Our Adventures at Disneyland

We are back and I am finally recovered enough to get blogging about our adventures. We spent 5 days at Disneyland (we were only planning for 3 but they were running a deal that gave you 5 for the price of 3 so we had to use the free days). We came home exhausted, with sore feet, and sweaty but we had a great time. The boys say that they will blog about their adventures and favorite things so I will help them do their stories soon. As a family, we had a lot of fun. Since we had so many days we were able to do everything we wanted, multiple times. We found out that Katelyn hates pitch darkness but loves fireworks. She loved the rides and things for the most part. She got stressed when it would get pitch black but was fine otherwise on everything. She loved the giant swinging ferris wheel, but it made me want to hurl within seconds. Note: I went on the crazy upside down rollercoaster and felt OK, and all the other roller coaster type things with Ryan and felt OK, but that was horrible. Her smiles were priceless when she would get excited about the rides or the characters. She loves Tinkerbell and was screaming when she flew across the sky during the fireworks, but got all shy when we actually got to see Tinkerbell in person (she was all for hugging Eeyore and Stitch though). Here are a few of the pictures from Katelyn's adventures.



As for Ryan and I, we just had a great time with the kids. Katelyn was mostly in awe, Robert was our adventurer and Jonathan was actually brave enough to try almost everything. We were really proud of how good they were and had a lot of fun going on the different rides with them and experienceing all those things with them. We also got to take a night, on my birthday, to be by ourselves for a bit. Ryan's parents were along for this trip so they took the kids and went back tot the hotel for the evening (they also helped by watching Katelyn during other days when we went on bigger rides with the boys). Ryan and I ate at the Blue Bayou which is the resteraunt in the Pirates of teh Caribbean ride. It was fun and tasted good. Then we wandered and went on rides and just relaxed. My overall opinion of the trip is that it was wonderful fun and I am glad we did it while the kids are this age (I would not do it for five days again though).

Like I said, the boys will write soon and send their favorite pictures. Love you all.

Happy Father's Day to a wonderful father! I appreciate all you do and have done for me and for my family. By the way, I got Mom's flight info today, when are you coming? Ayana always wants to buy a fishing pole at walmart and everytime I tell here that Grandpa will be happy to teach her to fish when the opportunity comes up. We love you! Amber, Trever, Ayana and Asher

Just a very quick post to say:

Happy Birthday Megan!

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Happy Flag Day Everyone!

Amber

Still alive and well...

Life has been so busy these past couple months, I keep waiting for it to slow down and then I will post. Finally tonight, four of the kids are in bed and Mark and Courtney are visiting a widow in the ward that Courtney is "adopting" to visit for the summer.

So what have we been up to? Good question...

Courtney- placed 2nd in both the long jump and 400 meter at school, so qualified for the district track meet and made the finals in long jump. She finished up the 4th grade with straight A's for the entire year. She had two fun field trips ( and I got to go on both!) one to the Getty Center and one to visit a mission and the Channel Islands visitors center at the beach. This week she bridged to junior girl scouts and a new troop.

Aubrey- finished up the 1st grade with straight A's for the whole year. She is just a fun girl that always makes us laugh and smile. Her current passion is "Diary of a Wimpy kid". She had a fun field trip to the local zoo, which the boys and I tagged along. She also bridged in girl scouts, becoming a brownie and will stay with the troop that I am leading.

Elijah- tells us every day how excited he is to start kindergarten. He is reading really well. During scripture study the other night, he sounded out beloved on his own, we were pretty impressed! He gave the scripture in primary a couple of weeks ago and it was the 4th article of faith, which he worked very hard to memorize and say all on his own. The whole morning before church he practiced over and over again to Caleb- very cute. His favorite accomplishment of late is making it all the way across the monkey bars on his own.

Christian- He and I have been working hard to organize his preschool group for next year. He loves sunbeams and is getting better at sitting still and listening! His big accomplishment is learning to go underwater at the pool- he loves to dunk at the end of ring around the roses.

Caleb is completely on the move. He is not yet walking but it won't be long. He stands up with anything he can get his hands on and has started to experiment with letting go. He says mama and baba a lot. He still likes to wake up at 4 am, but he is so cute and fun, it is hard for Mark and I not to love that time with him.

As a family, we have kept busy on the weekends with trips to the temple, the beach, the zoo and parks. We were very spoiled through most of May with beautiful weather. This weekend it jumped up into the high 90's and we are very excited for the next 3 weeks to go by quickly so we can get out of the heat to Alaska for a couple of weeks. Yesterday we went and did the "Walk for kids" to support the local Ronald Mcdonald house at the hospital where Caleb and I were last year. The kids made it on the 5K hike and we had a fun day supporting a good cause.

I have been horrible about taking pictures lately...will try to have some next post! Hope all is well.

Our Birthday Boy

Hello all! We've had a busy Memorial Day weekend. The weather's been beautiful and we've been celebrating three years with Xavier. Xavier's birthday party was yesterday (Sunday) at an inflatable bouncing place called "Pump it Up." Xavier had a fun time running around and playing with his friends. After the party wrapped up, we came back to our house and had a little bbq with family, including Nate, Cassie and the girls. It was a great day.

Today we took Xavier to McDonalds for breakfast and let him run around the playland. That was a special treat. Then we headed over to the Anchorage Museum's Imaginarium exhibits. The boys played in the science area before heading over to the sealife exhibits.

This afternoon, Xavier helped me plant some flowers in the garden and water the lawn. He's such a silly guy. He grabbed his umbrella (or rainbrella as he calls it) and kept running underneath the sprinkler. He still got pretty wet, but he didn't seem to mind.

OK, I am so drained right now, I don't know what I'm leaving out! So here are a couple of pictures and we will check in again soon!

I have enjoyed seeing the recent posts and loved the video. None of you can ever put too much info or pictures. It is great seeing what is happening with each of you.
We are finally enjoying some beautiful Alaska Weather. Of course that means it gets a little above 60 degrees but it feels great to us. We really could use some rain but the blue skies and sunshine feels fantastic.
I wanted to be sure that all of you knew that the I Bonds that we send to the kids are worth $50 when they receive them(that is what we pay for them) They have to wait at least 12 months to cash them in but they increase in value for 30 years. There is a fixed and variable interest rate that determines how they increase. You can read about them online.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that if you have any ideas of things you want made for your children for Christmas (scroll saw type projects) Please pass that info on to me soon. I am getting very slow and old so I need lots of time.
I hope you are all well and enjoying your wonderful families.

I Love You!
Mom

The Kids' Dance Party

So you guys are going to get sick of seeing all my posts lately, but that's too bad!

This is a video Trever took of the kids a while back and he took the time yesterday to put it on the computer so we thought we would share! Enjoy!