The Beach

At the end of April, Jon ran in his 2nd Ragnar for the year, in LA. I decided that I didn't want to just sit around here at home, while he was out having wild, crazy fun. So I talked my sister into coming with the kids and I to LA. We stayed with some friends from law school, which was so much fun (I know that Jon was jealous that he barely got to see/visit with them). But the highlight of our trip was going to the beach. Savannah was the most excited to go. She ran down to the water right away and started playing. Unfortunately, it was very windy that morning and so it was quite cool. And of course, about her 2nd or 3rd trip down to the water she tripped and got all wet and sandy. This made her upset and she whined for a good long while because she was cold. She did get over it towards the end of our stay though because it started to warm up. Melanie was quite the opposite. She insisted that she wasn't going to get in the water and so she wouldn't even wear her swim suit to the beach. But we'd only been there for about 20 minutes when she decided that she wanted it on and was down playing in the water too. She had a great time and was a good helper on our castle! Spencer loved everything about it...being outside, the water, and the sand. No matter what I did, he was always sticking his face in the sand and he constantly had it in his mouth. We seemed to be continually trying to wipe it off of his tongue. But he loved every minute of it.My sister, Andrea, just wanted to build a sand castle. After a little time in the water, we spent most of our time working on our castle. It was complete with moat and had towers in the corners where the water could go under them. The castle was basically 3 boxes stacked on top of each other. But it took us quite a bit of time to accomplish it. And it was a miracle what we did get done, because we kept running into this little problem...Yeah Spencer, he was all over the place and oh so helpful. Here he is sitting in our moat. But overall we had a great time and can't wait to go back again. Here's our little crew down by the water. Bet you didn't know that my girls are pirates! Arrrr!

October Break

So the girls loved Disneyland so much that we decided to go back for October Break (along with about half of Arizona). It was certainly a little more crowded than we had hoped for, but we still had a fun time. Of course we took just a bunch of pictures, but what else do you do when you spend 4 days at the happiest place on earth? So I tried to narrow it down to just some of our favorite and least favorite moments.

Savannah's favorites: Seeing all of the characters. There were so many out, we probably did pictures with less than half of them. Princess Aurora is one of Savannah's absolute favorites.Since it was Halloween time, then they had a bunch of villains out too. She also got a picture with the Old Hag from Snow White. Melanie's favorites: Her absolute favorite ride was It's a Small World. We went on it 5 times! She really just loved it! We went to Mickey's Trick-or-Treat Party on Friday night. Melanie loved that she got to sit in the stroller and people gave her handfuls of candy. Her absolute favorite part was getting to see Cinderella that night. We looked for her all week and finally found her at 11 pm on Friday night. Melanie was so happy that she couldn't even take her eyes off of Cinderella. Melanie also does an excellent job of picking out exactly what she wants at Disneyland. She picked out a Minnie Mouse Polly-Pocket kind of doll. She absolutely loves it and was so happy that I let her play with it that night while we were waiting to watch the fireworks, that we ended up not staying around for.My favorite parts: I love Snow White. I was totally happy to actually get a picture with her this time. My only complaint, I think that we saw her 3 or 4 times, because they just released her movie. And of course I loved when Spencer finally fell asleep on our first day there. Yeah, he didn't take a nap and was awful for the last 4-5 hours or so.And you have to be totally impressed that we managed to get Spencer to sleep on the 2nd day while we waited in line. Unfortunately, this was a short lived victory. He woke up the second I tried to put him in the stroller.Jon's favorites: Getting into the main park an hour early for one Magic Morning. You can't really tell, but they were the only ones on this ride! It was nice to be able to go on about 5 rides in 25 minutes! Everyone's favorites: Hanging out with old law school friends and their girls that we don't get to see nearly enough. We were so happy that they would let us stay with them and then come and go with us to the park a few of the days! We all loved the parades. Got to love that Pixar Parade. Where else are you going to see flames coming out of a baby's head and think that it's totally cool?Jon also commented that he thought that the army guys were pretty cool. Then the Celebration Parade at the Main Park put Mickey and Minnie right in front of us. Definitely a nice way to see them up close and personal. And the parade was so interactive that Savannah loved it. Melanie was kind of scared to death, but she was that way a lot on this trip. I ended up holding her during the parade because the characters were a little to close for her comfort.
Our least favorite parts: Standing in line! It's always such a pain and Spencer always ups the level of difficulty.Oh yeah, did I mention that we went on It's a Small World 5 times? Some of us were a little sick of it by the last time or even 3 times before that. We also hated taking sleeping children back into California Adventure for the Trick-or-Treat party. Yes, we were the ones taking sleeping kids back into the park. Yeah it was fun, but Melanie slept almost the whole time and refused to go on any of the rides. Thankfully, Spencer stayed with our friends and was asleep the entire time we were gone!And Melanie claims that she was excited to see Aurora again, but it was just too funny, because look at her little face. She's thinking: "Aurora, get out of the way. Cinderella is standing right over there!"

It was such a tiring and fun trip. We were glad that the kids pretty much done with the colds that they had the week before, so we could enjoy everything. I think that this is the only picture of all of us together. We had a good time, but I think that it will be a while before we venture back again.

Snowflake

I have an aunt and uncle that live in Snowflake and I haven't been up to visit them since Savannah was a baby. So I decided that we would stop there on our way home from New Mexico to try and break up our trip. The weather was wonderful and we had such a great time. Savannah got to ride my cousin's horse, Spliff. She totally loved it! Melanie was forced to also ride and cried the entire time. She later claimed it was fun, but wouldn't do it again. I was surprised that Melanie really wanted to hold their baby goose though. Savannah liked the goose too and it kept following her around, to which she said, "I'm not a mommy goose!" The kids also loved jumping on the trampoline. I just loved the how green everything was and the cool weather. I also took the kids over to see the Snowflake Temple. It was so beautiful outside and we all loved it. Melanie loved the waterfall and all of the pretty flowers. Spencer just wanted to get into everything...the dirt, the water, anything he could. Luckily, Grandpa followed him around and kept him out of trouble.Savannah was a little disappointed that she didn't get to go inside, but she still really enjoyed walking around the outside. As a quick side story, Savannah stopped to look at a bug and so I stopped with her. My Dad and sister took the other kids ahead and when we turned to go and catch up with them a snake had come out of the shrubs onto the sidewalk! It totally scared me and so I grabbed Savannah's arm and pulled her up onto the planter. The snake took a look around and decided to go back into the bushes. It was yellow with black stripes. Needless to say I was a little paranoid about the pretty flowers after that. Here's Melanie touching the temple, like President Monson told all of the children to do! And I need to tell Sarah thank you for riding with me all the way to New Mexico and back! She made this trip possible, since I did it without Jon. The girls loved spending so much time with you! And here's me and my Meli! Other highlights of the trip included playing dress-up with cousins. And of course, roller skating in the house. Who could ask for more fun than that? We all loved it and only wished that Jon had been with us.

Grandpa Bloomfield

My grandfather passed away back in January, about a week after Jon and I moved. My grandparents lived in New Mexico for all of my life and so I was thrilled when they moved down here a little over 2 years ago for my Grandfather's health. Grandpa was such a hard worker and insisted on helping move their stuff in. It was so wonderful to have them live just around the corner so I could go and visit them when ever I wanted. Melanie quickly became Grandpa's best buddy. Here he is trying to teach her to walk, insistent that she should be able to walk by 9 months. Grandpa was the only one that Melanie would just sit with. Here they are at a birthday party, just after we went swimming. Grandpa always shared whatever he had with Melanie, whether it was his ice cream or his glass of water. When he was in the hospital I told him that he had spoiled her and his response was: Nope, you did that yourself! Grandpa always wore suspenders - or spenders as we called them, and his flag ones were his favorite. And he always wore a Bolo tie to church. I don't think that I ever saw him in a regular tie, even at our wedding. All of the grandsons (even Jon) wore bolo ties at Grandpa's funeral to honor him. Here's the last picture that I got of him, enjoying Thanksgiving Dinner, sitting between his two girls. So it's been a little hard since he passed away; probably harder for me because I know how much the girls loved him and how much they have grown and changed since he's been gone. So, we drove up to New Mexico for the funeral when it was so cold and snowy everywhere. And I just couldn't believe that I forgot my camera. But now it has been 6 months and we took another quick trip back to New Mexico to set his headstone. It was a hot and sunny day and the kids all enjoyed running around and playing. Spencer really loved wandering around the cemetery. Grandpa really loved Spencer too. Even when Grandpa was in the hospital, all Grandpa had to do was look at Spencer and he would start laughing. Grandpa loved making him laugh!Here is a picture of my Mom, Aunt Raette (my mom's younger sister), Grandma, and Aunt Mae (my Grandpa's sister). It took forever (about 2 hours) to get the headstone in place, but it looked great when it was all finished. Grandma and Grandpa were sealed in the Mesa Temple when Grandma was 16 and Grandpa was 18. They rode in the back of a pick-up truck for 6-8 hours to get to the temple. They had just celebrated their 62nd anniversary right before Grandpa took a turn for the worse. Melanie was so glad to get to go and see where Grandpa Bloomfield was buried. I also got to find the headstones for both of my Mom's Grandparents while we were there. Here is Nina Maleta Bond & Alexander Finley Bloomfield. And here is Byron Nephi & Maud Cluff Farnsworth. The only one of my Great-Grandparents that I can remember was my Great-Grandma Farnsworth. She lived right next to the temple and my mom came down to live with her after high school. That is when she met my dad. I was 3 when Great-Grandma Farnsworth died and I can remember only a few things about her, so it makes me wonder what memories the girls will have of Grandpa Bloomfield. After setting the headstone we went over to my Grandparents' old home, the one that I remember them living in when I was little. My uncle and aunt live in it now, so we went there and had a BBQ for lunch. Savannah and Spencer both had a blast swinging in the tire swing out back. Grandpa made that swing a long time ago and we used to swing in it all the time when we visited them. Grandpa would push us so high in it! So that was really great to see Savannah having so much fun with something that I remember enjoying too. We headed out after lunch and we got an okay picture of Shiprock. This is the "rock" that we would always look for when we drove up to Grandma's house, then we knew that we were almost there. Seeing it always brings back memories of very long road trips! Grandpa, we miss you and can't wait to be with you again.

One more quick story: This past Easter I was trying to explain to the girls that we celebrate Easter to remember that Jesus died for us and was then resurrected. And because he was resurrected, we will be too. I told the girls that we would be resurrected when Jesus comes to the Earth again. Savannah then got really excited about Easter because she thought that Grandpa Bloomfield would be resurrected on Easter. It was so sweet of her to think that and a little difficult to try and explain that that was not quite what I meant.