baking

Cruz found this recipe on Instagram and really wanted to make it.  Butter, Fruity pebbles, marshmallows, and marshmallow fluff, ugh!!!

2 batches

I got 2 batches of Freezer jam made from our very own raspberries!

Ninja Camp was AWESOME!!!

The kids LOVED this week of Ninja camp!

 Cruz climbed the giant warped wall

 Lexi climbed the mini warped wall

 Loved that Clara and Ezra were in town to do the camp too!

Raspberries!

We got berries!!

Ninja Camp

Ninja camp has been so fun this week.  So glad all 3 kids could enjoy this!

Swim Meet

Last night was Alegra's first swim meet ever and Cruz's second swim meet of the season.  It was HOT and a BIG swim meet but both kids did awesome!

Cousins in town and Ninja Camp

Rich's family is in Utah this week before they head up to Idaho on Thursday night.  Katie was able to get Ezra and Clara signed up in the Ninja camp Cruz, Alegra, and Lexi are in this week in the afternoons.  Yesterday after camp they all came here and played.  The girls played dress up. a little scary!!!!

Boys trip

The boys took a super quick trip up to Idaho, leaving Saturday at 11 and coming home Sunday night. They had to get some work done on the ATV's and Shawn took Cruz shooting, which he loved!

5th tooth gone for Lexi!

Shawn helped Lexi pull her 5th tooth (top big tooth) out on Saturday morning!

Summer Lovin'

 Swim team practice -All the kids are doing swim team but this picture is of Cruz's group

 Towel Hair by Alegra!

Fun day today at Willow Creek with Elle and Walker

Liberty Park

We had a free afternoon/evening so the kids, grammy, and I loaded up and headed to Liberty Park.  We had fun walking around exploring, riding the rides, and going out on the paddle boat.  I love it when my kids get along. In San Fran there was A LOT of fighting, but this afternoon was so pleasant!  I needed that!

Cruz's 11 year old well check!

Cruz had his 11 year old well check today.  He wasn't super happy about it because he had to get shots.  But he is growing!!!! He is 59.4 Inches which is 82% for his age and he weighs 89 lb which is 70% for his age.  It was an interesting appointment because he has been super moody (he got his xbox taken away for bad behavior) and it totally effects his mood.  I was able to tell the doctor about my concerns and Dr. Pete addressed the importance of having balance in his life.  I hope some of it sank in!!!!

Girls Day!

On Friday (we just got back late Thursday night) I had a girls afternoon. Cheryl Goo was in town from Hawaii so Stacey, Carissa, Egan, Cheryl, and myself all got together.  We met for lunch at Greek City Grill, went on a hike up Red Pine, went shopping a bit, ate dinner at Indian House, and then grabbed dessert at Last Course in Draper.  It was such a fun afternoon of chatting and eating.

Esme came over to our house to play while Grammy was babysitting for me!  They had a lemonade stand and then ran out of lemonade so when we drove by they were selling flowers and mints. :)

San Francisco -Summer 2018!

Grammy, the kids, and I left for San Francisco the day after school got out.  We got up early Friday morning June 8th, to catch our flight to San Jose. I found really good deals for round trip tickets to San Jose ($120 round trip) so we decided to fly.  We arrived in San Jose at about 10:15, rented a car, and then drove to Palo Alto.  We were meeting Rebecca at a Park in Palo Alto.  Alegra had been up most of the night before with a really bad sore throat and Friday morning she threw up, so I was getting worried she had strep.  She was kinda a mess all of Friday morning.  Once we met Rebecca we decided to grab a quick bite to eat in Palo Alto before heading to her house. Alegra had fallen asleep in the car, so I stayed with her while they ate.  We decided to split up and I took Alegra to the Insta Care and Rebecca took everyone else to her house.  Alegra did have strep so I was so glad I took her in.

By Saturday morning she was feeling better so we decided to move forward with our plan.  Rebecca had planned out each day for us so we could maximize seeing everything.  We really played hard!!
Saturday June 9th-We drove in to SF in one car and parked at Ghirardelli Square.  We walked through that square and then down to the Maritime Museum on the Water.  We then went to explore some old boats, a cargo boat, a tow boat, and a sailing boat. Grammy had her parks pass so that saved on entrance fees. After the boats we walked down Fishermans Wharf to Bodens to get lunch. Matt, Wendy, and Dawson were in town because Matt swam the Alcatraz swim that morning so we met up with them for lunch, which was super fun!  They were biking to the golden gate bridge afterwards and that sounded fun to Cruz so he went with them and the rest of us went to the Museum Mechanique.  They had old time arcade games.  Then we walked to Pier 30 to see the Sea Lions.  We walked to get on the cable car but the line was long and Matt and Wendy had called to say they were done, so we walked back to Ghirardelli Square to meet up with them and have an ice cream sundae with Ghirardelli chocolate,  yum!

BOUDINS

MUSEUM MECHANIQUE!

 Lexi loved this duck claw. She loves Claw machines wherever she is but this one was only a quarter and the claw kept going until you got a duck.

 Laughing Sal-An iconic "scary" thing that was at the museum!

PIER 39-Walking down to Pier 39 Alegra say these street performers and she was fascinated. Grammy was nice enough to stand around the circle and watch with her while Rebecca and I found a bench!

Cruz's biking adventure- he made it to kiss one of the poles of the golden gate bridge. It was super windy so I am proud of him.  12 miles round trip!

Ended the day at Ghirardelli Square for Games and Sundaes

SUNDAY JUNE 10th - We went to David and Rebecca's ward Sunday morning.  The girls had matching dresses to wear.  After church and lunch we went on a little hike right by their house to see the coast and the seals.  We also walked down to the tide pools and hung out for a while.

 There was a seal just hanging out swimming so close to us!

 We went during Low Tide so Cruz could walk all over this and explore, it was really cool! Lexi loved finding sea shells!

 Luckily Pierce survived our visit!

 Sunday monrning snuggles!

We came back to Rebecca's house and ate dinner and then packed up some S'more stuff and went to the Ritz Carlton Half Moon Bay to do s'mores in their fire pits and listen to the bag pipe player that plays at sunset.  I felt like we were in Ireland!

Monday we hit went crazy seeing San Fran.  We started off by driving down the most zig zag street ever, Lombard Street. I have never actually driven it, so that was so fun.  Then we went over to Coit Tower and went to the top of Coit Tower to see all around the city.  I had never done that before either.  After Coit, we drove down to the Embarcadero and parked and walked to the Exploratorium.  It was a SUPER cool museum that we all LOVED but Cruz was in HEAVEN!!!!  After spending a few hours at the Exploratorium we walked down the Embarcadero to the Ferry Building to get some lunch.  Rebecca and Grammy got some food at the Cowgirl place but I took the kids to Gott's, which was super good Food. The Ferry building was fun to check out, there were all sorts of booths and little restaurants.  After Lunch we walked back to our car and drove up to Union Square.  In Union Square we got on the cable car and rode it all the way down to Fishermans Wharf.  That was SOOOOO fun.  Cruz even managed to make it to an outside spot on the trolley and Alegra got to go on the back platform.  We ubered back up to Union Square and walked a bit of Chinatown.  We were getting a bit tired at this point.  We met David for dinner near Union Square and then made our 6:00 ticket time to the Ice Cream Museum.  Rebecca and I had seen all these cool pictures from the Ice Cream Museum so we thought it was a must.  The kids loved it but for how expensive it was, it was kinda a jock.  It basically is famous because of Social Media.  All the pictures in there look super good.  By the end we were pooped, but on the way home I promised Alegra, so we stopped at the Pained Ladies houses, which she knows from the show she watched "Fuller House" that is filmed there.  We went to bed tired but had SUCH a FUN DAY!!!

 Coit Tower

 Embarcadero

 Exploratorium

Painted Ladies

Tuesday we woke up and drove down to Monterey.  All the other days we were squeezing into 1 car but since this was a pretty big car day we decided to split up.  It took us about 2 hours to drive to the Aquarium.  The Aquarium was sooo cool!  We loved it.  After the aquarium we drove up to Seabrite beach, a beach right next to Santa Cruz to meet up with Amy and Erin Watkins and their kids.  By the time we got there we had about an hour to hang out at the beach. Then we went to Italian and Ice Cream in Santa Cruz.  It was really fun to see the Watkins and be able to catch up.  The Ice Cream place named Maryannes and I guess was kinda famous.  I tried to find Cruz a "Santa Cruz" sweatshirt but I was a little late and a little tired.  We had a nice drive back along the coast.  

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Jellyfish displays were so cool!

Wednesday-We piled into 1 car and drove to Marine County across the Golden Gate bridge to Muir Woods.  We had a noon parking reservation, so we picked up sandwiches and ate a little picnic at the beginning of the Muir Woods. The Redwood Trees were amazing!  After Muir Woods we took a super crazy road to Stinson Beach. Unfortunately, it was really windy at the beach so we didn't stay too long.  We took the only other road out of Stinson Beach, but it proved to be more whindy then the  road in.  Poor little Pierce was in the way way back with Cruz and totally got car sick and threw up everywhere.  

 No one could get enough of Pierce!

 Driving home over the bridge!!!

 Alegra couldn't wait to take a bath with Pierce when we got home but poor little Pierce had to get soaked first to get the throw up off.

Thursday- We ran a couple errands for Rebecca and then I took the kids to get them out of Rebecca's hair so she could put her house back together before we left.  I was happy she had it all back together by the time we took off for the airport.  I took Farrah with me and Pierce napped and then Grammy stayed at home to watch him.  The kids and I went to the little Half Moon Bay area and walked around the fishing boats and went into a donut shop and Mavericks surf shop.  Before heading home we stopped at the park by Rebecca's home to play a bit.  

We had such a fun, fun trip.  We were all exhausted but oh so fun!