Welcome home Caleb!

Caleb arrived home today after spending the last two years as a missionary in South Korea. He got in around 5:00pm and we met him, my parents and Janell at a resteraunt for dinner. It was great to catch up a little and for the girls to meet him. They were a little shy at first but gave him hugs and kisses by the time we left. My favorite thing that Caleb commented on was how cute it was that the girls speak English. Ha!

Claire warmed up quickly, but as usual, Alice was skeptical about a new person.

The Latest Portraits

The one of Claire is actually from March, but I haven't posted it because I didn't have a corresponding one of Alice. I would also like to draw your attention to the kitty with Alice. It was the only way she was happy enough to get a decent photo.

There is no vacation from reality

We arrived home today after a long ordeal. We left the condo around 9:00 California time (10:00 Utah time). We had the option to stay the night at Marc's cousin's house in St George, my mom's house in Orem, or drive all the way home. We drove past St George at about 4:00 and decided to power through and try to get to my mom's. The girls were extremely cranky and only took a 45 minute nap all day, but we made it. We arrived at my mom's around 9:30. We were so glad to be close to home and be able to get home earlier, or so we thought. When we arrived at the cabin Marc detected an unsavory smell that I first missed, not the most welcoming thing to encounter when getting home from a week long vacation. Marc started searching the house for the mystery stink and found this.

This is the downstairs fridge. Marc called me down and as soon as I entered the stairway the smell of rotting meat hit me. Judging from the smell/mess we encountered, the fridge and freezer must have given out shortly after we left. Eeeewwww!

So instead of getting a bit of time to recoup and put our things away, we got to clean out the fridge and throw away A LOT of meat. (I'm the most annoyed about that). The basement still reeks and the flies are congregating around the drier vent. Tomorrow we will be investing in some industrial strength deodorizers. I have the best husband ever who did most of the blood sopping. I guess it's time to go check out new basement refrigerators.

San Diego Part IV: Condo and Sea World

Yesterday we decided the girls needed a break from the action so spent the day at the condo. We swam at the pool and napped ALOT! Alice slept for about 17 hours in total and Claire 16. Poor kids.

When I purchased the tickets to Sea World I scoured the Internet looking for deals. The best deal we found was for a 7 day pass that was the price of a child's one-day pass. So it was less expensive to buy 7 days then 1, go figure. Since we had a multi day pass we thought we should take advantage and went to Sea World for a half day this morning. We got there around 10:00 soon after they opened so it wasn't quite so crowded yet. We also learned that it is really easy to sneak in food, so that also made it a little more pleasant this time around.

 We went to the kids area that had a few rides. They LOVED the Elmo's flying fish ride. It is basically the Dumbo ride from Disneyland but with Elmo. As soon as it was over Alice was shouting "AGAIN! AGAIN!"

Unfortunately for the girls I was a mean mom and dragged them away to get a picture with Shamu. Sorry girls but Mommy needs to scrapbook. We rode the Elmo ride twice, which was enough for me. 

We went to the dolphin show, which Alice adored and Claire ignored in favor of her pretzels. After the show we found some shade so we could eat lunch and reapply sunblock. The girls were tired and cranky at this point and fell asleep in the stroller shortly after lunch. 

  

I still wanted to see the rays and eels so Marc and I checked out a few more things before leaving. I was disappointed the girls had fallen asleep because I think they would have really liked to touch the rays, but whatever. The eels were the coolest underwater display at Sea World. As we were making the way out of the park we walked past the dolphin display where they were doing a presentation and allowing people to touch the dolphins, however, the kids were still sleeping and it wasn't worth the tantrums if they woke up. We thought about going back tomorrow, but were told not to bother coming on Saturday since the park is crazy busy. Oh well, maybe when they're older they can appreciate it more. We certainly enjoyed the second day more since we figured out the tricks to Sea World. 

1. Get there early. 2. Sneak in food. 3. Don't stay all day.

We left the park around 2:00 and got back to the condo around 3:00. Since it was still early and the girls had napped at Sea World we headed over to another pool in the complex that was supposed to be more set up for kids. It was amazing. There was a splash pad that both girls really liked and a shallower pool that was really warm. It made us feel like suckers for going to our own pool. After a long day of adventure, the girls were wiped out and went to bed early. Yeah!

San Diego Part III: Zoo

Today we went to the San Diego Zoo. It cost about half of what Sea World was and was 10 times better. The girls liked the petting zoo and the skyfari the best. Our only real complaint was that it was way too big. We got lost several times and weren't the only ones checking the map constantly. I wish someone had told us how great the zoo is in the evenings. We got there around noon and it was hot and crowded. We didn't really start enjoying it until about 3:00 when the crowds lessened and the heat began to subside. By the time we left it was down right wonderful. With our admission we were able to do a guided bus tour and ride the skyfari for free. If we did it again we would get there around 3:00. Another interesting thing about the San Diego Zoo is the hills. There are some serious inclines throughout the park. Marc really got his workout in pushing the stroller all day. It was a really fun (if long and tiring) day.

San Diego Part II: Sea World

Alice at the tide pool

Marc and the girls exploring the tide pool

Alice watching the aquarium

This one didn't turn out well but it was one of the few I was in

At the Shamu show. The girls loved it! There is a part of the
show when they chant Shamu! Shamu! and Alice really
got into it.

Claire

Alice reading the map

Both the girls loved watching the dolphins

San Diego Part I

   Today was our first full day in San Diego, well Escondido. We left on Saturday with a stop in Mesquite. When traveling with kids this age that was 2 full days of travel. We borrowed a DVD player from Ryan and it was needed badly. It annoyed Marc that the girls needed to watch so many movies because his favorite part of road trips is listening to music.
   We are staying at the Lawrence Welk resort in Escondido which is really nice. We stayed at a Lawrence Welk resort in Palm Springs last year and really liked it. So when this condo was available at the week we needed, we jumped on it. The resort is set up in 5 mini-resort areas and we are apparently in the "family" area. Our activity center has a play structure that is ideal for little kids and a seperate wading pool that is 1' deep for the kids to splash around in. Alice loved that wading pool and kept trying to "swim" which meant going head first into the water. She choked a little on the water the first time but got the hang of it pretty quickly. She would dive in and Marc would haul her back up. I thought she would hate it but she did that 10+ times before she got bored. It made me feel really guilty that we never found the time to do swimming lessons over the summer.
   The condo hosts a small farmer's market on Mondays that we went to. We were happy to get some fresh produce at a good price. I also got the most amazing smoked/baked potato and beef brisket for dinner. So far we are enjoying the condo and SoCal.

A week in Omaha

Aaron, Jenna, Sean, Alice, Claire and Ethan.
All my mom's grandkids

Hmm, that's interesting

My sisters and I have decided that it is important to get together at least once a year. Last year we had a weekend at my house and this year it was a week at Rachael's new house. Since Lauren is on a mission, she didn't join us. It was so fun to see the new house. It is huge and gorgeous. We tried to do activities in the morning and chill in the afternoons. I was really glad to have time to reconnect with Rachael since it is hard to keep up since we are both so busy. The full day we were in Omaha it was about 95º with 95% humidity. We went to the Omaha zoo that day and it was slightly misrable. Since Rachael is about 9 months pregnant she had to sit down several time to keep from passing out. The whole time I was thinking "why would anyone live here?" But the rest of the days were much better. The zoo was really big and the girls seemed to enjoy it. We ended up going twice. We also went to the park and the children's museum. I'm glad the girls got to know their cousins better.

The whole group minus my mom.
We thought we looked like a day
care group going to the zoo.

Rachael's favorite pic from the visit

Claire in the aquarium's tunnel

This is me trying to do homework, it doesn't
really work at home either.

I love how much bigger Aaron
is then the girls.

My mom did this to Claire's
hair and I thought this was
such a cute picture.