Birthday Boy

Our little dude turned 5 on Monday - I can't believe how fast the time is flying by! I surprised him with donuts for breakfast. As I was going on a bike ride anyway that morning, why not ride to a donut shop - right?! After breakfast Hayden wanted to open his presents which included a drum set, a nerf gun, walkie talkies, and Bakugons. We went to the store tonight to pick out two more Bakugons with birthday money from both Grandparents (thank you very much!) I'll have to post a picture of them for those not familiar with them - they are the coolest thing right now for little boys ( at least I think so.... I don't even know if I'm spelling them right :)

Instead of having a birthday party, Hayden decided to go to Incredible Johns....it's like a really cool Chuck E. Cheese, with rides and better food. Callie & Hayden loved all of the rides - especially the train rollercoaster.

And lastly, Hayden picked chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for his birthday cake. He seriously worked so hard to blow out his candles - haha :)

It was such a fun day. I love celebrating birthdays. And what's even better, was tucking Hayden in, and hearing him tell me thank you and how much he loved me :)

Beating the Summer Boredom

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Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to a wonderful husband, father, and father-in-law. To Jeff: You are an amazing husband and father. Thank you for taking care of us and for being a wonderful example. We are grateful for you.


Jeff has wanted to learn to play the guitar since we first met, but recently he has talked about it a lot more. So we got him a guitar. Nothing too fancy, but something that he can learn on. For now he's stuck learning on his own, as we can't seem to fit guitar lessons into the schedule. But maybe sometime in the future. Callie & Hayden did a wonderful job keeping it a secret from Jeff. Since it's summer and I only get to a store with 3 munchkins following, I was really worried they'd let the secret out. I think I scared them enough by threatening them with "no birthday presents ever" ( is that a bad thing?).

We had a great dinner with my parents and my brother and his family. We had ribs, mashed potatoes, rolls, broccoli salad, caesar salad, and fruit. As well as a Texas Sheet Cake and ice-cream for dessert. Yummy stuff.


We had fun hanging out and catching up with Mum & Dad about their vacation.



Callie, Hayden, and Isabella love anyone that will act silly and chase them, and Uncle Derek was up for the task. They also had a great time playing with their cousins.

First Swim of the Season

The weather here in Cali has been so mild, that it's half way through June and yesterday was the first day we ventured to the pool. We have been loving the 70 + 80 degree weather! But, it feels like the hot weather is on it's way. It's still too cold for me to get in (I need it to be 100 degrees for a week before I get in the water :). The kids had a great time swimming with friends. Bells was a little dare devil and wanted to jump off the diving board without any floaties on. The stinker pitched a fit about wearing them. It will be a long summer if she keeps it up. She is definitely trying to work the third child thing lately (read: temper tantrums).

San Francisco

Yesterday we went to San Francisco as a family for the day. Nana & Grandpa were returning from their trip to Europe and were flying into S.F., so we spent the day in the city and picked them up in the evening at the airport. One of the things we wanted to do was visit the newly remodled CA Academy of Science Museum. It happened that the day we were there was "free admission" day. Awesome right? Not exactly, the line was outrageous just to get into the building. We waited in line for over 2 hours! We normally wouldn't have waited in line, but as we didn't have to be at the airport until 7, we waited it out. My advice would be to never go on a free day unless you like to spend your day waiting in lines and looking at the exhibits with 1000 other people.

The kids did amazingly well waiting in line so long. I was short a few handfuls of hair by the end thanks to Bells.

The albino alligator was pretty cool (although I secretly like the old alligator pit more.... it didn't have an albino, but it had 4 or 5 regular ones).

We waited in line again to get into the rainforest exhibit, which was pretty neat, but very humid. I was dying that Hayden didn't want to take off his sweatshirt.

After the museum, we were planning on going to the beach, but ran out of time. So we ate dinner at a Chili's and headed over to the airport to wait for Nana & Gramps.

Callie & Hayden made signs to hold up for Nana & Gramps. It was great to see them again. It was a fun and tiring day in San Fran.

Camp Nauvoo

We had a great time at the Ward Camp Out. Our kids love being up at Camp Nauvoo with the stream, rafts, and dogs. It's wonderful. We had a traditional camp dinner of Carl's Jr. before getting to camp :) (We wanted In-n-Out, kids wanted Carl's Jr., 3-to-2, we get out numbered often these days.

Callie loved swinging and hanging on the bars.

Hayden loved playing in the water. Sticks + water+ rafts = heaven.

Isabella displayed her outdoor rugged-ness.

The campfire + smores is always a huge hit, although we greatly missed the campfire songs with Mike playing his guitar.
The Bishopric made breakfast for us the following morning, the cinnamon rolls were my favorite.

Camping

five days spent in

at the

with lots of

having fun

made for lots of

and lots of