A Fun Anniversary

You can see from the adorable picture a few days ago that Wednesday was our 7-year anniversary. We went on a ferry boat ride to San Francisco and it was a lot of fun (minus my motion-sickness!) The kids absolutely loved it and it was really beautiful to be riding through the bay.

This is after we went under the Bay Bridge that is in the background.

Max took this picture for us... he is becoming quite useful! Not to mention Doman held Cali while Max was taking the picture!.

So here is to 7 years of bliss! Okay, who are we kidding?... it has been a wild seven years! School, debt, sickness, living in apartments, having kids, more school, more debt, more kids... it hasn't all been fun and games, that is for sure! But, we have each other and because of that we can survive it all... together!!!

Early Birthday for Cali

I can't believe my baby girl is going to be ONE! Her sweet grandmas have sent her such cute little packages. We wish we could celebrate birthdays with our family around, but thanks guys for the packages! Here are a few pictures I know the grandmas would love to see of the kids opening everything.

First of all, her big teeth!
We've never had a one-year-old with teeth before, and she has six!

Here come the princesses! My mom made her this super soft quillow that she's gonna love.

Grandpa's 1-year old book... Pat The Bunny. Oh, and Cali holding a princess ball. :)

And the Thurgoods sent her a cute princess cell-phone with matching case! So strange to have princesses in the house!

Another fun toy phone and a doll from Grandma Briggs.

And both Max's grandmas were SO thoughtful to send him a bunch of school supplies for starting school next week. Just this morning he was telling me (again!) that he doesn't want to go to kindergarten. Then he remembered all the cool stuff his grandmas sent him and he got excited. Hopefully his teachers don't mind when he brings it all to school. But thank goodness for grandmas!

7 Years!

Muir Woods

The last time we went to Muir Woods was four years ago when we moved here to Berkeley. We decided we ought to go again now that the boys would enjoy it more. I was amazed how beautiful the giant trees were once again. Life is so busy, but I really hope we can keep seeing some of the great bay area sites before we have to leave!

On our way back from Muir Woods we also stopped at the lookout point to the Golden Gate Bridge ... pretty awesome view of the bay! I wish we could get a better family picture, but what can ya do with these four little nonphotogenic kids!? Plus they seriously were worried about the strong wind blowing them right off the ledge!

This is not my child...

Max has always surprised me by his eating habits. He eats everything, tries everything, and loves just about everything. But this was all I could stand. He got a big tomato out of the fridge and devoured it. I grabbed the camera just as he was taking his last big bite. I'm so glad that he didn't inherit my fear of vegetables! (which I'm working on , btw...) And earlier this week he found the colorful peppers in the fridge and wanted that for his snack. I gave him some red, yellow, and orange pepper slices with some ranch dressing. I noticed he wasn't dipping them (he loves ranch dressing, so this was strange). When I asked him why, he said he wanted to decide which color was his favorite first... red won. And no matter how delicious Max kept telling Doman that the peppers were, Doman tried one and quickly left the scene... he on the other hand is definitely mine. :)

We did it!

I've never dared take all four kids to the beach before. I feel bad even saying it, but I hate the beach. I don't like sand, I don't like being dirty, I don't like the hot sun, and I don't like the cold water. And what's worse than actually going to the beach?... taking your kids to the beach! But it had to be done and with the help of my friend Rebecca, we did it!

Max and Doman both thoroughly enjoyed it. Lincoln seemed to be more like me... he couldn't stand just his hands having sand on them and he wouldn't touch the water. Cali did alright just hanging out on Brit's blanket... but of course she had to add something to the experience by blowing out of her diaper!

All my friends were so nice to help me even though they've got their own kids to watch. But it sure made the experience enjoyable. And now I can check it off the list! :)

Holding hands walking through the waves of the ocean... isn't this romantic? :)

Max loved the water... I guess you just get numb after a few minutes! Hopefully he got his fill of the beach! :)

Doman and Lincoln just playing in the sand... note that Lincoln is holding sand! But then he kept begging me to get all the sand off his hands the rest of the time!

A picture of me and Cali before we left showing that we survived. :)

The 5th of July :)

July 5th... the anniversary of our very first date. We wanted to do something with the kids during the day. And then of course that night we had a babysitter so that we could get ice-cream at Dairy Queen. Oh- and Dan gave me the Wicked CD... love it!

So we took the kids to the Lafayette Reservoir. It was a lot of fun and not far away. There is a nice playground and a big, pretty lake. All the kids loved it! But take Marie's advice and go on a cool day!

The highlight was riding the pedal boats.
I got to take the boys out first... they loved it and it was so pretty.

Then Dan took out the boys and let Max do the pedaling while Lincoln was trying not to fall out the back!

This would be a great place to take a nice walk or run around the lake... a big nice paved trail.

Cali's too wiggly to go out in the boats, but she stayed happy in the stroller. :)

The Berkeley Bucket List

On the flight home from London we saw The Bucket List. I probably wouldn't have watched it had I not been stuck on a long flight, but it turned out quite interesting. Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman are these two old men who are dying. Instead of crying about it and staying in the hospital for treatments, they make a "bucket list" which is a list made up of things they want to do before they "kick the bucket". And then throughout the movie they go on to do the things on their bucket list.

Dan and I have just realized that we may possibly only have one year left here at Berkeley. And despite how incredibly happy that would make me, I'm already starting to have regrets! Hence... our Berkeley Bucket List. We've made a big list of things we'd like to do before we "kick the bucket" at Berkeley. Everyone knows we're kind of rigid with schedules around here... how else are we supposed to stay sane? :) So, some naps are gonna have to be skipped and bedtimes will have to be ignored. But we're gonna have fun!

LONDON!

What an awesome trip Dan and I had to London! As everyone probably knows, I'm not a traveler, so to go to London twice in my lifetime is near miraculous. Dan had a research conference in Hull, England this year and I couldn't miss the opportunity to go along so that I could visit my brother Josh and his family in London. We had such a fantastic trip! It is an interesting kind of trip to be visiting family without actually taking my own kids. We were able to hang out with our cute nieces and nephew and it was a ton of fun. Here are a bunch of highlights from the trip:

This is us on the train going to church with Brooklyn and Makenna.

Conference at Hull... Not too exciting, but I got to relax (seriously... I slept until 3:00 in the afternoon one day!) I was glad they had shopping malls all over so I could shop. The only things I got were for Cali... I missed her a ton! This is a picture of us outside the cool aquarium that BP took us to for dinner.

It's been a lot of years since my paper route days, but turns out I can still ride a bike! We went on the Fat Tire Bike tour of London one day and it was awesome. All the parks are SO green and huge. It was also cool to have a guide take us to all the London sights. Definitely a highlight for me!

Biking through Hyde Park

This is in Trafalgar Square with Big Ben in the background.

All I can say is... Fantastic!!!

This is us playing Nertz and eating junk with J&A. We felt so bad keeping them up until 2:00 and 4:00 am. every night... especially since Josh still had to get up early and go to work! It definitely reminded us of our Provo days. Maybe it's a good thing we don't still live close so that we get more sleep! What can we say... we like to party!

Learning how to ride scooters... Brooklyn and Makenna totally kicked our cans though.

Dan LOVED putting the girls to bed at night.

We didn't get a whole lot of pictures with Mr. Z - I guess because he likes his mama! But he was a lot of fun. Always smiling and just doing his own thing.

We played at the park by their house on our last night. We flew a kite, rode scooters, and played little kids games - this is me catching Makenna in Colored Eggs

The girls got a lot of piggy back rides :)

This is in front J&A's house before we left. We had a lot of fun staying with them and are so glad we had the chance to see them in London before they move back. Thanks guys!

Finally, the woman who made it all possible. My mom is amazing! I don't know how many grandmas would take care of my four little munchkins for 8 whole days. They had so much fun with Grandma... they are still talking about everything they did with her. And I think I'll never hear the end of "but Grandma let us do it..."

Max's last day of preschool!

Friday was Max's last day of preschool. I can't believe he has finished two years of daily preschool. It has been so great and I hope he's ready for kindergarten! We will miss Teacher Nelly so much! She is seriously the most amazing woman ever and she is the reason Max had such a great preschool experience.

Max with his class at graduation

Max with his sweet teacher Nelly.

This is Max with his best friend Gavin at Lake Don Castro for their field trip. Max loved playing in the water, but he was so wild in the beginning that it totally wiped him out!

He had to settle for playing in the sand the rest of the time. This is him with cute Ellie.