Abalone Cove

Every time we visit Cali Eric wants to find some tide pools.  We finally looked up where one was and made our way down to Abalone Cove. There is a small hike to get to the tide pools but the kids did great and it was well worth it. The views alone were breathtaking!

View from the hike in

 

We found all sorts of creatures. Everywhere you looked or stepped was alive!

This crab was hiding under a rock and when Eric lifted it he came running out. The boys thought it was so cool!

This next photo is kind of cool.

See the small stream of water? Its called a sea squirt. I kept getting squirted by something and finally a random guy told me its called a sea squirt. Kind of weird, but still cool.

A family shot, Trey looks so bored!

Doing what we do best...throwing rocks and running!

This place will probably become a frequent visit spot on our Cali vacations. We all we entertained for hours and it didn't cost a penny :)

Vegas and Cali

Last week we took a very spontaneous trip down to Vegas with Eric's parents. It was Friday night around midnight when we decided to go and left on Saturday morning! The reason is that the BYU basketball team was playing in a tournament in Vegas Friday night. If they won that game then we would have available tickets for the game the following night thanks to Eric's brother Jake, who is the team's manager. We packed up the car and left on only a few hours of sleep! We arrived in Vegas and quickly settled in our hotel, got changed and headed over to pick up our tickets for the game. The game was packed and super loud! Trey was exhausted and would not stay put in our seats, so I took him into the hall and watched the game on the tv screens. It was pretty much miserable. We all were so tired and to top it off BYU got slaughtered!! I'm so glad that our tickets were free or else it so would not have been worth it!! Since I wasn't using my camera to photograph the horrible game, I took a few pics of the kids running around.

 Tatum once again was in super hero mode...

I don't know why this kid insists on constantly taking his pants off!!

The game ended pretty late and the kids finally zonked out.

Since we were already in Vegas we decided to drive the extra 4 hours to LA and visit my family. Have you ever heard of the crazy Vegas traffic heading southbound on Sunday's?? Well the last time we drove to LA we got stuck in it and it added an extra 4 hours to our drive! This time we knew better and decided to get up at 6 in the morning to beat that crazy traffic. Again we only got a few hours of sleep the night before, making our weekend super long and tiring...which explains this next picture...

After a quick nap we walked down the street to the local park. Grandma had so much fun with the boys.

The rest of the week was spent terrorizing this unfortunate cat...

The poor thing spent most of the week in hiding...with good reason :)

We got to do some shopping at the Americana where the boys loved watching the beautiful fountain display. 

Mesmerized...

And we had a nice dinner with Chachi. Its so sad to see him getting older! 

Thats all that I have time to blog about...more of our adventures are to come!

Tatum's Mario Party

I started a little tradition this year for Tatum's Birthday. While Tatum slept the night before his birthday I crept into his room and hung some balloons above his bed. I hung 1 balloon for every year he has been in our lives and inside each balloon was a dollar bill.

He woke up and thought it was so cool! Don't mind the severe bed head :)

For breakfast Eric and his Mom took Tatum to McDonalds. Trey slept in until 10:00 so I stayed home with him!! When he got back a package came from my parents.

These things are right up Tatum's ally...he was so excited!

That evening of  we threw Tatum a HUGE party. He decided to go with a mario theme and it turned out so cute! I had so much fun putting it all together and although it was a bit chaotic I was pretty happy with the outcome.

The Dessert Table

I made Boo-Balloons to hang above the table and in the hallway.

Pin the Mustache on Mario

Eric made this sweet mask seconds before the game started...I forgot about that part ;)

 

 

We had a lot of fun with the sticky mustaches... Hilarious!!

Mario Bingo

Poor Trey wasn't feeling good, he got as many popsicles as he wanted. Good thing for Grandparents who saved the day and took care of poor baby Trey!

Singing happy birthday

We then did the pinata and presents. Tatum got overloaded with gifts...spoiled rotten :) 

Here is a pic of the whole gang. If you count them all you will see we had 15 kids in all...now you know why I said it was CHAOTIC!!  This picture was hilarious because right after I took the picture they all lowered their mustaches and had melted chocolate under their noses. We had to clean everyone's face!

The rest of the night was spent snuggling our new 5 year old!!