First camping trip!

Our family had our first official camping trip at Crystal Cove State Park in Newport Beach.  It's a beautiful nature reserve area between Newport and Laguna beaches.  We camped out two nights with my parents, brother and sister in law and little brother.  We had so much fun being together, eating fantastic campfire food (found on pinterest) and being able to walk to the beach everyday.  This was our view from our campsite.  

The kids stayed in the van and watched a movie while we set up camp :)  

Austin is a wanderer so we put him in the pack-n-play when we fixed meals or needed to get anything done. He didn't seem to mind.

 We got to celebrate my mom's birthday and I made her favorite Andes mint brownies!  

The first night was horrible and the kids didn't sleep AT ALL... so when the sun rose we decided to go on a morning hike.  The view was beautiful!  The kids look a little cranky in this pic, as they should be for getting no sleep! The second night was much better.  I think the kids were so exhausted from being at the beach and they slept all night!

Uncle Reed helped the kids ride his skate board!

Kylee loved finding sand crabs with Aunt Tasia.  

We built sand castles and decorated them with the sea shells we found.

 We decided to go on a family hike down to the tide pools.  All but Austin enjoyed it :)

Looking for crabs.  

Austin was over it and only wanted to be held by his Papa.

Mom and Dad

Kylee with Aunt Tasia and Uncle Shane

Camp

This was such a fun family camping trip and I think we'll do it again!

Weekend in Paradise!

June 1st -  Jeremy and I spent two nights at Paradise Point Resort on Mission Bay in San Diego.  It was nice to have some rest, relaxation and fun together! No cooking, cleaning, changing diapers.... It was nice :)   We kicked it off by eating breakfast at The Studio Diner that Jeremy found on yelp.  We split the cinnamon french toast and an omelet, and ate while the food was hot!

It was pretty overcast in the morning so instead of hanging out on the beach we decided to rent beach cruisers.  We rode along the boardwalk and took in all the beautiful scenery and beach houses.  It was so much fun! When the weather is warmer you can rent seadoos, paddle boards, and kayaks.  Maybe next time :)

Yes, we did act like kids and bought all of our favorite snack foods.  We roasted marshmallows and ate smores (my favorite) at a camp fire at the resort.

While we were there we spent a lot of time outside doing activities together.  We played tennis, ping pong and basketball.  Jeremy did win at most of the activities but I'm a pretty competitive opponent.  I did win one game of tennis and came pretty close to beating him at HORSE. We had so much fun and laughed so hard.  It was really nice to do something together that we don't get to do with the kids.

At night we ate dinner at a really yummy hole-in-the-wall BBQ place and headed over to Mission Beach where there have a roller coaster and a bunch of other rides.  It was so much fun walking around and playing games.

We ate breakfast burritos at Kono's Surf Club Cafe and had the perfect ocean view.  

This is a view of our resort from a tower we climbed up.  I would definitely come back here again with our whole family!  It was nice to have some alone time with Jeremy in such a fun, relaxing place.  

18 months old

June 6th - Austin is now 18 months old!  I can't believe how fas he is growing up!  He now goes to nursery on Sunday's and loves it!  I think it helps that his sister is in there with him.  I looked for a picture of him alone in his church clothes but he is always on the go and I couldn't find one, so here is a cute one with Grammy.

He knows how to fold his arms for prayer and is always the first to do so.  He also loves to give a cheesy smile that you will see in many other pictures. 

He love to do big boy things on his own. This is his favorite ride and Chuck E Cheese.

 He wants to be at his own computer at the library and will sit there with his sister and pretend to type.

He loves to feed himself. I haven't been able to feed him anything for a few months now.  He is actually getting better!

Some of Austin's favorite things according to Kylee are, " He loves to build things, read book, go outside and throw stuff!"  She was actually right.  He usually wakes Kylee up at 6:45 in the morning yelling "Maaa" until I come get him.  He also loves to eat breakfast right when he gets up. He usually has milk, a banana and multi grain cheereos.  He loves to be outside doing anything: climbing on the table, going down the slide, blowing bubbles, sidewalk chalk and picking up the oranges from the ground and throwing them.  He is talking a little bit.  He mainly grunts but if I ask him to say something he will repeat me in baby voice of course; night night, bye, please, apple, ball, all done, elmo, down, church, shoe, toes, eye, mommy and daddy.  He still doesn't really have a name for Kylee.  He calls her "da".  We love our little guy so much and his sweet spirit he brings to our family. It  is so much fun watching him grow up and become more independent.  

Memorial Day Weekend

On Memorial day weekend we took the kids to LA to checkout the LA Fabric/Garment/Jewelry district, then to the Los Angeles Temple.  It was fun to walk around the beautiful temple grounds and also a great teaching opportunity for the kids.  They loved walking up and down the steps and we even saw a bride and groom taking pictures!  Kylee said she was beautiful and that she looked like a princess.

The new visitor center is awesome and has a kids zone.  The kids played on these touch screens and colored pictures of the temple and Jesus.  After the temple we drove down LA's Miracle Mile on Wilshire Blvd and went to The Counter for lunch (mmmm chicken + corn roasted salsa sandwich that Jeremy gets all the time was delish!) and got Diddy Reise ice cream sandwiches for dessert on our way out of LA!

We also took the kids to the cemetery and showed them all the flags they put out for the people who served in the military.  We were also able to visit quite a few of my family members that are buried there; Grandma Poole, Uncle Rick and great Grandma and Grandpa Poole.

Then we came home and had some pool fun! These THREE have so much fun splashing around!