Friday, July 31, 2009

Seattle Aquarium and Seattle Zoo

Three brave girls braved the Seattle heat, (no air conditioning??!?%? what the crap?) no GPS, a packed full van, bears that can smell Cheetos a mile away, some outrageous parking prices, a shy octopus that wouldn't come out so the kids could see it, some really weird fish that swam sideways, to take their kids to Seattle to go to the Aquarium and the Seattle Zoo for some fun memories, sweaty kids, oh and not to mention the awesome Target that has the AMAZING boyfriends T-shirt, that you have to own at least 3 or 4 of in different colors, and their awesome toys on Clearance! (BumbleBee $90 Transformer for $22, yeah, Christmas shopping has begun)
Neither of my kids would actually touch the anemones or star fish, but I did and I got a few looks when I squealed when the Anemone wrapped around my finger.
face painting, Beck and Ashton got a shark, Kylie a penguin, and Paisley a red crab.
When we made it to the Hotel after a near death defying stop for Ashton to pee on the side of the rode, we hit the swimming pool and ordered too much pizza from Pizza Hut.Then for Thursday after the wonderful Target finds, we made it to the zoo at about 1:00 and stayed for the rest of the day.We bought these little "seed sticks" and got the feed birds. It was pretty fun. There were like 100 green parakeets and Beck wanted the only blue one in the whole place to eat from his stick, so we spent most of our time trying to coax him down from his perch, but to no avail.This is the only pic that I got of me and my kids and it was at about the end where we had totally had it. It was very hot and we were dirty....Beck picked out these little squishy sharks and dolphins from the Zoo Store and man, were the ever a hit!Paisley's most favorite thing about the 2 days, her watermelon flavored candy cane from the Zoo Store. We made it back at about 1in the am and we are pretty wiped today, but it was a lot of fun!

Sunday, July 26, 2009

prayers

We were kneeling down getting ready for bed time prayers and Beck starts up with the usual "thanks that Lizah come to our house safe" (no, she didn't come over, but he always thanks Heavenly Father for this event) and my legs start to hurt, so I get all fidgety and he looks up at me and says, "mom, it's gonna be a long one okay?" and pops back down and continues...."thanks you for bebe paisley come home safe, thanks you for dad come home safe....." hehe

Swim lesson and relay

While out in Othello on Thursday I threw Beck into a swimming lesson with his cousin Ashton. Ashton's Uncle Ralph was the instructor and I think that having a guy as an instructor, Ashton in his class, at Aunt Mary's pool that he's been to a bunch, and me hiding in the house watching from an upstairs window sure helped! He did so well and no one got scratched, hit, or punched in the face!Here he is hanging onto Ralph for dear life while trying to float on his back.He really did awesome!

On Friday we stayed out in Othello another night for the Relay for Life. The kids kept busy going in and out of the little hole that is in our tent, maybe it is for pets or something? I dunno, but it kept them busy. Stephen was just getting back from camping and had a Stake dance and meeting with the Youth so he didn't get out there until midnight.
Paisley and her favorite.... chocolate...This is the first lap of all the Survivors. Stephen's Uncle Jack and his dad are cancer survivors.Our team name is "Victory for Verella" named for Stephen's grandma Verella who lost her battle with cancer is 2000.Ruben, Ashton on shoulders, Todd, Tiffanni, baby Sam in her arms, Stacy taking the first lap with the group.And this is our Mr Relay, Rosa. Ruben dresses up from our team every year. He actually won the title of Mr Relay! He walked around and raised $1500! A late night photo at about 1 in the morning....
This is our camp the next morning.They play music all night long, I can't believe that my kids slept so well. Last year they slept well too, but Pais was just a newborn, so I was for sure that she wouldn't sleep, but she did!

Overall Othello brought in over $80,000 for cancer research! Whoo hoo!

This week Stephen is off again on a bike trip with his brothers..... :(

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Bummer

Stephen left today to go camping with the Priest Group from church until Friday. I decided to ride my bike into town pulling my kids in the bike trailer. We stopped at the dollar store and Beck got a Spiderman puzzle and Pais got another baby doll. We left the store and I hopped on the bike to head to Dairy Queen and my back tire had popped! Dang it! I had brought my bike pump, but it was of no use of course, so I pushed it to Dairy Queen to get my kids out of the 98 degree heat and called up Kortni to come and get me. So we got to enjoy an ice cream cone while we waited. Then we found some guy with a Leatherman to undo the bike trailer from my bike and loaded my bike in her Expedition and left the bike trailer because it didn't fit and went and got it later. Thank heavens Kortni called me back because that really would have sucked pushing my bike all the way home!

Monday, July 20, 2009

Swim lesson

There is a reason why my title only says "lesson" instead of "lessonS." Beck had his first swim lesson today with Candace at a friend's pool. Private lesson, fun toys, mom and Pais watching from the sidelines..... he ended up scratching her face and crying most of the time.... guess we aren't going back..... guess we'll wait til he actually likes putting his head under water and work on getting him away from his floatie. :) Wish me luck. Seems as though he has inherited his mom's fear of the water.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Bald Super Heroes

Super Hero Week ended at the gym on Friday and Beck and Paisley went out to stay with my sis-in-law Tiffanni while Stephen and I went to the temple. He left the house looking like this....And returned looking like this..... I did want to cry, but I squashed the tears because he likes it. Stephen as been trying to convince him to shave his head "like Daddy's" ever since he did. And while I do admit that it was in his eyes I was happy that Beck wanted it "down" and "in my eyes like Mommy." But then Stephen explained that that is how girls wear their hair and boys have short hair, so then he spent the day out in Othello with cousins and Josh and Ashton both have shaved heads, so I think that Beck finally decided that it was time. I don't think that I was ready. He does look pretty darn cute, I just really like long hair....And to Beck's utter happiness his "girls" are back from Idaho!!! He really could not be any happier!

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Since when?

Since when did my son pose for pictures? He is spending the week at Super Hero Gymnastic Camp at the gym and I think that he has picked this up down there. I am not there coaching, so it is a weird feeling sending him there. He is not alone. My sister-in-law's sent some of their kids to the camp, so his has his cousins, and let's face it, that place is like his second home. But he is so cute when I get there to help finish up the camp and start coaching, he runs over and tells me something exciting that happened. He also says that he has new best friends. He has the cutest way of speaking. So many sounds that he is missing like sh, br, tr, th, sn... the list goes on. I wish that I will always be able to remember the way the he says things, like sake (snake) bubba baf (bubble bath) and then when I can't understand what he is saying he says "I want you to talk about it." and that means that he wants me to guess what he is trying to say.....

Yesterday we were out in the garden looking at all the yummy things that are growing and I found that Paisley really likes peas.... not so much tomatoes...

Beck was mad that I "pricked" (tricked) him and tried to give him a tomato, he said that it looked like a strawberry and popped it in his mouth, well, he quickly discovered that it was in fact not a strawberry.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Be Prepared....

Wow, I just uploaded like a million pictures from our recent family vacation to Western Washington, Canada, and then onto a week at the cabin for Ashton Family Week '09. It's hard to whittle it all down from 650+ pictures..... We started out on Monday morning and first came to a water fall on out way to Mount Rainier, where I got the kids to actually use their sunglasses....
Beck thought the Mountain was really big and loved the fact that it had snow on it. This is Pais at one of our many stops at a Burger King, where Beck figured out that they have Transformer toys. She was just so cute that I had to include this picture. My kids traveled really well. My only complaint was that they didn't really eat anything. Lots of sippys and bottles. I hated to fill them up on liquids, but it kept them happy. Good thing by the time they made it to the cabin they didn't stop eating the whole week! We then made it to Port Angeles to begin our Twilight Experience, yes, we (Stephen sacrificed for me) made part of this trip to visit the town of Forks, Washington where the Twilight books were based on. (Teen phenomenon, and yes, I have 2 Twilight shirts, a bag, and a Forks T-shirt as well, I am ON that Band wagon!) The town has all these little maps made up of all the hot spots in the series....This is Beck outside the Cullens' house. He was excited that the mailbox had letters on it.
We stopped at Forks Outfitters where Bella worked and that is where we got most of our Twilight paraphernalia. I got the kids each a shirt that said "LOVE at first bite" Corny and way cute...Forks is like this itty bitty town of 3,ooo people (and a few vampires) but everything is all about Twilight. There were teenage girls everywhere and it was the middle of the week! The visitors center had these two maps with all the pins being where people have traveled from to visit the home of Twilight. And I thought I was crazy.... ;)Bella's (character from book) truck located outside the visitor's center. Stephen really is quite a sport to let me have spent most of our day there.
A little diner that we ate lunch at. Everywhere we went they had these little books that all the Twinerds would sign and where they were from.
At this point my camera battery was almost dead, so we only got a picture of me and the famous Forks sign where I am fixing my hair. :)Then we went to La Push, the part in the book where Jacob is from. We stopped at a Clinic, so I could sit in the parking lot while my camera battery charged a bit. The first beach we stopped at was very foggy (yet beautiful, I like the fog) but the kids were asleep, so Stephen stayed in the car with them and I walked along it for a bit.Then we headed back towards Forks and found a trail for a mile and a half down and then 1 1/2 back and decided to take it and were very rewarded. This was a favorite part of our trip for me. We only stayed for 40 minutes or so because we had to make it back to the 8:30 ferry, but I LOVED IT! It was so beautiful and the kids played in the sand and I found pretty rocks and drift wood. Stephen humored me because I don't think that he liked it very much. I loved that it wasn't too hot, just the right amount of wind and sun. Just plain wonderful!Doesn't get much better than this.Then after my fun experience in Forks it was on to Canada! I had never been to Canada before, and I have to admit, it is quite beautiful. The border crossing was fun because it happened to be Canada Day and there were people everywhere.Me and Paisley at the USA/Canada Boundary line
Yeah, did I mention that it was Canada Day? 20,000 people right outside our Hotel.... We walked around for a bit in the chaos, it's a wonder that we didn't lose Beck.The next day we went to the Vancouver Zoo. Not the best Zoo in the world, bless it's heart, but fun all the same. It was hot and I don't like it when it's hot, but Beck saw a "Marty" (zebra) and a very lazy "Alex" (lion) so he was happy. :)Then we raced to make it back across the border before it closed at midnight....While on our little road trip I caught some of Paisley's "faces" on film. This is her "I am not too happy right now, so I am gonna pull this funny face and try and get you to give me what I want and cry a little" face.
and this is her "I got what I want" face. It is widely known.
And Now the cabin...... We arrived at the cabin at 3 in the Am on Thursday night or Friday morning, however you would like to look at it. At the cabin all the fun begins.
We ride Uncle Tony's jet ski....
try and get over any fear that I may have passed onto my children about the water....
Ride in the boat with cousins; Beck, Ashton, Kylie, Josh, and Grandpa BobPaisley has a death wish for her life jacket, hated it the whole time....We take spins around the dock and lake in the paddle boat with more cousins, Ellie and Rylee.And we take cute 4th of July matching outfit pictures because well, sometimes, that is just what you do.
For dinner and food everyone has a different day. I had the 4th of we had lasagna and we had cute little flags for the kids to stick in their food. You are cooking for 41 people and the food is there and then it is gone. This picture does not even do the dinner rush hour justice....The sparklers was fun. Paisley actually touched one when I wasn't looking, but she had her sweater over her hand and it only burned the sweater thank goodness, but she was pretty enthralled with the whole thing. We watched some amazing fireworks from the dock. Beck and his Aunt "Tippy"On the way to Upper Priest me and Kylee and Marinda decided to get on the tube and be pulled through the Channel, it was actually pretty freezing, so 2 minutes later when the front of the tube went under and Paisley got all wet she was not a happy camper.On one of the days we went to Upper Priest and as Stephen wrote before we had quite the adventure getting a fire started. On the way back Ann, my MIL, fell asleep, as most of us do.
Beck LOVES to drive the boat....Paisley and her Daddy at Upper Priest.We take hikes to Granite Falls.And this year we had a T-Shirt contest. On the back of our shirts I wrote. "I am an Ashton, therefore I rock!"We get to sit in the hot tub at all hours of the day, sometimes with the floaties if Grandpa Bob isn't looking. :) And we get to go tubing. Paisley and KorbiBeck kept his head down most of the time. I think that he actually enjoyed it. He liked the "slow waves" and even went out of the wake.We play in the awesome sand box.and Paisley eats the sand.We ride the razor.and Paisley continually tries on everyone's shoes, ecspeically crocs. If anyone was missing a Croc shoe, all the had to do was find Paisley and she was probabaly wearing it or carrying it around.And this was also a very fun part of our trip. Me and Stephen on the tube.....
So, in nothing close to a nutshell that was our Family vacation July 2009. :)This is me on the tube...