laguna Beach is a special place and we used to visit in a lot. 

It was decided we needed a break before another big park. So the next day we headed down to Laguna beach.  It might have been my favorite day of all :)

The California City pass…

Upon planning our trip to Disney it was discovered that it would cost the same to do Disneyland and Sea World as it would to buy a City pass and have access to five parks.  Yes you read that right.  The city pass gives you 3 days at Disneyland and one day at Universal Studio’s, Sea World and San Diego zoo!  So each day of vacation we woke up early and rushed off for fun at another park. We walked till our feet ached.  Every night at bedtime I wondered if I could do another day. But every morning my feet felt better and off we went..

 

To Universal Studio’s…

Universal didn’t have many rides the little girls could ride but I loved the studio tour. We got to see a lot of cool things from movies like the Fast and the Furious, Jaws and t.v shows like the street from Desperate Housewives

I really liked the water ride Jurassic Park. Maybe because I had no idea what to expect.

There were tons of characters here. It was day 2 on our trip and this was where the twins finally got comfortable with meeting the characters.

Grandpa paid for all of the girls to get face painting. 

Everyone was seriously exhausted!