Cataract Falls

Since Ethan and the kids both had the day off for MLK day yesterday we decided to get out and hit the trails.  We found an awesome trail that follows 1.6 miles of falls cascading down the back side of  Mt. Tamalpais.  After we finally found a place to park and walked to the trail head we were excited to be on our way!  Ethan offered to take the picture so I could be in it.  It makes me so happy to see myself surrounded by all those amazing kids.  I'm so blessed.

My phone takes pretty good pictures, but it leaves much to be desired sometimes.  The color quality is all over the place in the rainforest.

It was almost like we were back in Hawaii.  Except that we all needed hoodies.

The trail was more strenuous than we expected based on the book we used to find it.  But Abe managed to hold his own for quite a while.  He didn't complain at all while we were going up.  He and I just went slower than everyone else.  Well, until Jonas started complaining about getting tired.  Then he and Bryant kept us company.

It was gorgeous.  Around every new bed we found another picturesque scene.

And it was fantastic that we didn't have to hike the whole trail to get the "reward" at the end.  We could just turn around when we were ready.  Which we were about .5 mile in.

Ethan had Abraham on the way down so I was able to stop and get some better pictures of the other kids.

Ah.

Bolton didn't complain at all on the trail either, but when we made it off the trail and still had a hike back to the car Jonas offered to give him a piggy back ride.  Glad I got a picture when I did, this lasted about 1 minute.

After all the rain we've had the trail was pretty muddy and we all looked it at the end.

While we waited for Dad and Abraham the kids went up to see this little waterfall.  I realized as we were driving away and Bryant found three ticks on his clothes that going off trail and into the grass was a bad idea!  The tick check at home showed no signs that anyone else picked any up, thank goodness!

It was a really fun way to spend the day!  I think Ethan and I should go back without the littles and go the rest of the way!  It will almost be as good as a flight across the Pacific.  :)

Random Fun January 2016 Week 2

We went to a friend's house for dinner to celebrate his birthday and had a delightful time.  They are only here in CA for 1 year and we feel so blessed that we've gotten to know them a little bit.  They are so fun!  If we end up staying here, I think its going to be hard to lose this friend of Bryant's in particular.

After not quite a year of being in a "functional" kitchen but not quite finished, Ethan is putting up the back splash!  Yay!  He's so awesome.  It was not a fun experience for him.  I felt bad I wasn't helping more, but I was just trying to stay out of the way.

We signed Eliza up for gymnastics finally.  She is in heaven!  The first day they worked on the bars, the next time they worked on the beam.  We gave each of the kids a word to focus on improving on this year and her's is confidence.  I think this will really help her.  It makes me so happy to see her so happy.

I made another baby quilt for a friend in the ward.  The picture isn't quite right with the color, we've been getting lots of rain (hooray!!!) so the skies didn't cooperate for pictures.  But I am really happy with how it came out.  I quilted it by outlining the colorful, scrappy squares and then sewing circles around the squares.  The circles were awesome because I was able to sew one continuous line and circle them all.  Too bad you can't see the quilting very well in the pictures.

I had to wash the quilt before gifting it to get rid of the lines I drew for quilting, so it got all crinkly and soft.  Love that.  Also, I love my tags.

We finally made it to Costco to stock up on some staples.  I convinced Ethan to take everyone with us and have dinner there.  Yum.  Bolton, the scientist, was experimenting with water intake and number of straws.

Our ward has started a craft group that gets together once a month to craft something.  Since, you know, Relief Society activities aren't able to be crafty anymore.  Our craft this month was the cute tree from the dating divas website.  I missed the sign up (I miss a lot not being on Facebook) so I showed up with my own supplies after stumbling upon the tutorial the day before.  The tree has the words to "our song" printed all over it.  James Taylor, Blossom.  So sweet.

Sunday Bolton came over to me and said while patting his head, "Look I don't have a cow lick anymore.  Doesn't my hair look nice?"  I told him I thought it looked very nice.  He thinks its because he combed his hair.  Then he went to the mirror and kept trying to see the back of his head to know if it looked nice as well.  Finally, after watching him struggle and giggling to myself, I asked if he wanted me to take a picture of the back of his head so he could see it.  When he saw it, he sighed a big sigh and said, "Wow.  That does look nice."

Then we took silly face selfies.

Love this sweet guy!

UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology Field Trip

Even though Bryant is doing homeschool, we are enrolled at a charter school that provides money for his curriculum, extra classes, report cards, and the occasional field trip.  We attended our first field trip on January 8.  It was just at his school, but they had an entomologist come in and teach all about creepy crawlies.  I got to bring the little boys along too.  They thought it was pretty awesome.

After sitting and asking lots of questions she got out some live bugs we could touch and hold.  The stick bugs were really neat.

The Madagascar Hissing Cockroach was very friendly.  None of my boys would touch any of the live bugs!  Can you believe it?!  When one of the cockroaches got loose on the floor it was kind of crazy trying to catch it... I didn't want to hurt it, but it was good at finding places to crawl under.  :)  Luckily, the entomologist took care of it for us.

An experience I never saw myself having, but I feel cool for having it.  The joys of homeschooling!

Starting the New Year Right!

We rang the new year in with a fun shin dig for the kids.  We let the three oldest each invite a friend to come over until 12:30.  I also let each of the kids choose one food to serve.  We had quite a spread of deliciousness.  

Ethan was in hog heaven.  Just for fun here is the record of who chose what: Bolton: apples & caramel toffee dip, Eliza: rice krispy treats (the only thing that was gone by the end of the night), Levi: poppyseed bread, Jonas: hot dog & cheese stuffed rolls and nachos, Bryant: cream puffs.  I also made spinach artichoke dip, guacamole, fruit salsa & cinnamon chips, and chewy chex sweet mix.  So much good food!

Both Jonas and Ethan's watches are set for military time so we snapped this fun one at 8:15/8:16 pm.

Jonas' best friend was still on the road back to CA so he didn't have someone join us, but Levi and Bryant were excited that they had friends that could come.  We let the kids play video games, board games with us, and eat whatever and however much they wanted.  They had a fabulous night.

We spend the next couple days of the weekend at home and we got our garage cleaned out enough to park the van in it!  First time since living in CA!  Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles.

When the kids went back to school I decided that I couldn't put off potty training any more.  So Abe and I spent the week at home taking selfies on the toilet.  He has done really, really well.  The biggest problem he has is getting to the potty before any pee sneaks out.  We're going through lots and lots of underwear that is just a tiny bit wet.

Family Home Evening was spent talking about the importance of order.  The kids were good enough to share with us an example of why order is nice as opposed to chaos.

Our first week of 2016 was a success!!  We had a great 2015, but look forward to new and exciting adventures ahead!

15 Years Ago

15 years ago Ethan came over to my house for New Year's Eve.  In the evening, I got a phone call from another guy (my boss's brother) asking me out.  Ethan was sitting right there and it was incredibly awkward!  I told the guy I'd have to get back to him.  Then Ethan and I went downstairs to talk.  Again, it was a little awkward.

"I don't really want to date anyone else," I confessed to him.

"Neither do I," he confided back.

Our talk ended with a kiss on the cheek and a hug.

Later, we played a game with my brother and his wife when the clock struck 12.  Another kiss on the cheek.  It was sweet.  No one wants their first kiss to be in front of their brother!

Later still, (we stayed up way too late!) we watched The Saint.  "You don't believe any of that cold fusion mumbo jumbo, do you?"  Love that movie.  Everyone else went to bed when it was over.  It was time for Ethan to go home.  But first, he had one order of business to attend to.

Our first kiss.

The butterflies flew, the angels sang.  It was simple and sweet and beautiful.  And the rest is history.  We were engaged within the week.  It was a great night!  Hard to believe it was 15 years ago!

Happy New Year's Eve!

Coming Home Dec. 2015

After a delightful week of holiday celebrations, we had to hit the road home on December 26.  Its always hard to say goodbye, but especially when we don't know when we'll be returning.  Even after making sure to tell the kids repeated to use the toilet before leaving, we had 2 kids who were dying to go potty by the time we reached Tooele!  So we stopped at the Salt Flats rest area.  As soon as we pulled up I saw the amazing reflections in the water and had to jump out to snap some pictures.  

 Everyone else felt like they should jump out too, I guess.  Isn't that reflection amazing!?

Jonas got an mp3 player for christmas and was excited to listen to his music on the road.  I loved when he and Levi were sitting next to each other and he shared an ear bud with him.  They were both singing along happily as could be.

We stopped in Sparks for dinner at a Burger King.  Everyone was so happy.  It was a great day of driving.

The next morning was awfully difficult to get up and out the door for church, but we made it!  That evening we were playing a new game with the kids and Abraham was driving us all crazy.  We told him to go play with toys.  He resisted for a while and then finally disappeared.  We continued with our game and then when it was over I started looking for him.  I couldn't find him anywhere!!!  I figured he must be sleeping somewhere, but where?!  Finally someone spotted him tucked in the corner under the Christmas tree sound asleep.  I remember as a kid I used to love sleeping under the tree.  It was so sweet.  And so representative of how we all felt.  It was an exhausting week!