falling in love pt. 3

i fell in love with this little girl, all over again

her self portrait checking her hair on my phone

again, this is not the kind of twitterpated love that we associate with love, but love nonetheless. it's amazing to me how kids change not just over time, but in different settings or when given individual attention.
princess grace spent 7 1/2 days with me and no brothers. there were cousins to play with, but she got undivided mom time. that's not really all that unusual for a home preschooler, but this was different.
she was amazing!
this 5 year old got 5-6 hours of sleep each night in a new place with new people and new things and she rocked it.
at the wedding she stayed out of the way. never really whined or complained. found cousins to hang out with and made it special for her.

probably her favorite thing of the whole trip was hanging out with her cousins. look at these girls. could they be any cuter?

when she had downtime, which she had plenty of, she occupied herself with doing things her own way. she loved jumping on the trampoline and became a champ at jumping off the "tower". 

when she wasn't jumping on the trampoline she was in the backyard or front yard searching for, finding and collecting potato bugs aka rolly polly's. pretty sure she collected over 200 of them over the course of several days. i learned she has very limited fear of her own abilities.

one of the funnier moments was at a pool party on memorial day. we crashed a party with my sister and princess grace swam the whole time. typical right, except not really. there were about 10-12 boys between 12-16 in the pool playing chicken, marco polo and doing crazy dives off the  board. then there's this crazy girl jumping off the board right along with them. they were totally respectful and it was totally funny. wish i had a picture of her, but you can enjoy a pic of the ladies chatting it up moments after we were splashed by aforementioned boys. 

falling in love is about gaining appreciation for a person and what the can and do add to your life. i learned during this great adventure with this little girl that she is fabulous and i totally fell in love with her all over again. i will remember to read this again during the days surely to come where she tells me how much she hates me and i'm ruining her life. i'll still love her then.

falling in love pt. 2

while maybe not the same kind of love as previously posted i fell in love all the same.  in love with california.

don't get me wrong i am an east coast girl through and through. i would never make it there. i talk too fast, i walk too fast, i'm too uptight and i have an uptight east coast sense of style. all that aside i love northern california.

 first thing princess grace and i did was hop off the plane in oakland into our ford edge (which i also fell in love with, despite the obvious error in spelling) and headed into san fran. we went over the bay bridge and over the san francisco bay.

i loved!

we hit the piers, shopped, ate ice cream and got messy hair from the wind. 

i loved!

we drove the amazing streets. we don't have straight streets here. all streets dead end, go one way or randomly change name, directions or close. these streets while at crazy angles were straight. two cars could drive by each other. what a concept.  i drove lombard

i loved!

 we saw the gorgeous architecture of row after row after row of brownstones. amazing colors, and more architectural details than i ever remember seeing before.

i loved!

as we headed east back toward oakland and the clayton valley area the hills and mountains struck me. they were amazing. they were not green, but covered in sage like bushes so you could see all the bumps and crevices. we talked a lot about sledding, or skate boarding down those hills. or living on the edge.

i loved!

then there was the one thing i will miss unexpectedly. the food. you'd think in such a large urban are we would have amazing food here. the truth is that small authentic restaurants are few and far between. those you find are not necessarily savory to visit (pun intended).

princess grace and i had awesome mexican food and some amazing dessert.

i loved!

ok, virginia i still love you, but i can have a bit on the side with no regrets.

seriously

how could i leave this?

or this.....

or this......?

trust me. it was not easy. i vow to return very quickly.

anyone want to join me?

pardon the lack of posting. i've been buried. :)

harper's ferry

I suggest a trip to harper's ferry. i do not however suggest visiting the wax museum with small children. it's a story for a different day.

kirtland weekend

we took off for kirtland thursday morning. it's a 6 hours drive and the kids were awesome. we arrived at our friend's house and it was playtime. the kids got into a water fight, and played hard. we got up friday morning and went into kirtland. it has changed quite a bit since i have visited and hubby has never been. again, the kids were great. it's an amazing place to be. i think the kids liked the sawmill the best.
we then dialed in the gps to see what else was around. i chose a submarine in downtown cleaveland. on the way there i got freaked out by f-16's flying around. i have lived in dc too long. i assumed that someone had flown into restricted airspace and were being "chased down". i never even thought of an air show. traffic literally crawled as we made our way to the air strip where the air force thundercats were practicing for the next day's air show. it was awesome!! these pilots are undeniably the best in the world. crazy!!!
we found the submarine and the kids had a blast shooting the boats in the lake down at the stern. lake erie was gorgeous and quite clean when compared to my recent visit to the potomac river.
we headed back to k&r's house for a night of food and fun. we headed out to watch the sunset on lake erie. wow! so much fun. we stood on the beach throwing and skipping rocks. so serene and calm.
it was an awesome weekend. no fighting between siblings. the friends all got along, and hopefully we got out before we wore out our welcome. it's nice to have such kind friends who allow us to crash their calm house for a few days. thank you!!!

lovin' l n l

during our time in utah county we found an l-n-l restaurant. i was stoked, to say the least. 2 trips and about $80 later i had my fill of hawaiian bbq. note: l-n-l is not quality or the best plate lunch, but man when you have had withdrawls anything will do.





the boys had the chicken katsu, but ate my mixed plate and todd's loco moco. i was craving lau lau, but they had fresh malasadas...i know lnl had malasadas'. and yes, they were actually pretty good.
now if someone could clone the seasider chili and rice i'd be good to go.
if this was a foreign language to some of you. no worries, small kine

alright....now thanksgiving

i have no pictures of us staying in the middle of nowhere, besides getting my camera lost there are only so many pictures you can take of dead grass and mini ranches.

let's get to the crazy stuff.....and i do mean crazy. we got to lehi on wednesday night and were greeted by 4 of my sibling and there collective 16 kids. holy cow! as the grinch would say (who i seem to have been channeling this week) oh the noise, noise, noise, noise. my boys were in hog heaven when they found the 2 ginormous buckets of legos', and i was happy that my patron saint tom found my cell phone. hallelujah!
sarah got to play with the baby cousins closest to her in age



now.....thanksgiving dinner.
19 / 22 grandchildren
10 / 12 children / spouses
4 adopted hoskings
gramps & pat
gladys & leeann
did i forget anyone?

here's where we ate



we all got harry potter names. well, james was thomas the tank engine, i was gilderoy lockhart,todd was grawp and sarah was dobby. funny!



the grandkids put on 2 seperate plays during the recovery period, and games, fun and pie was had by all! some male spouses went "home" and rested some hung out. it was so much fun, and it was a great thanksgiving!

travelogue days 4-7

saturday morning came very early for todd. he woke up early and drove back to las vegas to drop off our rental car and took the shuttle back to saint george. marla and tom were generous enough to drive down to saint george to pick us up so they picked todd up at the shuttle drop off and came to get the rest of us to head out to lehi.
that's about a 4 hour drive, so before we took off we stopped off and saw gramps and pat (where i lost my cell phone and therefore my camera), and we of course had to stop off at:



the only in-n-out location is utah. it was good! bonus point to those who can tell me what's printed on all their cups and container!

we drove the 4 hours to lehi...phew...sat down for 20 minutes then tom drove us to salt lake to pick up our rental car. tom....you are a saint!
my side note: never rent from advantage rent a car. we had a reservation but ended up renting from dollar. they were awesome. they even gave us a free upgrade and got us as close to our reservation cost at advantage within $75...which was a steal! go dollar!

we loaded the kids.....again....and headed to:



home....heber city
where we stayed with uncle chris. the boys were thrilled with all of the boy toys that chris had. atv's big trucks, snow mobiles, big dogs, trampolines and unopened hot wheels cars from forever ago. it was fun to stay with chris and the girls for the night. it gave us a chance to prepare for our drive to the middle of nowhere.

i had no camera, but needless to say it was a fascinating stay!

travelogue days 2 & 3

days 2 and 3 were spent being very cautious and careful in saint george. i've posted some pictures in a previous post, but here are some more.

we went to the jacob hamblin house one afternoon, and learned fascinating facts about the relationship between mormon pioneers and the native american's)



i know.....james looks thrilled, but he really did have a great time.



sarah on the other hand was developing an ear infection, and was not as thrilled.


the highlight of our trip was on friday afternoon when we drove up to zion's national park where we went to this little wild animal farm that grandma joyce had found. the kids got a kick out of feeding the animals. (hand sanitizer and baby wipes were used liberally so as to avoid any number of childhood diseases that children can get..snicker, snicker)




friday morning we had made a quick trip to tuachan and looking at the crazy cool houses in saint george.



friday night we saw aunt julie and todd's cousin amanda (we are hooked up on facebook now), and packed up for our next adventure.

trip out west

we have been out west since wednesday, and enjoying our time in the warmth. we flew into vegas and drove to saint george. here's some pictures.

hubby, and the kids with grandma rasband on top of airport bluff in saint george



eli, the only one brave enough to go outside in front of the st. george temple in pajamas' and no shoes!

white's ferry

now that glamma and pappa are finished at the temple they were able to play with us in between their car shopping. white's ferry crosses the potomac north of us on the border of leesburg, va and point of rocks maryland. it's a 5 minute ride on a ferry, but the kids thought it was so cool. it was a beautiful drive with beautiful properties and lovely fall colors. while on the ferry the driver pointed out two bald eagles flying off the bank of the river. i only had my cell phone camera and didn't get a shot of them. that was another first!

i'm leaving on a jet plane

after about 3 years of debating, yes 3 years, hubby and i have booked tickets to utah in november. i know, don't believe it until we have deboarded the plane people.

top ten lessons learned at yw camp

10 - the older you get the more you treasure sleep
9 - never trust a girl with a bucket of water
8 - be prepared to jump right in
7 - sunscreen is a necessity
6 - mom's and high priests - they can sleep anywhere
5 - animals are no respector of personal space
4 - waking up teenagers should come with hazard pay
3 - trust your heart
2 - forgive, forget and move forward
1 - friends can come from the least likely places

d is for dinosaur

there is the kitchy little tourist attraction called DinosaurLand that we visited last week. each day when i ask them what letter they want to visit today elijah wants to go back. he loved it, but King Kong freaked him out a little bit. all part of our "alphabet summer", where we track sites we visit according to where they are in the alphabet.

i've been ruined

my list of things that family vacations have ruined for me:

twizzlers
mentos (the freshmaker)
vienna sausages
santa claus
bolgna
tupperware
nebraska
arizona
nevada
wyoming! - could it be any longer or more boring?
shag carpet
nehi
I-80

glug glug

i had forgotten to post pictures of our trip to the baltimore aquarium. my parents were kind enough to get us pre-paid tickets to the aquarium and todd took the day off one monday so we could finally go.

the overlook of the harbor (sarah is not in any pictures because she was in a backpack)

in the rainforest

the boys at the submarine

captain elijah

man the anchor!