Lemonade Stand!!

That's right folks, this past Saturday was the annual lemonade stand.  It might appear that it was sponsored by Buc-ee's, but it's not actually.  I apparently didn't take a picture with the kids actually out at the table.  In my defense, I was doing yardwork and moving rocks and stuff.  The good news though, is that I sent out texts to my sisters to see if any of them wanted to order anything, and I'd eat it for them and send over a video!  It was a great plan because the lemonade is always so good, and so are the rice crispy treats.  I, fortunately for my health, didn't actually eat everything that was ordered, but I had enough to send out highlight videos to our sponsors!

One day I came home from work and the kids told me all about going to see the Smurfs movie!  It sounds like they all had a really fun day out at the theater.

Here are the kids making lemonade on Friday.  Fresh squeezed lemons and sugar baby.  It's SO good, sorry if you missed it!  Maybe next summer.

We had a plan to have a BBQ at the pool this summer, and school was coming quick.  I went and scoped it out at the pool and it turns out the grills are all charcoal, which we did not have, so we cooked up the burgers real quick before we headed over to swim.  It all worked out in the end, and we had a great time.

Monica got a sourdough starter from the Weeks, and so we've been swimming in sourdough lately.  Here's a wonderful bread loaf she made.  Yum.

Grayson had his first dream he remembered, or at least the first one he told us about.  It was pretty cool to hear, so I recorded it.

And there we are for this week.  Lovely lemonade, chilling at the pool, bread and dreams.  Great week.
 

Rest and Relaxation

Phew, finally back home and it's time to catch up on sleep and rest and all those other things we just pushed through to get to the next fun thing!  Kicking off the start of the week, I ran into my old buddy Jacob!  It was great seeing him again.

Jelly has really been racking up our phone bill lately.  To be fair to her, she did stay home for all our trips, so she wasn't constantly calling to hear about our latest adventures. I guess she's a bit of a phone addict now.  Hopefully if we give her a little more attention this little flair up will calm down soon.

Sometime over the last month, I guess they decided to tear down the convention center in downtown.  I've since looked it up and they're pulling it down to build a bigger one, but I wasn't expecting to see half a building when I got off the train.

The kids found a kite in the garage and were waiting to fly it with me when I got home from work.  They were hoping to go to the park, however, there was almost no wind, so we just tried to fly it out on the sidewalk.  This involved a lot of running, and a little flying.

Saturday morning there was a meet up for Valor families.  We went in hopes that our kids could meet a few new people and see what information might be offered.  It was a fun time, though the kids mostly stayed glued to us instead of looking for friends.  Winry and I climbed to the top of this rope jungle gym, and I also spent a bit of time over at the splash pad part of the park watching Winry and Grayson.  While there, I chatted with Vivaan's parents, who is a boy that was in Winry's class this year who is also going to Valor next year.

Saturday evening, the EQ was in charge of the ward BBQ, and Monica offered to assist with the decorations.  Here's a close up of one of the tables we set up.  The activity went great, which maybe is a little unfortunate, because now I might be asked to plan one again...

And that's it for this week.  Kinda crazy to see how short this post is after the last few I've written, but also nice to have a breather.  I don't usually give this away, but I'm actually about a month behind writing these, in part because the vacation posts were so long.  So it's nice to have some shorter weeks to catch back up!
 

California, the Final Vacation

I finally went to Legoland!!  Oh yeah!  I've wanted to go to Legoland since I saw it was opening in Lego magazine back in the 1900's!  Sheesh, tell me about it.  Here are all the kids we had to tow along on our great day... Just kidding, the kids all loved it.  Legoland, I now know, is actually very geared towards kids, but the rides were fun enough for an adult.  I had an amazing time for sure.  We went on Tuesday, so I guess we should talk about Monday first, right.

And how did our week start.  With this...  This little guy is a sea cucumber, a sweet potato sea cucumber to be more exact.  Or at least, that's what we think from a quick search online.  Fun fact, a sea cucumber has a defense mechanism where it can eject it's internal organs.  Want to know how I know... Winry had read about it. in a book she checked out from the library.  Jake helped get this little guy back into the ocean, and I bet he's been super happy ever since.

Here's Grayson enjoying the beach, albeit still from a distance.

And here's Grayson enjoying... I don't know, a lemonade or something (please, we're in San Diego, it's horchata ;) ).  Oh, he slept on the top bunk while we were staying in CA as well.  He could climb up on his own, but not back down, which meant if he drank enough water, you'd have to listen for his yell in the middle of the night to get him down for the bathroom.

Monday afternoon ,we went down to the beach.  Winry tried out some boogie boarding and seems like she really enjoyed it.

Apparently Grayson and I were still in the house for a while, as I upload the pictures in date stamp order.  Anyway, I know he really enjoyed playing sleeping queens, so maybe he didn't want to go down to the beach at first, but we eventually did.  Anyway, here he is having a wonderful time and singing "chicken bean" and then almost walking into a glass door.

Meanwhile, down at the beach there was a large group effort to dig holes and build walls.  Take that ocean, you'll never get through this superstructure!

Brooke buried her legs again, and I wasn't going to include a picture, but then Monica got this one with an old picture of Brooke and Audrey, and it was too good not to include.

And here is the sunset Monday night.  Well, I guess the sun is technically behind that cloud and not setting, but it still looked real good.

One thing you learn after a day at the beach is where you missed the sunscreen.  Winry had some fierce rings around her eyes.  She wasn't the only one, and I feel like it made a lot of the kids seem really tired on Tuesday.

Anyway, Tuesday we headed to Legoland!  Yay!  I had to take a quick break with my homie here on our way in.  Lego-life.

We went on a bunch of rides while in the park.  Our first one was one of those lift and drop style rides.

From there we stopped off at the merry go round.  Classic.  One thing I really liked is how everything is Lego themed here, which makes sense.  But all the horses on the merry go round were giant Duplo horses.

There was a pretty cool flower shop as well.  All these flowers are made from Legos.  Pretty awesome.

The first ride we actually tried to go on broke down just before we got on, so we got a "jump the line" pass, and used it to go on the very popular Coaster-saurus.  We checked ride line times often throughout the day, and I don't think this ride's line was ever under an hour, so nice to cut the line.  This is the smallest rollercoaster at Legoland, and it's a good thing we rode it first, because it was too much for Winry, and Monica didn't like how it felt on her back, so they knew not to ride any more coasters.

But Brooke and Grayson discovered that they LOVED rollercoasters, and so we headed to the Dragon Coaster.  This meant a walk through the medieval land, and a sword hug with this guy.  Good thing Grayson didn't cut his arm!

I broke off from the group for a little with Grayson as he just really wanted to ride the dragon coaster again, and we got in the front car.  Oh yes, this is my childhood dream come true.  This coaster was in the park originally, and I remember seeing a picture of it in the ads for the park.  Childhood dream, check.

Also in knight land there was this cool suit of armor for a photo.  Here's Winry getting ready to fight something.

And then the kids went over and rode the joust ride.  This was the first ride I wasn't allowed to go on.  Actually, I think this is the only ride I wasn't allowed to go on, because I'm too old.  Rub it in Legoland...

We spent some time walking around minifigure land, and they had cities from all around the world built in there.  With whatever Jurassic Park movie coming out, they also had dinosaurs attacking the city.

There was a place where you could build a boat and then race them.  Grayson wanted to make this really tall giraffe, and every time it started floating the top just fell off.

We all met up together to ride on this lazy river type ride.  The various family and cousin-by-age groups fractured off for a lot of our stay, but we did come back together for a few rides.

I really appreciated the giant Lego flowers on the hill.  It's an easy way to ensure there are always flowers to see, no matter the season.

And along the way Monica took her place on Mount Rushmore.  Perfect fit.

The boat was a lot of time in the sun, so we headed to find some water.

At this point we revisited dino land as Grayson really wanted to ride this dino picture taking ride.  This became a favorite and he insisted on going back several more times.

We also took a quick break to hatch!

At this point, we were into the afternoon and Grayson was getting tired, so I carried him.  Brooke and Audrey wanted to go ride the technic coaster, so we were heading that way.  Monica and Grayson ended up staying at the giant Ninjago playground.

And I went on to ride our final, unridden roller coaster.  It was so fun we went twice.

Here's Monica and Winry riding the dinosaur water ride and Monica is getting water shot in her ear!!

At the end of the day, there was a parade in the park.  I actually missed it, but Winry was having a super blast out there dancing.  It looks like it was a lot of fun.

We weren't there because we went to ride coaster-saurus again.  We'd gotten another quick pass thing, so we jumped on the coaster quick before the park closed.

On the way out I had  quick bite of hot dog.  Also, if you zoom in close enough on this picture, I guess when I open my mouth as wide as I can and it's from the side, my mouth looks like a beak!  I mean, I feel like my mouth looks more beak-like in that picture than like a mouth.  Worth it.  Legoland was such a blast!  I'm so glad I finally got to go, and I'd love to go again.  I don't think I'd want to go without kids.  It's not that I didn't enjoy rides, but it's definitely geared towards kids, and I think I'd feel weird not having a kid with me.

In the middle of the night Grayson started crying, so we got him so he could go to the bathroom and then he said his stomach was hurting.  He came and sat on my lap as I tried to help him calm down, and he threw up all over my legs...  So I got to clean Grayson up, and then myself, and then the floor.  And, since we were in a rental, we had all those usual cleaning supplies that we usually have like... nothing.  Actually, we were lucky, Monica had some cleaning wipes that she always brings on flights, but we only had 2 left!  I was able to clean up everything adequately.  I stayed home with Grayson all day, and everyone headed to the beach.  Grayson spent the day either napping or watching "Phibulous and Ferb."  Oh, and Grayson was only sick for the one day, and no one else got sick, so that's nice.

Everyone else went over to the bay as the Seawrights rented a boat!  It seems like everyone who went had a lot of fun sailing on the boat.  I don't really know what all they did as I was chilling with Grayson and having a little break.

On Thursday ,we went to the Mormon Battalion museum and I must say, after Legoland this might be my favorite thing we did.  It was SOO good, and if you find yourself in the San Diego area I highly recommend it.  Some of the kids even got to dress up a little like the battalion members.

And at the end, we got to pan for some gold and even got to keep one.

They also had a water pump, and that was pretty fun for the kids to see what it's like when you have to work for your water.

We went into old town San Diego and had lunch, and it was also really fun to go see some of those historic buildings.  We headed from there to a model train museum, and the kids loved watching the trains working their way around through the sets.

Thursday night, we went to a Padres game.  Man, Thursday was a FULL day.  Here we are walking on the pedestrian bridge over the road.  Gotta get a bridge in here for Grayson.

And here we are at the game.  I've never really enjoyed watching baseball, but I do enjoy going to a game every now and again.  We had a lot of fun cheering and watching and dancing.  We ended up staying through the 6th inning before Monica and I took Grayson and Winry back to head to bed.

One of the condos we had rented had a rooftop we could go to.  Technically that first picture of Grayson was up there, but it was hard to tell, so I wanted to wait for this picture to mention it.  The kids really loved heading up to the roof.  I think Grayson probably ate most of his dinners up there.

On Friday, we went to the beach again.  I'm always looking for things to do at the beach, and I'll be honest, after the cool sea shells we found on the beach in Australia I wasn't particularly interested in my typical past time.  I did play with the kids and help dig holes and build walls, etc. Friday the tide was going out, so that kinda ruined those games.  I found my new thing though, sand sculpting!  First I made Jelly, so she could be there at the beach with us too.  This is the angle I carved it from, and with the shadows it looks a lot better this way than head on, so we'll go with this picture.

And then I made a sea turtle.  I thought it was pretty fun to sculpt.  I think in the future I might need to study some pictures to have some ideas of additional things to sculpt.

There was a rollercoaster at Belmont park just a 5 minute walk away, and Brooke was super in love with rollercoasters since Legoland, so we headed over to ride the coaster.  A couple things.  First, wooden rollercoasters are definitely not as smooth as the steel ones we rode at Legoland, and second, this one was a bit bigger and more intense.  Brooke was a little less sure that she loved rollercoasters after this one, so I guess we maybe won't be heading to Six Flags in San Antonio this winter.

Friday was our last day in CA, and so we all went out to enjoy the sunset on the beach wall.

We also had a bunch of ice cream bars, so everyone got to pick one of those too.  I think Tommy might need a new set of pajamas.

Brooke and Audrey worked on a dance during the week that they showed us as the sun went down.

And Grayson had a turtle ride on Winry.  Turtle seems more appropriate at the beach.

On Saturday we returned our rental car, and as we walked to the airport I noticed that Alamo has a little bit of a different idea of what a convertible is than I do.

When we got on the plane, they invited Winry and Grayson to see the cockpit.  Pretty lucky kids.

And with that, we're back home.  What a month we've had!  3 weeks of vacation in the last 4.  It's been a lot of fun, and I am very ready to get back home and rest and recover.  We're super lucky and blessed for all the adventures we got to go on, and that we traveled everywhere safely.