Summer Vacation - Part II

Two weeks after getting home from Phoenix we geared up for our second vacation of the summer. I guess it was more of a staycation for us. Craig's parents came out as well as his brother and his little family from the state of Washington. (Talk about a coast to coast flight!) Craig's sister lives in South Jersey where her husband is working as a Resident Doctor so they were already here for the vacation!

We went to Six Flags one day, which is only about 30 minutes from our house. We had a blast! We got a Fast Pass that allows you to get on all the rides faster without waiting in line, so everyone pretty much got to ride all of the coasters they wanted to. We went on a Thursday and the park was fairly empty. The kids walked on all of their rides too. It rained a little bit in the afternoon, but other than that it was a beautiful day to be outside! And no one threw up on any of the coasters - that was a plus! We all ate a little too much popcorn and cotton candy, but isn't that what you're supposed to do at a theme park? :)

Grandpa Marc and Clark on the Swings

Mallory and Audrey on the Airplanes

Chase, Kori, Mallory, Audrey
Background is Grandpa Marc with Clark and Grandma Treesa with Declan

All of the "sisters" in the family - Sandra, Crystal, and I - each had baby boys within a 9 month time span. They all fell asleep in their strollers at the same time! We thought it was cute!

Craig with Baby Tristan

Declan, Scott, and Clark on the Merry-Go-Round. The boys rode this forever! They didn't want to get off!

Marvin the Martian (the BEST WB character out there!), Clark, and me

Grandma Treesa with Declan

Chase soaking wet from the Log Ride


We went to Point Pleasant Beach another day. I would have to say our beach day was my favorite day. The kids had a great time jumping the waves and running up and down the beach (sometimes to far - Clark and Audrey), building sandcastles, chasing birds, etc. The water was pretty rough that day so we REALLY had to watch the kids. At times the kids were a little too confident about being in the water and a wave would knock them down and throw them back up onto shore. Audrey, our niece, got carried out by a wave and scared the lifeguard right out of his stand! She didn't get too far, her mom or dad (I forget which one) was able to grab her. But it was a little scary because of how rough the water was, it put us all on alert. It's hard to watch 7 young children on the beach even with 6 adults! Other than that incident it was a very enjoyable day. My sister-in-law Crystal came prepared with EVERYTHING! The only thing I really brought was beach towels to dry off with. When we got there Crystal pulled out a beach umbrella, chairs, an ice chest, a huge bag packed with snacks, and beach toys. We were giving her a hard time because she only has one child and it seemed like she had brought half of her house to the beach! But then we realized how smart she was when we wanted some shade - we used her umbrella, she made homeade bran muffins, our kids ate her crackers because we didn't think to bring any! And her toys entertained our kids! She was our lifesaver that day. (We learned from her and now own all of our own beach gear!) We love the beach! It was a lot of fun! We ate dinner on the boardwalk and fell into bed exhausted that night!

Grandpa Marc showing Clark the ropes! It was his first time jumping the waves!

Sweet Mallory Girl

Kori & Grandma Treesa working on the sandcastle

Kori, Audrey, and Chase crabwalking

Clark chasing the birds (this was a big hit!)

Kori, Audrey, and Mallory (all of the granddaughters)


We also visited the Camden Aquarium. Just a few pics. Most of the pictures on my camera turned out fuzzy that day for some reason.

Touch-A-Shark exhibit




We drove up to Philadelphia for the day to take some family pictures. They turned out good. It was hard to get 15 people all looking the same direction! And of course getting the kids to all smile. It was hard to get them to sit still! But I think there were quite a few cute ones! Here they are:

Kori, Audrey, Scott (Craig's brother), Sandra, and Declan


Clark, Me, Chase, Mallory, Craig


Crystal (Craig's sister), Ben, Tristan


Everyone!


Everyone - another pose


Grandpa Marc and Grandma Treesa with all the grandkids! Notice Mallory's smile and Grandpa Marc's smile. We call it the "chump" smile. Tight lipped, no teeth. Craig does it ALL the time. This smile - apparently - is hereditary and is being passed on from generation to generation. :-|


We spent an afternoon in Central Park in Manhattan playing frisbee and letting the kids play in the grass.

Declan, Kori, Audrey

Mallory trying to give Clark a dinosaur ride!

Chase and Me

Tristan climbing on Ben

Craig throwing the frisbee with Clark and Declan on his heels!

Scott and Chase playing frisbee


Those were the highlights of the trip. It had also been years since we had all been together. It's hard when the family lives all over the country! We had a great time with everyone!

Summer Vacation - Part I

In May we flew back to AZ for 2 weeks to visit family. The main reason for our visit was that my brother Tanner was coming home from his mission in Thailand. We started our vacation out by staying with Craig's parents for a few days. We really enjoyed their pool! It was already starting to hit 100 degrees when we got there. We left high 60-low 70 degree temperatures and came to high 90-low 100. So the pool felt REALLY nice. (Our bodies have already adjusted to living in a colder climate, we were dying there!) Craig's parents were also nice enough to take us out to a few of our favorite AZ restaurants, including Weinerschnitzel and Rubio's. They don't have a lot of our favorites back east :( We visited Craig's old work and rented some movies - that no one could seem to stay awake during. Paul Blart Mall Cop - yeah, big thumbs down. We rented some other's too, but with the time change it was difficult to keep our eyes open! 8pm felt like 11pm for us. Or maybe the movies were just that bad because Craig's parents couldn't stay awake either! Oh well, it was fun to watch everyone doze in and out of sleep on the couch :) I think Craig's the only one that made it through an entire movie without falling asleep. We also hit the dollar toy section in Wal-Mart to get the kids a little something to play with one afternoon. And of course Grandpa Marc made a great wrestling buddy!


My brother Tanner came home on a Friday night. His homecoming was a big deal for our family. It had been nearly 4 years since we had all been together. My brother Cameron who had served his mission in Hong Kong had been out for 23 months when Tanner left for Thailand for 24 months. Making it 3 years and 11 months since we had all been together! So it was a special homecoming for all of us!
All of my brothers. You can see how excited Cameron (in the green) is to see Tanner. Awwww....
Tanner had to catch a few different planes to make it home from Thailand. The last leg of his flight went from LA to Phoenix. My parents surprised him and met him in LA so that he would have someone to fly home with. He walked right past them in the LA airport! And then he stopped and was like, "Wait, I think that was my dad???" I would have loved to have seen his face! You could tell that Tanner hadn't really been around too many kids in Thailand. As a missionary you're not allowed to. So when Chase came flying at him with a hug here was Tanner's reaction: It was funny - he was trying to hold Chase out away from him. You can see the awkward position of Chase's legs dangling behind him. We told him it was ok to give his nephew a hug :)

I love Tanner's face in this picture. His lips are sucked in. You can almost read his thoughts. Maybe he was thinking "Holy Cow (he says that a lot) look at all these people (there were a lot of friends and family)! I can't believe I'm home. This is so weird!"

Oh, and ladies . . . . . he's single :)

Shortly after Tanner got home we took off to San Diego for a few days. We stayed at the Lawrence Welks Resort. My parents rented 2 condos for the whole family. Each of our little families had their own suite. It was nice! And the scenery was beautiful. I wish I had taken some pictures! They had a great pool with a big water slide that Chase just went on over and over and over. We spent a day in Sea World. We saw the Sea Lions show:

And of course Shamu
Mallory and Grandpa Alan
Waiting to get on the wet rapids ride - Background is Natalie, Jason, and Tanner. Foreground is Craig, me, and Chase.

And I found some Holly Berries that I wanted to take a picture with. I don't recall ever seeing real ones before. Excuse the hair - we just got off the soaking wet water ride
Chase entertaining his cousin Callie
Clark and Craig
We played the "throw the ring and try to get it around the neck of a Coke bottle to win a larger than life stuffed animal that will probably end up in the garbage anyway" game. Tanner won. Tanner ALWAYS wins at games like that! Apparently he hasn't lost his touch even after a 2-year mission.

How we all felt at the end of the day:

All of us at the end of the day!


It was a fun vacation. We miss living near our families. We don't miss the heat :) Nope, not one bit . . . . .

Toothless

Chase has lost ANOTHER tooth! They're falling out like crazy!! He has lost 3 teeth in the past 2 weeks, and another one is loose. He got his first 2 teeth at 8 weeks so it doesn't really surprise me that they're falling out this early. He lost his first 2 teeth at age 4. He got his 6-year molars a few months ago. (He's not 6 yet, those came early too.) And now 3 more have fallen out with one not far behind! He's making a living off of loosing teeth! The tooth fairy has been camping out on the front porch just waiting for Chase to lose another one! ;) Here's some pics of the cutest, gappiest smile around -



(The tooth is in the treasure chest - in case it was hard to see in the first picture)

All Grown Up

Yesterday was Chase's first day of school. Kind of. He only went for an hour and Craig and I got to go with him. We got to meet his teacher and she oriented us on what Chase would be doing throughout the day.

Chase is not shy at all! He walked right in and introduced himself - without any prompting from us. Showed his teacher his missing tooth and asked if he could color. Just like they were old friends. I don't think he'll have any problems being comfortable there. He makes friends fast and is easy to get along with!

Today is his first day to go to school without us. I really did ok all morning while I helped get him ready. He got to pick what he wanted put in his lunch box. He got to pick out his clothes. And we went over being polite and having good manners at school. I was doing fine until we had our morning devotional.

Throughout my childhood my mother always did a morning devotional with us before we left for school. We would sing a Primary song or a hymn (the older we got). She had a scripture of the month that she would type up on a piece of paper and we would say it. By the end of the month we had the scripture memorized. Looking back I realize that this helped prepare us for scripture mastery for those seminary years! And then we would pray together. This little devotional only took all of 5 minutes. I didn't always like having this as part of our morning routine growing up. Power Rangers came on right before school and me and my brothers were REALLY into it. We never missed it! Well, we never missed the first 25 minutes of the show that is. Mom would always turn the TV off 5 minutes before the show ended to have our morning devotional. We would express our complaints, "Mom!! We just want to see what happens! You never let us watch the end!" And she would respond with, "I can tell you what happens. The Power Rangers win. They always win!" Which would in turn provoke more grumbling from us. We would have our devotional and then she would send us out the door to school.

Last month's Ensign actually had an article on having a morning devotional each day. The article is entitled Opening the Heavens (if you're interested in looking it up). Reading this article brought back memories of the devotionals we used to have as kids. After much thought I decided that this was something I wanted to do for my children as well. I sincerely appreciate my mother for taking a few minutes out of her busy morning to help us feel the Spirit before the start of our busy day. In a sense these morning devotionals suited us up in our spiritual armor before we ventured out into the world for the day. I can still recall certain scriptures we memorized and the words to hymns that are not commonly sung because of this time spent with my mother in the mornings.

So 5 minutes before we left this morning, me and the kids knelt in a circle. We sang a Primary song, read a scripture, and said a prayer together. I cried through the whole devotional! I was hit with the realization that not only is Chase all grown up, but I am now in my mother's shoes. I am the one sending my kid out the door. Just wanting to give him a little taste of the Spirit before he leaves and faces the outside world, hoping I've taught him enough.

We pulled up to the school and Chase jumped out of the car closing his door without grabbing his backpack or lunch box! He was too excited! I had to say, "Bye, Chase" FOUR times before the teacher with Chase finally bent down and told him to tell his mother goodbye! He'll do fine without me. And yes, I'm sure - eventually - I'll do fine without him, but for now I am missing him terribly!! His cute, toothless smile now gets to brighten his teacher's day. What a lucky lady she is to get to spend most of the day with my Chase :)