A House Filled with Love

Thursday just felt like a get-out-of-the-house sort of day. I wanted to do a little bit of exploring of the area and that took us to American Fork Canyon. It was a lot colder than I had anticipated, so we didn't stay long. But these three sure enjoyed throwing rocks into the reservoir. It is a family classic activity.

And what can I say about this kid? Just can't stop kissing him...

On another day this week, Zach came running into the house full of excitement at a discovery. He had found an ant swarm around the corner and he wanted to show everyone. We all walked down the sidewalk to take a look. The little kids were completely enthralled in this little bit of nature.  They sat and looked at it for quite a while. These are the nice little black ants so nobody got attacked.

And for Mother's Day today, this was my present from my kids. They each gave me a heart with the things they love about me. 

Raef's orange card said, "Mom your the best, best, best, best, best, best, best, best, best, best, best, best, best, mom in the world. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo"

Hmmm... maybe we should work on adjectives.

Zach wrote, "What I love about you is you're kind, cheerful, sing well, make dinner, and help me feel better."

Harry said... 

1. I want to give her a kiss. 

2. She is buu-tiful.

3. I like to draw her a picture.

4. I like her to play legos (lay-does)

5. I like her smile.

Eli said...
1. I love the breakfast she makes me.
2. She is very nice.
3. She is very, very kind.
4. I love her and she loves me.
5. She lets me work lots of days and get money.

Julia said...
1. She makes a ponytail.
2. She makes pancakes.
3. She is Kelly.
4. She makes me waffles.
5. She gives me hugs and kisses.

Raef also made me a cute necklace. He drew a heart on cardboard, colored it red, and put it on some red yarn. I was stylin' at church today.

It was a good week filled with a lot of love. As we were driving home last night from a dinner we had with our friends Kristin and Brian, Raef just tells us out of the blue that he is so glad to be a part of our family and that he loves our family so much. It was very sweet. Yes, it is a house filled with love.

A Blind Adventure

As the summer is winding down, I am trying to think of things to do with the kids that capitalize on outdoor adventures. Yesterday ended up being one of those days.

 

After we woke up yesterday, it was time to hit the road because I think we were all going house crazy.  We headed south on the newly opened freeway to Carson City.  Then we stopped at Mill Park to play for a few minutes. After the slide and swings, Zach got everyone, including me, to play Duck Duck Goose. It was a lot of fun.

 

We  then stopped at Raley's to get some food and continued south through Genoa and then up the Kingsbury Grade (which has incredible views of Gardnerville) to Heavenly and Lake Tahoe.  Finally, I found a little treasure at Taylor Creek.  There was a neat walking trail that was about a mile, if that. It wound around a wetland area. At the back of the trail was a building that was half in the ground. When we went inside, it was an aquarium of sorts, where the glass exposed the pond.  We could see trout swimming around and the kids loved it.

 

Here they are splashing sticks in the little pond.

 

 

As we continued on the trail, a bit of it was a boardwalk where the ground was too marshy.  But Raef spotted a frog, so we stopped to take a look.  We finally started to realize that there were 3 or 4 dozen frogs right there. That was pretty cool.

 

At the end of the trail, we enjoyed this view.  Emerald Bay is in the background.

 

 

We continued on our journey and did stop at the vista point at Emerald Bay for a few minutes.  It is spectacular. If you are ever in this part of the world, it is a must-see stop.  Of course, I didn't take a picture, but trust me. It is incredibly beautiful.

 

With the help of lots of treats and crunchy things, our little surprise expedition was a success.

A Mallo Memory

When I was a little girl, I had the privilege of going on many weekend trips with my dad. He was on a company softball team and I was the official bat girl.  We went all over the great state of North Carolina.  It is funny what can trigger memories like this, but today I was at the dollar store and I saw this treat...

...the Mallo Cup.  Have you ever had one? They are a delicious confection of chocolate, marshmallow and a wee bit of coconut.  Yum-O!  

It brought me right back to a trip I took with my dad. I can see the road and the little store where I bought this very treat. We were on our way back from a tournament in the very western tip of the state. Dad and I decided to take a detour and drive through the Appalachian mountains. At some point, we stopped at a gas station off of a windy road and I got Mallo Cups and an orange soda.  Shortly after we hit the road again, I remember a beautiful green field and a vivid rainbow.  It had been foggy and drizzly, and so the rainbow was a welcome site.

When I eat a Mallo Cup it always brings me back to the Appalachian mountains, rainbows, and my dad. I wonder what my kids will remember about me?

San Francisco? Why Not!

When I was at the park Friday, I just thought that we should go to San Francisco.  I texted Rinar with my proposition. He texted me back and asked why. I replied, "Why not?"

So we went. We stayed in a hotel in Vacaville and the oldest 3 went swimming for a while as I put the little ones to bed.  Eli especially had a blast. He just loved swimming with his Daddy.

Then we were off to San Fran in the morning. Shockingly, it was quite foggy, so we didn't get the good views of the bridge, but we sure did try. There were a lot of Asians at the lookout point. I guess we were quite a spectacle for them because of the blonde hair, especially Julia and Harry in the red wagon. They were taking pictures of them and were touching their hair and stuff.  We really drew a crowd when we took this picture.

The Golden Gate Bridge really is behind us, I promise.


Then we went to get a bite at Mel's Diner. It was pretty good. Rinar got a Monte Cristo, although it was not quite as good as The Gable House monte cristo.

We headed over to Fisherman's Wharf and stayed for about 45 minutes. It was just way too crowded for our little brood.  It is not much fun when you are stressing out about losing little children in a large crowd, on top of the fact that you can't go very fast and you really can't go in any of the cute shops. But it was a beautiful day and the weather was quite nice.

I think we stopped at least 5 times for Eli to go to the bathroom on the way home. This was at the McDonald's in Carson City. He had an epic poopy, so the kids all waited in the car.  Julia had just finished up lollipop #3.

A Trip to Winter Wonderland

After Christmas, we had a whole week to just do stuff. Rinar and I decided to go up to Salt Lake City for a few days. On the way, we stopped at Cove Fort. It was really cold and snowy. The babies had a lot of fun walking around after sitting in the car for a couple of hours. We tried to put a coat on Eli. This put him in an extremely foul mood. He did not want to have anything to do with that coat. You would have thought we were trying to put a strait-jacket on him. Forget the fact that it was 25 degrees outside, with a bit of a wind chill. He just had his dad carry him and be his coat for him.

 

NOOOO!!! Not a coat!  NOOOOO!!!!

Hmmm...guess I will cry too.

Make that three.  A trio is always better than a duet.

It was time to go! 

 Then we headed up to Melanie's house. They have a cute little house and the kids had a ball playing in their backyard, even though it was cold outside. The boys also put on a little concert and the kids danced around. It was a cute moment.

That night I met up with Catye, Jamie, and his soon to be new family. I left Rinar back at the hotel with the babies. They were uber-tired.  It was really cold but the lights were beautiful.

The Buckmaster crew, plus me and my kids.

The next day we went to the children's museum. As we were waiting in line to get, Zach started maling Julia with a barrage of kisses.  I told him to stop and he ignored me so I kicked  him. No, it wasn't hard at all. It was too get his attention. But the funny thing is that there were lots of good Mormon moms standing behind me and I could see that one of them was completely appalled at my disciplining techniques. In actuality, I was appalled that she didn't kick her kids, to be honest. I kept seeing her throughout the museum and the eyeroll that accompanied our encounters. I guess I am lucky I am not in jail, right?

Rinar took the babies to the hotel for a nap and the rest of us hit Trax and went to the Church museum and then me and the boys continued on to the U to see the Natural History Museum.

They enjoyed it but they especially liked the blizzard we had to trudge through to get back to the train and then to the hotel. I really needed a hat! But the boys had a blast.

On our way home we stopped at the mall in Provo. They played on the playground and rode the train.

Our last little foray was the narrows in St. George. Rinar and I couldn't fit through them, but Raef, Zach, and Eli went all the way to the top.



While we were in St. George we also spent an entire day (10 hours) playing games with our friends Kristen and Brian L. They used to be our neighbors in Salt Lake and Rinar went to high school with Brian. It was really fun.

Craziness Hits the Road

Rinar went to Boston last week so I decided to take a little road trip. By. My. Self. Oh yes, with my five little angels. Rinar helped me pack everything up on Sunday night and we hit the road at 10am Monday morning. I headed south to Laughlin, NV and we made a little stop at the Colorado river so that the kids could throw rocks in the river, and I could feed the babies. There was also a free boat ride to the casino on the other side of the river so we gave it a whirl. The kids enjoyed it.

Then I decided to drive through Oatman, Arizona which is a chintzy little tourist trap off of historic route 66. There are wild burros that roam the streets, terrorizing the tourists. Okay, they don't terrorize tourists unless you are the lone parent with little ones to look out for, then they charge right in. As I was unloading the kids, which takes me about 10 minutes to do, the white burro in the picture came up and gave Julia a kiss. I guess he decided she wasn't edible. Thank goodness. I can't say the same thing for Eli's shoe. He took a swipe at the shoe, but luckily I had a good grip on it.


We walked around a bit and took some pictures on this old tractor. Jubilation that we are out of the car!
Here is that nasty burro. I only say that because as we headed down to the end of the street, he thought he could pilfer something out of my pocket and promptly bit me on the hip. Grrrrr! They were going to do a gun fight and I didn't want to get stuck in town, so I hurriedly stuffed the kids in the car and tried frantically to get the three burros that were congregated in front of my trunk door to move. Annoying!! Luckily I was able to depart from Oatman with all kids, body parts, and shoes.


Route 66 is a treacherous, windy, slow road to take. I got stuck behind a guy pulling a trailer. Doesn't that always happen when you are taking a road trip?

But the views were spectacular. Take a look. Don't worry, I held up the camera but my eyes were firmly on the road Grandma. Plus we were going a whopping 15 mph.



As you can hear from my conversation with Zach, he is obsessed with the inner crust of the earth and lava and he really has no concept of how far down it is.

We arrived in Williams, Arizona about 4 pm and got some pizza and then headed to the hotel. I was hoping the kids could go swimming, but the pool was outdoors and closed. That might have to do with the fact that it snowed rather vigorously after we checked in.

Did I mention that I packed clothes for the hot part of Arizona, not the snow part. Zach only had flip-flops, Eli had no socks or pants that were clean, and Julia had adorable summer dresses to wear. I was a little anxious to take the kids to the Grand Canyon due to equipment issues, but I forged ahead.
We made it! No wind but it was 38 degrees outside. This is what we saw. These are all the pictures I took.


Okay, so 10 minutes later we were on the road again. But not before we got a picture in front of the official Grand Canyon sign.

Then it was about 1.5 hours to Flagstaff. It was very pretty. There were wildflowers everywhere I looked on this entire drive.



Do you know what movie that was in the background? I am testing your movie knowledge. I am not going to give it away. Leave a comment with your best guess.

This is when my sanity really went out the window. Okay, so we stopped in Flagstaff and played at a park for about an hour. The kids had a lot of fun and the weather was superb. Then it was on to Phoenix. Heather had class till about 10pm, so I decided to get her key at work and then go to my other sister's house in Maricopa. They say it is a suburb, but whatever. It was in the middle of friggin' nowhere. And my sister's house is on the other side of the city in friggin' nowhere. I limped to the "finish" line. The kids played with their cousins while Christi and her husband Thomas and I went to dinner. I had to go to Joe's Farm Grill, which was featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. It is in Gilbert, which is practically next to Heather's place. Then I had to drive back to get my kids and then drive back to Tempe. I almost rotted in that car.

But dinner was great and it was fun to spend time with Christi and Thomas.

I vowed not to drive at all on Wednesday. So Heather took the day off and we walked to the park near downtown Tempe. It was great except for the fact that they were doing construction on the playground, so it was closed. We walked through downtown Tempe and got some yogurt and diapers. Then Heather stayed with the kids while they ran around the park, while I ran back to get the car.

Eli had fun but I think he was tired. Take a look at this documentation of an Eli temper tantrum. Enjoy!

He went home and slept for about 5 hours without moving. We hung out and the kids went swimming.

Don't worry, I made it back just fine. And except for the fact that Eli figured out how to unbuckle all parts of his car seat the last 100 miles of the trip, it was all fine. But I was never so happy to be home.