Visiting Lesley, Brian & Hannah in San Jose

August 6-13 Leah and I took a trip to visit my best friend, Lesley, and her little family in San Jose, California. At the time she was about 38 weeks pregnant and her husband, Brian, had to go to a conference in Vancouver, Canada. So I went out to keep her company, help with Hannah and be there just in case anything happened while he was gone (which it didn't). Most of the time it was just us four girls. We had such a good time. I'm so glad we got to go!

This was Leah's first airplane experience. I was a little worried about traveling with her alone. But she did such a good job, it was really quite easy. The hardest part was keeping her entertained at the airport while waiting to board our flight. She was really good to just sit on my lap and sleep some during the flight. Some people sitting by me even commented on how good she was during the flight.

Some of the things we did while we were there included going to the beach at Santa Cruz. Here's Leah out by the water for the first time. She liked playing in the wet sand until the waves came in. She wasn't too keen on the water.

Here's a little video of her playing in the sand for the first time...

Leah definitely preferred the sand over the water. This girl was so sandy by the time we left. At one point she put her face into a mound of sand and got a mouthful of it. And when I opened the snaps on her onesie to change her diaper, a handful of sand fell onto the changing table.

There were lots of seagulls hanging around trying to steal any food they could. Here's Leah trying to chase some of them down. (Look at all the sand on her bottom!)

Someone had dug this hole near where we were playing. Hannah and Leah loved getting down in it.

Me and Leah standing by the Pacific Ocean.

While we were there we also saw a Polynesian circus show on the boardwalk. Leah was so tired that she took a nap during the show.
Here's Leah at the end of the day. Look at this sand and sunscreen covered, wind blown, tired girl. She had such a fun time.

On another day we went to a place called Happy Hollow. This is a park and zoo. They have a small zoo area where you can see the animals in their cages, a petting zoo area where you can feed and pet some farm animals, amusement park rides that are specifically for children and lots and lots of playground equipment for kids to play on. Hannah and Lesley go here often and had told me about it, so I wanted to take Leah while we were there.

Here's Hannah and Leah playing on some of the playground stuff...

Leah loved this barrel horse in the petting zoo area...

You could walk right into the goats' pen and feed, pet or brush the goats. Lesley and I fed them, but the girls were more into climbing on the rocks. At least they weren't afraid of them. Here's Leah pointing at one of the goats...

The carousel and this train-type dragon ride were the only rides Lesley and I could go on with the girls...

In true Leah fashion, she got tired and fell asleep on the train ride. So we let Hannah play on the playground while Leah had a little nap. It is so nice that she will take a nap where ever.

I was a little worried about having Leah ride the rides by herself, so we put her with Hannah to start with. But she did just fine and even enjoyed it. So we put the girls in their own cars.

Hannah was getting a little tired, so I let Leah ride alone again. Here's a little video of her on the ride.

She wouldn't play with the steering wheel or bell while the ride was going around, but I did get this quick video of her playing after the ride had stopped.

Here they are on another ride. It's kind of too bad that the only rides that these two could go on were the type that just go round and round. But they had fun anyway. By the time we left, we had two very tired girls on our hands (not to mention a couple tired mommies).

On another day we went to a park/farm. They didn't have many animals at the time (mostly just roosters roaming around like stray cats). But the girls still had a great time playing on the playground and seeing some of the animals.

Here's Leah checking out the birds. They had a bunch of ducks, chickens and other birds in here.

Leah was trying to climb under the fence to chase the birds. Crazy girl!

They had their moments, like any kids their age sharing was tuff at times. But overall these two did really well together all week and were pretty good friends by the time we had to leave. I hope that they can grow up and be good friends like Lesley and I are.

I love this little video I got of them playing and laughing together on the front porch the night before we left...

I also want to tell this funny story from our trip there...Leah LOVED playing on their stairs. We had to put a gate up, otherwise she would have gone up and down them all day. Well, since they don't have an extra bedroom, Leah and I shared an air mattress on the living room floor. At first I laid next to the wall because I was thinking that I didn't want her to roll over and hit into the wall. This meant if she rolled over she would just fall a few inches onto the soft carpet. But on the second night or so I woke up and realized that she wasn't laying by me anymore. I could hear her somewhere in the room, but couldn't see her because it was so dark. After looking around for a few seconds, I found her sitting on the first landing of the stairs! The little stinker had woken up and found the stairs that she loved so much. Needless to say, she spent the rest of the nights next to the wall and the gate got put up at night too.

For me the highlight of the trip was just being able to spend so much time with Lesley. We can talk for hours and hours and never run out of things to say. We can also just chill watching TV or doing whatever and never get bored of being together. We hadn't been able to have so much quality time together since we each got married. We spent lots of nights staying up late talking, eating yummy, gooey caramel popcorn (my favorite) and homemade cinnamon rolls, and watching "Everybody Loves Raymond." Thanks Bah for such a great time!

Here we are just before Leah and I had to leave for the airport to come home.

I took so many pictures while we were there. So I put together some collages for anyone interested. (You can double-click on the pictures to see them better and then you can click on them again to zoom in.)

Santa Cruz beach...

Happy Hollow...

Emma Prusch Farm...

Playing at the end of the week...

A Quick Trip to Logan

So we decided that we needed to have some type of a family vacation with just the three of us before Ross had to start working full-time again. We really weren't sure what to do or where to go, but we ended up taking a quick trip to Logan. There wasn't necessarily anything there we wanted to do or see, we just wanted to get away from home for a night and go some place different.

On the way up to Logan, we stopped in a little town called Perry and found a park to have a picnic lunch and play on the playground. Leah is getting big enough that she really enjoys playgrounds, but we still have to stay right by her because she still doesn't know how to be careful on the big playground equipment. 

When we got to Logan, we went to the Willow Park Zoo. It's not so much of a zoo as it is a sanctuary for animals who can't live in the wild because of injury or whatever. There weren't many mammals. There were mostly a bunch of birds of all kinds of varieties. 

Here's Leah waiting to go into the Zoo...

 

 

These monkeys were probably one of Leah's favorite things to watch.

I was surprised at how big some of the birds in this zoo were. Here is a huge pelican they had and you can see two big white swans laying down under the tree in the background.

 After the zoo we checked in to our room and then went out for dinner. We decided eat at the Bluebird Cafe. While we were there, Ross told me that it was the restaurant where his parents had their wedding dinner after they got married in the Logan Temple. So it was kind of fun to think of his parents eating there as newly weds 40+ years ago.

Next we went swimming at the hotel pool. It was an outdoor pool and was kind of cool, but we still had fun. Leah loves playing in the water, but mostly wanted to walk back and forth from the pool to the hot tub.

I wish I would have taken some pictures or videos of Leah in our hotel room. It was a pretty basic room, nothing special, but she had such a ball there. The bathroom door had a full-length mirror on it and she loved walking over and seeing herself in the mirror. She would even get up really close and touch her nose and mouth to the mirror. I'm sure it was so dirty by the time we left. She ran back and forth across the room who knows how many times. She LOVED the bed. She had to make sure she laid down on every part of it and had a huge grin on her face the whole time.

After checking out in the morning, we went to Gossner's Cheese Factory. We were hoping to go on a tour or something, but had to settle with trying a few samples and buying some cheese curd and flavored milk instead. Very yummy!

Then we went over to the USU campus. Ross wanted to stop and check out the football stadium.

 

I was surprised that the gates were open and that we could just walk right in and wander all over the bleachers. We probably could have walked right down onto the field if we really wanted to. (For any Leslies reading this, in the second picture Ross is sporting his "game face." You have to click on the picture and zoom in close to see it.)

Just for the record, we are not Utah State University fans. We just figured if we had the chance to check out their stadium, why not. What else is there to do in Logan?

Then we went to the Logan Temple grounds to walk around and enjoy the scenery. It really is a beautiful temple. The architecture is amazing considering how long ago it was built.  

It was getting to be someone's nap time, so she wasn't really in the mood for pictures.

We ended our quick trip with a stop at the Aggie creamery where we got a nice ice cream treat. Another great treat at the creamery was that we ran into my cousin, Eric, that lives in Logan and his little family who just happened to stop in for a treat at the same time we did as part of their family's "staycaction."
We ended our little adventure with a trip to the Provo temple with my cousin, Tyson, and his wife, Aja, who were going for the first time. It was great to be able to be there with them on such a special occasion.

Overall, it was a whirlwind trip. But I'm so glad that we went and got to spend that time together as a family. Maybe next year we will plan a little better and get to go on a longer trip together.

July Outings

I can't believe we are into August already. Where is this year going so quickly? The Leslies have had a fun July. Here are just a few of the fun things we've done to stay busy...

One Friday night we took advantage of our free passes and went miniature golfing. We've been before, but this is the first time Leah as been able to walk when we've gone. She had so much fun. She didn't have her own club and ball, but she had plenty of fun playing with ours.

 Here she is, our little caddy. She loved getting the balls out of the hole. It was so funny to watch because she would bend so far over and she didn't want to bend her knees to reach the ball easier.

 

By the end of the course she was pretty tired and just wanted to be held. But overall she did really well and had a good time.

Ross finished teaching summer school in July. So on his last day Leah and I took a lunch down to a park near his school and we had a picnic lunch to celebrate. Then we took Leah over to the splash pad to play in the water. It's kind of hard to tell from these pictures, but she did have a good time. She mostly enjoyed just walking back and forth from the water to her daddy who was sitting in the shade.

We also went to a couple of local minor league baseball games in July. Both were blow outs. One our home team won, the other they lost. But between the two games we did see a lot of home runs! At one of the games, they had a fireworks show afterward. Throughout the whole game Leah was so tired, but wouldn't fall asleep. Then about half way through the fireworks she finally gave up and fell asleep on my lap and slept soundly through the rest of the show.

Since July 24th was on a Sunday, the state did most of the celebrations for Pioneer Day on Monday. So we went up to my parents' house to join in the festivities. In the morning we went to the parade. It was a pretty good parade, but overall Leah was more concerned about eating the treats than watching the parade.

Here's Leah with her cousins who were at the parade. It was so hard to get a good picture of these four kids who don't like to sit still very long.

We used Baby J's wagon to get the girls to and from the car that was parked several blocks away. On the way back Cameron was sure that he needed to ride in the wagon too.

 Aunt MoMo pulling the kids around and Leah chillin' in the wagon.

In the afternoon we went to my aunt and uncle's house for a BBQ. They had rented this big water slide and a snow cone maker. Good times were had by all. Here's Leah going down the slide with Ross.

Leah had a great time playing in the water (and mud).

Here's my nephew...airborn as he goes down the slide. The little boys loved this thing!

So did the big boys. My brother taking his little girl down the slide

Our last outing in July was a quick trip to the temple grounds on Sunday evening. I had realized one day that we had never taken Leah to any temples yet, so we decided to take her up and let her walk around. She loved seeing the fountains and sitting by the water. I think she would have liked them even more if we had let her play in them like she wanted to. I think she thought it was supposed to be like the splash pad again and that we were there to play in the water.

We were there just as the sun was going down. It was a cloudy evening, so the sunset wasn't as beautiful as it usually is from this view point. But the view across the valley is always beautiful from here.

Since we wouldn't let her play in the water, Leah found another favorite thing to keep her entertained. She watched some older kids go down the stairs by themselves, so Leah was sure that she needed to try it to. All she wanted to do was go up and down the stairs. We had a hard time convincing her to go anywhere else. Overall, she had a ball there. So now we know a good place to take Leah to keep her entertained. Plus you can't beat the beautiful landscaping and Spirit you feel at the temple.