California vacation

We just got back from a week in 100+ weather in Palm Desert, California. We went with my side of the family. We had a fun time as long as we were in a pool or inside with the ac on!!

The view from our patio.

These weren't put on in correct order so to speak, but here's a look at what we did.

We checked out the pool at a neighboring Marriott one day since we heard they had a more "kid friendly" pool. It was really fun! They had a splash pad area, a water slide and of course a huge pool (and hot tubs, but who is interested in that in 100 degree weather?).

Molly and daddy getting each other wet with the gun

Grandma and Ali

Ali was getting some beauty rest while we played

The water slide was a big hit!

We made the drive to Disneyland on Wednesday just for one day. The night before we had a little "un-birthday" party for my niece and Ryan and Becky bought all of the kids a present for their birthdays this year since they live away.

So perfect...they bought all the kids Disney pjs!! The kids loved them and put them right on and wore them to bed the night before the big day! Molly got a sleeping beauty nightgown. She is obsessed with her pink nightgown so it's nice to have another one so we don't have to wash hers every day! I am not kidding. She wants to wear it ALL the time!! She would wear it all day every day if we let her.

Ali checking hers out. These are Aristocat jammies. So cute!

All of the kiddos in their jammies.

Ali making a squealing noise she likes to make.

Disneyland
Emily, what's with the creepy look?!! Just teasing. This is the first ride of the day we went on...the Jungle Cruise. Our guide was HILARIOUS!! She was so funny. She had the driest humor and everyone was laughing; well at least the adults were who understood!

We were lucky and saw lots of characters! Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, Princess Tiana, Princess Aurora, Pinocchio, Jepetto, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, and Mickey.

Fantasy land was really crowded. The rest of the park wasn't too bad really. It was overcast the day we were there and around 70 degrees...perfect! And so refreshing for us after being in 100 plus degrees! Molly really wanted to ride "the pink elephant" and we luckily got one :)

We went to story time at the Princess Pavilion and lucky us, it was Princess Aurora! Molly was very into her after getting her nightgown the previous night!

We got to sit on the ground and were right by her! The kids had a fun time listening to her story. And she even danced with the prince!

Our little princess.

Molly wasn't interested in being in the picture with us obviously, but here is the great castle!

Molly got in a nap on grandpa's shoulder for a bit as we went to California Adventure.

We waited in line for the toy story ride. I had never been. It's a shooting game with targets and stuff. It was actually pretty fun!

The kids went on the carousel a bunch of times and Molly always had to ride the pink dolphin.

And then there was the sucker. I bought this for Molly after lunch to try to keep the happiness going! She loved it.
And so did her cousins!!! Major and Molly may have shared their first kisses :) ha ha! It was so funny watching them!

Justin of course got in some golf

This is PGA West. He went by himself to this course and played in the heat.

Look how good, he even did some self portraits using the timer!

The boys also golfed another day at the course at our hotel and enjoyed that. But it was the morning after Disneyland and I think they were pretty tired! Their tee time was 6:30 am and we all got back around midnight the night before!

Children's Museum

We went to the COOLEST kid's museum that was really close to us. All of the kids had a really great time. It allowed younger and older kids to participate and everything was hands on.

Molly and Lexie playing with the magnet/tin wall.

Molly acting as an archaeologist

The kids could paint this VW bug! They really liked this one!

Molly and Lexie were really enjoying themselves here.

Then there was grandma's attic with all kinds of dress ups!

Molly and Lexie posing for us. Molly loved this hat she was wearing. Lexie couldn't get enough of all the fun dress ups!

There was also a grocery store packed with all kinds of different food, carts, and a check out counter.

And at the end you could make and bake your own pizza! They had a little oven and a cash register. I think we were there 2 hours but you could have stayed all day long!

Thanks to my parents and family for all of the fun!! We had a blast.

Good, bad and hot!

We left for St. George on Friday after Justin finished his take home final. Yeah! He is done with his con law class. On the drive down, we noticed a blinking light that said to turn our over drive off. We tried to do that but nothing happened and it kept on blinking. We looked in our owner's manual and it said if you see that to have it serviced immediately. Not good!

To make a long story short, Saturday morning we found out that our transmission is going. Just what we need! We decided to rent a car for California and we are going to try to drive our car back to SLC where there are more options/opinions, etc. What a way to start a vacation, right? We are thinking we will either have to rebuild the transmission or buy a used transmission. At that point we could either keep it until it dies for good or sell it. We aren't totally sure at this point what we'll do but we feel lucky that we didn't get stranded and that for turning out so poorly, it didn't set us back too far and we aren't missing our vacation!

The drive to California was, well, long! Justin said several times, "We are never doing this again!" Between a blowout, helping Alison every five minutes (it seemed) and both of them crying at different times, we would prefer to fly if we do this again!! Who wouldn't, right?!

However, the resort here is beautiful. We are in Palm Desert and boy is it HOT! I think it was supposed to be 113 today. Ridiculous. Needless to say, we have been inside all day and can't wait for tomorrow when we will head straight to the pool!! More to come.

Wyoming Weekend

I'm a bit late posting this, but still wanted to post some pictures from our time in Wyoming last weekend.

The first thing Molly says when she gets to grandma and grandpa's house is "I want to take a bath!" She loves their jetted tub!! It's pretty nice, so I don't blame her a bit. But we usually have to convince her to wait until after dinner.

She got a hold of the bubbles this time and so she had lots and lots of them! She was loving it.

I was playing around with my lens and took some pictures outside the house. It is so pretty there right now!

Saturday the girls and kids went to Jackson Hole while the boys went golfing. We decided we needed a picture with our name sake :)

Here's a few pictures by the antler arch.

Molly with her cousin Laney. The suckers were a big hit! And my girls were quite good while we waited for the boys to finish up, which took longer than we had expected (of course!). We had a fun time!

We have had several days to re-group and are headed to California tomorrow! We're excited!

Ahhhh sleep!

Hooray for sleep! I feel safe in saying (I would never want to jinx myself) that Alison is sleeping through the night! She will be 6 months old in two days (wow!) and she usually goes down to bed at 8 or 8:30 pm and she will sleep until 7 am! Not too bad. It is definitely doable, especially since I'm one of those people who needs their sleep! This isn't to say that I don't sometimes hear her for a few minutes randomly in the night, but she falls back asleep quickly...and so do I!

Happy 4th!

We had a fun weekend! Hope you did too!

I was in charge of Sunday dinner. Here's what was on the menu: grilled lemon pepper chicken, corn on the cob, raspberry yummy salad, rolls, watermelon and some brazilian lemonade (from ourbestbites.com) to drink! I think everyone liked it. My mom is out of town and quite the cook, so I took it upon myself to try to get close to her standard.

I also made some festive cupcakes for dessert. I saw these cupcakes on someone's blog (sorry, can't remember which and I'm too lazy to look it up). Anyway I thought they were really cute!

I used a white cake mix and colored the batter in red white and blue but I didn't take a picture after cutting into it! Oops! And I used a chocolate star mold for the stars on top. They were pretty and yummy!

Last night we were lucky enough to see Stadium of Fire!! I have been once with my family, like 8 years ago probably.

This is a nasty picture of me, but whatever. I am documenting!

Justin's brother Brad came down and we set him up with our neighbor Lisa.

The stadium of fire dancers.

Also performing was Jenny Oaks Baker on violin, the 5 Browns (pianists) and the Osmonds 2nd Generation. Everyone did a really great job. The boy scouts also had an eagle court of honor. They were celebrating 100 years of the boy scouts. They had all the eagle scouts in the audience stand up as part of it. They also had 4 jets fly over...very cool!!

And how can I forget the last performer? Carrie Underwood!! She was great! She probably sang about 12 songs. I thought she would only sing a few, but she kept on going! She sounded great and everyone had a good time.

And then there were the firworks.

These ones below are probably my favorite. I love them!

Thanks to my dad for watching Molly and Emily and Zack for watching Alison! We are so grateful you helped us out so we could go!

Earlier in the day I got out the slip n slide for Molly. Of course it wasn't as warm as the days before, but still warm enough. We had to get her used to the idea, but then she had a great time.

Grandpa helped her with the sliding.

And Alison just hung out like usual :) I think yesterday she found her voice. She has been making the craziest noises all of a sudden! It is so funny!!

We are so grateful to live in America and for those who have given so much for the freedoms we enjoy today. Happy 4th of July!