Legos + Potty Humor + Field Trips = Tired

If you dropped by our house recently, you would have found bowls of half-eaten Apple Jacks and Life Cereal, candy wrappers, Taki crumbs, and wrappers from various fast food restaurants we never usually go to.   

Additionally, there were piles of Legos and cars on every flat surface in the house....

No, I haven't taken up Legos and junk food in my middle age....but we did watch our nephews-- Manuel and Isaiah, while their Mom, brother, and sister took a spring break trip to Washington DC and NYC!  

Manuel and Isaiah are 8 and 9 years old, which meant we had A LOT more potty humor happening in our house than we've had in many years!  Cards Against Humanity (Family Edition) is pretty epic for kids this age.  It was good reading practice and had them rolling on the floor in laughter (mostly at the silly potty humor  that is plentiful in this game)! 

We also had a lot more random field trips to places we normally don't go, including mini golf, the country store to see the baby chicks and bunnies....

We went to the aquarium...

We made a visit to the butterfly biosphere in Thanksgiving Point.... 

And the dinosaur museum....

Denali got lots of extra love....

We made cookies for Nana...

And then brought them to her....

I was a wee bit tired at the end of the time we had them, but they are sweet boys and I was glad to give my sister the opportunity to take her other kids on their own adventure!  💗

Things that Made Me Smile This Holiday Season

The older we get, the more low-key our holidays become.   We are not on anyone's party invite list and it's frankly rather difficult to get excited by gift-giving when my kids are so specific with what they want.  It's been many years since I've had an ounce of confidence about buying an article of clothing or jewelry that my kids will actually wear and that's usually mostly what they want.  So they send me links and I try my best to also make sure they have something that's kind of a surprise to them.   I miss the days when I could get Lego sets, art supplies, or doll accessories, depending on the kid, and know that they would be totally happy.  

With Adam on his mission and Cami taking her turn with the in-laws, this holiday season we had 3 of our 5 kids here.  Combine the smaller crowd than usual with the fact that Glen only had a couple days off of work and Ellie left for Alabama on Christmas night (to help babysit Lucie), and it felt even more low-key than normal. 

Here are a few things that made me smile this holiday season...

Our Christmas tree is wild and crazy with a collection of ornaments from the last 30-years.   I keep thinking that I *could* get a second tree that we keep all fancy and matching, but, frankly, that's not me and I rather love our Tree of Memories.   We collect ornaments from our travels and special events from the year and it keeps getting more and more covered with ornaments every year. 

These missionary ornaments that we've gotten for each of our missionaries while they were serving, were making me extra smile this year.  This is our second Christmas without Adam at home and I found myself looking at that ornament a lot!   We did laugh when we put them side-by-side and saw the height differences between them.  Cami and Emma are both 5'5" in real life and Adam is 6'2", so the ornaments are definitely not to scale.  Haha!

 

I also really loved this ornament I found at the BYU-Idaho bookstore.  I love the artistic style of it and I love that BYU-Idaho is a new special place for our family now that Ellie attends there. 

 
Here's a collage of some more of our Christmas activities...a trip to Temple Square to see the lights, more treat making, our Christmas Eve devotional with my Mom and Heather, and some Christmas Eve pajama pics!  

 

We were completely charmed by the Christmas Eve Nativity pictures sent by Cami with their Christmas crew in Alabama.  Lucie was Garrett's parents' first grandchild too, but they now have four (almost five), while we are still anxiously awaiting number two! 

Christmas morning involved a delicious breakfast made by Emma! 

She could sell her  gluten free cinnamon rolls...they're amazing! 

Actual gift opening was  slow and pretty low-key...

We loved being able to talk with our missionary {and Cami, Garrett, and Lucie} for a while...

Some other Christmas break happenings, included a temple trip with Emma, Glen, and I....

Dropping Ellie off at the airport on Christmas night for a red-eye to Alabama so she could help babysit Lucie...

WE introduced my Mom and Heather to the game, Codenames, and totally laughed when both of our last names were *almost* in the first set of words! 

We saw a beautiful sunrise...

We saw our first American kestrel in the wild on one of our morning walks...

We ate a lot of good food, including this charcuterie board that Emma made us for NYE. 

I got a bee in my bonnet and took down the Christmas decorations before New Year's this year.  As much as I love our tree, I hadn't loved the way the rest of the decor came together this year, so I wanted it down while I actually had helpers in the house to make it happen.   I went straight for the Valentine's decor...

Also, I couldn't help but throw this great photo of Spence and Kiwi in here that my sister, Heather, took of them.  Much like when he was a teen, he still doesn't love sitting still for photos, so I'll take what I can get! 

Hope you all had an amazing holiday season filled with many happy memories!  

Hawaii: Part 6 -- Parasailing, Botanic Gardens, and More.

I'm trying my best to blog my way through  Hawaii before life gets away from me, but, man, I'm not sure life could get much crazier than right now.  I'll try and do a quick catch-up post of all the happenings soon, but in the meantime here is another bare bones recount of our 6th day in Hawaii!  

SATURDAY MAY 28

• We ate a simple breakfast at the house and then we headed to Honolulu for a day of adventure planned by Ellie

• The boys took Lucie first, while the rest of us girls tried parasailing! 

•   It was much less scary and much more peaceful than I thought it would be sailing 800-1000 feet in the air and I have to say, that despite my scaredy-cat tendencies, I rather enjoyed it.   

• After we girls finished up, we traded off Lucie with the boys and let them have their own parasailing adventure.  

• While the two different groups of us parasailed, the Lucie holding group walked around Foster Botanical Gardens  where we discovered lots of very unique and beautiful plants
  
  
  

These leaves...or perhaps they're flowers... resembled butterflies as fluttered off the trees...and the cannonballs were crazy!  We're glad none of those landed on our heads!  😅

A closer look at the fluttery thingies...

Lucie enjoyed a double dose of the Botanic Gardens...

Here's a closer look at some of the unique flora and fauna we saw there....

• Ellie had done some research and found a flea market at Aloha stadium that sounded cool, but it wasn't really worth it.  We bought a couple of small items, but mostly it was just a big overhyped collection of souvenir shops. 
  
  
• We went to Oahu Grill for dinner—it was good Hawaiian family style  food, but unfortunately even the meat had gluten in it, so my options were limited. 
  
  
• We had heard that Waiola Shaved Ice was the best around and while we were hopeful when we saw the crowds there, we found it was good, but not amazing.  

• On the way home, we stopped at surf shop in Haleiwa for some souvenirs. The t-shirt selection was the best around and they even had some unique postcards for me. 
  
  
• After all that Hawaiian adventuring, we headed back to the house for a chill night in.   We enjoyed our Lucie snuggles while we watched the sunset and played pickleball.  

• We played Cards Against Humanity {family edition}

• MEANWHILE AT HOME...our puppy was getting spoiled with scenic drives and mountain hikes! 

• This was one of our favorite chocolate covered macadamia nuts!  YUM!  😋

• DISCLAIMER:   I have just had one of the craziest weeks of my life (6/19/22) and writing this blogpost is my effort at decompressing.  I am mentally and physically exhausted and do not have the bandwidth to edit or read through my blogposts, therefore I kindly request that you suspend judgment at my lack of creativity and proper grammar.   💖