May 2014

On May 5th a couple of days after having her baby we had a baby shower for my sister-n-law. Matt spoiled the kids and they went to In-n-Out for dinner and Chick-fil-a for ice cream and to play.

 May 5, 2014

One evening Kaleb came down and asked Matt and I, "Who would like a foot rub with lotion for a dollar?" He had recently discovered a Halo costume he wanted to buy for Halloween and was trying to earn money. So Ashton decided to get in on the action and they both gave us foot rubs.

May 7, 2014

My brother asked for my help with making a present for Mother's Day using Christian's footprints and so I got to hold him and feed him in the NICU. He was still so small but he was a good sport letting us put cold paint on his feet. His hands weren't so cooperative so we stuck with the feet.

May 10, 2014

I told Matt after church for Mother's Day I wanted some pictures with the kids. Olivia had other plans so this was the first picture we took before she kicked off her shoe and starting squirming.

May 11, 2014

Olivia wouldn't stand still anymore so I took a picture with the boys.

Matt tried chasing Olivia down to get a picture but she's always on the move.

We have a pass to the aquarium and Matt and I stopped by on his lunch break with Ashton and Olivia to see some of the exhibits.

May 13, 2014

Olivia just kept saying "fishy, fishy" over and over again. She was pretty excited about everything.

Last year was our 10th anniversary but with so many things going on with extended family it wasn't a good time to try to get away. So this year for our 11th anniversary I surprised Matt with a quick trip to Disneyland. He already had taken the Friday off and I told him I wanted to do something but we had to do it on Thursday so he also took off that day. I'm horrible at keeping secrets and hate when I don't know something too and Matt couldn't take it anymore. I would give him clues but it was driving him nuts. So about a week before I told him where we were going. I was able to find cheap flights and hotel so our 3-day passes were the most expensive part of the trip but it was still worth every penny.

We left on Wednesday night and after arriving at LAX we took a shuttle to get our rental car. We drove a new Ford Focus and it was a great little car to get around in. After checking in to the hotel we stopped at Wal-mart to get snacks and breakfast food. The next morning we made sure to get to the park early. We first headed to California Adventure to get fast passes and go on the rides there. Our first ride was Toy Story Mania. I always get the high score for our group but Matt almost beat me this time.

May 15, 2014

After Toy Story we had about 10 minutes until our fast passes for Screamin' and the line was only 15 minutes long. Instead of waiting somewhere else we got in the regular line and figured we would just go twice in a row. That was a bad idea. I've never thrown up on a ride until the second time on screamin'. I knew after the first drop it was going to happen and held it off until close to the end but couldn't stop it. I'll spare you the details but I won't be doing that again!

In May the crowds are small since spring breaks are over but school is still in but it was also really hot this day. On the Tower of Terror there was absolutely no line and so he let us stay on the ride instead of getting off and walking around just to get back on. We asked him why there were so few people today and he said it's because it was hot enough everyone was probably at the beach.

There were still lines for some of the bigger rides like Splash Mountain and of course Radiator Springs Racers but it wasn't bad at all. We went on Radiator Springs Racers once with fast passes but instead of waiting in the long line all the other times we just went in the single rider line.

After doing almost everything we wanted in California Adventure we headed over to Disneyland to go on more rides.

Then we headed back to California Adventure because we had tickets for the World of Color show.

My favorite view is of Radiator Springs Racers at night. Both evenings we had dinner at the restaurant that overlooks this ride in Carsland.

The next day we started in Disneyland. It was 106 degrees and 104 degrees on Thursday and Friday so we were excited when we found things to do inside. We even stayed in the Enchanted Tiki room twice in a row to have longer inside an air conditioned building. It was a good mid-day break.

May 16, 2014

On Saturday we only had half a day in the park since we were flying out that night so we paid to park since we needed to check out of the hotel and didn't want to waste time walking back to the hotel if we could spend more time in the park. We went on some of our favorite rides in both parks and left around 2pm. We were almost to LA when we received a text saying our flight was delayed another hour and a half. It was a bummer we couldn't have been notified an hour earlier and we could have stayed in the park but now we had more time to burn so we found a mall to shop at. The boys were excited to see us but probably more excited to see what we brought them. They were bummed we went to Disneyland without them but they forgave us. :)

May 17, 2014

At Sunday dinner my aunt took some pictures of Olivia playing in the backyard. She loves being outside.

May 18, 2014

She also loves corn on the cob and licking the butter off of the corn.

May 19, 2014

Ashton's kindergarten graduation was a couple of weeks before the end of school. They always do a western program. Ashton told a joke with his friend, "What time is it when a horse is sitting on your fence? Time to get a new fence" and he also played a guitar for one of the songs.

May 22, 2014

He was really into singing and you could even hear him over all of the kids. So much expression in his face. I don't have very good video and pictures because we sat on the opposite side where he was standing so it was hard to get a clear view.

At the end they had a picture slideshow with pictures throughout the school year.

Ashton is always talking about food. My aunt brought him a breakfast from Carl's Jr. since she he had been talking about it recently. He loved it.

Another soccer season came to an end. I coached Ashton's team this time and they're such a fun group of boys.

May 22, 2014

At the game my brother and sister-in-law showed up with their new baby. They let them bring him home from the hospital so they surprised us by stopping by. The boys couldn't go in the NICU so it was the first time they had seen him.

I still had some free passes to Jungle Jim's from a couple years ago and so we took the kids after soccer.

May 24, 2014

For some reason on this ride Olivia would cry when the ride wasn't moving but as soon as it would start she would stop crying.

She loved the "neigh neigh's" as she calls them.

The fourth graders have a science fair for all of the parents and students to come to. Kaleb picked an experiment about different rocks. He had to make rocks with glue and sand and then experimented with adding other things to them to see if it changed the rock's structure.

May 30, 2014

This Friday night we decided to drive around by the Draper temple and went on several hikes around the area. There are trails all over and the kids loved it. We also walked to this lookout point but didn't stay long because Olivia just wanted to run around and it was a steep drop off so Matt had to hold her. It was fun to drive around and explore somewhere different.

 May 30, 2014