Legoland

Like I said, we spent last week in San Diego and had a fun packed week. It's going to take me a couple of days to post it all since I'll have to do a post for each day that we were there since I get a little picture happy.

On Tuesday we went to Legoland. It was a first for all of us. We had a great time and I'm glad that we went now, because I don't think Maddy will enjoy it as much in a few years. We only spent 1 day there, but I think that whenever we go back we'll spend 2 days. There was a lot that we just couldn't fit in. They have a couple of water slides and log ride that we brought swimming suits for, but we just didn't have time to do them.

This was actually a picture of us leaving Legoland, but I thought it was a good picture to start with.

Look how brave they all are with their hands up. You can barely see Bryson next to Travis, but his little hands are up too. Admittedly, this isn't that big of a roller coaster. If Bryson was just 1/2 and inch taller, he could have ridden the biggest one there. He loves the thrill rides!
Poor Ally wasn't allowed on the super fast, super dangerous Lego safari. Actually, I really don't know why they have a height restriction on this ride, but at least I was there to get a couple of pictures.
Maddy was sooooo excited to have Ally sit next to her on the fairytale boat ride. She did a great job taking this picture of the two of them.
Maddy was pretty bummed after this ride. Her boat wouldn't drive and she had to get pushed along by other boats. Oh well, what can you do. The boys loved being able to drive!
Here are Jacob and Maddy at the Volvo driving school. They really get to drive the cars and are "encouraged" to obey the traffic laws. There are stop signs, stop lights, intersections, etc. They had a great time. Too bad there wasn't a play cop pulling over those kids who never stopped. ;-)

Here is Bryson at the Jr. driving school. He actually got to drive his car too, but his track was just an oval. You can only be 3-5 yrs. old to drive here. He loved it too!

Ally loved being able to get out of her stroller and ride a ride every once in a while.

This was the only wet ride we squeezed in. They loved being able to squirt the other boats and bystanders watching the ride. Fortunately they don't mind getting wet either.

It amazes me how someone can build a life size elephant out of tiny little Legos. I think it took close to 200,000 Legos to build this one.

It also amazes me how realistic they can build things just out of Legos. When you look up close you can't believe the amount of detail that they put into these miniatures.Here we are in front of the White House before we left. We're giants! ;-)

The kids really had a great time! It was fun for even Ally, at least some of the time. Ally is a really a trooper and doesn't complain too much about being cooped up in her stroller all day. At least there were a few rides that she enjoyed. She enjoyed Wed. better - pictures to follow. ;-)

The Beach

We spent Monday at Moonlight Beach. The kids had so much fun they didn't want to leave! Well, everyone but Allyson wanted to stay. She thought the ocean was a little scary and didn't really care for the sand much either - plus she didn't get much nap on my shoulder.

Here are a few pictures of Maddy and Jacob enjoying the waves.

Bryson wasn't quite sure about the waves by himself. By the end he was much more brave.

Ally spent most of her time in my arms. She felt pretty safe there, as long as I didn't go too deep into the ocean. If we were over the rough water she still got nervous.
She didn't mind the packed down wet sand. So here she is "helping" build a sandcastle.

This picture shows that she really didn't enjoy all of the beach. I think the water came too close here.The beach we went to was very family oriented. There was no surfing where we were and there was a little park at the top of the beach. Here Bryson is riding the dolphin when he was playing on the toys while Maddy and Jacob were body surfing.


The waves stared coming up higher, so I had to take a picture before the sandcastle got washed away. The 2 little front towers are already almost gone.

I had told Maddy that I used catch sand crabs when I would come to the beach as a teenager and she was determined to catch one. I used to catch them by watching for a little bubble trail in the sand as the water was receeding after a wave, but I couldn't find any. We saw another girl showing someone how to catch them by digging your hands into the sand blocking the receeding sand as the water pulled back out into the ocean. Pay dirt! Maddy must have caught at least 20 crabs by herself including this huge one! It is the biggest one that I have ever seen. She was very proud!



Here is Jacob holding Maddy's huge sandcrab. He caught one almost as big a little later. (I'm not sure what Bryson is doing in the background.)

Bryson had a hard time catching the sand crabs in the ocean, so he caught them in the bucket. Luckily this made him just as happy!

Here is our bucket full of sand crabs. There are tons more burried in the sand. We probably had 30 or more sand crabs in there. Our kids were the hit of the beach and were teaching tons of kids how to catch them before we left.

It was a really fun day at the beach. Too bad we don't live closer to 0ne. Maybe we'll have to make visiting the beach more of a priority. You don't have to buy tickets to get in and the kids had a blast!

Where it all began

We spent last week in San Diego. We had a fun packed week! Since we got there on Sunday evening and didn't have any plans, we thought we would stop at the temple and walk around since that is where Travis and I were married 12 years ago. There were a few temple missionaries out front and one kindly took a picture of our family for us.

Maddy took this picture of Travis and I. It looks just like our wedding picture, except I have to admit that we've aged a bit.
It was fun to be able to walk around the temple again. We haven't been there since my sister Dalynn got married the year after us - so it's been a while!

Slip Slid'n Fun

We broke out the shark Slip 'N' Slide the other day. The kids had a great time!

Here is Ally sportin' her new sun glasses. Sun glasses and PJ's - the new look. ;-)

My boys are sleepin' with the fishes

Bryson did not have a bedspread, so the boys have just had white blankets on their beds. I asked them what they wanted for their beds and they decided on sharks. I searched the whole Internet and there are no shark bedspreads under $130, but they thought ocean bedspreads with fish, dolphins and killer whales would be pretty great. I finally ordered them and they arrived while the boys were at a friends house. Maddy and I hurried to put the comforters on before they got home and Maddy even made a "surprise" sign. Here they are seeing their surprise for the first time.

The boys are holding a coloring page that came w/ the bedding since the brand is Crayola. Who knew they made more than just crayons! I'll have to take more pictures later when their room is redone. We did get the curtains up on Sat., but I still need to paint. Right now the room is painted like a sky and clouds don't really belong in the Ocean. Maybe we'll find something really cool for their room when we go to Sea World next week.

Swim meets

On your mark, get set . . .

GO!
Maddy has finally learned how to do the butterfly. She has really wanted to get the rhythm down, but did not feel very confident in that stoke. She cried at her first meet because her coach put her in a butterfly race. She ended up doing really well and was happy to swim the butterfly leg in the medley relay (1 girl swims each stroke) last Sat. In the relay she was actually swimming toward me for a change so I was finally able to get a picture of her face. Usually she swims the other way to end up at the timers.

On you mark, get set . . .

GO!
The backstroke is Jacob's best stroke since you can breathe easily during this stroke. He has a tendency to come upright and tread water while he breathes during his other strokes, which as you can imagine does not help your speed. We're working on that. He's having a great time though and burning off a little of his endless energy.

Our summer ... so far

Here is what we have been up to since school got out. Travis took Maddy and Jacob to see Prince Caspian and all but Ally swimming over Memorial Day weekend. They would all rather go swimming with their dad since he'll throw them around in the pool. Maddy is starting to push his limits though. ;-)

On the Tues. after Memorial Day, our ward had a big temple day where the nursery age and above kids were babysat at the church next to the temple. They did temple related activities, got to go on a walk around the temple grounds, go into the lobby, and get their picture taken in front of the temple by the fountain. Originally they were going to watch babies as well, but we found out just a week before that this was not the case. Luckily I have a college roommate who lives really close to the temple who was able to watch Ally. It was a really neat day!

The next day Maddy and Jacob started swim team. We go M-Th from 7:45 - 9:00. Maddy absolutely loves it. This is one sport that she really excels in and has interest in for that matter. This is Jacob's first year. I thought it would be more difficult for him since we haven't swam all that much this spring, especially not laps. He's done pretty well though. He's a little nervous about the swim meet this Sat. though. He's used to being the fastest or one of the best players on any team sport. He knows he doesn't swim as fast as many of the other kids and he doesn't really know what to make of that. He asked Travis, "What if I'm last?" Travis said, "Then we'll get to cheer for you the longest!" I think after this first meet he won't worry any more. Really, the best thing is to just compete against yourself and try to improve your times at each meet. Everyone gets a ribbon (1st - 8th place) for each race they compete in, so it's all fun. Here are the kids are on their first day.

Last Saturday officially wrapped up T-ball and basketball. Bryson had his closing ceremonies and got his trophy. When he got the trophy he said to Travis, "WOW! This is BIG!" He thought it was pretty cool. He had a lot of fun playing T-ball, even if he was distracted some of the time. He really improved a lot by his last game. I think he really enjoyed having his dad help coach his team. I'm really glad that Travis loves to do these kinds of things with the boys. It's great father/son time and makes fun and lasting memories for them all.

Jacob had his last basketball game. Jacob always makes several baskets (like I said, he's just naturally athletic and is used to doing well). Jacob's coach asked him to pass it to the one kid on the team who hadn't made a basket yet. The other boy over shot the basket. Jacob got the rebound and passed it to him again. He missed again. Jacob got the rebound again and passed it to him for a third time. The third time was a charm and now everyone made a basket in the last game. Jacob has really had a BLAST playing basketball. He has improved a lot and was a real team player. We are very proud of him. We were in charge of snack for the last game, so I got a cupcake cake to celebrate. Go Roadrunners!

Here is Jacob with his cool trophy and certificate.

Last weekend Travis had a projector from work from a demonstration that he did on Friday. The kids love to watch movies on the wall. We can motivate them to do all their jobs and be on their best behavior to get to watch a movie each night. Here they are watching Flushed Away. Even Ally was watching towards the end. She just loves to be upstairs and loves to be where the "big" kids are, because after all, she's "big" too.

Bryson started swimming lessons on Monday. I put him in level 2 this year and he's doing really well. He has his lessons from 9:15 - 9:45 which is nice because we come for swim team and stay for his lessons and everyone gets their swimming in before Ally and I start to melt. Ally is so tired by the time his lessons are over and she falls right to sleep in the car.

They get to ride the slide on Thursdays when lessons are over.

The kids love to push Ally around in the laundry basket. This time they started putting pillows in to "cushion her" so that she wouldn't slide around in there. They were going to put more in, but I told them 2 was plenty. She was getting kind of squished!

We got these funny hats for the kids at Travis' work water party the weekend before school got out. We have a pink, purple, and orange monkey and a yellow dog. It's even funnier when Ally puts the hats on backwards because the monkey hats have a tail in the back that hangs down between her eyes. She doesn't seem to mind. Ally already likes to be silly and have everyone pay attention to her. Hmmmm - that sounds exactly like all my other kids.