Psychedelic sunday

After dinner on Sunday, Joel decided to spice things up a bit by breaking out some glow-in-the-dark sticks....some....more like 4-5 packages!! The kids had a blast playing in the living room with them! Plus, the "grownups" also joined in on the fun.....Clarissa was worried that the glow sticks would break and get all over her pictures (I don't know why....we weren't throwing them into the ceiling fan or anything) so we had to leave them on the ground.

More time with the cousins....

Saturday was spent doing a few projects.....Damon and Clarissa have been working on this fence for quite some time now. Luckily, Joel doesn't mind getting his hands dirty :0) and was more than willing to spend his Saturday helping Damon figure out the fence and also the sprinkler system for the garden. Boys with toys....need I say more???



Damon had also been enlisted to help with the Relay for Life event that was held at CSUB so that afternoon we headed over to check out the festivities. Emma got to have her face painted and we won some tickets to a Blaze game (the local baseball team - didn't even know there was a local baseball team). Guess what we're doing on the 4th of July, Grandpa Oz?



Lucas was just happy that he got to sit in the stroller and have a sucker!!

The cousins are here!!!

On Friday night, my brother Joel and his family blew into town from Kansas City. They had been in Vegas for a family reunion and decided to brave the drive across the desert and through Barstow to come and see us. Emma has been in heaven all weekend long!!! When they got here, it was raining (I know!! Rain in Bakersfield!!) so they all went outside and got really wet and muddy playing in the puddles.

Emma and Kaela ran back and forth while Zac rode the bike all around them.

Emma and Kaela jumped in the tub together and got all clean again. Do you like their CRAZY hair? That's how I got them to let me wash it!!

This was after everyone was all clean and ready for bed. Do you like the boys PJ's, Mom???

Easter Sunday

On Sunday, we went over to our friends, the Hutchinson's, for Easter dinner. It was really fun!! The Bertagnole's and the Pascual's and a single lady from our ward, Brenda Johnson, also came over. After a delicious dinner (somewhat unconventional...spaghetti, lamb and lumpia), we "hid" a bunch of eggs in the front yard and released the wolves...oh, I mean the kids. I think all of the kids ended up with way more candy than they needed!

Since our kids didn't have enough sugar in their systems already, we let them all decorate egg-shaped (that's right Teryn, eggs not cirlces!!)cupcakes.

Emma just ate the frosting of course...

We played outside for quite a while so Scott and Stacy decided to bring out thier pet desert tortoises. The kids got a kick out of watching the biggest one eat and move around the yard.

Emma loved the baby tortoises and wouldn't put them down.

We had LOTS of fun and we are very grateful for good friends who love to include us in their holiday plans (we also went over to their house for Christmas Eve and New Years Eve). THANKS GUYS!!!

Easter Saturday

Growing up, we always had the tradition of having the Easter Bunny visit on Saturday so that Sunday could be more centered around Christ and the Resurrection. Michael and I decided to keep that tradition in our family (mostly to keep the real meaning of Easter on Sunday and partly because we didn't want the kids hyped up on sugar during church). Every night, we tell Emma "Super Ali Cat" stories (if you don't know who Super Ali Cat is, just ask Emma) so on Friday, Super Ali Cat helped the E.B. hide all the Easter eggs. Emma was very excited to see what the E.B. had brought her....so excited that she didn't wake up Mom and Dad before she went downstairs on Saturday morning! By the time we got downstairs, she had found most of her eggs and was busy munching on the goodies.

Somehow, the E.B. also knew that Emma and Daddy LOVE to watch "The Princess Bride". Daddy even "reads" Emma the story sometimes (from a totally different book). So you can imagine how happy she was when she saw that the E.B. had brought her a NEW BOOK!!


Emma even helped Lucas find a few eggs of his own. Of course, he would just send them rolling and then chase after them, but really, what else could an 8 month old do?

Why I LOVE Michael's job...

Michael's students got done with their initial training a few weeks ago and were sent back to Japan to do some more training there and then will get sent back here in a few months to finish it all up. So, you might be asking yourself....what is Michael doing while they are gone??? Well, he does have to do some upgrade training to teach the next phase of his student's training (when they come back, they will be flying a multi-engine plane instead of a single engine plane). Unfortunately, when he got hired, Michael didn't have his MEI (Multi-engine instructor rating).....FORTUNATELY, he works for an amazing company that paid for him to go to Long Beach last week and get his MEI. WHAT?!?!? Do flight training companies actually pay for their instructors to get more training??? I didn't think it was possible!!!! (Just a few months before we moved to CA, Michael had to do some upgrade training for his job doing flight seeing tours over the Grand Canyon so he could upgrade to be a captain and it was all on us....all $3000)

Since he did his training in Long Beach, the kids and I decided to tag along so that we could play on the beach while he did his thing. We actually really liked Long Beach. Everyone we had talked to said that it was a dump and all industrial but we stayed in downtown and thought it was really cool. The beach was just a short walk from our hotel, so Emma and Lucas and I decided to go check it out....
The kids LOVED the beach!! This was Lucas' first time and he couldn't get enough!! He kept trying to crawl into the waves and eat up all that yummy sand. Emma kept running back and forth between the sand and the water. She didn't want to get wet but she really wanted to play with the really wet sand so she would dash out, get the sand and then run like crazy to miss the waves as they were coming in!! I had so much fun just watching them play.

Oh, and did I mention that not only did they pay for his training, but they also paid for our hotel (we tried to stay on the Queen Mary but they didn't have any availability), gave us a per diem, paid for mileage and he also got paid his regular wage while we were there!! Is this what is is like to have a REAL job????? I LOVE IT!!!!!

Service Project

A few weeks ago (I know, I've been neglecting the blog lately) we had a service project for our youth activity. We went over to Sister Hansen's house and did a little gardening for her. She had a few plants that needed to be taken out and a few that needed to be put in. I tell you, our youth are amazing.





They didn't complain at all (at least not loud enough for me to hear) and got in and got the job done REALLY fast.