Lovin' this weather

The weather has been so perfect recently - mid-70's and sunny. It feels so good to be outside.

We've gone to about 4 different parks in the past week. Plus the local zoo.

We walked to school to pick Dallin up from kindergarten every day (it was minimum days last week, so he went in the morning and got home before the boys). It felt so nice out that we didn't want to go in the house. We climbed the tree in our front yard and rode bikes until the other boys got home.

Dallin took these pictures of me and Levi. They're a little off-center, but I think they're cute.

Levi loves to chew on my hair.

It's supposed to be in the 50's and rainy later in the week, so we are enjoying this while we can.

River of water

After 5 straight days of rain, which was often very heavy with high winds, thunder, lightning and even hail, we woke up to blue skies and sunshine today. And as much as I love rainy weather, it was nice to have a little break. So we loaded up the boys and drove to the riverbed, which actually had water in it. Our town is dissected by the Salinas River, which is usually just an underground river that serves as our town's water source. The kids have been asking me all week to go there, since they've never actually seen it with water.

They got a tad wet and muddy while exploring, hiking, climbing and throwing rocks in the water. My boys love water, and I love the green hills. It's amazing what a little rain can do.

We've actually had some weather here

(see the little white streaks? that's the hail)
We've had more weather here in the past week than we've had in a year. First it just rained on and off for days, which is great because we keep hearing how dry this winter has been (seriously, they say that every year). Then things really got exciting with hail on Saturday. It only lasted a few minutes, but we got the boys out of their bath in time to see it (they had been playing out in the mud). Then Dave said it snowed on his way to work Monday; it wasn't sticking to the road, but snow of any kind is rare around here. Yesterday we booked our annual trip to the snow. We're staying in the same cabin we went to last year, which is perfect because there's a huge sledding hill right behind it. I get to stay inside and sip hot chocolate with a napping toddler while Dave and the older boys are happily sledding for hours on end. I am not looking forward to the packing, cold hands and feet, and piles of wet clothes, but I do enjoy taking pictures of the kids all bundled up in the snow. It's probably the main reason I go. That and the hot chocolate. Oh, and I just made Russian Refresher Mix, so we'll bring that too.

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Whenever it rains I sing the Rainy Day Song from Sesame Street to my kids, so I got all excited when I found it online. Get ready to take a trip down memory lane.

When it rains it pours

We're finally getting a little rain around here. Although we've loved the warm sunny weather, what we really needed was cloudy and wet. The boys were all excited to be able to use their umbrellas this morning.

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My family is keeping the medical community in business this week. Kristen is coming home from the hospital today. My mom had a stent placed to allow her many kidney stones to pass. My father-in-law had two surgeries in a week. My sister Emily had surgery on Monday. And my grandpa was admitted yesterday with a dangerously high calcium level. Our prayers have been rather lengthy this week.