Boise

At the beginning of September we went to Boise to visit Eric's sister and her family. Our newest nephew was born only a month earlier and we were excited to meet him. I realized when I got home that I didn't take many pictures. I don't even have a picture of our new nephew!

The drive went okay. Kaylin did really well and Lauren was alright. The travel toys helped a lot. They kept Kaylin really busy. We stopped in Richland to see the Columbia River Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Neither of us had seen it before. It's a beautiful temple with really nice grounds. We let the girls run some energy out in the grass.

While in Boise we swam in the pool a few times. We invited our cousins to our hotel for a swimming party. Hey... It looks like a did get a picture of the new nephew. Do you see him in his car seat in the background?

We also swam in one of Eric's uncle's pools and then went to another uncle's house for a BBQ.

Other highlights:
*We went to one of Eric's mission companion's house for dinner and got to hang out with his awesome family and see their amazing garden and yard.
*We went to Boise State for an hour. We saw the blue turf and decided that it doesn't look as awful as it does on TV.
*We saw our brother-in-law's new chiropractic office. If you're in Boise and need a great chiropractor, go to Action Chiropractic :-).
*We ate lunch at Cafe Rio.
*We went to a few fun local parks.
*We drove around the Boise Temple that is currently being renovated.

The last night we went to Texas Roadhouse Grill for dinner. Some friends from Boise convinced us that we needed to go there just for the complimentary rolls and cinnamon butter--amazing.
Lauren and Jack entertained each other. They couldn't stop laughing at each other.

The one thing I didn't do that I wanted to... go to Hobby Lobby. I didn't realize there was one in Boise, and right by our hotel, until it was too late. Sad.

The drive home went alright, I think it was a little better than the drive there. Lauren slept for two 30-minute stints whereas she only slept for 15 minutes on the way there. It was a fun trip, I'm glad we were able to go.

Magnetic Travel Toys

We're going on a long car ride soon (about 8 hours each way) and I needed a few more activities to keep the girls occupied.

I decided to make some magnetic toys! They weren't too much work, fun to make, and fairly inexpensive since I already had a lot of the supplies on hand. Also, it helps to have a laminator.

I bought them each a small cookie sheet from the dollar store, they're about 9"x13". They're a great tray for coloring, snacks, or magnets.

I made each girl a set of tangrams.

I printed this pattern (small version) and then traced it onto craft foam from the dollar store. I bought a roll of sticky back magnets from JoAnn's and cut a small piece for the back of each shape. I printed the animal tangram patterns. I left the cards as the "answers" because Kaylin is only 4. I cut the patterns into sets of two and laminated them back to back.

I made Lauren a set of the shapes too. I made them with pink foam so I can easily keep the two sets separate. I am not expecting my one and a half year old to make pictures; I figure she'll have fun just playing with the shapes.

Next I made some magnetic play sets.

Princess and the Frog

Toy Story 3

Farm set

Picnic set

The two Disney sets are paper doll printables. I just cut out the parts I wanted, laminated them, cut them out, and attached a magnet to the back of each one. I love that they have a background to play on.

The farm and picnic sets are cutting activities for kids. I didn't print all of the pages for these ones. I thought the barn needed a little more for the background, so I cut out some green paper for grass and glued the barn and grass onto a blue piece of paper.

I needed a place to store all of the pieces! The next day one of my favorite blogs, Make it and Love it, posted about vinyl pouches. Problem solved!

I had some thin clear vinyl and velcro on hand so I got to sewing. The tip in the post about putting scotch tape on your presser foot and the bottom plate by the feed dogs worked like a charm. I'd almost sworn off sewing on vinyl until I tried this. Then I attached sticky back velcro circles to the back of each pouch and the back of each background paper. Awesome. Now each play set is organized and all the pieces will stay together!

Kaylin has been wanting to play with the magnet sets, but I won't let her. I keep telling her that they're only for our car trip. Now that they're finished they're hidden away and I think she finally forgot about them. Hopefully these will make the trip a little easier on the kids (and the parents!).

In case you're curious, other things we're bringing include:
Tag Reader with headphones, extra batteries, and a new book
Cinderella book with dry erase markers (from Costco)
Tangled book with cling stickers (from Costco)
Dry erase cards with letter tracing
Magnetic letters to use with the cookie sheets
Coloring books and crayons
Lacing cards
Pipe cleaners
Misc. books
Portable CD player and iPod with headphones
Travel pillow
Lots of snacks!

Gig Harbor

Eric and I celebrated our 7th anniversary at the end of December. I knew before Lauren was born that I wanted to go somewhere overnight for our anniversary after Lauren's first birthday. I knew I would need a break. And I did. My fabulous parents came down and spent the night with our girls. We were gone for just over 24 hours. It was so nice to not have to do all of the regular feeding, changing, putting to bed, etc. for the girls and just worry about us.

We decided to go to a bed and breakfast in Gig Harbor, which is just under an hour from our house. We were only staying one night, so we didn't want to spend too much time driving. We explored the town, had a nice dinner out, watched a lame movie, and tried to sleep in. It was wonderful.

Here is part of our room:

I loved that you could sit in the chairs by the fire and look out at the harbor. The bed was opposite the glass doors, so you could also lie in bed and look at the harbor. The view that night was cool because everyone had their Christmas lights on.

The harbor from our doors:

This was our first time to Gig Harbor. We were surprised at how much it looked like a small lake. The opening to the harbor is fairly small, and as you can see, the entire harbor isn't very big. The water was very calm. The bed and breakfast had kayaks you could borrow, but since it was late December and freezing cold outside we didn't use them.

The city has a staircase with a nice view of the harbor:

With how busy we have been and having two small kids at home, it was so nice to get away for a day and just spend time together.

Friday Harbor

Eric has been really busy with work and church lately. He has a couple of days he needs to take off before the middle of March or he will lose them. He will be losing some days, it's just too hard for him to take many days off :-(. We decided to have him take this past Friday off and go do something fun. We decided to go to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island for the night. To get to Friday Harbor from Renton (south Seattle) you have to drive about an hour and 45 minutes north to the ferry dock in Anacortes. Then it is a one hour ferry ride to San Juan Island. Friday Harbor is right at the ferry dock. The island gets half of the rain that Seattle does. It's located in a rain shadow. We weren't lucky enough to benefit from the rain shadow this weekend.

Kaylin was super excited to ride on the ferry. No matter how many times I tried to explain that the ferry is a boat and I kept calling it a "ferry boat" instead of just a "ferry," she still thought I was talking about a "fairy". She asked me multiple times if she could "ride on the fairy's lap". She also wanted to know where the fairy's daddy was. She didn't seem too disappointed when we got on the actual ferry, though. She thought it was pretty cool that we drove our car onto the boat.

Trying to be prepared, I charged the camera battery the day before we left. I made sure I had the camera in the diaper bag. But somehow, I failed to put the charged battery in the camera. Oops. I almost cried when I tried to turn the camera on to take pictures on the ferry and it didn't turn on. Luckily for me, Eric's phone has a decent camera. Since he was in charge of the picture taking, we don't have a lot of pictures. But for once I'm actually in some pictures. I don't think that's necessarily a good thing :-).

I think Kaylin must be looking at a bird.

Lauren wanted to be in a picture too.

Kaylin and Eric played on the deck of the ferry for nearly the entire ride both ways.

This is the Lime Kiln Lighthouse.

This park is considered one of the best places in the world to view whales from land. The last sighting was of the J-pod at the end of January. During whale season (about April-October) whales are spotted multiple times a day. One time I visited this lighthouse in the summer and I got to see some Orcas. Pretty amazing.

Kaylin had fun on the rocks near the lighthouse.

Overlooking the harbor and ferry dock from a shopping area.

We also went to the English Camp. There was joint military occupation of the San Juan Islands in the mid-1800s. It hadn't been decided who owned the islands, the British or the Americans. Eventually, the San Juans were given to the United States. For those of you unfamiliar with the NW, Vancouver Island (where Victoria, the capital of British Columbia is located) is directly west of the San Juans. The island extends far past the 49th parallel which is the border between mainland Canada and the United States on the western half of the countries. There's your history/geography lesson of the day :-). Anyway... the English camp is located on a beautiful, calm bay. There are still a couple of buildings and an ornamental garden. And for some reason, we didn't take a single picture. Bummer. It was pretty muddy and Kaylin FREAKED out. She would have thrown herself on the ground crying if she wasn't afraid of getting her pants and coat muddy. Thankfully I brought an extra pair of shoes. When we got back to the car we changed her pants, socks, and shoes and all was right in the world again.

We had a great trip! It was so nice to have time with just our family. Plus, our phones were picking up Canadian cell towers, so we couldn't call anyone or receive any calls, unless we wanted to pay 79 cent a minute. Yikes. If anyone wants recommendations on where to eat, stay, or what to do, let me know!

California, Part 2- the Wedding

As soon as we got to the temple it was time to take pictures. Kaylin was being shy and we had a hard time getting her to be in any pictures. We were able to get her to look at the flowers with Macey.

Our family in front of the Oakland Temple

Christopher and Shaunna coming out of the temple after their sealing

After the sealing we drove to Shaunna's house in Elk Grove (Sacramento) for the reception.

Christopher and Shaunna's first dance

Kaylin and Eric watching the dancing

We left around 9:30 pm for our hotel in Redding, CA. 9 hours after that we finished our trip home. We were home at 8:30 pm on Sunday. It was a fast trip, but we had a great time. We were so glad we were able to go!

California, Part 1

My brother got married in Oakland last weekend. We made a quick trip down and back and we're still exhausted. To try to break things up a little bit for Kaylin, we drove to Eugene, OR on Thursday and stayed with Eric's cousin. She has two little boys and they live on an amazing piece of property there. We had a lot of fun catching up with them. Unfortunately, Kaylin threw up during the night so we didn't sleep all that well. Thankfully she was fine in the morning.

We stopped for gas in southern Oregon and Eric was threatened with a $10,000 fine for trying to pump his own gas. I'm not sure if he forgot we were in Oregon or if he was tired of waiting for the gas pumper guy to come over. The gas pumper also reprimanded Eric for calling him "sir". Eric said, "Thank you, sir." The guy turned around from 15 feet away to say, "Hey man, don't call me that. Call me "bro"." Uh, okay. For future reference, apparently white guys in southern Oregon prefer to be called "bro".

Did you know that California has its own border crossing with customs? Okay, so it's not actually the border patrol, but we had to stop and tell them that we didn't have any fruit or plants in our car. No stamps from California in our passports, oh well. Our next stop was lunch in Redding, CA. Thanks to the GPS we found a great park.

Eric wanted to stop at the water park in the background on our way home. We didn't. This park was next to the Sacramento River.

We arrived at our hotel in Emeryville (Oakland) around 6:30. Then we headed over to San Francisco for a couple of hours. Thanks to the GPS we were able to find 2 parks with great views of the Golden Gate Bridge. And thanks to Eric's inability to follow the GPS we even drove over the bridge. Luckily the GPS was able to get us back to the hotel alright without making us drive back over the bridge which would have cost us $4, which we didn't have.

Alcatraz!

This is my favorite shot.

The next morning (after a phone call from the front desk of the hotel letting me know that we'd recieved "multiple" complaints about running in our room) , we drove around UC Berkeley. It's a beautiful campus and we were actually able to see a lot of it in the short amount of time we had. I only took one picture and it looks much cooler in person.

This building was flying a Cal flag and it looked like a castle. We were too close to get a picture when we were on the other side of the fence.

After that we drove 10 minutes to the Oakland Temple for my brother's wedding!

Mt. Rainier

I've lived in Washington for basically my whole life and I've never been to Mt. Rainier. Eric has lived even closer to the mountain than I did and he hadn't been there either. We made a list of things we want to do and going to Mt. Rainier was high up. So when our friends, the Heals, planned a hike we had to go.

We went on one of the free National Park days, so it didn't cost us anything to get into the park. Yea! We went to Mowich Lake. I'm not sure if I'll ever go there again. There was a long, bumpy, windy, gravel and dirt road for something like 20 miles. It took forever to get to the lake. But the lake was beautiful and there were a lot of cool little streams and waterfalls around too. Kaylin's favorite parts were the frog we saw by the lake (she is still talking about it) and holding hands with her friend Kimball (she has stopped talking about that).

On a trail by Lake Mowich

We didn't last long on that trail because it was covered in snow. In the middle of July. And it was warm outside.

Mt. Rainier, part 2

Blogger is only letting me post 5 pictures, so this is part 2 of my Mt. Rainier post.

Kaylin and Kimball are sitting on a picnic table surrounded by snow. It was hard to believe there could be so much snow when it was warm and sunny outside.

Kimball got his picture taken on these rocks and so Kaylin decided that she had to also.

Bye!

Utah trip: SLC

For the second half of our trip we stayed with Eric's aunt and uncle in West Jordan. They were sooooo busy and it was really nice of them to let us stay. They just had their daughter in town, their daughter-in-law had a C-Section the day we got there and they had their grandson overnight for 3 nights, and they had a mission reunion (they were mission presidents in South Africa a few years ago). We did get a few chances to hang out with them and three of their kids while we were there. Eric had a great time catching up with his cousins and meeting three of their kids for the first time.

Kaylin still loves to try on shoes. Somehow she put Uncle Bob's boots on all by herself. She also enjoyed Aunt Kay's chickens in the back yard.

Wednesday night we were able to see two of Eric's mission companions and their families. We didn't get to stay too long because Kaylin was still sick. Sorry, no pictures.

On Thursday we hung out with family and then went to the Salt Lake temple with the Jacksons. It was James' first time through the temple, so it was a very special experience.

On Friday we hung out with more family and then headed back up to Salt Lake for the sealing of the Jackson family. This was the purpose of our trip. A BIG thank you to my friend Laura for watching Kaylin for us during the sealing. She also took this picture of us outside the Salt Lake temple.

As you can see, Kaylin wasn't super happy. It was windy and freezing outside. Notice that I did not pack appropriately. Well, I just realized that you can't see my legs in this picture. I was wearing a light, knee-length dress and sandals. The weather report before we left said it was supposed to be in the 60s and 70s while we were there. No such luck. It snowed 4 different days. Note to self: NEVER trust Utah weather reports.

The sealing was simple and beautiful. I love seeing families joined together forever. I am so happy that the Jacksons now have this great blessing in their lives. Here is a picture of us with the Jackson family after the sealing. Yes, it was still windy and freezing.

Kaylin and Ellie at the open house:

On Saturday Eric and I were able to go to the morning session of General Conference. It was such a great experience being in the same room (no matter how large :-)) as the prophet and other church leaders. I love hearing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in person. The spirit in the Conference Center is so strong, I am glad that we had the chance to attend a session.

We also got to see one more of Eric's mission companions in Utah. On our way home we stopped in Boise again. While there we were able to see another mission companion and his family. Overall, Kaylin did a great job in the car. We only had to stop once driving home from Boise (about 7 hours). She's a champ. When we arrived home late afternoon on Monday, April 6 it was 70 degrees out. Where was that weather while we were in Utah? Instead of unpacking we went to the park.

Thank you everyone for a great trip!

Utah trip: Orem, part II

While in Orem, we went to Fudruckers. Yum! I love Fudruckers because you can put whatever you want on your burger yourself and they have great fry sauce. Macey loved her grilled cheese. Kaylin maybe had one bite of hers. But she loved the fries.

That's it for pictures from Orem. Other highlights from our days in Orem:

-We saw my college roommate Erin and her family in Provo.

-We drove up to SLC to visit Eric's mission president.

-We ate at the Brick Oven aka best pizza ever.

-We saw my college friend Fowie and his wife.

-We visited my alma mater, BYU, aka best school ever.

-Kelsey and I ate at Cafe Rio.

-Not quite a highlight, but Kaylin had a fever for about 4 days and was pretty much no fun for three full days.

Next stop: West Jordan and Salt Lake City

Utah trip: Orem, part I

We stayed at my sister's house in Orem from Saturday-Wednesday. I actually don't have a lot of pictures, which is too bad.

We played Rock Band a few times. Here is Eric jamming on the guitar and Paul and Macey singing.

We got to meet Christopher's girlfriend, Shaunna, and she was a great drummer.

We took Kaylin and Macey to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. The skeletons were really cool.

They had an "erosion table" where kids could play with sand, water, and plastic dinosaurs. Macey dove right in, but Kaylin doesn't like to get dirty and didn't touch much of anything.

I don't remember what this next part was called, but the kids each had a paintbrush and they used it to uncover "fossils" buried in the sand. Kaylin did okay once we let her wear her socks and shoes. The rest of the kids were in bare feet, but Kaylin wasn't having it.

Utah trip: Stop in Boise

We left early Friday morning, March 27, for our trip to Utah. To make the drive easier on Kaylin (and therefore, on us too) we stopped in Boise at Eric's uncle's house. I had a lot of thoughts as we drove into and through Idaho. I don't want to offend anyone, so I'll keep my comments brief. A few things we noticed:

-The roads were brown, there was an obvious change in the color (and quality) of the freeway as we passed from Oregon into Idaho

-Everything else was pretty much brown too, even Boise, "the city of trees". What?? Even though I know what to expect, it still surprises me every time.

-There were LDS churches EVERYWHERE. I think we counted 5 as we drove from the freeway to Eric's uncle's house. This is not a bad thing, just different.

We arrived at Eric's uncle's house an hour or so before he was scheduled to get home. We remembered there was a nearby park where we took some family pictures 2.5 years ago, so we headed on over. I'm amazed that we found it. Here's a picture of Eric and Kaylin walking to the park:

Kaylin had a great time with the big slides. She was undaunted by the 4-year old who told her she was too small to be on the big toys. I don't think she even understood what he was saying.

That night we had a pizza party with Eric's 2 uncles and family. We were shocked and appalled that not one of them owned a pizza cutter. Apparently they use kitchen scissors to slice their pizza. Eric could not believe that these people were related to him.

The next day we met up with our friends, the Jacksons, from Marysville to drive the rest of the way to Utah. We stopped at a "lovely" truck stop called Traveler's Oasis. It was complete with a Taco Time, a Blimpie's Subs, and an eating area decorated in a Garden of Eden theme. It even had a fountain. Truly lovely. Kaylin enjoyed stealing all of Ellie's mexi-nuggets.

Next stop: Orem, Utah!