Venice Beach

We had to go pick up Nana in Playa Del Ray and thought it would be fun to walk the boardwalk at Venice Beach. Unfortunately it was really windy, smelly and crowded. (Question: When is it not crowded in California? Answer: Never. Especially when it's spring break.) Maybe I was just in a bad mood, but I wasn't all that amused with Venice beach. Too many people smoking cigarets, medical marijuana shops, scantily dressed people, vagrants, and disgusting t-shirts and bongs for sell.

Because of the wind blowing sand everywhere I didn't get my camera out with the exception of in the ice cream shop and back at the car. Aaron and I went back to the car early while Nana, Heather and the kids did some shopping. Bear and Moose thought it was pretty great to have free reign of the car and not have to be stuck in a car seat.

Mount Baldy

The boys and I came home to a house full of visitors. Luckily for us Nana, Heather and the kids played at Disneyland on Thursday and Friday while our passes were blacked out and we were in Utah.

After General Conference we headed up to Mount Baldy. The plan was to hike to the waterfall and then play at the visitors center. We were did make it to the waterfall (with a very grouchy 3 year old) but by the time we got to the visitors center it was closed. 

I think the hike will be added to our fun to do activity list when company comes to town. It was close, easy and free-can't beat that!

I did find it kind of funny that they left Utah for some warmth and sun, and we ended up hiking in the snow. At least we got to stay in our shorts and t-shirts for it.

Egg Hunting Round 2

The sister missionaries from our ward put on an Easter Egg hunt at the Stake Center. 

Bear got more candy than he needed.

I confiscated it all, and have been eating more candy than I need.

After the egg hunt we went inside and watched a movie about the Saviors life.

It was so neat to watch Bear understand who the movie was about and that the Savior was resurrected after he died.

Date Night

When an e-mail showed up in my inbox asking if we wanted to go on a family date night, I couldn't resist the invitation.  We started our date by swimming, then we headed over to Chic-fil-A for dinner. Of course since REI is in the same parking lot as Chic-fil-A the night wouldn't have been complete without a stop at our favorite gear store.

I'm already looking forward to our next date night!

Bunny

April made some sock bunnies with her girls and offered me her "leftovers". Anytime there's a cheap, easy craft I can make with Bear I jump at the chance, so I gladly took her leftovers and headed home.

Bear and I made our sock bunnies today and I thought they turned out pretty cute. Aaron on the other hand said "I don't think you'll be selling those on e-bay (I think he meant Etsy) anytime soon. In fact, I don't think Goodwill will take them either". Aaron might not like them, but at least Bear and I had a good time, and now I have one Easter decoration in my house.

thanks April!

St. Patricks Day

We had a very low key St. Patricks day this year, in fact it was just like any other day except I made both the boys wear green and had Aaron cook us up some delicious green crepes.

My favorite part of the day was enjoying the beautiful 80 degree weather we've been having and spending the afternoon at the park.

Etiwanda Preserve

Since Aaron's campout was cancelled and the weather was decent we took the boys hiking. This little hike is just a couple miles from the house and ends at a waterfall. It was fun to just get out of the house and do something together.

Bear was a pretty good trooper (especially once I started carrying him in the pack) and loved throwing rocks in the river once we made it to the falls.

President's Day

Aaron was supposed to take the Priests camping this weekend and since we've only lived here six months he wasn't sure where to take them. Someone in the ward had suggested that we try Jenks Lake. With Monday being President's Day, Aaron didn't have class so we thought we'd go scope out the area.

We loaded the boys up and prepared for a morning of hiking and exploring the mountains. Well, as it seems to always go with us our plans didn't turn out. At all. Once we FINALLY found the lake after driving for two hours we were surrounded by 4 feet of snow. Definitely not somewhere Aaron could bring the boys. Luckily for us Moose had slept most of the drive, but Bear was ready to get out. We ended up making a short pit stop to make Bear go to the bathroom (he was so upset he had to pee in the snow, he wanted to pee in the toilet and made it very clear to us).

After our pit stop we made our way back down the canyon and stopped at a little picnic area to eat out lunch. We talked to one of our other friends in the ward that had just gone camping and he suggested a place about 1/2 hour from our house, so we plugged it in to the GPS and started driving again. We found the campsite and were just able to drive through the area because both boys had fallen asleep.

After 5 hours driving we finally made it home exhausted. While it was nice to spend time with Aaron I was a little bummed that we spent an absolutely beautiful 80 degree day driving around. Oh well, it will always be an adventure for us to remember.

**The best part is the that the campout got cancelled because of a chance of thunderstorms-and then it barely rained**

Orange Picking

We made another quick trip to the orange groves on Saturday. The oranges were delicious and we couldn't help but take a break from picking to snack on a few. We also headed to Lowes to try and find a small patio set for the balcony since ours got left in Utah when we moved. We're definitely dreaming of the day when we have a backyard to put a nice patio set and a hammock in.

What do you do when the oranges are too ripe to put in your bag?

Disney with the Princesses

We spent the day at Disneyland with our friends again. I got a good laugh out of Bear as we were waiting for the tram. One of the workers commented on the girls princess dresses and he said "look at my dress!" I had to explain that girls wear dresses and he got to be Superman for the day.

I learned a few things:

Snow White is too scary for Bear. He told me he wanted to go home right after we got off.

The Winnie the Pooh ride is a new favorite-except for Paige who seemed afraid of every ride

Tarzan's tree house has a lot of steps

Pirates of the Caribbean is not necessarily a family friendly ride…

You can't have 3 kids and 1 adult on Dumbo (thank you to the Disneyland Worker who rode with Bear and Hannah)

Taking a sick baby to Disneyland for the day is NOT a good idea

California traffic sucks during rush hour

Despite Moose not feeling well we had another successful Disneyland trip. Thanks to "the girls" for going with us for the day!

Saturday Hike

We decided that since the rain finally stopped Bear needed to get out of the house and run a little. We'd heard about a hike just a few miles from our house and decided to check it out. It was a little colder than I was expecting and Bear was tired, so we only hiked about a quarter mile in. There's a waterfall just over a mile and half into the canyon, so we'll definitely be going back to hike to it when we're more prepared. It was just nice to get out of the house and enjoy the mountains again.

Rain

This week it rained and rained and then rained some more. I had to laugh because I'm used to being indoors all winter, but come a week of cold, wet weather here and we didn't know what to do with ourselves. I will say it was kind of nice to put on our sweat pants and just chill at home listening to the rain hit the windows. On Tuesday there was a tornado warning here in Rancho Cucamonga, which was a first for me. While we will gladly welcome back the warmth and sunshine, I think I might miss the rain…..just a little.

Orange Picking

Our friend Lisa invited us to go orange picking in LaVerne yesterday. Aaron originally wasn't going to come with us, but after a little convincing (and realizing the football game he wanted to watch wasn't on until later) he ended up coming. We had so much fun and will definitely make this a yearly tradition; plus I'm sure we'll be going back several more times before the season ends.

After we picked the oranges we ate lunch, which of course consisted of lots of oranges, at the park and played with the kids. It was such a fun way to spend a Saturday morning. We are so lucky to have such great friends here, not to mention perfect weather right now too.

Magic Kingdom

We are officially Disneyland Season Passport holders and couldn't be more excited about it. We spent the day there with some friends on Wednesday and are already planning our next trip back. Doing Disneyland with a toddler and a baby is a whole new experience for me. We were able to do a handful of rides between bathroom breaks, lunch and feeding the babies. The best part about having season passes is that there's no stress to do everything.

The first ride we went on was the Buzz Lightyear Ride and I think the big Zurg made Bear a little nervous. Maria volunteered to sit with Moose, Paige and Audrey while April and I took our older kids on the Matterhorn; I'm pretty sure it almost ruined Bear's Disnelyand experience. Definitely a little too fast, dark and scary for a 2 year old. Oops.

Right after that we went on the carousel and Bear thought it wold be like the matterhorn so he kept yelling at me to hold him tight. Luckily he got over his fear of rides and we were able to have a fun day.

Another highlight was seeing Lightning McQueen and Mater. As soon as Bear saw McQeen he yelled "there's me". When Paige touched the car he got his made face on and yelled "don't touch me!" It totally cracks me up that he really thinks he's Lightning McQueen.

Moose was a trooper. He was so good to chill in his stroller and loved all the rides I took him on. Bear still talks about the scary monster at Disneyland more than anything else from the day. We'll have to see if we can fix that with our next visit.

Thoroughbred Lane

There is a neighborhood here that goes all out with the Christmas Lights. Monday night we got together with some friends to go check it out. Really I've never seen anything like it. A lot of the houses the owners were sitting out front selling hot chocolate, churros, brownies, you name it.

Our friend Eric recently had back surgery and couldn't walk so his wife got a taste of what life will be like in 60 years and pushed him around in a wheelchair.

We had so much fun spending a night out with our friends. Aaron said the only thing that was missing was snow lightly falling.

World Championship Ice Racing Series

We had free tickets to the world championship ice racing series on Saturday night. Since Moose was feeling pretty sick we decided it would be fun to have Aaron take Bear out for a fun night with just the 2 of them.

I know when you think of ice racing you're thinking speed skating....ya not quite. This was motorcycles and 4 wheelers racing on the ice.

Bear LOVED it. He has been talking about it non stop all day today and has had to watch some video clips of it over and over on the camera. If you were to ask him about it he would tell you that the motorcycles went really fast on the ice and then they crashed; and that he ate a hot dog all gone in his belly. Nice to know the $5.00 hot dog made it as one of the nights highlights since it cost so much. Really, who pays five bucks for a hot dog....

Rainy Race Day

Saturday morning I woke up nice and early to go run a 5K with some friends. The rain was coming down steadily, but none of us seemed to mind too much.

Wait...is that really a medal? Ya, that's right. I placed 3rd in my age group. I didn't see the official time I got or how many people were in my group; there were probably only 3 people in my group! That's okay though, I proudly wore my medal home to show the boys.

Can't wait for the next race coming up in January.

*Despite the rain some of you might like to know that my pants stayed nice and dry....*

Creche Festival

One of the local stakes sponsored a Creche Festival this weekend, so our activity for day 4 was to go check it out. We were able to meet up with some of our friends and check out all the nativities on display. It was amazing to see how many different nativities there are, especially the ones from other countries.

Sorry about the overload of Bear & Moose objects lately, but I had to snap a picture of these 2 nativities. I told Aaron we should get one for our boys-he didn't think the idea was all that great.

In one of the rooms there was the city of Bethlehem. It was pretty amazing.

Of course the whole time we had to keep telling Bear and Ryan not to touch anything. We were relieved to find the children's area.

After the festival we headed to a local frozen yogurt shop.

The 3 of us split a yogurt and I'm pretty sure Bear ate most of it.

After the frozen yogurt was all gone we were chatting with Brett & Lisa while Bear and Ryan ran around and played. They started pushing on the door and we told them to stop-of course being two year olds they did the opposite of what we said and took off out the door. Even worse was when Brett and Aaron got up to get them they took off running. The frozen yogurt shop was on a busy street where the speed limit is 50 mph-definitley not a place you want your child running away from you. It was a scary experience for us and we were so grateful that neither of the boys were hurt. All in all we had a fun night out with friends and look forward to doing something with them again-though preferably on a quiet street...