Cool

Just a few minutes ago, I was wiping Arden's arms and legs with baby wipes, and as I was wiping him, he showed me his "owies." This is how the conversation went:

"I have an owie on my hand like Jesucristo." He shows me the palm of his hand...he has a little tiny cut...from Monday.
"Yes, you do," I say this as I'm smiling, impressed at the fact that he knows this.
"And I have an owie on my foot, like Jesucristo." I can't see it, but he claims he has one...so there must be one.
"I like Jesucristo," I respond, "el me proteje."
"I like Him, too," he says.
"Do you know why Jesucristo tiene owies?" He looks at me for a second and says..."He died."
Again, I'm impressed.
"Yes, he died...there were these bad people who didn't like him because he was good, so they killed him...but he came back to life. Now He lives in heaven with Padre Celestial."
He paused for a second and says..."That's cool."
And I laugh, and the conversation ends, we're done wiping off the stink of his body, from playing outside for hours.
I guess these are those teaching moments that we have. It's only a tiny window of time...not a long lesson, but I hope it's enough for Arden to realize my love and testimony of our Savior JesusChrist.

Craig and Tonya's Wedding

This past Thursday morning we got up super early and drove to San Diego, for the wedding of the century. We arrived tired, but safe and made ourselves at home at the hotel. While Arden, Maya, and I napped, Newel, HB, JP, Craig, Lencho, and others headed south of the border to Tijuana for the bachelor party. As you can see HB was so eager to get into Mexico, he wanted to jump the fence.



Here are the boys drinking Coke in their brown paper bags.









These guys are a little bit crazy. They were in Tijuana until about 10PM, then, they headed back to the States (Craig had to pick up his brother Matthew from the airport). But, they got so excited talking about Mexico, that around 1AM, they headed back into Mexico to eat tacos and drive around in a taxi. These guys didn't end up going to bed until about 4:30AM.









The following day (Friday afternoon) JP, HB, and our family took a trip to the Midway ship, where we spent four hours going through this amazing war ship...a mini city. We all had a great time, pretenting to be pilots, checking out the sick bay, hanging out at the brig, and more stuff. In the morning I stayed in the hotel with the kids. It was a bit of a challenge being at the hotel without the comforts of home. But we still went swimming at the pool, and they both liked being in the water.





















After our little adventure, we headed back to the hotel for a nap...a much needed nap...we were all hammered. In the evening, we met up with Craig's family and friends for dinner. Here's aunt Cupcake with Maya.





The following day, it was the wedding. It started a 1 1/2 hrs late...since there were some delays, such as the bride and groom showing up late to the temple, and forgetting the marriage license. But it all worked out in the end, and both (bride and groom) looked fantastic.














This is Maya watching the Mariachi band, while being held by Papa JP. By the way, it was a really nice reception. The mariachi band was great and the music for dancing later in the evening was nice too.

Bath time fun

It's really fun to watch Maya and Arden interact with each other. You can see that a lot when they take baths together. I'm constantly reminding Arden to be gentle and to not splash water on Maya' s face...he's getting better...and she's getting really good at kicking and splashing with her arms and legs.

Torito

This was recorded on Sat. April 5th. She's growing by leaps and bounds...soon she'll start crawling...this is going by too fast. By the way, those who don't know what "torito" means, it means little bull. That's what we call it in Spanish when a baby starts rocking.

Camping in the Big Sur

I can't even begin to express how much fun we had camping at the Big Sur! It has been the best camping trip I've ever taken, so far. I had spent Friday and Saturday, unpacking, cleaning, doing laundry, grocery shopping, and repacking for this trip, which by the way, it's exhausting, and I wasn't sure if it was worth all that work...but it was, of course. Sunday after church, we loaded the car and headed down Route 1 with the Carter family. We arrived to our destination. Pfeiffer State Park. We unloaded the car, set up our tent, and started making dinner. In the mean time, Ellie and Arden played and explored their surroundings, while Abbey and I bundled up ourselves, and the babies...and went to get some wood.


While we were preparing dinner, our friends, Travis and Will showed up (father and son). Ellie and Arden immediately befriended Will and continued to have a great time. We had a delicious feast! Carne asada, tortillas, corn, zucchini, hot dogs...yep, we like to feast when we camp. After our feast, we roasted marshmallows and then after our children were exhausted, we put them down for the evening...I must mention that all of the children went down very late in the evening and were pretty grumpy the following day.


It was cold, so our little family all slept very bundled up, in the same bed. (see pic of Mayita)
The following morning, after getting dressed and eating breakfast, and packing our lunches...(there are no drive thrus on this part of Route 1) we went to Julia PepperState Park, where we enjoyed this beautiful view...of the ocean and the waterfall.
We also hiked around and as you can see, even though our children were tired, they were still having a great time. On our way back, we stopped by the side of the road, since I thought I saw dolphins or whales...I'm still not sure what we saw...Newel thinks it was a bunch of rocks in the water...I still think, it might have been whales.


After visiting the state park, we headed back to our camp site. All of us, took really long naps and re-energized ourselves...the naps were very much needed.





Now, this is my favorite part of the entire trip. After our naps...and much less grumpy children, we went to Andrew Molera State Park. This was a totally amazing hike. It started by hiking through bushes, crossed a little bridge, followed by tall trees, then an open field where we saw some wild life. Then entered the woods, to less tall trees, but the river ran along the trail...the river was clear and beautiful. Then, the trail split. First, we went to the rock beach (see pic), but we couldn't cross the river because it was too cold, and we didn't want to get wet. Then, we went to the other side of the trail and the view was amazing (pic below).

We watched the sunset, enjoyed a small snack and headed back to the campsite. By this time, the children were tired, but still content... We had another delicious feast, and enjoyed some delicious smores. It was really cute...Will, didn't want any smores...but he wanted "some more" marshmallows. Arden showed him how to indulge into a smore...Will eventually tried it and liked it. I didn't think I liked smores, it turns out I do. I finally figured out how to make the perfect smore for myself...use less chocolate pieces.

The chilren watching the sunset...Ellie and Arden holding hands on the way back from our hike.

Arden enjoying his smore

The kids had so much fun, they wouldn't let us pack the following day. They kept going from tent to tent, screaming and jumping inside the tents. It was really funny...Finally, Newel gave up on the idea of taking down the tent, and went on a mini hike with them, where they found rollie-pollies. We all had a great time and were very dirty when we got home.

Southern Cal

After the Walters' visit, we packed our bags, and on Tuesday early in the morning we drove to Santa Paula (1 1/2 hrs. north of LA) for a job interview Newel had.
We checked in our hotel room and rested, while Newel went to his interview. After resting, we went to the pool for a little swim. It was Maya's first time in a pool. I forgot to bring the camera.
After Newel returned from the interview, we drove to Ventura beach to play in the park, watch the sunset and eat dinner. We went to a park by the beach and it was really nice, that's where you can see Arden on the rope.

I love sunsets and this sunset was beautiful.

The following day, we went to Hollywood, and Beverly Hills. We were not that enthusiastic about going, especially myself. I'm not a big fan of the whole, Hollywood, glamour, overrated stuff, so I wasn't expecting much. And it was okay. Beverly Hills has a bunch of big houses you cannot see because they're covered by plants and walls. Although I did notice a ridiculous amount of BMW, Mercedez Bens, Volvo, and other high end vehicles. I also noticed, as we were driving in Beverly Hills, on the side of the roads, by the fancy houses, lots of work trucks, gardeners, etc.

After our self guiding tour of BH, we went to Hollywood walk of the Stars. It was okay. As the day progressed and we walked down that street, the amount of tourists increased and then people dressed as different movie characters came out...there was Batman with a beer gut...80yr. old Marylin Monroe, and as you can see, a starving looking Mickey Mouse. Arden thought it was great, so we let him live it up.

Once we finished our star walk, we got in our car, and found a nice parking ticket waiting for us, for parking in a restricted parking area...however, the sign posted, didn't say anything about being restricted...we're contesting it.

Newel had the wonderful idea of calling Craig, to see if he was available...and he was! He had the day off from work, and was nice enough to drive to LA to meet with us. After our walk, we went to meet Craig, but made a quick stop at the LA temple.


After meeting up with Craig, we went to lunch, and of course, we had to eat some Mexican food...and it was YUMMY! I'm not a big fan of mole, but this mole and all of the food was very good.

We were close to the beach, so we changed clothes and hit the beach again. It was really nice, a bit chilly, but nice. Newel, Craig, and Arden played in the sand and in the water. We also went for a walk to the pier, where it has a ferris wheel, and all sorts of stuff. Pretty cool. Maya and I hung out in the sand and watched the boys play.

She enjoyed playing with the sand.

We had a fun time with Craig, but it was getting late and it was time for us to keep going. Our plan was to drive northbound on Route 1. We had driven on Route 1 the previous year, but the scenery is so amazing, we just had to do it again. I must say, driving southbound is more beautiful (get a better view) than driving north.

We made a stop to see the elephant seals. What you see in the picture are the pups who live by the shore, while the grown males and females have migrated to Alaska to eat. The pups live off of their body fat, and learn to swim on their own.

We arrived home on Thursday afternoon, unpacked our bags, cleaned the house, do laundry, go grocery shopping, and repack for our final Spring Break Adventure.

Walters' Visit...Day 3

This was the final day of the Walters' visit. That morning was pretty relaxing. Newel took the kids to the playgrounds to play, while Kristen and Troy packed and we got ready to leave.


A side note: It's a funny thing getting 8 bathroom using people ready. We all needed to use the bathroom, for whatever reason, yet there is only one in our apartment. However, there was no fighting and was very harmonious. On Sunday we got ready, and arrived to church only a couple of minutes late.


Our final destination of the Walters' adventure was Muir Woods. On our way to Muir Woods, we stopped at the Golden Gate Bridge, walked around and took in the wonderful view, although it was foggy and sunny...weird.


After the bridge, we fullfilled our adventure by indulging in some delicous In and Out burgers. You cannot come to California witout eating here. It has the best fast food burgers, anywhere!

We arrived to Muir Woods and it was beautiful. The day became really sunny and warm. Whenever we've been to Muir Woods, it's usually a bit cool, especially since the trees are so tall, in some places sunlight doesn't reach the ground too long. Unfortunatley our camera ran out of battery power and were unable to take too many pictures, like we wanted to. Everytime we've been to Muir Woods wehaven't been able to go on a hiking trail for different reasons...had the stroller with us, was getting late, the trail was closed. This time, everything was perfect, and we went on this hike and it was gorgeous. It takes you back to halfway to the entrance, but you're hiking uphill, and it's like you're hiking at the top of the trees. It's really nice.

After our hike, we finished walking through the Woods, and everyone got into their vehicles. Sadly, the Walters' parted on opposite directions from us, and headed back home to UT. We had been preparing Arden for their departure, since we knew he was going to be very sad. He kept telling us "I want the primas to stay here everyday." I think he took it rather well, and kept him distracted by letting him know we were also leaving for another adventure the following day...



These are the kids inside an actual redwood. Beatrix is in the back.

Walters' Visit...Day 2

Sunday morning, we got ready for church. Arden was super happy because his primas were going to be in primary with him. Beatrix even went to his class. After church, we came home, ate our picnic lunch, and played in the playground for a little while.



It was such a beautiful Sunday, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to walk around campus.
Our final stop was the Main Quad, where, Arden and B, pretended to be doggies and drank water from the freeze be and put the freeze be in their mouths...YUCK! (I'm not including a picture of that...it was too blurry, sorry.) Then, all of the primas (with the exception of Tabitha and Maya) pretened to also be doggies, but I don't think they drank water from a "bowl."


Uncle Newel and the kids played a fun game of hide and seek. Then, we headed to Natural Bridges in Santa Cruz. It was really beautiful and the girls had a chance to see some tide pools, but unfortunately, they weren't as good as the ones in Half Moon Bay.


It was really nice to see the children play on the beach. They seemed to have enjoyed playing in the sand. We also enjoyed a glorious sunset. And for our Easter dinner, we ate Mac'n Cheese while watching the sunset.


Then, we headed home, where the children fell asleep, almost immediately, after having such a busy day.