Fantastic Geek Moment

Awkward hands. Full hearts. :D Thanks, Emily, for including me in this photo awesomeness! (For those unfamiliar, these folks play Assistant Director Skinner, Scully, and Cigarette Smoking Man in the X-FILES show.)

Meredith Ashton's Garden Party

We were so lucky to be able to go to Meredith's wedding party Friday night! She's such a wonderful woman and we were blessed to be in the same single's ward as her when we lived at Alta. Also, just as we started to walk up the hill to the park, the Tracys pulled up, so it was a double exciting evening because we could spend it with good friends catching up!

Jet Ski at Ririe Reservoir

Our friends the Allens were kind enough to invite us to go jet skiing with them at Ririe Reservoir last Saturday. Turns out we live about an hour away from this giant man-made lake and we had no idea! We met up with them for a lunch and then all took turns on the jet skis. The girls loved playing in the water but weren't too keen to be on the loud machine. :) Oh well, maybe next time!

California - Day Eight

Saturday morning started bright and early because we needed to make sure we got on the road with enough time to get to our hotel in Elko. However, Randi was evil and tempted me with a fresh blueberry patch somewhere "near" their home, so of course we had to load everything up and head over there first. Azucena didn't understand the concept of only picking "the blue or purple ones" and picked everything but those. Adelaide at least understood that what we were doing was tasty and ate a lot. :)

 

 The picking farm we went to even had a cute little playground, tractor, and photo op location for the little ones. As you can tell, Rowan did NOT want to share the tractor. Poor dear.

 

 Clark made sure that the hotel we got had a pool because every single other place was either closed for the season or re-filling or re-cleaning or whatever other excuses there are to have an indoor pool closed. So I enjoyed sticking my feet in the hot tub for twenty minutes while Clark played with the girls in the pool :D Hooray for vacations!

California - Day Seven

Our last Friday in California, we went to Monterey Bay to enjoy the aquarium and Ghirardelli's. We were able to be with Janette, Steve and Kyle for a bit and the Hammari family was able to come down, too. We were so happy to see them! The aquarium had some really fun exhibits, including one called "The Jellies Experience" which was pretty hilarious to be in since they played a lot of psychedelic sixties music. :)

Turns out there's a Ghirardelli location in Monterey and it was worth not getting it while we were in the city. No line, quick service, delicious ice cream. MAN I need to live closer to a location so I can spend $10 on a sundae every week. :D

Oregon Trip - Days Five and Six

 We left Vancouver early in the morning so we could get into Boise at a decent hour. Happily, we were able to visit with the Sebastians and meet their beautiful new baby. We had them over to our hotel to swim with us but it turned out the pool had just been filled which meant it was COLD! So we had the girls bailing water from the hot tub into the pool to keep them entertained while we dangled legs in the hot tub to keep warm. It was really nice to see old friends!

Since we were in a city with a temple, we had to drive by and take the girls to visit. A very kind groundskeeper passed while we were taking some pictures and offered to take some for us and also to give us an unofficial tour. Turns out that when they finished remodeling the Boise temple, they missed one window. :) Also, the Bosie temple and I were "born" the same year!

 We also took the girls to the Boise zoo. They had some animals we don't have in Salt Lake (like lions and wallabies!) and it turns out since we have a year membership to the Salt Lake zoo, it was only $1 for our whole family to get inside!

 Our favorite exhibit in the entire zoo was for the ground hogs. They had a little place you could crawl and pop up into these observation bubbles and you'd be right in the middle of where the ground hogs were digging and running around. So cute and fun!

While leaving town,we passed a place called "Big Jud's" and even though the name is spelled wrong, we went in to try it out. Turns out Food Network named their burger the best in Idaho and the Man vs. Food guy had been their to test out their 2 lb burger challenge. We settled on the 1 lb burger and it was still about half of the size of Adelaide. It was also DELICIOUS.

Oregon Trip - Day Two

Saturday was mostly devoted to the wedding that we had traveled so far to see. The day was beautiful and the girls were so wonderful. They watched some Bible videos and we sang Primary songs in the atrium while we waited for the ceremony to be completed. When everyone but the couple came out, we headed outside to wait for them to "make their entrance" but it took a while, which resulted in an impromptu photo session. Also, Clark acting like Superman. :)

 The girls actually got tired running around for an hour so while they didn't sleep, they were also fairly subdued by the time we left.

 Lunch was at Burgerville because "Azucena wanna eat the french fries?" While trying to get a shot of her eating her food, she did this for me:

 

Afterward, we headed down to Lebanon to crash at Tyler and Jessica's place. I think our girls may have scared Jessica a little. ;)

Utah Trip!

 At the beginning of the month, we got a tax appointment in Provo which meant we had to make a weekend of it and do everything we could! We were able to have lunch with Casey, Kristen, and Neil. It was GREAT to see them, catch up, and swap funny stories!

 We also swung by the Carters to visit and see how much Catherine has grown. Wow! I'm always surprised at how much children can change in so little time. Plus, I love that she and Adelaide are psuedo-twins. :D

Last but not least, we went back to the zoo. Azucena was SO HAPPY to learn we were going to the zoo to see the animals. We were a little sad to find out that the baby giraffe had been sent to the Boston zoo. It's all right, though, but I'm going to miss him!

Saturday is a Special Day

Saturday was kind of a crazy day! Because we were planning on being in Provo for a couple of things, it meant that we ended up doing a TON of stuff because we don't live there anymore.

We had planned to participate in the Easter Egg Hunt that BYU/Provo city were planning but, honestly, there were about 12,000 people there and by the time we got down to Provo, Azucena had fallen asleep and we didn't want to fight the crowds, so we just went into the stadium early for the spring football game.

 

It also turned out that Brady had a meet at UVU that afternoon, so we headed up there to cheer on Azucena's favorite uncle. He was part of the spring medley team and they were hoping to qualify for state. They needed to race in under 3:39. I'll let you figure out whether or not they qualified . . . :D

As always, we took a little time to visit our ex-neighbors, the Carters, and their sweet little girl who is only four days, ten minutes younger than our Adelaide. I can't believe how much these two have grown!

You can just tell that they're holding hands. How adorable!

Little Catherine Norah

{Not pictured} We then headed to Emily and Michelle's house to enjoy the last Twilight film with RiffTrax. It feels good to 1) never have to watch those horrible movies again and 2) laugh ridiculous amounts with good friends. I'm so grateful for each one of them!