Mormon Bugs!

We planted a garden! I've been meaning to post about this for awhile...but better late than never! We started digging up a space in our front yard back in Jan. There was a landscaped area that got perfect sun, so we took out a palm tree, various shrubs and lots of grass! Needless to say this took 10 times as long as we expected!
After digging by hand for countless hours and days, we rented a rototiller to finish the job! I them had to removed a bunch of dirt and then we were ready to plant. Max loves to help water and watch the plants grow.



Here is the final product. We have corn, onions, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, artichokes, snap peas, green beans, basil and garlic. After the first couple weeks I noticed some slugs were eating my artichoke plants. We have established an organic garden so i didn't want to use any chemicals to get rid of them. After reading many ideas, it seemed that beer was the number one solution. (supposedly if you fill a shallow dish with beer the slugs will go in and basically drown) I don't drink and have never bought alcohol, but I found someone with a beer and filled a shallow dish and waited for my slugs and snails to drown themselves in a drunken stupor. They didn't go for it! I tried a few other things and then I was reading about how coffee grounds are good for the garden for a variety of uses. No problem there, I asked my family the next time they come over if they could just bring their used coffee grounds. I was mixing in for some compost and putting it over my new seedlings, and also put them around my artichoke plants. Well, apparently my slugs believe in the Word of Wisdom, because they have not gone near my plant with the coffee on them! So no alcohol and no coffee...Mormon Bugs indeed!
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Club 33

It has been a dream of Brian's to be able to go to the elusive Club 33. For those who don't know, this is a 5 star restaurant right next to the Blue Bayou. You have to be a member to even go inside, and there is a 10 year waiting list, and it cost thousands of dollars to join. So...obviously we were not going to become member, but it also makes it so that not many people are able to go, which just adds to the hype and wanting to be able to get in.When you have reservations to Club 33 it comes with a park hopper ticket so we planned to spend the day at the park. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience. In the pic above is our group. We had dinner with four complete strangers and it was incredible! It was so fun to meet different people and enjoy this experience together!
Everything within the Club is marked with 33 "logo" The menu was beyond delicious and we all gorged ourselves on a five course meal.
The other thing about Club 33 is that is has a dress code. Obviously we did not want to be walking around Disneyland all day in our dress clothes so we has to change just before dinner. This was obviously a kid free day for us, and we actually got a picture of us alone in front of the castle ;)
Mickey Mouse!
All in all it was a great day. We had fun going on all the "big Kid" rides and seeing a side of Disney that not everyone experiences. We can't wait until our passes are not blacked out for the Summer and we can go back with Max and Amy. Until then....
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New Car!

We no longer own a mini van... we now own a Mini! We wanted to get out of our lease on the mini van, and we had the opportunity to not only walk away from the lease without loosing, and jump into a fun "practical" car. The only reason we almost didn't buy it, was because it just seemed too fun! However, after some thoughtful thinking, and praying, we could not find any impractical reason not too buy it. It is a six speed manual S series, 37 mpg, both car seats fit and we can not have too much junk in it! It has been a fun addition to our family!


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Palm Springs

We had our annual Palm Springs trip In the beginning of June. Of course, I didn't bring the battery charger for our camera so here are the few pictures we got :) We spent each day at the pool and enjoyed temps in the low 90's and mid 80's.
Here is Amy after going down the "turtle slide" at the condos where we stayed.
Max is not a water baby by birth, but he is slowly finding what makes him comfortable, as you can see.

Every year we go, we always go to the street fair at night. We had a great time with our family and Max and Amy loved hanging out with their cousins, uncles and aunt. Next year we will take more pictures :)
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Spring Break

For Spring Break this year I decided to be go on an adventure and take the kids on a road trip.

We stayed in Sacramento for 4 days, and Grandpa Jim was finally able to meet Amy. Here is a picture of Amy with the baby goats that live next door to Grandpa Jim. They also had baby rabbits and chickens, so my kids basically had their own personal petting zoo which they loved!
While up north we decided to take a trip into the city and see some of our cousins and Uncle Jeremy. Max loves the Golden Gate bridge ever since he saw it at Disneyland (Soarin' over California) and thought that it was so cool that Uncle Jeremy took us on a walk on the bridge.
Amy finally being nice to Uncle Jeremy and not crying!
After 4 days in Sacramento we then headed over the mountain to stay with my Aunt Sue! On the drive over Max loved all the snow, so we took a little snow day with uncle John, Aunt Tawny and Ethan. Amy wasn't so thrilled, but Max had fun on the sled.
My cousin Ethan (15) also suggested that he could take Max snowboarding. Since he is only three we just had to rent the equipment and Max was able to snowboard Heavenly for free! I thought Max was only going to last a half hour, but a little over 2 hours later,and a long trip up the big chair lift and snowboarding down, it was time for us to get going :) He can't wait for more snow next year! Here is a little video of Max on the hill!


So I was gone for 6 days...7 hour drive up...10 hour drive home, and two worn out kids turned out to be a nice trip! Poor Amy actually got sick the last day and when I took her in on Monday I found out she had a double ear infection and sinus infection! they were both so great on our trip without Brian that i might just do another one this summer ;)
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Amy Turned 1 !

I can't believe that Amy is 1 already! Where did the time go? We had a great 1st birthday with lots of family and friends. Thank you to everyone who was able to share this special day with us.
Amy finally get's her first taste of chocolate!

My little princess. She was loving all the attention towards her!
Our family! We look forward to the many more adventures that life has in store for us!
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New House

Well if I have any readers left out there, I am really updating my blog! So we finally closed escrow on our house just before Thanksgiving. Brian and I went in and scraped the ceilings (they were that awful popcorn), tore out the nasty carpet and started tearing apart our kitchen...see pic below! The my Uncle John came down the week of Thanksgiving and started the remodel...we changed the kitchen around, replaced a sliding glass door with a window, and we had to mud ALL the walls and re-textured them! Then came the pretty stuff... baseboard, hardwood floors, new paint and carpet in the bedrooms. We officially stated living here the second week of December... just in time for Christmas! We have been enjoying our new house... our neighborhood is great and we are getting used to living in suburbia :) In other news...
Max:
*He is finally tall enough for the "big" rides at Disneyland and went on Space Mnt! What a STUD!
*He continues to do great at Preschool and LOVES to read
* He got a big boy bike (with training wheels) and enjoys going on bike rides to the park
Amy:
*This girl can eat! The other night she ate as much meatloaf and mashed potato's as Brian
*She just took her first steps on March 1st and will be running soon no doubt
*Amy is our water baby and LOVES splashing and playing in the tub and pool
Brian:
*He continues to commute to Westlake Village for work and seems to be enjoying his job
*We got Rock Band before Christmas and Brian is a Rock God :)
*He started a new "date night" in our family where we each switch taking one kid out for some special activity so that we both get some one on one time with our children...Max loves to go bowling and Amy loves to go swimming.
Alyssa:
*Having fun trying to dig up a new garden in our house (should be ready to plant next week)
*Trying to keep up on some good books and finally feels adjusted to the new home and the life with two kids.
* Got into Law School and will be staring in Aug!
That's all of us in a nut shell. I will try and keep better updated :)

This is our kitchen in the middle of construction...we removed a wall and added a pony wall for the island. Here is the after photo of our living room and kitchen Scrapping ceilings...FUN! :) Here is the before pic of the kitchen...we took out the wall on the left and added an island, we also moved the doorway to the laundry room/bathroomMax' new roomHere is a front view of our home.

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