Max Turns 4...almost

On Sat we had Max' 4th Birthday party. We had such a fun time with family and friends. One of the big milestones was that we told Max he could ride a skateboard when he turns 4. He loves his new skateboard and is excited to learn how to ride it. Of course my camera was almost out of batteries and it was crazy busy so I didn't get many pictures. The one thing Max asked for was a spider pinata. Not a spiderman, but a spider. I called every shop and went to many Halloween stores and no spider pinatas. So we had to make one! Considering that I haven't done paper mache since 4th grade I thought it came out pretty good. I couldn't find duct tape to make it a little stronger so i used dry wall tape...needless to say, the kids couldn't break it, but everyone got a turn :) Max' actual birthday is Tues so we are surprising him with a family trip to Disneyland! I will be sure to take pictures then!!Here is Max helping make his cake...he loves to help in the kitchen, and is really not too bad at it.

Max liked his Phineas and Ferb cake...not quite what I had in mind, but not to bad either...it tasted yummy :)
Max and his many girl friends on the water slide! Enough said :)
The cake
The pinata. Max helped cover it in black and make his eyes and fangs. He was so excited when he got to stuff it full of candy and help make it.
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Summer

So here is a quick photo blog of our Summer. We had a lot of fun! Max started Preschool last week which is great for the whole family :) He really does love school!
I am in my third week of Law School, and well....it is busy! Amy is getting so big, babbling, running, tackling and really showing her feisty personality.
Brian started a new job with a start up company here in ventura. We are excited about the opportunity it could give us, and he has been very busy as a one man programmer on a new website!
(We will be shamelessly soliciting the website in future posts ;) And that is our update...in case we have any readers left out there! Beware...many photos to follow...


This is my first attempt at submitting a cake to the fair...it won 3rd! :)


And this is Amy "helping" make the cake...she some how got a gold of the black icing...thankfully I found her before she caused too much damage!


We got to go the fair with our cousins, and even Grandma Jeannie and Uncle Chris joined us one day


Amy got her first stitches this Summer! Just two above the eye after falling at the playground.


We Went camping in Refugio and celebrated our cousin Adam's 4th birthday...we were outnumbered by the kids while we were camping! Lot's of fun!


Brian and I took a moment to go on a kayak ride while camping.


This Summer we went to Newport for three day with all the cousins on Brian's side. We were all there to be able to do temple work for Brian's Grandpa Max who passed away last year. It was just an amazing experience to have everyone together. The picture above is me "babysitting" while most of the adults were at the temple, but they were pretty self contained :)


Photo Moment at the Newport Temple.


Our Cousin Mike got married in July! Here we are enjoying the beautiful wedding!


We went to the X Games again this year. Such a fun tradition!


This is a giant helium balloon in Irvine. Max was so excited...me not so much by the heights, but a good experience.


Although we live in Ventura, we really don't go to the beach much...so here is proof that every now and then we brave the sand!


Here is the very happy bride and groom. Congrats again to Mike and Annie!


At the beach.


Here is Max, Amy with our friends Hannah and Graham. A very fun Summer!
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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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