Our super-trip

Our month long trip Included:

A week long family reunion with the Madsens in Heber, Utah. We hiked, went on the Alpine Slides, shopped at the Park City outlets, swam, played in the hot tub and enjoyed family!

A few days in Chico at Aaron's parent's house. Our BFF's from So Cal drove up to meet us and hang out for a week. We went swimming, park hopping and boating.

A week in Oregon with my parents. Nancy and her kids came and we drove up to Sunriver. We did lots of biking, swimming, and playing.

A week at Aspen Grove, UT for a family reunion. We played some paintball, did some rock climbing, game playing, chatting and we ditched the kids while they went and did their own activities with their groups. Best of all, my brother got home safely from Iraq and surprised us all at Aspen Grove!

The best part of the vacation for me was getting to see family, our good friends from Irvine, and mostly not having to cook for an entire month. But, it's nice to be home and able to relax. We're getting geared up to start preschool here in a couple of weeks. 4 hours a day, 3 days a week. Both kids. I can't wait.

More Adventures in the Wild, Wild West!

See you in ONE MONTH!

It's Over: Part 2

Part 2A: the Great Wolf Lodge

Our second mini-trip took place in Ohio (only two hours away! It's so weird out here where you can drive two hours in any direction and end up in another state. So different than out west where you spend all day in the car just to get to Nevada. Yuck). We spent one night at the Great Wolf Lodge which was sandwiched between a day spent at the lodge's awesome indoor water park and a day at the King's Island amusement park.

The kids area with little water slides. Surprisingly we didn't spend much time in there. The kids were off to bigger and better things.
The big yellow thing is a huge cyclone. You ride on a tube and it spits you out into the cyclone, then after you sail around it a couple of times, it drops you out of a hole in the bottom. Search wanted to do it again, Destroy was not so enthusiastic, especially after going down backwards :)
These were the kids favorite slides. The were bigger than the kiddie slides but not so big that they couldn't go down by themselves. Aaron and I finally resorted to standing at the bottom and watching them go up the stairs and down the slides by themselves. Over and over and over. They say kids love repetition... well I can second that. This and the fact that I've seen Finding Nemo 96 times.

Happy campers... or lodgers.

The three boys in the wave pool.

A wolf's howl would signal the start of the waves in the wave pool. Here's Destroy mimicking the sound (Do you notice the burn on his chin? That's from going down a pole at the park while camping :). The boys couldn't get enough of the bears, wolves, etc that were all over the lodge.

Happy sliders.

This was their favorite place to play (until the lifeguard yelled at them). They were pretending to be goggle-clad hairless bears in a cave.This is the "hot tub" but it was really only like 80 degrees. It was my favorite place :) Nice peace sign(s), Destroy. Are you from China?

Part 2B: KING'S ISLAND:

The Backyardigans swing. Destroy sat under his favorite Backyardigan, Pablo. The kids LOVE the Backyardigans.The Scooby Doo ride... basically like the Buzz Lightyear Astroblasters at Disneyland, just without Zerg. But, unlike the Buzz Lightyear ride, I was actually really good at this one (you shoot the bad guys and get points)! Nancy, you would be proud.

A little boy's dream. Driving a car. All by himself. Well, not with his mom or dad. And actually, he isn't driving at all. The car is driving him. Well, the smiles were glued on anyway.Bumper cars. Wow, and they didn't even cry when they bumped into each other! Any other time they would have....My SON picked the purple one. I told myself that it was OK because he went through a pink-IKEA-cereal-bowl-only phase too and overcame it. This too shall pass.But Search picked Blue so Aaron can relax a little. It was a great day to go to King's Island because the kids were able to walk onto most rides. I can't say the same for the rest of the park though. Aaron waited FOREVER to ride "Firehawk", the newest ride. It's a ride where you are strapped down on your back, upside down, so you can't see where you are going. It was pretty intense, OK, insane. Thanks to the paret-swap card I was able to walk right up to the front of the line after Aaron did the work of the two hour wait. See? Sometime it pays off to have kids!

A flying bus. Whee.

The most progress made on this trip was that we actually got Destroy to ride on a roller coaster! The kid doesn't even like tire swings but he finally rode a roller coaster and LOVED it! And the kids became regulars on it. The workers knew them by name and they just kept going on ride after ride. Until it started to rain. Then we left. Sorry the pictures are blurry but I had to show "happy faces" and "roller coaster" all in one picture.The kids don't even know who this is. Come to think of it, I don't either. But she was big, and she was bright and it made them feel like they were in a cartoon when they stood next to her. So we stopped for a gander... and a picture. A cute family picture! It would have been cuter had I been wearing some make-up and Search didn't have the red marks of a face plant left over from the night before as we were leaving the water park. But we are all looking at the camera! At the same time! And no one is blinking! Or picking their nose, or scratching, or screaming, or fighting, or...

It's Over: Part 1

The worst thing about vacation is that it has to end! And the end always comes way sooner than it should. So, this last week Aaron had one of his three weeks of vacation this year. We couldn't afford plane tickets to fly home so we decided to take two mini trips during the week. On Monday and Tuesday we went camping!!!

Note: due to the high volume of pictures (which I was mocked for by loving husband), I will try to limit the narrative.

Have snacks, will travel.
And we also brought necessities like Spiderman, Buzz Lightyear and a light saber to fight off all the bears and wolves.
Ohhhh, look! A hill!
Little hikers ready to go with Light Saber in tow. Unfortunately, the light saber was left on the trail somewhere. Destroy is heartbroken.
Across the suspension bridge. Every time we crossed this the boys never failed to notice the good sized glob of poo on the bridge. Search was convinced that it was hippopotamus poo. We never did see any hippos though :)

Hiking normally went in this order. Search running ahead, Daddy close behind, and me and Destroy bringing up the rear. Destroy is a bit slow and unmotivated.

Daddy and boys on the top of a big rock.It's never to early to start rock climbing :)Mom and Search. Search is almost entirely out his his momma's boy phase. I'm happy and sad all at the same time. He's such a sweet kid (when he's not dumping hand fulls of flour on the floor or repeatedly kicking his brother in the stomach).

Family picture attempted in a cool "T-Rex" cave.

This hike was so cool because we got to climb up three or four ladders. The kids were in heaven, but I was a little scared about the combination of high ledges and spastic children. Aaron didn't tell me until after the hike that the trail map said that this particular hike was "very rugged". He's not going to let two little boys get in the way of his fun :)

Climb on!

Climbing...

Hi Mommy! Does our insurance policy cover dumb parents who take their toddlers on dangerous hikes?

You're not really supposed to look at the camera, right?

We asked Destroy to take our picture. Third...

time's...

a charm?

Break time. Do you notice how Destroy takes every picture with his arms out? He got this from his cousin Darci. Funny kid.A little bribery never hurt anyone (except for the fact that it's high fructose corn syrup)! They LOVE candy corn.Coming out of the narrow ravine where Aaron and I had to scale steep walls with a kid on each back. Obviously there are no pictures of that.

Braving the cold, cold water.

Cutie boy.

Finding rocks to throw into the water.

This tree is amazing because it grows off the end of a rock! I tried taking a picture of it last time we were there but it was the wrong time of day. I'm happy that this one turned out.We thought this giant rock looked like a shark fin, so they were pretending to be sharks.Making up for a lack of camping chairs. No wonder the car still smells like smoke...All tuckered out after hiking two miles! And I didn't even position them the same way or anything :)

We eat better breakfast while camping than we do at home!The next day we hiked 2 more miles and we saw a turtle right in the middle of the trail! I also caught a frog to show the boys. All Search and Destroy wanted to do was squish it though (their nicknames still fit them), so I stopped pointing out the wildlife.

Search has slowed down by this point, tired of all the hiking, to just walking with Daddy instead of running in front of him. I pretty much carried Destroy the whole two miles on my back.Next we went canoeing. We stopped a couple of times along the way when we found sandy beaches so the kids could play. Look, even Elmo grows a beard while camping. This photo looks doctored but Search just has a very poky rib. Little boys are made to play in the dirt. But somehow they weren't made to be cleaned up afterwards.On the canoe. Aaron and I decided to be daring while canoeing. About half way, when the river split, we decided to take the fork with a few rapids. All was going well until an unavoidable obstacle attacked our canoe and threatened to tip us. Water started gushing into the canoe, kids were crying, and parents were laughing (the water was only a couple of feet deep). Aaron had to step out of the canoe to turn it against the strong current. It was kind of funny. I thought about getting out to take a picture, but decided the boys might have issues if I abandoned ship while it was "sinking".No swimming or wading allowed in this river, but we can always pretend.

Proud parenting moment. Letting your two-year-old lead you across a slippery narrow ledge with a big fall (for a two year old).Search and Dad.I can blame blogging for inhibiting my compassionate motherly instincts. Instead of consoling my little boy who just face planted in the cold water, I run and grab my camera. Of course, my action to grab the camera was taken only after the promptings of the compassionate, consoling father :)So now he gets to be nude.A favorite, the covered bridge. And, no, that's not Destroy stretching his arms out, that's Search, the little copy-cat.

I'm finally done. That was too long of a post for such a short vacation!