A couple of weekend ago, we drove to Star Valley to celebrate Aaron’s Grandpa’s 89th birthday.
I love this picture. Carson loves this Grandpa, and going to visit him is one of his favorite things. He loves to have Grandpa show him the farm and take him for tractor rides.
It was fun to see family that we haven’t seen for a while and spend a weekend visiting with Grandpa.
Here we go again. I just got one little boy old enough to not be quite so destructive to my house, and now this little one is just getting started.
We have to lock him out of Carson’s room, or he will unload all of the books off of the bookshelf.
We had to move the barstools out to the garage because he kept knocking them over and hurting himself.
All bathroom doors have to stay shut, because he likes to fall into the tub.
He has broken two DVD players.
I had to move my plant to higher ground.
He has certainly gotten busy over the last few months.
It is a good thing he is so sweet and cute, it helps us tolerate all the mess he makes.
We are playing a little blog catch-up at our house. Better late than never I guess. For Halloween this year, we had school parties and parades on Thursday, and then Trunk or Treats on Saturday. Even though we had to dress up twice, it was nice to have a more relaxing day.
Aaron went out to our garden in the middle of the summer and scratched each of the kids name into a pumpkin. When they were ready to pick, they looked like this.
Cooper watching us carve pumpkins.
The whole crew. It is REALLY hard to get a picture of four kids actually smiling and looking at you.
Happy Halloween!
On our last day in San Diego, the sun was shining again. If we would have had sun everyday, these kids would have played at the beach every one of them. Cooper tolerated the sun and sand for a day, but it certainly wasn’t his favorite way to spend the day. He was a good boy and took about a two hour nap in my arms.
Paige making a “hot tub” in the sand.
A hot tub for 2.
Morgan gets her worrying gene from me. Grandpa is trying to help her get used to the waves…I remember him having to drag me into the water on one of our vacations as well. I loved it after I decided to get brave, but this water was a little colder and had a bit of kelp swirling around in it. In some places it was ALOT of kelp. It is hard to make yourself remember kelp is a plant and not some strange sea creature.
Carson tried a little boogie boarding. He loved it! Actually, all the kids had a great time boogie boarding..until the tide went out and the waves weren’t so good anymore.
We will miss that sun, and sand, and the sound of the waves. It just isn’t that same in the backyard sandbox. After our day at the beach, it was sadly time to pack up and start our trek home.
The first show we saw at Sea World was the Sea Lion and Otter show. Here is a picture in front of them. Don’t mind Carson’s expression, it was a pretty smelly spot!!
My kids thought the show was so funny. They laughed like crazy.
The dolphin show was next. It turned out to be Morgan’s favorite. I wish we could have seen it twice, but we had so many other things to see, we didn’t have time.
We went to the Shamu show twice. It is so neat to see what they can train those whales to do. I loved watching my kids see these animals for the first time.
The water would slosh out all over the edges of the tank when the whales swam. They can move a lot of water around.
As we left the show, we were walking the skywalk over the whale tanks, and this little guy was putting on his own show. He was teasing some birds standing on the side of the pool. He would toss a fish from his mouth to them and see if any of them were brave enough to come and get it. He kept rolling his tongue like that, and it looked like he was laughing at them.
The splash zone.
My kids are still singing the Shamu splash song, and doing the actions.
We loved Sea World, can’t wait to go back someday!! Grandma you are so welcome to come too!! (She really likes the fish.)
I thought my family would think this retired aircraft carrier, turned into a museum, was pretty interesting. I thought they would walk around for a couple of hours and then start complaining because they were bored. We arrived at 11 and didn’t leave until closing time at 5 that evening. It was amazing to see what an aircraft carrier was like, and to walk around it realizing that at one time it was full of soldiers and used in times of battle.
Carson trying to pick up a chain from the anchor.
The chains, tools, and rope were all supersized.
Down in the Brig, where the naughty soldiers got to hang out.
Aaron and Carson went for little ride in a flight simulator. When Carson was driving, for some reason they ended upside a lot.
A we walked onto the boat, we all got some headset. All over the ship their were signs with numbers on them. If you type in the numbers, it will give you an audio tour of that part of the ship. Paige and Carson were all over this. I barely saw them with their headsets off all day. They had special numbers for kids to use, so the tour was geared to them. I was amazed at how much they learned that day.
View from the bridge of the runway.
The Radio Room. Lots and lots of little knobs to turn.
While we were on the Midway, an aircraft carrier came in to port. It was amazing to watch the security that the military uses to make sure these boats are safe as they come into the harbor. That helicopter flew right overhead the entire time, and a bunch of smaller (well armed) boats made sure no one got too close.
Here is a memory. At the end of the day, we were finishing up the tour, and we walked by the chapel. We walked in and while I was reading a sign on the back wall, some little boy went beyond the roped area. We soon realized that the chapel has an alarm that will sound if you try to go past the ropes. My son RAN as soon as he heard the alarm ring. Morgan, my dad, and I walked briskly after him, hoping we could escape before anyone could come and yell at us. We escaped, no one came very fast but the alarm worked plenty well, getting us out of the area quite quickly!
Paige thought Coop needed a turn with the headphones. This picture makes me giggle every time I look at it.
