An epic trip to L.A.

We went to Los Angeles for stake temple day a few weeks ago. It was the first time we were able to go since Chloe was born, and it was a wonderful trip. 

Brennan threw up in the car on the way down, so that was a bummer, especially for Spencer, who was sitting right next to him and would normally run full speed to the opposite side of the house at the slightest hint of someone gagging. Dallin had the stomach flu a few days before that, so we were prepared with a bucket and wondered how the rest of the trip would go. But it was a one time thing; he woke up feeling fine, and no one else got sick. Shwew!

What I love about going to the L.A. temple and staying in the apartments is that I can get up super early before anyone else wakes up and enjoy a beautiful, peaceful walk over to the temple. Then I hang out with the kids while Dave does a temple session. We packed scooters and played at the park for awhile. 

Tyler had fun taking pictures. I can't get over how much he loves that thing. He keeps begging me to set up his own blog, but I haven't had time to show him how. 

Levi was not in the mood for pictures that day.

The boys really wanted to go walk around the temple before we left, so I took a few of them over while Spencer helped Dave pack up the car.

We were very disappointed to see that "the tree" was gone. The big huge one that everyone took wedding pictures in front of. We used to love climbing it, until security would tell us to get off. I guess we killed it. In its place was a much smaller tree with flowers all around. Witty Tyler commented, "They reTREEted!"

This was Chloe's first time away from home, other than our little hospital stay. She did SUCH a great job. She slept all night, took good naps, and only cried at the very end of the long car trips there and back. What a good baby!! 

I love how my boys always put their arms around each other and point things out to one another. Tyler's pointing at the angel Moroni in this one.

On the way home we stopped at the Getty Museum. We only stayed for a couple of hours because we were tired and hungry and had a long drive ahead of us, but it was a really cool place. One of the best things about it is the location, up on a big hill overlooking Los Angeles. Dave and Tyler are pointing out the temple here.  

We spent the most amount of time in the sketch room, where they could sit and sketch the artwork on the walls. They all loved it.

When Spencer was little he loved to watch a series of videos called "There Goes a...Bulldozer, Firetruck, Police Car, etc." One of his absolute favorite ones was the bulldozer, and it was filmed at the construction site of the Getty. So it was pretty epic (currently one of his favorite words) to finally get to see the finished product!

Another great thing is all the cool architecture and lighting. I wish I could have taken more pictures, but Chloe was extra hungry and Levi was extra cranky. That makes it hard to be creative with a camera. I'm sure we'll go there again some time, since it's so close to the temple. Plus it's free, other than parking. The fun tram ride up and down the hill alone was worth the price of parking.

Memorial Day

We visited my grandparents' grave on Memorial Day. It was the first time we'd been there since my grandpa's funeral last summer, and we were glad we went. Grandpa used to put flowers there for grandma every Memorial Day, so we were happy to continue that tradition.

We picked red roses from a special rose bush in our backyard to put on the grave. Some people at Dave's work gave it to us right after his brother Kevin died in a car accident a few years ago. 

This was the first time we saw grandpa's name plate on the headstone.

Afterwards we headed over to the beach for a bar-b-q. It was a really nice day - not nearly as windy as the cemetery.

 Dallin is getting eaten by this fallen tree. In case you couldn't tell.

This is one of my favorite views from the drive home. See Morro Rock down there? I took this from the car window, and it actually turned out nice. One of these times I'm going to pull over to take pictures, but we're always so eager to get home by this point that we don't want to stop.

Festival of the arts

I am so behind on blogs. I guess life has been busy. Plus we got a new computer, so we're still working on transferring everything over. So way back over Memorial Day weekend we went to our town's art festival. It was a beautiful, not-too-hot day, and we all had a lot of fun.

 First they all played instruments.

Then they did a ton of kid crafts.

 Spencer liked the natural art - all the paints were made from silt and dirt.

The highlight of the day was definitely the sand castle. They had a few professional sand artists from The Sand Guys come down from Monterey to sculpt this huge, amazing castle. They worked on it all day, and the kids were able to "help." We spent a lot of time there.

Levi fell down at the skate park the day before (which was ironic, because he wasn't even on wheels - he just fell off a step) and scraped up his face.

They had the stilt people walking around again this year.

We walked around and looked at the art. Spencer especially enjoyed talking to the artists about their work. But the younger kids made us all very nervous around the glass sculptures, so we had to move along quickly.

Don't you just love this lady demonstrating the paper bag hats?

 They decoupaged glass candle jars.

There were dance performances all day, and we watched them while the kids were busy crafting.

We had to check out the sand castle one last time before we left. Check out their website. They've also been on the Travel Channel. Seriously, they were amazing!! And they were very nice and gave us some great sand sculpting tips. Spencer put those tips into action last night, and his group won 1st place in the youth sand castle contest. He assures me it wasn't anything like this one, but it was still really cool.

Skate Park

For the end-of-the-year middle school reward trip (they had to get good grades and read a bunch of books in order to go), Spencer went to the skate park. I felt bad for him because they usually go to the water park but couldn't this year because of the budget crisis. Well he ended up loving it anyway and insisted we all go there the following furlough day. So we did.

  Dallin rode his scooter all around. He loved it too.

Our friends Austin and Madelyn came with us.

Madelyn is such a huge help with Levi. She has always adored him!

Tyler has improved so much in hockey this year. He's getting a lot better on his skates.

Dallin especially loved the toilet bowl. With a name like that, how could he not?

Brennan did a lot of climbing and sliding.

I didn't manage to get any pictures of Spencer's big jumps in the air. I kept having to go back to the car for water and snacks and diaper changes, and then we had to leave to take Tyler to his violin lesson. This worked out great because there was a sudden freak rain storm as soon as we got to the car. In May! Crazy.