Hawaii

 We loved Hawaii. We flew into Oahu & spent most of our time at the Waikiki Beach in Honolulu.
Thanks to Tyler's Brother & our sister-in-law we got a great deal on plane tickets out of Las Vegas. We also got a great deal on a really nice hotel next to the Waikiki Beach.

 

We signed our names on the autograph tree at the Byodo Temple.

 We ate at all the best places including this shrimp bus off the side of the street.
It had the yummiest Chicken & shrimp!

 The North Shore was our favorite. I wouldn't mind living in Haleiwa.

 It was our first time snorkeling at Hanauma Bay.

 We visited the Polynesian Cultural Center.

 And the LDS Temple.

 We hiked Diamond Head.

 Ate at a delicious restaurant in China Town.

 

Tyler tried surfing in some dangerously high & strong waves with Brent and Cherese.
I stayed near the shore as I would have surely drowned.

 

 We also visited Pear Harbor and some more beaches on the East and North sides of the Island.

We ate lots of snow cones.

Someone gave us 4 days worth of free Trolley tickets (one for each of us.) They included guided tours. Other than a run in with some people who stole our stuff, it was a fantastic vacation.

I especially enjoyed our Taxi ride from the airport to our hotel. Our driver giggled and laughed the whole way. She was even slapping her knee at times because she was laughing so hard. 

Thanks Brent and Cherese for inviting us and showing us around.

Back to School... Already!

 Summer is way too short when you are on a year round schedule. My kids and I are super sad that we didn't get to go camping in our new tent, but it's hard to find people to go with when you only have a 3 week summer. Despite our sadness at not going camping. It turned out to be the best summer we've had since Lily was born.

We watched the Sandy Parade & fireworks on the 4th of July.

We previewed the 24th of July parade floats.

 Went to 3 birthday parties in one day.

We sold some Cotton Candy.

We visited Temple Square with the Jones cousins.

 Went to the drive in Movies with the Jones cousins.

 We celebrated Cait's birthday at Gateway & City Creek with the Call's, Trisha, & my mom.

 Tie Dyed T-shirts.

& played with Ryan's toads.

Ella is officially in 3rd Grade!

Ella's Baptism Part 2

We had friends and family over after for grilled chicken, hot dogs, a salad bar, & dessert.

Ella'a Baptism Part 1

Beep Beep, Jam please!

We have muffins for breakfast most Sunday mornings. Lily insists that everyone says "beep beep" if they want the jam passed to them, and Ella always leaves behind a tally sheet where she keeps track of how many muffins she's eaten.

Cherry Picking

It's been a fun week. We had Lily's dance recital, Ella's birthday party, a baptism photo shoot in a wind storm, and Ella's favorite; Cherry picking in Orem! Ella painted her own cherry shirt to go pick cherries in.

Birthday Party

 

To say that Ella is obsessed with horses would be an understatement. She really wanted a horse birthday party this year.  Since we saved a lot of money by not having Ella in any extra-curricular activities this year, we splurged. We decided to hold her party at the Lucky Star Horse Stables in Draper. Ella invited her cousins and friends. The girls all got a turn to ride a horse. Ella was so thrilled to have all her friends with her riding horses! I think all the girls had a great time.

911

We were almost asleep last night around midnight when a drunk driver plowed into our front yard. Luckily he hit a big power box which stopped him from possibly hitting Lily's window.
I don't think he was driving very fast, and It doesn't sound very scary, but it was. By the time we finally figured out what was going on (about 20-30 minutes later) The car was still running, headlights were shining brightly into Lily's room, the car radio was blaring loud, wheels were spinning, and Tyler was pounding on the window of the car trying to make sure the driver was alright. I was worried that the driver was going to wake up and beat Tyler up. Or that the driver was going to turn the wheel and run over him. Luckily the police came and were able to open the car door.
Unluckily for us, it took until 7AM to clean up the mess... and it was LOUD! Tyler and I are used to being sleep deprived, but without power (so that we could get some work done) or the ability to leave in our car (I wanted to go grocery shopping to pass the time), we were bored all night, just waiting for it all to get cleaned up so we could go to bed.
By the time it was all cleaned up, Ella had already left for school.

At least it was somewhat exciting. Our first (and hopefully last) 911 call, 4 police cars, 2 ambulances,  1 fire truck, 1 news truck, 1 drunk guy, 1 arrested guy transported on a stretcher, utah power, the Haz Mat team, & more!

We are lucky that no one was hurt. I'm sure the chances of something like this happening again is rare, but as soon as I get some rest, I'm moving Lily's bed away from her front window.

I don't know why... that after about 40 hours of being wide awake, Tyler and I are still up... but I'm thinking of going to bed.

What day is it anyhow?

Disneyland

Circus Circus

We took a trip to Disneyland last week. We stopped in Las Vegas on the way. I can't believe I'm going to recommend Circus Circus as a place to stay. First of all, it's a clown themed hotel. But we were surprised with what we got for the cheap price. It helped that our room was recently renovated. Our stay was only $40 and it included a free ride & game at the fun dome for the kids. The girls won a free stuffed dolphin while we were there & we all had a great time staying here. Plus they have a Krispy Kreme in the hotel. We also visited Brent & Cherese while we were in Vegas. (Which was our kids favorite part).

 

 

Next, we headed to Newport beach. Our hotel was across the street from the beach, which was nice. The weather was cold and rainy, which was not so nice. But Lily finally got to see the ocean. We only stayed a few minutes because it was so cold (can you tell by the look on Lily's face?)

 Finally, we spent 2 days at Disneyland. It was cold and rainy as well, but we didn't have to wait in very many lines. We walked right on to most of the rides without waiting.

Insta-love

My cousin Courtney met Jared through the iphone app Instagram. You can read their story here: http://www.ceebeeandj.com/p/our-story.html. Their wedding was beautiful & fun. They had all their guests post pictures of the wedding & reception to Instagram with the hashtag #ceebeeandjwedding. You can check out more pretty pictures there. Congratulations Courtney & Jared!