California

We have been in California for almost four weeks now. Caleb has been down in LA at Southern California University doing an ER rotation. While Joshua and I have been staying up in Santa Barbara with my family. Luckily, we have been able to see eachother about once a week despite the 2.5 hour drive. Caleb has been very busy with his rotation, and has lots of interesting experiences working in LA county Hospital's ER. He says there is a 12 - 16 hour wait for most of the walk in patients. It is pretty active. Joshua and I have been just hanging out with my family. We have been going swimming or to the beach about 3-4 times a week, and lots of other things. I have been trying to keep things as normal as possible for Joshua. He loves being with his cousins, and always has something to do.

We have been going to the Beach every Monday with my sister and her kids and my sister-in-law and her kids. Joshua loves to just dig and dig in the sand, and unfortunately jump on his older cousins sand castles. I have had to try to teach him that he can't do that...he is still learning.

The boys love to make trains and when the older boys get involves the tracks become pretty elabrate. Joshua loves it.

My sister has a pass to the Santa Barabara zoo so one day we took a picnic there. The little boys of course loved the zoo train, which we couldn't afford so they had to settle for sitting on the little coin train. They both just watched and pointed at the real one go by.

Here is Elizabeth's boys and Joshua, he loves hanging out with these boys and we have been with them basically everyday.

The other day Joshua and I drove down to see daddy and go to the LA temple. I love the LA Temple. It was the Temple that we were married in, but besides that it is by far my favorite temple I have ever been to. It is so neat to drive down the busy 405 and get off and see the Temple so boldly placed on the highest hill above everything around. Then you drive on the peaceful grounds. There is such a sharp contrast between were you have been that it instantly reminds you of what a sacred special place the temple is. On the temple grounds is the huge beautiful tree that I remember as a kid. I had to stick Joshua in and get a picture.

After the Temple we went down to Santa Monica beach and pier. Caleb was amazed I had never been there. Growing up a few miles from quite beautiful beaches in Santa Barbara always made LA not seem very desirous. Growing up we avoided LA at all costs. Anyway, we had fun time. We walked along the bikeway and...

Caleb took Joshua on the giant swings.

We walked out on the pier and went on the merry go round, and looked around Pacific Park.
Joshua's favorite was to watch the roller coaster which he called a choo-choo train.

We walked all around the pier and chased pigeons. Joshua thought they were hilarious.

We had a really great day together. The best part was being able to be together on our own. One day of being our normal little nuclear family. It has been about 6 weeks and it was extremely refreshing and very needed. Caleb's last day in LA is tommorow. We have one week on a real vacation before we go home. I am so excited to just be together and have no more driving or going to LA.

Utah

After Washington Joshua and I flew to Utah and met Caleb. We spent two weeks there with his family. We had a lot of fun with everyone. Joshua loved seeing his grandma, grandpa and uncles. We swam a lot, hiked, tried out Frisbee golf, went bowling, walked around Thanksgiving Point, and just had a good time together.

Joshua loved bowling, and actually got a better score than Caleb or I!


Grandma took us to Thanksgiving Point gardens and showed us all the pretty flowers. Joshua had fun at the children s' gardens. Although, he was a little nervous about the Noah's Ark spraying water at him.

One of the days we hiked up to sliding rock in Alpine. Joshua had so much fun in the water.


He sat with Grandpa on a rock for about twenty minutes. He threw big rocks into the creek. Every time he would throw one in he would laugh about the big splash.


He loved their trampoline. Every chance he could get he would want to "bouncey, bounce". It was really warm and dry; which made for perfect static!

Bainbridge Island

Joshua and I have been in Washington since his Birthday. We have been having a great time with Grandma and Grandpa and the cousins.

The first two days were quite. We were here by ourselves with Grandma and Grandpa. Joshua had all the toys to himself and loved having all the attention.

Then some of the cousins started showing up and he got really excited to have kids to play with. He wants to be with them all the time. First my brother Travis and his kids came for a day and then my sister and her kids came for two weeks.

Except for a few days we have had typical NW weather. On one of the sunny days we took advantage and filled up the little pool. Joshua and Elijah were like two peas in a pod running and jumping in the cold water, while Ezra and Isaac watched.

Perched on the front porch taking a break from the bike riding in the driveway.

They wanted to have another little birthday party for Joshua. He definitely did not complain. He and Ezra both were singing happy birthday all day.

We got to feed grizzly bears and buffalo. Although, the neatest thing we saw was a baby elk be born. The elk just happened to go into labor while we were driving by. It was a pretty amazing thing to see.

Ezra and Joshua are best buddies. They play together really well most of the time. They are both at the "mine" age so they will get in little funny arguments, but for the most part have lots of fun together. Everyone thinks that Joshua is just one of Elizabeth's boys because they all look so much alike. Joshua loves them so much and is constantly wanting to be right with them all the time, and when they are not around just keeps asking where did the boys go.


Today we went to Seattle and the Woodland park zoo. The zoo is huge, we were there for three hours and we went fast. Joshua's favorites were the gorillas, elephants, penguins, and orangutans.


The exhibits let you get really close to the animals, they would come right up to the glass. This orangutan was playing with the boys through the glass.

The four boys together.

So far we have had a really fun trip. Mostly we have just been going on walks, hanging out and going out to lunch. It has been really fun and relaxing, but we really, really miss daddy and wish he were here with us.

Our Little Girl!!!

She is healthy and perfect. She is growing right on schedule. We are really surprised and excited. I think we were both in shock when we saw. We have to move from race car mode into to girl mode now. :) Since it is the question everyone will be asking us...we have no names, just a list and we will not decide until we see her. I can't decide for sure until I see her and feel her little spirit and personality.

Birthday Time

Joshua is two on June 10th, but we celebrated it yesterday. Joshua and I are flying out west on his birthday to take advantage of the one last free ticket :) and Caleb is on a busy surgery rotation. He gets home at seven at the earliest, so we decided to just celebrate on his one day off. The other day I took Joshua to Walmart and let him pick out which ever Happy Birthday plates he wanted. Of course he went right for the race car plates. He carried them and his race car balloon around all through the store. All day Saturday he was so excited about using them and we kept telling him he had to wait. Sunday night we set everything up for a Birthday blueberry pancake breakfast. He was so excited.

After church we had dinner with all the race car decor of course. Joshua kept trying to feed avocados to his lightning McQueen car. After dinner he opened presents. We got him a little tool kit and a trike. He loves to help daddy work on projects and is always stealing his tools. He loved the "working guy hat" and kept wanting daddy to wear it.



Unfortunately is was pouring rain so we couldn't go outside and test out his bike. He was pretty excited about it anyway.

After presents we had cake and ice cream. We made a lightening McQueen and Tow Mater cake. His favorite part was singing Happy Birthday and blowing out the candles. Since he was so excited and asking to do it again, we sang and did candles twice.

He got the candles out both times.

He was so excited about driving his cars on his cake that he hardly ate any cake. You can see how he moved all the cars around. He kind of squished the cake but had a lot of fun.

Imitation

I walked in to the office/toy room and found Joshua in my chair. He was taking it so seriously that we had to take a quick picture. I'm not sure if he was reading his book or looking at the blog. Maybe multitasking?

A proud moment

We were at the store the other day, and Joshua stopped and got all excited at the Lego aisle. He pointed to the Star Wars ones, saying "airplane," and then moved on to the Lego city sets ("bus", "tractor" and his version of helicopter). I couldn't have been more proud.

Despite his obvious enthusiasm, Kathryn still wouldn't let us get him any. Too young or something... :(

Caleb's Birthday

On the 18th was Caleb's Birthday. I made him a special breakfast and dinner and his two favorite desserts, fruit pizza and banana cream pie. Joshua was way more excited about the candles and singing happy birthday than anyone else. Caleb got fun BBQ tools, and has been grilling a lot lately. He loves to grill.

Tractors?

While Kathryn was taking her turn at a stake conference session, Joshua and I decided to take some guy time and run (literally...with the jogger...in the rain) to the hardware store. Of course he saw the rows of ride-on mowers and got really excited. He ran over to one, climbed up and said "mine tractor." He then pointed at the next one over and said "da da tractor" and motioned for me to sit down. For the next fifteen minutes, everyone walking by was laughing at seeing him there so thrilled to be sitting on a tractor inside of Lowe's.

Burlington Kids Day

Back in May they had the Burlington Kid's Day. They had a parade with a marching band, fire truck and ambulance which Joshua was very excited about.

The highlight of the day was the choo-choo train ride. He was so excited about getting on the big train and now we can't go downtown without him asking to go on the choo-choo train.

Hershey Trip

The first weekend in May Caleb had to present a poster at a conference in Hershey Pennsylvania. We decided to make a little family trip of it.

It was a fun trip. Hershey is a cute town and everything is related to Hershey's Chocolate. The street lamps are kisses, and all the street names are chocolate names. The main attraction is Hershey park, which is a huge amusement park. We did not go because Joshua and I both couldn't go on any of the rides. Instead we took the chocolate factory tour, and went to the zoo, botanical gardens, and museum.

The factory tour is a free ride, with singing cows and lots of chocolate. Joshua liked it so much that we went on it twice.

The Botanical gardens were really pretty. Joshua loved the children's garden. There was all sorts of fun activities for him to do.

Joshua and I went to the zoo by ourselves while Caleb was at his conference. It was a little zoo. Joshua liked pushing his stroller all by himself.

On our way out of town we went to Gettysburg. They have an amazing new museum and visitors center. It was pouring rain but was really great to see. On the way home we stayed at one of my mission companions houses. It was great to see her and her family, and get a needed break from the long drive. We also stocked up at Trader Joe's, my favorite grocery store. Overall it was a great little trip.