August Adventures: Carmel

From Sunnyvale we went to Carmel where my parents rented a house for everyone to stay in. It was kind of an odd house. The only cool thing about it was the igallop, which is an awesome contraption that helps you strengthen your horse riding muscles. It's a little odd to watch, but for some reason, you just can't get enough of it. Whit posted a really cute video of Oliver tryin' out the igallop.

The house was on a golf course, so it was nice to be able to take the kids out there to run around when there were no golfers. Asher loved watching the ducks in the little pond and watching people golf. This one couple we watched were terrible. They kept repeating the same 3 holes because no one else was coming, and it didn't look like they were getting any better.

We went to White Sands beach one day. It was such a beautiful day, especially for Carmel which is often cloudy and cold. All the little boys had such a blast playing with grandpa Bill and Ben, building sand castles and ditches and playing in the water. Us girls mostly just parked it on the towels and talked and ate chips.

Ollie all bundled up

Jillian sportin' her hot swimsuit cover

Diggin' in the dirt

Diggin' with Grandpa Bill

Nate and I took Sayer for a little walk through town to get him to fall asleep. He never actually fell asleep, but we got some nice hot chocolate and quality alone time out of it.

The next day us girls hit the town to do a little shopping while the men took all the little boys to the Dennis the Menace park, or something like that. Poor Nate stayed home with the napping Sayer to study. Although I don't think he ended up getting much done. We stopped at an adorable little boutique for awhile and tried on all sorts of fun stuff that was way out of my price range. After that we headed to Anthropology where we all proceeded to try on just about every item that we thought was cute, out of the entire store. Unfortunately, even their clearance stuff was a little too pricey for me. But my sisters and even my mom came away with some pretty awesome loot. I did find some coats that I am coveting and waiting to go on super sale. I think we were there for at least a couple hours.

My dad took out one of the seats in the back of the van, so we had to improvise with a camping chair. Whit was a good sport about it.

From left, clockwise: Hailey, Whit, Lexy, Jill

Hailey, Me and Lexy waiting at Anthropology

Me lookin' smokin' hot in some big red sunglasses

Whit, Jill, Me and Mom getting some scrumptious dark hot chocolate

Lex and Hailey

At night we ate good food, watched Alias, movies, and played some hard core mormon bridge and some other card game that I can't remember the name of.

On our last day in Carmel, we took some pictures on the golf course, went to church, went to Roundtable pizza where I met up with a high school friend, Kristen, and then made the drive back to Sacramento.

This was the best we could do...

Sayer had had enough. They are all such handsome boys!

Mom and 5 of her 6 lovely daughters (Ash had to work :( )

Back of the house

Mom and dad at the front of the house

Ben being awesome at Roundtable

Waiting for our food...

On the road again... eating of course.

Back in Sacramento, we had one last night of awesome game playing, talking, laughing and eating, before we hit the road to UT the next morning.

August Adventures: Sunnyvale

After a few days in Sac, we headed down to Sunnyvale to stay at Ben and Whit's for a few days. There it was more of the same... eating out, ordering in, swimming in the complex pool and hot tub, watching movies. Which for us is great. I felt kind of bad for our hosts, because they wanted to take us to do fun stuff, but we were very content to just stay home a lot of the time and visit and let the boys play. I can't remember all that we did. I usually rely on my pictures to help me remember, but unfortunately I didn't take many in Sunnyvale. Oh yeah, now I remember... much to Ben's disappointment, Nate, Whit and I just wanted to watch Alias after the kids were in bed each night. It's not Ben's favorite show, but he was a good sport.

The boys had fun playing with all of Joelie and Kadin's toys. This is kind of when I started to notice the boys not sleeping as well, as well as acting out a little more often. I think all the traveling and bed changing was starting to get to them. But I loved being able to visit with my sis and play with precious baby Oliver.

I thought this was such a cute pic of the boys. Kadin, Asher and Joelie on one chair, watching Word World.

August Adventures: Sacramento

I'm trying to remember back to things we did in Sacramento, but I don't think we did a ton. Mostly just hanging out, letting the boys play with grandpa's trains and jump on the trampoline. Asher LOVED the trampoline and would stay out there all day if he could. We did head over to Del Norte to swim which was great fun for everyone. We also went to Grammy B's to visit and see all the fam on my dad's side. I also went running and totally hurt my knee again. It's my own fault, but it still really makes me mad.

My sister Ashley colored my hair (back to dark... blonde is fun but way too expensive) and did a great job. When I came back to NY it was like a whole new me. No one had ever seen me as anything but a blonde, so I was surprised by how many people noticed.

The boys watching Word World after a nice jump on the tramp, with the trains never far off

Sayer's happy place

August Adventures: Sacramento, Grandma's Birthday

From Pasco, we hit the road to Sacramento to visit my family. We left early Saturday morning and took the whole day to drive. It was actually really nice not being in any kind of hurry, because we were able to stop a couple of times along the way to let the kids play. We stopped right when we crossed the border into CA at an elementary school so the kids could play on the playground. There was a high school right next door, so we let the kids run around on the football field and bleachers. We may have also witnessed a drug exchange happening in the dugout, but one can never tell I suppose. The kids did really well on all of our drives. We had little cars and books to break out every once in a while when they would get ansty, along with lots of food and music.

The first day in Sacramento we had a birthday party at my mom's house for my Grandma. I made this chocolate cake

from Conversations With a Cupcake, that she made for NieNie. I had to improvise a little because of lack of ingredients, and then it didn't set all the way up, but it was pretty darn good.

I finally got to snuggle with this chunk

for the first time since he was born in JANUARY.... a mere 7 hours after I left his house to go back to NY. It was sad. He is the sweetest "little" guy you ever did see.

It was so fun to visit with cousins

My cute grandma and mom

Aunts and Uncles, and of course all of my beautiful and fun sisters.

Jilly-poo

Ash and boyfriend Kody

Whit and the Ollie-man

August Adventures: Spokane and Pasco

Back to our August adventures...

We celebrated Asher's birthday in Spokane, and then were there for another few days. We didn't do too much, just hung out, went over to Andy and Kacey's to let the kids play, went over to Kierstin's to play in her backyard. We basically just did a lot of visiting and relaxing. Nate and I saw 500 days of Summer, which was great, and went out to for late night snacks with Andy and Kacey. For Kacey's birthday we went to Lake C'ourdelane, swam and had foil dinners and smores. It was so gorgeous. Nate played in his parent's ward on Sunday, and then right afterward we left to drive to Pasco, WA, where Nate's sister Lizza and her family live.

The Cazier's house is always good fun. Especially because they have 4 boys, a nice big house with playroom and plenty of sleeping space, a nice big backyard, and to top it off, Lizza is an awesome cook and is always cookin' up something in the kitchen. I think that I gained a good 5 lbs just while at their house.

While there, we went to parks, the driving range, out to eat, to the mall, hit up JoAnne's and Michael's, took the kids to the Children's Museum, swam at the hotel where Nana and Papa stayed, went to the movies (Lizza and I saw Julie & Julia), watched a lot of reality tv, and just hung out and talked and laughed. The boys all spent a lot of time in the backyard, riding bikes, playing in the sandbox, playing in the water. Asher was in heaven and had so much fun with his cousins. Oh how I wish for a backyard. Someday.

Here are some pictures of our fun time in Pasco...

Lizza leading an FHE on choices. Kids loved it.

Water time

This was my favorite. I loved looking outside and seeing all 6 boys huddled together in the sandbox.

Children's Museum

Giveaway for adoption

Humble like this child is doing a giveaway to help out with the R house adoption legal-battle fees. Click here to read more about their story.

Asher's 3rd birthday

We were in UT for about a day and a half before we decided to hit the road to Spokane, WA. The kids did so great on their first 12 hour drive. This is them about 30 minutes or so into the drive.

Precious.

Asher turned 3 on August 6th, so we had all the fam over to Chris and Heidi's to celebrate. Heidi bought this delicious triple chocolate cake from Costco,

it got a little melted from the heat, hence the lopsided-ness

and we put thomas the train legos on top for the decoration. Asher loved it. I can't even describe the excitement on his face when he saw his cake. Here he is explaining to Ally about his cake and who was on top of it

Here is a video of singing happy birthday. You HAVE to watch it. He totally got that it was HIS birthday and he was so excited. He is pretty much the cutest and sweetest kid ever, and this video is the proof!!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Sayer thought Asher's birthday cake was pretty great too!

After cake, we opened presents. Among other things, he got a scooter and a helmet from Nana and Papa and he was so excited.

He loves scooters and is always taking other kids' at the park and riding them. Unfortunately, this scooter broke on the second day he had it, so we took it back. I think I will wait until he turns 4 to get him another one.

I think he had a very fun birthday, and he now knows that he is 3. I can hardly believe it myself. He is getting to be such a big boy and talks non-stop. He is very curious, loves people, playing with cars, trucks and trains, reading, and is a smart little guy. We love him.

Happy Birthday buddy!

Dino-Sayer

2 days ago I was making Asher's bed and both the boys were in the room with me. They were goofing around and Sayer fell and I heard a horrible bang. He smacked his forehead, right in between the eyes on Asher's bed frame. OUCH!! At first I couldn't see anything so I thought maybe it wasn't that bad. But he left the room in tears to get his binkie and his bear, and when he walked back in the room, there was this HUGE bump on his head. I freaked out a little. But it wasn't bleeding, so I knew it would be fine. It just looked really terrible. These pictures don't really do it justice. He seriously looked like one of those dinosaurs with the big round bumps over their noses, inbetween their eyes. It has gone way down now, and is turning yellow and green. As you can see from these pictures, he wasn't too phased by it after about 5 minutes.

Birthday dinner

For my birthday (back in July) Nate took me to this restaurant we had seen in Williamsburg last time we were in Brooklyn. It looked like such a cool place with a really nice ambiance. Perfect for a romantic night on the town. It's called My Moon. The food was absolutely delicious, we ate outside and the weather was perfect. It was so nice to have a night out with Nate. He is the funnest person to hang out with and I love being married to him. Thanks for a lovely birthday Nate'ls!

Rockaway Beach

Sometime in July (can't remember when) my neighbor Debbie and I packed the boys in her in-law's van and drove to Rockaway Beach, in Far Rockaway, for the day. It wasn't a bad drive and the beach wasn't bad at all! I was very pleasantly surprised. The surrounding area wasn't very pleasing to look at, but the beach itself was very nice.

The boys had an absolute blast. We were there for 4 hours, and they would have gladly stayed another 4. Sayer was a complete mess of stickiness and sand but didn't seem to mind one bit. Neither of the boys liked the water, which made things easy for me, since I knew they wouldn't wander in and get swept away by a wave. They just played in the sand and had a ball.

Here are some pics:

Diggin'

Don't forget to pat-pat-pat!

Asher and Peter digging

Sayer, Asher, Peter and Debbie making a drippy sand castle. I am pretty sure that is the official name! ;)

Asher, playing with his new friend

Sayer loved playing with the boogie board

Such a cute kid. You would have thought he was pulling a ton of bricks by the effort he was putting into pulling that thing.

We're Back!

Hello there. Clearly I did not stay up on my blogging during our month long adventure out West. I wish I had though, because now I am, indeed, very overwhelmed by all of the fun times that need to be documented. I will get to it... sometime... when I feel like it. Rest assured that we had a grand ol' time. Coming home was bitter sweet. I will say that I am back to loving the city again. It's no wonder that everyone out here owns/rents homes in the Hamptons or Martha's Vineyard... you really do need a break from city life every 4-6 months or so. We came home feeling refreshed and re-vitalized, and ready to take advantage of this awesome city we get to call home. I have many musicals and plays on my "to see" list, not to mention a nice long list of restaurants that we need to check out. This is purely for informational purposes only of course. You see, when we have people come in town to visit us, we see it as our duty to inform them of the city's treasures. How are we to do that if we don't partake ourselves? It's all for you guys. Promise.

So yeah. Anyway. We're back. That's all I really wanted to say! :)