Forrest Green

What a bipolar week.  We spent the first part of the week finishing up our vacation and that latter part back to our normal schedule, or at least some resemblance of it!  On Monday we were still in Logan with Jeff’s sister Rachel’s family.  In the morning we went to a concert series by the Opera company in the area at the tabernacle.  It was neat to go in this nearly 150 year old building, I really enjoy old architecture.  The girls enjoyed the singing and piano music, some of the songs they were familiar with.  After lunch we went to the reservoir to swim and play in the water.  The water was like ice, but the kids had a blast playing in the shallow water of the beach.  They also got to take a couple turns around the lake in a kayak and raft.  They had such a great time and the weather was beautiful.  We enjoyed a night of chatting and we watched a movie after which we loaded the kids up in the truck at 9:30 PM for the long drive home. 

 

Jeff and I switched back and forth, one driving, the other sleeping so that we could drive through the night.  We like this as the kids sleep through a majority of the drive and there’s considerably less traffic.  We had a very serious pros and cons conversation around the idea of considering employment in northern Utah when Jeff graduates.  We’ve not given much thought to it before, but are starting to realize that Jeff may have many options for career employment when he graduates from the University.  We had such a nice time and both enjoyed the weather and other aspects of the area so much that we also enjoyed a conversation around the idea.  Jeff’s wisely suggested we visit in the winter and see if we still feel the same way!  We are very grateful to the Newswanders for their hospitality and their willingness to take us out and about to some fun activities.  We will visit again as long as we’re welcome, I’m sure.

We stopped for breakfast in Flagstaff in the morning and the kids got out and stretched their legs.  From there, it was only a few hours until we arrived in Casa Grande where we stopped for lunch.  I had wanted In N’ Out Burgers the entire time we were on vacation and never did stop, so Jeff said if they had one in Casa Grande we would stop for lunch.  They did have one, so we had lunch and the girls enjoyed their first In N’ Out Burger and after lunch it was only another 90 minutes before we arrived home.   It was nice to be home!

It was back to work on Wednesday morning, the day was very busy with all the catching up I needed to do, so it mercifully went by quickly.  In the evening we went to my parents’ house for dinner and we enjoyed chatting and the kids played peacefully.  Jeff got everything unpacked and put away on Thursday and when I got home we enjoyed dinner and I went to do my visiting teaching.  I thought Felicity was ready to start our first one on one chapter book.  I gave her an option of two books and she chose The Secret Garden; the two of us lay in my bed and read the first chapter together out loud.  It was nice to have some one on one time with her, Jeff read to Helen in the other room.  I’m hoping that she and I can share some of my favorite stories from when I was a child.  She’s very patient and I think she’s ready, I’m hoping it will be a great experience.  I can’t believe how much her own reading has come along, she was reading to Helen and Arlo the other day.  She’s very excited to start first grade in August.

On Saturday I went with several of the Sisters from my ward to the temple.  I drove and had six other ladies in the truck with me.  I had a lovely time serving in the House of the Lord and we all stopped at Olive Garden on our way home for lunch which was very nice as well.  When I got home I met my family over at the Bryson's for dinner and we ended up watching  a movie.  Sunday has been very restful.  We enjoyed church, and since the young woman that I interpret for has graduated I was able to interpret in Relief Society which was very nice.  I did have an EXTREMELY embarrassing moment in Sunday School, however.  I was leaning over in my chair to put Arlo down on the floor and my arms weren't quite long enough to put him down without a thump, so I tried to lean further and fell out of my chair.  In an attempt to not fall on the baby, I rolled out of the way.  So here I am making a giant fool of myself rolling on the floor, and ended up thumping the baby on the floor anyway.  I wished I had a hole to climb into, it was terrible!

I had a really stressful week at work this past week and I'm honestly not looking forward to going back tomorrow.  I'm glad it will be a short week and the Independence Day holiday in the following week.  We hope that everyone is having an enjoyable summer and will be safe and happy in the coming week.

Neon

I don’t know if I’m the only person this happens to, you’ve not been somewhere in a long time and you didn’t really like it the last time that you went, but you say to yourself, “oh, it wasn’t that bad, I’m sure we’ll have a good time” and then you go and you remember why you didn’t want to go back.  Yeah, Vegas is that place for me.  It was hot and our children stared slack-jawed at all the half-naked sorority types.  The strip was littered with pornography, and then there’s the gambling (which the kids didn’t understand why they couldn’t play the games).  The hotel did have a nice pool area with a lazy river and a wave pool.  Jeff and the kids did really enjoy that, even Arlo; he fell asleep in the wave pool. 

My conference was good and I was very impressed with the gourmet meals we were served.  My training sessions were a bit laborious.  I was going through a certification process and there was a lot of material to cover in three days, so the instructor basically talked the whole time with little to no interaction from the class.

 We were in search of a nice dinner on Tuesday night and went down the strip to Circus, Circus.  We walked into The Steakhouse and were seated realizing very quickly we looked very out of place.  Come to find out, this little restaurant tucked away in one of the oldest, run down hotels was a Zagat’s five start steakhouse and rated the number one steakhouse in Las Vegas.  We had an amazing dinner.  Jeff and I had a delicious prime rib and the girls split a chicken breast.  The girls were perfectly behaved and got a real kick out of being served water from a chilled bottle and because they were so good we let them pick something from the dessert tray.  When all was said and done we did look a little out of place in our shorts and T-shirts, with our three children, but the dinner was superb; it was Jeff’s first time eating at such a fancy restaurant.  It was a fun experience and probably an evening I’ll always remember.

We ended up coming back to Circus, Circus later in the week to let the kids play on the midway and watch the circus acts.  They had a great time and really enjoyed the circus performances, which were actually pretty high quality acts in my opinion.  We also took them out to walk around New York, New York before dark and over into Excalibur to play in their carnival area.  Daddy gave them plenty of quarters to play games.  We even played ski ball, Jeff with Arlo strapped to the front of him! 

 

We took the girls to a buffet on Thursday and they were in heaven.  We took them each down every row pointing out all the food.  They thought it was the best thing ever.  Felicity chose all sorts of random stuff on her plate.  She was excited to be able to eat fried chicken and pancakes from one plate, they also liked the beverage bar where we let them have root beer, but not as much as they liked the dessert area!  It was hard for the kids to be cooped up in the hotel when I was in training, so they did get a little silly to keep themselves entertained.

 We left Vegas on Friday and drove to Logan, Utah, our final destination.  We spent our fist evening catching up and visiting.  The kids had a wonderful time playing with their cousins, Helen especially loved all of the animals!  On Saturday morning, we all went to a summer festival at the tabernacle grounds.  There were craft/art vendors all set up on the grass and I enjoyed looking at all the neat things.  I took some notes for some clever ideas I saw that I will have to try someday.  In the afternoon we drove into the canyon to let the kids play in the creek and roast hotdogs over a campfire for dinner.  We’ve never taken the girls camping before, they were a real hoot with all the questions and concerns about the fire and the safety of getting in the creek, there were especially entertaining when I explained the “bathroom”.  We had the best time, it was so much fun.  We had watermelon and hotdogs and after the kids roasted marshmallows.  They were all in desperate need of a bath when we got back to the house!

 On Sunday we went to church with Rachel’s family.  It’s always neat to see the quirks in other wards.  Felicity was a little apprehensive about going to Primary, but quickly settled in and enjoyed herself.  She and Helen were so excited and surprised that they were singing the same songs as in our ward.  We had a relaxing afternoon, and I all but forgot it was father’s day!  We had a great dinner out in the yard and the kids played.  Helen was climbing trees, running barefoot in the grass, and hugging the chickens.  She was especially fond of a large hen named Cookie who was the only one patient enough to let Helen pick her up.  We just couldn’t get over how green and beautiful everything was.  It was by far the most relaxing part of our vacation.

Tune in for the final installment next week of Davidson Epic Vacation!

Sea Foam Green

AMAZING week!  I'm just going to start rattling off all the cool stuff we did this week.  On Monday we went to the San Diego zoo.  It was awesome.  It was a little chilly at 67 degrees, but it was also overcast which made all that walking more comfortable.  We took the free tram first.  Let me tell you, that is the first thing everyone should do.  We got to see the whole zoo in about 40 minutes, while riding and having it narrated.  The kids loved the huge double-decker bus and could see and appreciate most everything.  The best seat by far is the upper level right side, most of the animals were on the right with the exception of the polar bears and kolas; however, when the bus stopped, passengers were permitted to stand to see the other side.  This way we saw all the major exhibits and then picked the animals we wanted to see most to visit on foot.  We had such a great day and enjoyed an ice cream cone at the end.

                           
We got back to the beach house in the late afternoon and the kids relaxed by jumping rope on the balcony and then teaching Nana to play the Wii.  They mainly played the Wii Sports games and especially liked the archery and the Frisbee; the girls even managed to get Papa to play too!

On Tuesday morning Jeff and I left the kids with my parents and we went to the San Diego LDS Temple.  It is by far one of the most beautiful temples in my opinion and I was excited to add it to our ever-growing list of temples we've done service in.  If you would like to learn more about what an LDS temple is, you can click here. We had a lovely time and I must say that it is definitely on my list of most amazing temples inside and out.  In the afternoon we visited the Mormon Battalion Historic Site.  We weren't sure what to expect, but the kids had the best time.  They talked about it the rest of the evening and asked if we could go back before we leave.  Here's a link to their website with more information about this museum/historic site located in Old Town San Diego: Mormon Battalion Historic Site.  In the evening after Arlo was asleep and the girls were occupied with a movie Jeff and I took a walk on the beach.  It was so great to be merely feet from the beachfront, I would recommend it to anyone!

On Wednesday the whole crew went to the Birch Aquarium at Scripps.  I'm so glad we have the suburban, we were able to all get around together which was nice since traffic and parking were so tight in many areas.  The aquarium was smaller than I had expected with only one wing of aquariums.  Don't get me wrong, the exhibits were great, the kids especially liked the jellyfish and the large kelp forest that had a variety of fish and small sharks.  Helen enjoyed the tide pool where she was able to gently pet starfish and other critters.  They had many interactive activities for the kids outside that they enjoyed.  I would say its worthwhile if you have a coupon.  Jeff and I used our college IDs to get in at a discount!  It was the first really sunny and warm day so we took the kids to the beach in the afternoon to play in the water and build in the sand.  They had a blast and Jeff did too!

Thursday was our much anticipated trip to Disneyland.  My parents agreed to watch Arlo for the day, which was wonderful! We got the girls in the car at about 5AM to drive the two hours from San Diego to Anaheim and got parked and to the gates at about 7:30AM.  Jeff and I had come up with a master plan to maximize our time.  We found that last year we were there two days but still didn't manage to do everything we wanted, mostly because of extremely long lines.  We got in a quagmire by going to one ride in an area and then moving onto the next in the area, we ended up stuck in Fantasyland for a couple of hours and by the time we found our way to another part of the park the lines were long at the big rides.  Our plan this year meant splitting up since Helen couldn't go on some of the rides that Felicity wanted to.  We prioritized what we wanted to do and then did the things with a historically long wait time first.  This meant we cris-crossed the park several times, but also that we rode Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Finding Nemo, Splash Mountain, and met Tinker Bell in Pixie Hollow, as well as the Jungle Cruise, Tarzan's Tree House, Winnie the Pooh, and Dumbo for Helen all before 12:00.  Then we moved on to the other rides, the more trivial ones.  We used an app on our iPhones to monitor wait times and skipped around quite a bit.  We ended up not waiting in line for more than 15 minutes for anything and never used a fast pass.  It was great, especially since the girls are still at an age where waiting in line can be really bothersome for everyone involved.  We got to everything on our secondary and tertiary list as well and then got to meander the park and do some shopping and things we hadn't planned for, it was such an enjoyable day.  We even caught the afternoon parade which I'm so glad we did because the girls just loved it. We didn't stay for the last show and fireworks because the girls were already asleep in their stroller.  I would definitely recommend the cris-cross method for doing Disneyland in less than a couple of days; and I would say a stroller is a necessity for each child under 10 too if your going to try this.  It was such a magical day.

Friday, Jeff got up early and he and my dad went out deep sea fishing.  They hired a charter boat to take them out and fish.  Jeff caught a couple of barracuda, but the boat charter said they weren't really edible, so he threw them back.  He did managed to get a nice sunburn on his face since I didn't remind him about sunscreen before they went out.  I think the two of them had a really nice time.  Here is the website for the charter they used and Jeff's picture on his blog. While the boys were out fishing Mom and I took the kids back to Balboa park.  As you may remember from last week, we had passes for most of the museums.  This time we took the kids to the San Diego Historic museum, the Miniature Train Museum, and the Museum of Man.  The Historic museum was a joke, it started with each of us receiving a tuna sticker with our admittance and the first room we went in had display cases, 75% empty, with only some vintage tuna cans in the bottom.  OK, weird I thought, lets see whats in the next room...oh, more tuna related items.  They had some "interactive" exhibits, for instance Felicity could fix a tuna net, pull on a fishing poll with a weight on the end, or my personal favorite, see how many plastic tuna discs they could can in a minute (and of course the lids had been removed by a regular can opener and the edges were sharp).  OK, that was really weird, I wonder what else they have?  Tuna art, hmm.  A dinner table with plastic tuna dishes displayed (and plastic tuna noodle casserole does not look appetizing), strange.  It was about that time we decided the Tuna Museum, I mean the San Diego Historic museum was not keeping any one's interest.  So onto the Miniature Train museum.  I won't go into too much detail it was a couple of rooms with miniature trains set up with grumpy old guys seemingly annoyed that they had let people in to watch as they farted around with their toys.  Yeah, it was lame.  OK, third times a charm?  We went to the Museum of Man which was what I was interested in.  The kids were attentive for only about the first 20 minutes and then we headed to the Egyptian wing where they had a kids interactive area.  They dressed up, played in the market, and fished for crocodiles (not what was intended, but hey it was fun)!  They did have some great exhibits in that particular museum and I would have liked to explore more if I didn't have the kids with me.  We met the boys for lunch and had a relaxing rest of the day including some more beach time.

 Saturday was our last day in the beach house and we spent the morning packing up.  Mom and Dad headed home and Jeff and I were headed to our next destination, but not before killing some time.  We decided to use the remaining Balboa park tickets.  We visited the Japanese Friendship garden.  It was very serene and pretty.  The girls fed the koi in the pond and we took some pictures, it was nice.  Then we walked over to the San Diego Air and Space museum.  That was a lot of fun.  They had lots of exhibits and even had the Apollo 7 capsule on loan from the Smithsonian.  The girls got to climb in some planes, and really enjoyed the interactive area where they got to dress up and bounce on the moon, and fly a simulator among other things.

So in conclusion, I wouldn't suggest buying the Balboa park pass as we found only a handful of the museums were worth it.  I would suggest the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center (children's museum) and the San Diego Air and Space museum.

After lunch we headed off to Las Vegas, Nevada for my work conference.  The kids were pretty restless on the drive there and we were all pretty tired by the time we reached Henderson, where we stopped for the night, at which point we realized we forgot the bag with all our toiletries upstairs in San Diego!

Jeff dropped me off at my software conference early Sunday morning and I enjoyed my classes.  They went to the mall to play and have lunch.  We checked into our hotel and I was really unimpressed with their customer service at the Monte Carlo.  I also was rather ticked that we were charged a $20 per day "resort fee" that included a pool that was only opened limited times and wired internet.  The Econolodge we stayed  the night before had free wireless internet and the pool was open until 10PM and it included a continental breakfast, go figure!  We were so tired by the end of Sunday we all piled into one bed in our PJs to watch old episodes of the Muppet Show on the computer.  I'll have to catch you up on our Las Vegas adventures in my next post.

I know I've rambled on and on, but I have to write down a incident that happened when we went to dinner with the kids on Tuesday night.  We stopped in a shopping center and were headed into a restaurant for dinner.  We overheard a homeless man ask a gentleman in the parking lot if he would buy him a sandwich in one of the shops promising that he was only hungry and not looking for money for booze. The other man graciously agreed and the homeless man sat down in front of the shop to wait.  As we passed he looked at us and especially the children and he told us what a beautiful family we had.  I thanked him politely and we kept walking, but he turned as Felicity walked passed him and said to her, "if I had had a nice family like you have, I would have never ended up in this situation".  We didn't say anything else and Felicity didn't mention it at dinner, but in her prayers that night, she thanked Heavenly Father for her family and asked that he bless the man who didn't have family.  It touched my heart, and while at the time I wasn't thrilled with him talking to my six year old, I think that it struck a chord with her, that she may understand more clearly what a great blessing families can be to us.

For anyone that has made it this far, I commend your persistence!  We've had a wonderful week and are excited about the next leg of our epic vacation!

Heliotrope

So I decided instead of taking a vacation from my blog and trying to remember everything we did in three weeks I would just write as normal.  We had a great week.  I was off on Monday for Memorial Day and we cleaned the house (exciting I know), but we did manage to BBQ.  My team was away at a conference this week, so I tried to work from home on Tuesday and Wednesday, by ended up having to go into the office both days.  Thursday was the first day of our vacation and Arlo celebrated by getting up at 5 AM.

This week marks the beginning of our epic vacation.  It actually took us two days to get everything ready.  I think I'm far more worried about my garden dying than anything else.  We packed and prepared the house and had a great time doing it.  I collected some ideas to help keep the kids happy and occupied in the truck and put together some activity bags.  They had books, coloring books, pipe cleaners, sewing cards, and many more items.  I bought them each an inexpensive cookie sheet to use to play with magnets, use as a desk for coloring, and to keep their Pet Shops from falling.  They were a big hit.  We left for San Diego at 12:30 AM, I like to drive overnight.  The kids sleep through the trip and there's a lot less traffic.

We arrived at 7AM and had breakfast on the beach.  It was pretty cool out and a little windy, but we spent the day at the beach.  The beach house where we are staying is literally within steps of the beach.  The girls enjoyed playing in the surf and digging in the sand.  Arlo was very good and took a nice long nap under the umbrella.  It was cloudy all day and I only put sunscreen on the girls, so even though Arlo was under the umbrella the entire time, he managed to get a light sun burn on his face.  I felt like the worse mother ever!  He seems to be teething, which has made him pretty cranky.

We also had passes for Balboa park and went to the Natural History museum and a children's museum.  The natural history museum was nice and the kids liked the dinosaurs and the animal exhibits.  They had a blast climbing on the geometric art at the children's museum and started to wear out towards the end.  They had a great time in the "kid city" paying with suction tubes and all sorts of other neat hands on learning experiences.  They were asleep before we even pulled out of the parking lot.

We have plans to go to San Diego Zoo on Monday and lots of other great things in the coming week.  We're having a fabulous time so far and hope to continue to enjoy ourselves!