"I will spend most of my life and eternity knowing my children as adults,
but for a few short years I have the privilege of knowing them as children."
- Hilary Weeks

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Spring Break in San Antonio

We just returned from a week in San Antonio visiting some good friends. We had such a great time and it was so much fun seeing them again.

I think our kids' favorite activity of the whole week was sliding down the stairs in sleeping bags. I wish these pictures had audio so you could hear the laughter and screams. It was hilarious! And its a miracle no one got hurt.And I loved it when all the kids did a dog-pile on Clint. Ha ha ha! We took all the kids to the San Antonio Zoo one morning. It was crazy busy since everyone was out of school, but we got to see some fun animals.After that we went to see The Alamo. The line was forever long to get into the actual building, so we just wandered around the grounds and looked at the exhibits out there. We got to see a lock of Davy Crockett's hair, lots of really long guns, and other interesting artifacts from that time period. I loved it, but the kids thought it was pretty boring. Allison slept the entire time. That night we left all the kids at home and Amanda, Todd, Clint and I went on a double date back to downtown San Antonio to go on the River Walk. It was the coolest thing. You have to go down a flight of stairs from street level to get to it. Just walking around the streets downtown you would never even know the river and shops were down there. We decided to take the boat ride to see the sights and decide where we wanted to eat for dinner.Funny story: Clint and I started out sitting next to each other, but the benches are so close together that I said, "We're going to end up knocking knees with strangers." So he begrudgingly switched to the seat across from me. Not two minutes later, the lady who ended up sitting next to me got plastered on the face with bird poop from a pigeon up in the rafters. "You're Welcome Clint!"We had a great time and learned some interesting things about San Antonio from our boat guide and we had a yummy dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. When we got back to the house I just had to get a picture of the sleeping kids. All 9 of them slept in this room together all week. It's hard to see in the picture, but all of the boys are facing right and all of the girls are facing left. Funny! The big outing of the week was Six Flags Fiesta Texas. Unfortunately it was just as busy as the zoo and everywhere else. So the lines were really long and slow. We split up for most of the day with the bigger kids going on the roller coasters and the smaller kids on the kiddie rides. My least favorite ride: The Tea Cups. I hate anything that spins around in circles. Kyle tried to get a Tea Cup all to himself, but he ended up getting put with this weird old lady who was another single rider. Poor thing.
Allison ended up being too short for this Airplane ride. She was devastated and spent the whole time crying on my lap.The funny thing is that Allison was too short for most of the "kiddie rides" that have seat belts that could only be opened by the ride operator. But she wasn't too short for the log ride that had no seat belts at all and went down some pretty steep, fast hills. I was afraid she was going to fly out of the ride at times and had to hold her down with both my arms. She was so excited to finally be on a ride and she loved every minute of it! Hayden, on the other hand, was terrified and hated every minute of this ride (and just about every other ride in the park too).Clint and Allison both fell asleep waiting in line for the Scooby Doo Ride.We had such a wonderful time and are grateful that the Westenskows put up with us for so many days! :-) We loved the late nights playing Feets and Hands, the Texas shaped food (waffles, tortilla chips, brownies, deli trays), the H.E.B (best grocery store ever!), the BBQ at Brandon and Shana's house and meeting all their adorable kids, playing with gooey-gunk, getting a scorching case of Balmorhea on your upper Uvalde (ha ha ha), and for all the precious time our kids got to play with their friends. Especially Allison who got spend so much time with "My Abby." Allison cried on the way home everytime we stopped because she thought we were going back to their house and "My Abby." She's asked for Abby every day since they moved and every day since we got back from visiting them. I missed my chance of getting a picture of the two of them while Allison was awake, so we have to settle for this: Thank you Westenskow "Cousins"! We can't wait until next time!!


Oh yeah...More things I don't want to forget: we played at the park, saw the movie "Tangled," had to drive 20 minutes to get to church (haven't done that since my mission), loved the overcast mornings, we saw license plates for 43 of the 50 states, we got to see the San Antonio Temple, and "You Dookus!"

Monday, February 28, 2011

10th Anniversary

Clint and I are celebrating 10 years together this year. So we decided to take an early vacation together to Disneyland for the weekend without the kids. It ended up being one of the coldest weekends of the year, which was a bummer, but we still had fun. I had the camera with me the whole time, but didn't get very many pictures. When we arrived on the first day, we were randomly chosen as "Mickey's Friends of the Day" and got free parking, a private shuttle to the gates and some pins proclaiming us "Honorary Citizens of Disneyland." That was pretty fun.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Blue and Gold

Kyle's cub scout pack had their Blue and Gold Banquet in February and they asked each scout to make and decorate a cake for the occasion. Kyle chose to make a layer cake with rainbow chip frosting (his favorite). And since Cub Scouts are 101 years old, he picked out some candles to put on top. As we were eating dinner and watching the program (an awsome magic show) Kyle kept sneaking finger licks of icing off the cake. I wish I had gotten a picture of the cake at the end of the night. It was pitiful looking, but Kyle really enjoyed it.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The Birthday Cake

I can't believe I forgot to post pictures of Jared's birthday cake. I threw in a couple other cute ones too, just 'cause I can!

Nutella

I think Allison could single-handedly keep the Nutella company in business.Although I don't know how much of it is actually getting in her mouth.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Four is Fun!

My baby boy turned four last month. Jared is such a sweetheart. He is so helpful around the house. He'd rather clean the toilet than any other chore. He is best friends with Allison and plays so well with her. He can always find something to laugh about and can have fun playing with just about anything. He's been talking since he was a year old and I forget sometimes that he's only four. He finally moved into Sunbeams this year and he loves it (although he misses having a snack at church). Jared loves to listen to music, play at the park, play video games and act silly whenever possible. I'm so glad I get one more year with him before he has to go to kindergarten.
Happy Birthday Jared!