The Beach

I really need to get the rest of our trip blogged!  Here are a few photos of us at the beach in San Diego.  We went to La Jolla Shores and my favorite beach La Jolla Cove where there are seals and tide pools to explore.  We had a lot of fun even though it was overcast and the water was cold.

The Mormon Batallion

While in San Diego we went to the Mormon Batallion Museum.  They have totally redone it since I was a kid.  It is really nice and has a bunch of fun hands-on exhibits for the kids.  We were anxious to go there because Trent has an ancestor that was in the Mormon Batallion and we were excited to see if we could find out more about him.  We learned that he had donated ten dollars for a cannon they had displayed at the museum (the picture is below).  After the museum we walked around some of the fun shops in Old Town. 

Legoland

We weren't going to go to Legoland.  I heard that it wasn't that great and wasn't worth the money.  We know someone that lives near Legoland and she was selling some tickets she had for really cheap, so we decided we would try it out.  I am so glad we did.  We went from when it opened until closing time.  Our tickets also included the aquarium there which was pretty fun.

Below:
When we first saw this Lego family we thought they were a real family.  It was amazing to see all the things they made out of Legos.

Vacation!

We had such a great time on our vacation. The kids keep asking when we are going back. I'd love to go again. Everything went really well. We went on the trip with Trent's mom and our nephew Jake. My parents and my brother and his cute family met up with us later on in the trip. When planning this trip I really wanted to fly. With my skymiles rewards I had a buy one get one free flight. I watched the prices on tickets and was able to get tickets for a great price and got one flight free.

About an hour before we were suppose to leave for the airport the airlines called and offered us delta flight credit if we would take a flight the next day because the flight was overbooked. It was a little more then what I had spent on the tickets to begin with. I wanted to do it, but Trent pointed out that we already had a hotel for the night and our rental car booked and he wondered how the excited kids would take the news that were weren't going to leave until the next day.

When we got to the airport they were still overbooked and were offering more money in flight credits. It ended up that we got involuntarily bumped off the flight. Instead of giving us flight credits they wrote us out a check for more than double what I paid in tickets, shuttled us to a hotel in Salt Lake for the night, gave us toiletry bags with everything we needed including t-shirts and gave us $12 each in meal vouchers that we really didn't need because the hotel offered free breakfast. We let the kids spend their vouchers on whatever junk they wanted in the hotel gift shop. They thought it was pretty funny that they could buy all this stuff and we weren't saying "no". They didn't care that we were in Salt Lake and not in California. As long as we were in a hotel it didn't matter to them. It worked out awesome. They flew us to a better airport and we ended up getting a cheaper deal on the rental car and a bigger car. It was so fun. We are saving the money we earned for the next trip. I am so pathetic I can't wait for the next trip and we just got home less than a month ago. I've got the travel bug pretty bad.Owie enjoying the flight

We went to the San Diego Zoo. (Notice Leah strangling Owen?)

Yes we are one of those parents that puts their kids on a leash. If you know Owen you know that it is for his safety and our sanity. It worked out really well. I bought for the trip.

The Fam

Big 5

My beautiful little girl is 5 today!!!! I told her we were going to have to freeze her so she couldn't grow up anymore. Connor informed me that if I did that we wouldn't be able to go on our upcoming vacation. I guess I have to let her turn 5. We are so glad Leah is in our family and can't believe she is already 5. This is her version of smiling for the camera.

Holding hands with her big brother.

She has never been opposed to any messes. In fact I think she thinks it's fun.

"Baby Leah" the day she came home from the hospital.

Bye Bye Crib!

Here is a picture of Connor when he was Owen's age. He got into some vaseline and put it all over his hair and his bed.
You see the crib in the background? That crib was bought by my parents when they were expecting their first baby. It was used by all six of their children. When I was expecting Connor they said I could use it. It was a little beat up from six kids. I painted it white, had all the hardware chromed and bought a new crib mattress. All three of my kids have used it. That little crib has been through 9 kids so far! It is a special crib.

Owen being the explorer that he is, figured out how to climb out of the crib. The problem with that was that he didn't know how to get back in it when he was ready to fall asleep. We would find him in some funny situations asleep. One night I found him asleep on the wood floor, using the rug as a blanket.

This picture is one of my favorite ways I found him when he was suppose to be taking a nap. He had put on Leah's flower rain boots and was alseep standing up with his head on Leah's bed.

So you can see it was time to pack up the crib and put this little guy in a big boy bed :).

*Both of these pictures make my house look so messy! I swear it is clean today! :)

Broken Arm

Connor fell off the monkey bars at school and broke his arm. The orthopedic doctor said it was broken in two places. We feel pretty bad because we were unsure if it was broken and he didn't see a doctor until that night. I should've known when the first thing he wanted to do when he got home was to lay down with a blanket and then he wouldn't eat dinner because he thought he was gowing to throw up.

Here are the good and bad of breaking his arm:

Cons:
-It hurt.
-He can't ride his bike or play basketball.
-It takes longer to do things that use his hands.
-It is going to cost his parents some $.

Pros:
-He only has to wear the cast for 3 weeks.
-The cast is waterproof. He can even swim in it!
-His friends can sign it.
-He can easily earn rewards at school for wearing red on Fridays because of his cast color.