Our California Vacation - March 23, 2009

Monday - March 23rd

We are back from our trip to California.  We left on Friday the 13th.  We stopped and spent the night at Missy and Mikal's house.  We spent the day at Missy's house.  The kids had a lot of fun playing.  their favorite thing was in the morning when we put the air mattress away.  They love jumping on it and helping to put it away.

 After dinner, we left on our long drive to Kelly's house.  It took us 12 hours to get there.  We thought it would be easier with the kids if we drove through the night.  That way they could sleep through the whole drive.

On Saturday the 15th, Kelly took us on the light rail to go to the farmer's market.  We loved riding on the train.  the kids thought it was so fun.

 The kids had a lot of fun taking baths with their cousin, Delia.  She had a lot of fun bath toys.  They took a lot of baths while we were there.  Kelly would make a heat tunnel (using a blanket and a wall heater) for them after they got out of the bath.  They loved it!

On Monday, March 16th, we went to the Jelly Belly Factory.  We love going to the Jelly Belly Factory.  Jelly Bellies are so yummy.  I love that they sell big bags of Belly flops (oddly shaped or stuck together Jelly Beans) so we can afford to stock up on Jelly Bellies.

 In the lobby area, near the gift shop, they have some fun little toys and these funny mirrors for the kids.  We had so much fun looking at ourselves in the mirror.  It's funny to move around and see how funny it makes us look.

 Kelly and Delia

 Alissa and Parker are pretending that Parker is driving and Alissa is hanging on to the front.  They did a good job.  Parker looks like he's flooring it and Alissa looks like she's screaming and hanging on for dear life (except for the bag of Jelly Bellies in her hand).

We had a lot of fun playing at a little park, not too far away from Kelly's apartment.  We blew bubbles and threw a Frisbee around.  Kelly lives in a really nice area.  I really liked it there.

Archie and Mr. P couldn't get enough water.  They were hot and tired from the walk.  In their excitement to get water, they ended up tipping their bowl over.  They are funny dogs.

 I told Alissa that I wanted to take an action shot of her.  The plan was for her to run toward the camera, then Roger would throw the Frisbee and she would jump up and catch it in the air.  He would throw it gently and make it as easy as possible for er to catch.  It didn't end up working too well, because Alissa was afraid that she would get hit by the Frisbee.  It was fun trying though.  Alissa is such a cutie.

 Delia was being so cute sitting behind them and giving them loves.  She kept choking them a little when she hugged them.  They weren't quite sure how to handle it.  But, they all posed for a picture anyway, and it turned out quite nicely.

The funnest thing about Kelly's apartment, was the swimming pool.  The kids couldn't wait to go swimming.  I hadn't taken them to a big pool before.  They are used to playing in little pools in the front yard, but have no experience with regular sized pools.  So, the kids were really excited about this.  It didn't start out well, though.  Brinley had some floaties on to keep her from drowning.  They all had some kind of floaty toy.  So, we were all by the steps and slowly getting in.  Brinley wasn't afraid and went right in.  Before I knew it, she was in the pool floating, but with her head stuck under the water.  I quickly grabbed her and got her situated safely on the top step of the pool.  When I turned around to look at the other kids, Alissa had gone out too far and was drowning.  She had decided to go in with out her floaty toy, because she could touch the ground in the shallow end and she thought that was really cool, so she didn't need a floaty.  Anyway, she went a little too far into the pool, where it slopes down and gets deeper.  She was jumping and flayling her arms, trying to get back to the shallow end, but she seemed to keep going deeper with each jump.  she couldn't yell for help, because every time she went down, water got in her mouth and she was choking on it.  She had the most terrified look on her face and her eyes were looking at me pleading for me to help her.  Luckily, roger noticed what was happening and her was really close to her.  He quickly jumped in and saved her.  After all that, we were all afraid to go swimming.  We all stayed pretty close to the steps.  Kelly spent some time with Alissa, teaching her how to swim.  In the end, we all had fun and the kids couldn't wait to go swimming again.

I was so worried with this being our first time in a big pool, that I forget to take any pictures.  I remembered when we were leaving.  So, here are the pictures I took after we went swimming.

 The kids really couldn't wait to go swimming again, so her we are, the following day, swimming again.  This time I remembered to take some pictures.

 I got a hair cut!  I love my new short hair.  I was surprised at how much hair was on the ground after I got it cut.  My hair was long!

 Beach Day!  We finally got to take the kids to the beach.  Only problem was that the weather didn't cooperate with us.  It was cold and we weren't prepared for that.  The kids loved playing on the beach.  They got really wet.  I thought that was crazy of them.  It was so cold outside without being wet.  I couldn't imagine how they could stand to get their legs wet in that water.  Kids are funny like that.

We were freezing after playing on the beach.  I didn't expect the kids to get their shirts wet too, so we ended up stopping at a gift shop and buying some sweatshirts so the kids wouldn't freeze.  After we left the beach, we went to Santa Cruz Diner.  We ordered some hot chocolate to warm us up and some lunch.  Kelly was disappointed that she didn't get to buy a funnel cake at the beach.  The weather was bad and the line was too long.  she loves those funnel cakes and the beach is the only place that she knows to buy them.  Next time we go, I want to try one.

We had a lot of fun on our vacation.  I'm really glad that we got to go and spend so much time with Kelly and Delia. 

Our drive home was not very fun.  We had bad weather and it made the drive take 2 hours more than it had taken us to drive there.  so, the drive home was 14 hours long!  We had fun, but we are happy to be home.

Silly Kids - March 13, 2009

Friday - March 13th

Parker loves this hat that he made at school.  He is so handsome in it.  It's fun that they made these.

 Brinley and Alissa were playing really cute together.  I think they were pretending that Brinley was the baby and Alissa was trying to take care of her.

Lunch Time with Brin and Parker - March 12, 2009

Thursday - March 12th

We got TV dinners for lunch.  We don't have these very often, so Brinley was super excited!  We had to wait for Parker's bus to bring him home from preschool.  Here's Brinley waiting as patiently as she could for him to get home.

 Parker's home!  He made a super cool hat.

 Parker is going to sleep on the top bunk tonight.  I'm excited about this, because I've been trying to convince one of the kids that the top bunk is fun and they should sleep up there.  they never want to.

 After the kids' baths tonight, Roger helped them all clip their nails.  They don't love getting their finger nails clipped.

 Brinley wanted her hair to be in these cute braids while she slept.  She looks super cute.

Wedding Cake - March 11, 2009

Wednesday - March 11th

I made a wedding cake for Melody's (a girl I work with at the daycare) sister.  I think it turned out pretty good.  We had to deliver it to a place in Logan.  It was really hard for us to find the location.  I was so afraid that we weren't going to get the cake there on time.

A Relaxing Sunday - March 8, 2009

Sunday - March 8th

We ended up missing church today because we forgot that it was daylight savings.  We realized that the time was changed and we only had 10 minutes to get ready.  So, we stayed home.  We need to get to church.

Alissa is trying to get caught up on her homework before she has to go to school tomorrow.  I am not very good at reminding her to get her homework done.  So, she has a lot of homework to get caught up on.  She is so cute and such a smart girl.

 I made some cute containers to help organize the kids' room.  I had a lot of fun.

Stockton Lee Grimes - March 7, 2009

Saturday - March 7th

I was finally feeling better and was ready to go back to work and normal life, when Kristy called with the news that she was going to have her baby. She had some issues that I'm not sure what they are, but the doctor said that if she wanted to be able to have an epidural, he needed to induce her soon. So she planned on having her baby on Wednesday the 4th. So, I took another week off of work and headed to Salt Lake to stay with Kristy's kids while she had her baby.

The first pictures are taken with my cell phone. Parker likes to take my phone any chance he gets and take pictures. So all of these pictures were taken by Parker.

I love this picture that Parker took of Kendra. Kendra and Parker are the same age. Kendra was born a month after Parker. The funny thing about them is that both of them are having speech issues. They both talked the same for a long time. Now, I think that it is a little easier to understand Kendra than it is to understand Parker. They have both made a ton of progress. I love Kendra. She is such a sweet girl.

On Thursday, Kristy's husband, Shan, took the kids to go see their new baby brother.

Also, Grandma and Grandpa came.  Here are the pictures they took from their visit.

While he had his kids, I took my little ones and we went to Regan's house. I was showing Regan the joys of digital scrapbooking. Regan has her computer hooked up to their big screen TV. At first, I thought that would be fun. But it's not. Because you have to stand right up in front of it and look straight up. It kind of hurts my neck. While I was showing Regan scrapbooking stuff, I started taking about my bad camera issues. My camera broke. Then my parents let me borrow their old camera. I just don't like their old camera. It doesn't take as great of pictures as my camera did. I was really sad about it. While I was telling her my sad camera story, she went down the hall and got her old camera. She is letting me borrow it until we can afford to buy a camera (we want to buy a nice one, that's why we can't afford it yet). I am so happy! Her camera is very nice! Thank you Regan!!!!

This is the first picture I took with Regan's camera. It is Parker with a goofy face, standing in the living room. you can see the TV being used as the computer in the background.

After Regan's house, we went back to Kristy's. Shan bought us pizza. Then he went back to the hospital with Kristy. Here is a picture of the kids sitting on the air mattress that I had set up in Kristy's living room. We literally camped out in Kristy's living room. I brought my tent and set it up for the kids to sleep in. I thought that all the kids would like that.  I thought it was funny that Kristy didn't know I was actually bringing my tent to set up in her living room, yet she told our parents that i was going to be camping out in her living room.  they all had a good laugh when they saw that we were literally camping in her living room.

Here is a cute picture of Brinley and Kalista. They are potty animals!

Kristy came home from the hospital yesterday.  We cleaned the house, then sat around until she got home.

The kids could hardly wait for me to let the air out of the air mattress. They love to jump and play on it while the air is going out.

Here is the new addition to the Family. This is Stockton Lee Grimes. Kristy and Shan finally got a little boy! They were worried. My parents kept hoping for a little boy and never got one. They had seven girls and no boys. Boys have been rare on my side of the family. I have 16 nieces and nephews.  10 nieces and 6 nephews. The boys are making a comeback. In October of 2008 I had 10 nieces and 4 nephews. So far all of my sister's have had girls first, but maybe because the boys are making a comeback, Missy's first baby will be a boy. That would be fun. Just a little something to think about.

Kristy was really tired when she brought him home, because he had kept her up all night.  I was exhausted when Kristy got home, because I was up all night with Kendra.  She was sick and threw up.  I had a really bad head ache by the time Kristy got home.  We saw the baby for a little but, then quickly headed home.  We got home around 5:00pm.  I took some medicine for my headache and went straight to bed.  I slept until 7:00am this morning.  It felt so nice to get some sleep.  I felt a little guilty because I knew that Kristy wasn't getting any sleep.  But what can you do?

Playing at the School Playground - March 3, 2009

Tuesday - March 3rd

After being inside the house all week with pneumonia, we decided to spend some time outside.  It was a really warm day.  We stayed outside for 5 hours.  It felt so nice to be outside, we didn't want to go in.  I took a table in the front yard and worked on some recipes that I was writing on recipe cards, while the kids played in the front yard.  We went outside right after we finished eating lunch.  After Alissa got home from school, we walked over to the school playground and played for a while.  We took 2 basketballs with us.  We played on the playground, played basketball, and we played hopscotch.  The kids loved it and I did too.  It felt so good to get out of the house and breath some fresh air.  We used my phone to take these pictures, so they didn't turn out wonderful.  some of them look kind of skewed.

Brinley didn't play on anything.  She just watched.  It takes her a while to warm up to all the playground equipment.  she wanted to slide, but she felt too afraid, so she didn't.

Feeling Better - March 2, 2009

Monday - march 2nd
I am feeling a lot better. I still feel a little tired and weak, but I am feeling much better than I have been. When I went to the doctor for the pneumonia, he looked in my ear and couldn't see anything because there was too much ear wax. My ears produce too much ear wax. So the doctor told me to get some ear drops that would help break up the ear wax and get it out of my ears. I started using it and I felt like it was working. But two days ago I was using the drops and it made my ear be clogged. When I couldn't get my left ear unclogged, I decided not to put the drops in the other ear until I could hear out of my left ear again. This morning when I woke up and I still couldn't hear out of my left ear, I decided to go see the doctor. The doctor said they would clean out my ears for me. He told me that while they did it I would feel a lot of pressure and it would probably hurt a little. He also told me that when they finished, my ears will probably hurt for a day or two, I might have headaches and feel dizzy, and if some blood comes out of my ear, don't panick because that is normal. So I was a little bit nervous about having it done. It didn't really hurt that bad. I was dizzy afterward. The dizziness as come and gone through out the day. I have not had any headaches yet. My ears don't hurt. My ears have not started to bleed yet either. So that is good. I'm pretty sure that if it was going to hurt or bleed, that would have happened by now. So I'm relieved that it was not as terrible as the doctor told me it was going to be. Ohh...yah.......I'm also really happy to be able to hear again.

Alissa just informed me that she wants to have green eggs for dinner. She said that they had green eggs at school. They are celebrating Dr. Suess' birthday this week. So she explained to me that if I use food coloring, I can make the eggs green. She was curious about it when she had them at lunch, so she asked someone and they told her how it is done. She is such a smart girl. So I am off to make some green eggs for the kids. Brinley and Parker are so excited about it that they are dancing around in the living room. Roger doesn't all the noise, so he just sent them downstairs to jump around and be loud.

Pictures Taken by Parker - March 1, 2009

Sunday - March 1st

 The kids took the camera downstairs.  These are the pictures they took.  It looks like Parker took a selfie, so I'm thinking he was the one who took these pictures.