California Adventure

We spent spring break in California. The weather was beautiful! We visited Steven's brother in San Diego. He took us to some tide pools and we also saw lots of seals just down the beach.

Of course, it wouldn't be a vacation with out a trip to Disneyland. We stayed with Steven's sister Janice for a few days in Torrance and the kids LOVED going to Disneyland and being spoiled by Aunt Janice with cotton candy! We went two days in a row which was honestly overkill. By the middle of the second day, the kids were tired and just wanted to go home and play with their new tinkerbell toys.

The girls' favorite ride was actually in California Adventure in Bug's Life. I don't know what it is called, but it is kind of like the hungary caterpillar who eats a bunch of food including watermelon which is juicy and squirts you. They least liked the rollercoasters which they are now both tall enough to ride. We all rode space mountain, mattehorn, Thunder mountain, splash mountain and Star Tours...although they only liked splash mountain because the others were too fast and scary.

This is our dear friend Tresa who had her first baby three months ago. He was three months early and so is still in the special nursery down in San Diego. We HAD to go visit baby Atticus. (All of our CA friends must forgive us, since with the exception of Tresa and her miracle baby, we only had time to visit family...probably because over half of Steven's 6 siblings and his parents live in CA.)

The rest of the trip: visiting brother David and family, brother Michael and family, Great Grandma (from Alison's side) and Grandma and Grandpa.

(Michael's family, Grandma and Grandpa and us.)

(the kids with cousin Megan...which they said later was the FUNNEST part of the trip.)

(Michaela and Grandma Great)

One REALLY important pit stop...I had to take Michaela back to my old stompin' grounds of UCLA. This is a picture of her in front of the bear...GO BRUINS!!! (Brainwashing must begin while they are young.)

It was really great seeing family, we were sad there was literally no time to see friends, and we enjoyed the weather, and most of all, we enjoyed when it was all over and we could come back home. (Yes, we now realize that we call Utah home...scary!)

Happy Birthday Dad!

We enjoyed a nice dinner at Red Robin. With our birthday coupon for a free entree and the monster dessert on the house, we saved big and Steven (the frugal accountant) was able to enjoy his birthday dinner all the more. Notice Steen in the picture trying to dive into the cake before dad.

Luckily he got lots of milkshake and learned how to suck out of a straw.

The girls also had lots of fun and said this was the best dad birthday ever. I asked them if they liked it better than when mom made dinner at home and they said "yeah, because we got milkshakes!" I hope they are always this easy to please.

What a great helper!

Steen loves to help. I had to capture the moment as he started unloading the dishwasher all by himself! (I had left it open for the girls to unload.) Luckily, it just involved throwing plastic cups and bowls into a drawer, but he did it soooo well. What is even more amazing is that he did all this while standing on the wall...OK, so I was just too lazy to go back and edit them. ;-)

On a scary note, later on in the evening after the dishwasher had dirty dishes in it, he started trying to put those away too. Thanks for the help Steen, but no thanks!

The Joy of Music

Michaela has been busy with her music, especially this last week. Today she played a solo of I know That My Redeemer Lives in sacrament meeting and did a wonderful job. She said it was "fun". If only I could have played the violin like her...NO FEAR. I used to shake so hard they said it was natural vibrato.
Yesterday, she played in a music federation festival on the piano. She played two songs for the judges and played very well in her primer category. She earned a 39/40...we're just proud that she had fun and did so well.
Andrea is watching her big sister and asking when she gets to do what Michaela is doing. Even Steen wants a part of the action. He always manages to climb up to any piano and start playing...even in the middle of sacrament meeting. Although he has never been able to actually play his solo in sacrament, I've had to chase after him a couple of times when he suddenly escapes, including in the middle of prayer! It's fun having a musical family. Maybe if I can figure out how to post a recording I'll put up a demo of Michaela or Andrea playing.

I think He_ _ froze over!

We have had the worst winter that Utah has seen in over 20 years! Lots of snow. I mean...lots of snow. Pictured is our tower to the snow gods. Steven likes to shovel the driveway all into one big pile. It's been over 9 feet tall, but we've had some nice warm weather that it actually has melted. Yes...the weather was really nice last Wednesday, Feb 13th. It was almost 50 degrees. My friends were wearing sandals and shorts. I thought, it's warm and I've finally acclimated to Utah winters...and then it happened. I think he_ _ froze over. Out of no where came the worst snow storm many people had ever seen. We only got about a foot of snow, but the winds were so bad that the snow drifts in our backyard were over 4 feet high, higher in other areas. The visibility was so bad that people couldn't drive and they closed the highway by our house. As a result...

the school buses from Michaela's school had to turn around and could not take the kids home. Many of the children and teachers were stranded at the school the entire night since their homes are 4 miles down the highway and there was no way to get them home. We live right by the school and so our ward and neighborhood collected blankets, pillows and food and took it over to the school on snow mobiles and 4 wheelers. Since many of the teachers never got to go home, school was cancelled on Valentines.

One bus got stranded on the highway. Those poor kids were on the bus for over 8 hours with no food. They couldn't get off the bus to go to the bathroom because many started to blow away...literally. It was not pretty.

My mother was driving home from my house right when the storm hit. She was stuck on the highway for over 8 hours...Apparently, the wind was so bad, her car was moving even when her breaks were on and the car was in park. There was no where to go as the highway was at a standstill. She was even rear ended a couple of times. Luckily she had her cell phone and lots of gas to keep her car warm and running. Sometime after midnight, she was finally rescued and taken to a nearby church and had to abandon her car on the side of the highway. Apparently, over 50 cars had to be towed off the highway the next morning.

Fortunately, as far as I know, everyone stayed safe. I'd hate to see what kind of a blizzard we would have if he _ _ really did freeze over.

Twins...

We have twin birthdays in our family. (OK...how many of you saw the title and thought we were making an announcemnt of another sort.... ;-) fooled you!) Andrea and I share our February 6th birthday. Andrea turned 4, and I turned 30 something. Although I try and make a "birthday dinner" for each of the children on their birthday, I decided that Andrea's and my day would always just have to be a go out to eat celebration. This year we went to the Mayan Adventure and had dinner. It is actually pretty affordable and as such the food is just average, but you definitely go there for the atmosphere. For those who have not been, the restaurant has a couple of levels with all the tables facing these cliffs and a swimming pool in the middle. They have a show featuring two cliff divers as well as a fire dancer which put on a show involving the celbration of the Mayan corn harvest with beating drums and all. It was fun to watch and both the girls were in complete rapture. Almost every table in the restaurant was celbrating a birthday. On your birthday, they take a free picture of you in a special headress and give you a free sundae as well...hence the picture shown. (Apparently they only have one headress, so I got out of having to wear it in the picture!)

Andrea celbrated her special day with a cousin "Candy Land" party. Since it was her turn to have her dance playgroup at our house on her actual day, she also had a little party with her playgroup friends.

We played Princess Lolli's Parade of Colors and the kids danced to the music with lollipops as their banner of color. The music tells each color when to stand or sit or march.

The kids decorated candy bags with King Candy and made gingerbread houses with Queen Frostine. Even baby Jameson tried to help!

We played a version of Don't Eat Pete...Don't Eat Lord Licoriche.

We helped Gramma Nut find the missing nuts. The kids searched for little paper nuts and then got peanut "nutter butter" type cookies as a prize.

We played pin the sugar daddy on gloppy. And best of all the kids got lots of candy and had fun.

Thanksgiving Feast or Famine

Michaela, Andrea and Steen "pose" for the Thanksgiving feast. Really, it was just a pose. Michaela couldn't even hold her head up because she was so sick. She took the picture and went back to laying down. Here are all the "sickies" laying down in their living room cots. Michaela had been sick for days, Steven was getting over being sick and Andrea was just beginning her turn. Michaela was too sick to even eat a popsicle. Her fever was 105 at one point.
We were supposed to have dinner with the family, but with our sickness...we we're banished! ;-) We decided to attempt our own thanksgiving feast and I(Alison) made my very first turkey. Of course, Steven made his rolls.

This is how much food we had before the feast....and after. None of us could eat very much!

After a couple of hours of sponge baths to try and keep Michaela's temperature down the medicine finally kicked in. Her fever temporarily subsided and she got up around 8:30pm for her Thanksgiving famine...a few bites of jello salad and a roll were all she felt up to. It will definitely be a memorable Thanksgiving.