April 20, 2010

It was a lovely day on Saturday, and the kids had been begging me to take them to the park. Sean had to work in the morning (inventory day), but when he got home we headed over to Mooney Grove Park. This is a great park in Visalia - tons of huge trees, 3 different playgrounds, ducks and geese with a little pond, lots of fields, a frisbee golf course, etc. Megan found a feather and was totally fascinated with it. She loved rubbing it on her face and neck. We also brought Bruno (our dog) along - Megan and Bruno have a special relationship - she just loves to love all over him.


Sunday we took a little stroll around the neighborhood with Caelan on her scooter, Ben on his new big wheel, Megan on her trike, Nathan pushing his push-car, Sean walking the dog and me just walking along (until Nathan got tired). Good times.

April 17, 2010

So, we are celebrating Ben's birthday in stages. We were gone on April 5th - his actual birthday, but Grandma made some cupcakes for him. Yesterday we did our family fun trip. We went to Adventureland - a Family Fun Center here in town. Ben wanted to ride the go-karts and the bumper boats. Megan was a little frustrated that she was too short to go on either of the rides (one of the photos below accurately shows how she felt about it...HE HE HE). Nathy was pretty content to run around EVERYWHERE and slurp on his drink. Afterwards we went to Me & Ed's - a pretty yummy pizza place. The kids were wired (climbing over and under the table and booths), and it was pretty ironic when a middle aged couple (just a husband and wife) sitting at a table next to us dropped their pizza on the ground. Here we are with craziness emitting from all parts of our group and this calm, quiet couple causes a big scene (oh, I'm sure they were mortified). Good times!

April 16, 2010

While we were sailing the seas in Mexico the kids were having a party of their own here at home with Grandma and Grandpa Dick (Grandma came the Friday before we left and Grandpa flew down to join her on Wednesday). The kids had a BLAST. They took a few trips to the park, they went and saw "How to Train Your Dragon" (which was a big hit), they spent a day at the Fresno Zoo, built Lego castles, took a trip to McDonalds and even got Happy Meals with a toy, read books, got acquainted with two new movies: The Princess and the Frog and Up (both super cute), made cupcakes for Ben's birthday and lots of other playing. I'm sure Grandpa and Grandma were ready for little vacation of their own by the time they left (carting kids to and from school, staying up all night with Megan who had a earache one night, bedtimes, naptimes, mealtimes, homework, Sacrament meeting with 4 kiddos, multiple kids finding their way into their bed at night, etc, etc). The kids have mentioned several times this past week how they miss Grandma and Grandpa.

April 15, 2010

Dad and I were leaving early Easter morning to drive down to San Diego to catch our boat, so I told the kids that I would make a special request for the Easter Bunny to come by our house on Saturday. He gladly complied. We colored our eggs on Friday night and decorated them with glitter pens (which never really dried) and paint. They were quite the site! Saturday morning the kids woke to find their individual Easter baskets on the kitchen counter. They were filled with the usual: jelly beans, peanut M&M's, chocolate eggs and of course, a chocolate bunny. They even had these little Veggie Tale gummy candies (which were really cute to look at but look pretty questionable to actually put in your mouth, which is probably why they are all still intact almost two weeks later...HE HE HE). Then we had an Egg hunt in the backyard: first I hid the eggs, and then the kids wanted to have a turn hiding them while the grown-ups looked for them. I love that part because they get so excited when they see that we are close to an egg that they almost just point them out each time. What a hoot. Then we spent the rest of the day watching General Conference and enjoying the day together.