bouldering

A new bouldering gym opened near us, and Trav was counting down the days until it happened. The grand opening day offered free climbing to everyone, so we headed down as a family. It was pretty crowded, but Trav managed to climb several routes, and the girls tried it out too. They are little monkeys and have hopefully inherited their dad's natural athleticism and talent for sports.  (And if they haven't, we'll make sure they learn it!)

Bouldering is rock climbing on large boulders or low cliffs without a harness or rope. Typically you have a crash pad below you to land on if you fall and spotters to help out. However, I think falling without hurting yourself takes a certain kind of grace and agility, both of which I I don't have. Hook me up to a rope and I'll try it. Take the rope away and no thank you.

love day

Trav took the day off from school to spend it with us and that was the best gift ever! We loved having a whole extra day together. 

a new hobby

Trav bought a slackline and has started bringing it to the park every time we go. Kapria and Mila think it's so cool. Kapria especially wants to try it over and over, and every time we head to the park she asks if we're bringing it.

We really liked the idea of starting it because slacklining helps increase balance and focus, and Trav and I can see how that would help all of us. We also like that it's individual - we each can improve and try new tricks at our own pace.

As part of our Valentine's Day, we headed to the park to play.

 

play-doh & mermaids & family night

family beach party

 

shawn & abby are here!

June 4-5, 2011

Shawn and Abby came to Cali mainly to go on a cruise, but also to see all of us. The best part of having them stay with us was that it helped Mila finally start loving her Uncle Shawn again. Mila's always been scared of men, and especially scared of loud, sudden noises, so she just didn't know what to make of Shawn since he is her two fears combined. She did like him for awhile when she was younger, but then she got scared and would never let him near her.

But all that changed on this trip and now she loves him! He may have bribed her with some toys. And probably candy. But whatever he did, it worked. She even tells me on a regular basis that she wants to call Shawn on the phone. (But don't worry, Abby - she still wants to call you more.)

We spent the weekend all together at Mom & Dad's house.

I'm pretty sure Kapria has a major crush on her uncle. And who can blame her - he pretty much plays whatever game she asks him to AND pretends to be anything she wants.

Mila wanted to play hide & seek, and she found this spot on her own.  She was so excited when we found her.

Mom made the most delicious orange rolls, and Trav proved that he can definitely  roll out the perfect dough circle. s'mores + superheroes + orange rolls + princesses + hide and seek + family  = fun fun fun.

remember when we were at SeaWorld and saw the polar bear cave?

"Remember that, Mom? I was scared."

That's what Kapria said when I asked her what she liked most about SeaWorld. Then she said her favorite thing was: the biggest one that swims in the biggest ocean.

So there you go.

Some friends invited us to join their preschool class at SeaWorld, and I couldn't pass up the amazing price of $11 total for us to get in. Trav stayed  home because he had finals week (his first year of grad school nearly done!). I was sad to go without him. Adventure days are always more fun with my hottie around.
The girls and I drove down early in the morning and spent the day with several different friends:

Dolphin and Shamu show with the Wilsons
Lunch with the Wallets and Schvaneveldts
Wandering around with the Mills

And somehow I hardly took any photos. But I did catch a few of our favorite moments:

It was a great day, and I loved spending it with my girls. We climbed in the car sunbaked and exhausted and headed to our next adventure: a night at Nonny Kare's!

easter eggstravaganza

Friday 04.22.2011
We spent the day with friends at a local Easter event and had such a fun family day together. We started with the egg hunt. Mila liked opening the eggs to see what was inside. Kapria ran around picking up every little piece of candy she could find (it was thrown all over the grass). She ended up with a basketfull of treats. We have yet to get a grand picture of the four of these girls together, mostly due to Mila - she refuses to stand still and smile when the other three do. Oh well, one of these days.

After the hunt we rode the train around the park. I love trees and this park had some awesomely beautiful ones. I especially loved the one that fell over and just kept growing that way - it's trunk was pretty much vertical. Awesome. And there was a pond with several little turtles sitting on the edge of the water relaxing. (Kapria wanted to hold one. I wanted to be one...just for an hour or two basking in the sun.)

We had one ticket left for each girl, and they all chose to jump in the bounce house. Why is jumping so much fun? I don't know, but I love it too. And with how much Kapria and Mila love it, we'll definitely have to invest in a trampoline whenever we're actually living in a house again.

Next we ate lunch, then we walked to the local zoo. It was the perfect size for us to walk through in about an hour or two and they had a petting zoo that the kids could've spent all day in.

The girls all wanted to pet the snake, which is amazing to me because even a month ago Mila was terrified of animals. She has really started warming up to them though (hence the goat hug). I attribute it to my dad's dog, Oso. Mila has slowly gotten comfortable with being around him. And come to think of it, he's furry and black, much like that goat.

But I digress. The snake:

Great day, great fun, great friends. Love it.

party hats and conference talks

Friday 04.01.2011 thru Sunday 04.03.2011

Mom came up on  Friday to help watch the girls while I worked on my novel (I have a big goal for it and she's helping me make it happen). Then we drove back to her house together that night after dinner. Trav had a late class and met up with us when he was done.

Saturday Dad had a job to do at the neighbor's (building a shed), so he and Trav were gone most of the day working on it. Mom and I were home with the girls, and we watched conference, visited the library, then visited the neighbor's (Cinnamon and Jared) to see how things were going.

Sunday we watched more of conference, and Mom made delicious scones that we all enjoyed. I ate way too many, but I love the making-scones-while-watching-Sunday-monring-general-conference tradition that the Marler's shared with us. Later we had a tasty taco lunch with the neighbors, then spent the afternoon together as a family. AND we finally had our family St. Patrick's Day party, which was awesome. Simple, but awesome. The girls loved the coin toss and wanted to do that pretty much the whole night. We snuck in one other game, too.

family night at ruby's

Trav had to work late at school tonight. So the girls and I ate dinner, quickly cleaned up (which is a record for me), got jammies on, and headed to school. We saw some of the awesome work that Trav is doing right now (I married such a talented man), then headed to Ruby's for some milkshakes.

The girls got to bed late, but it was totally worth it. We had so much fun together. Kapria wanted some "pinklish ice cream" and thankfully Ruby's has delicious strawberry milkshakes that come in pink. She also wanted to be sure and take a picture of the bike that was right by our booth, and how could we not when Mila kept shouting "Bike!" as loud as she could throughout the hour we were there?

I love family night with my girls and my main squeeze.

family goals

We are working to hold more regular family home evening and family scripture study. (Hide and Seek is one of the favorite FHE activities at our house.)

And it's making a difference for us - more peace, more joy, more togetherness.

local fun: visit the getty

Saturday, September 11, 2010

One of Trav's art classes required that he go to the Getty to see the Jean-Léon Gérôme exhibit. We decided to make it a family day and went together. We had lunch at one of the cafés, but next time I will be sure to pack a lunch. They have plenty of grassy areas where you can sit and eat and lots of roaming space outside for the kids. The architecture is beautiful.

They also have a Family Room where kids can explore. I was expecting it to be a big section, but it was exactly what it says: a room. There's a set of cubicle-like walls in the middle, and it creates I think it was eight little areas where kids can play. The girls loved these two rooms, one where you create modern art and another where you read on a renaissance bed. There was another room where you drew on the wall with magic erase markers. That was their favorite, but I didn't get any photos of it.

We had to head out a little early to make it home in time to feed the missionaries dinner (pepperoni & pineapple pizza, which one elder said his family loves and no one else ever makes. so yay for getting it right!). Next time we visit, we'd like to spend a little more time exploring the gardens and the other exhibits. But overall, it was a great day!

bbq and s'mores

When we got home from rock climbing, the girls took a long afternoon nap. Then we went to Shawn & Abby's and had a barbecue with them and Rich & Rachel and their girls. Of course, I missed taking pictures again. I did get one of the girls together, but next time I'll have to be sure and get pics of everyone else too.

Then we headed over to Traci and Chris's for s'mores. You can never go wrong with s'mores. Kapria ate her marshmallow one lick at a time. She also loved playing in the yard with the boys. The Bersie family was there, too, and we had a great time talking with everyone. After our friend and family-filled day we realized yet again how much we are going to miss them, our neighborhood, and our ward. We love living here so much!

It was a perfect day.

family rock climbing: the first

We were excited to take Kapria rock climbing outside for the first time and decided to go on Memorial Day. We called Shawn and Abby to see if they'd like to join us, and they were game. So we met up around 10am and headed to the canyon.

The hike to these particular climbs was a bit long for Kapria and Mila. But the location was perfect. We were in the shade the whole time, and the climbs were perfect for everyone.

Kapria loves climbing the rock wall in the studio, so we thought she'd love doing it outside. But something about wearing the harness and climbing the outside rock made her a little nervous. She got up a little ways and stopped and wouldn't climb any more. She was too light to come down, so Shawn helped her get down. She was done after that, but then wanted to hike over all the rocks without her harness. Go figure.

Everyone climbed, and everyone did awesome! I decided that the second climb is the best. For some reason, I'm always nervous that first climb outside. But the second one is awesome because the nerves are gone, and I still have energy. I didn't show a picture of me climbing because I will spare you the lumpy rolls. Aah!

We were all pretty tired on the hike down. Mila finally fell asleep - so maybe she's getting used to sleeping in the baby bjorn. Or maybe she was just too exhausted to keep her eyes open. When she woke up, she let Shawn carry her the rest of the way down.

I'm excited to take the girls again. Next time we'll bring a play pen for the girls to sit in a bit so we don't have to constantly watch where they are. We're thinking to attempt a family camping trip next month, too. I can't wait!

family hike: the first

There are several things we want to do before we leave Utah, and we realized that we're running out of time. Only eight Saturdays left! On Saturday morning we were eating breakfast and talking. I said, "I want to do something fun today." Trav said, "Let's go hike to the Timpanogos caves." "Okay!" I said.

So we packed up the girls and headed out. It's a 1 1/2 mile hike up to the caves. The hike up went fairly well, though we didn't expect it to take a full hour and a half. But that's what it took with all the stops we made for looking at rocks, picking up sticks, visiting with a friendly chipmunk, and sharing snacks. Not too bad for our first family hike, though.

When we got to the top, I was exhausted. Carrying that extra 13 pounds on my stomach was harder than I expected. We're looking into getting a nice backpack child carrier for the future. If you have any suggestions, please let us know!

The girls did great inside the cave, though Kapria was pretty tired and really wanted to touch all the walls, stallactites and stalagmites. The tour seemed like a pretty long 25 minutes. Once we were out, Mila was exhausted. She was past her naptime by about 3 hours, but hates falling asleep anywhere but her bed. She was so tired, though, that she finally succumbed, and slept nearly the whole way down the mountain. Kapria was exhausted, too, so Trav carried her most of the way down as well.

We had a great time, but we sure were tired when we got home. We picked up dinner on the way, ate quickly at home, then put the girls to bed. A long, but successful family day.  We loved it.

sunny sunday

the lion died

We had a family home evening lesson about the resurrection right around Easter. Kapria was fascinated, and ever since then we've had a lot of conversations about Jesus and dying and "coming alive again."

One nigh last week, after she snuggled into bed and I sang her two nightly songs, she started talking about the subject again. As we sat in the dark talking, she held my hand.

"The lion died, Mom," she said. 
"Yes, the lion died," I said. "It's spirit went to Heaven, and it's body stayed on earth."
"The lion died," she repeated. "Can we go visit it at the booseum?"
"Sure, we can visit it. How 'bout we go on Saturday?"
"Okay," she said.
Then we gave goodnight kisses, and she fell asleep.

But when Saturday came, I completely forgot about our plans until we were driving to a friend's house.
"Are we going to the booseum?" Kapria asked.
"Aaah! I totally forgot!" I said. "We can't go now, but we'll go Monday. For Family Home Evening. Is that okay?"
"Sure," she said.

Monday came, and Kapria wanted to see the lion who died. She reminded me, and even though we had a late dinner and the girls were tired and the time was late enough for them to go to bed at that moment, we went.

Kapria seemed to forget about the lion, though, and wanted to see the hippo and the alligator and the elephant instead. She remembered exactly where they were from her last visit.

We also growled at some leapards and hooted at some owls and roared at some bears. All in all, a great night at the booseum.

@ the park

Another family night at the park. We love this great weather!
04.16.2010

park nights

It was a warm afternoon, so we decided to make a visit to the park. We hurried to get ready, but not fast enough. By the time we arrived, it was cold and nearly dark.

That didn't stop the fun, just hurried it up a bit.

Kapria found a new friend. He was already there when we arrived. He smiled really big when she said hi. She wanted to hold his hand. And hug him. So she did.

Mila watched from her cozy cocoon.



I got a really cute video, but two weeks after I started this post, blogger still says, "processing video." So I guess it's not working. Come over one day and I'll show you how much Kapria loved her snowman friend.

what we've been up to

crafting



climbing (during family home evening!)



snuggling



sharing



halloweening

loving