Thank You Grandma Gayla!

Alliya loves her new birthday barbie and loves changing their clothes so all of the barbies have a chance to wear the birthday gown. Thanks again!

I Love My Daddy!

Such a cute picture of Wade and Brennyn at one of the trips to the zoo, I had to post it.

The Kids Bounce

We took the kids to the kids bounce to burn off some extra energy on a rainy day. What a great thing to have, especially this extremely wet and cold spring.

The obstacle course and big slide are a favorite of Bronson, Emory and Brennyn. They convinced Alliya to come with them and they all headed up the big slide at the end....

Here is what it is supposed to look like before they come down the slide...all smiles and happy to be playing.

Here is what Alliya experienced...the realization that she really didn't want to go down the big slide, but since she didn't know how to climb back down I had to go in after her. Lesson learned, I think we will be avoiding big slides in the near future.

Dinner with Friends

We had our friends over for a BBQ when the kids were in Washington. All in all we had 9 kiddos running around the house.

Becky made the night by bringing cupcakes with candy and frosting to decorate.

Great Wolf Lodge 2011

Since the kids enjoyed it so much last year, we took them to Great Wolf Lodge again this year.

The girls also celebrated an early birthday with one of their favorites...barbies. They play with the barbie houses they got for Christmas and have such a great time pretending. It is so cute to watch them and see what types of stories they come up with.

Bronson and Emory were much braver this year and went on everything that their height would allow them to go on. Bronson wasn't limited much and loved the water slides this year. Brennyn even went on a couple water slides. Alliya is a little more tentative and hopefully after some swimming lessons she will be on the water slides with them next year.

We also spent a lot of time in the wave pool. They loved trying to jump over the waves or kick them as they came in. As they get a little bigger I am sure body surfing will be next.

Thanks to Grandma Lorna for helping out for the weekend and being an extra set of eyes for the four kids in the water.

Late Snow

We had a few big snow storms this year and we have loved it. Another storm hit us the end of March and we got 9 inches and it stuck around. I couldn't believe we had 9 inches at the start of April.

We received an awesome snowman kit from our neighbors the Frasier's and with the multiple snowfalls this year it was put to good use. Alliya wanted to build a snowman so Wade and I helped...note that Wade is in his usual attire (no matter what time of year) shorts and gray socks....he makes me laugh!

Our Valentines Day

So obviously I am really trying to catch up on some of my posts...at least I am up to mid-February. We celebrated our V-day the weekend after this year and it was my turn to plan it. I decided to spend the day doing all of the things you don't do when you live somewhere...see all of the touristy sites. We started the day with Dick's hamburgers (Wade loves hamburgers and these are some of the best) and then headed off to find the Ballard Troll.

We then walked around the Ballard Locks and the gardens around it and spent some time in the sun (one of the very few sunny days we had this spring...although it was freezing).

We then went to the waterfront and found the original Starbucks. The line was out the door and was crazy busy.

We ended the tour with Pike Place Market. We walked around, ate and once again just enjoyed the beautiful day.

We finished off the day going to dinner at El Goucho Steak House and stayed at the Marriott in downtown Seattle. That made for an interesting evening as the international drag queen gala was being hosted at our hotel that night. I think the people watching of the day was Wade's favorite part.

Valentine's Day

Alliya and I made her own Valentine mailbox to store all of her Valentines in and then filled out all of the cards for all of her friends at preschool (yes, this year I was less than motivated to make homemade valentines so we ended up with store bought).

After the hard work she decided to treat herself to a pedicure and an outfit change. This is what I came down stairs to find.

Girls Weekend

So I am really late in this post, but we had an awesome girls weekend in February thanks to my neighbor Karen. They rented out a cabin for the winter and all of our "girl" neighbors went to Cle Elum for the weekend. We even ventured out to Roslyn to hear a band at the "brick". What a fun weekend with awesome women spent chatting and relaxing. Can't wait to do another one!

Karen, Tonya, Michelle, Kristen, Gina, Sandy, Stephanie and me

Stephanie, Karen, Michelle and me at 4am...yes that's right, we made it all the way to 4am. If you get a bunch of moms together for a weekend they will take advantage of every moment.

Toothless Bronson

So Bronson is at that age when you start to loose your baby teeth. This is how he looked last weekend.

His front tooth was so loose that he had "Hillbilly Tooth"!

He was playing with it all weekend.... I even talked him into trying to pull it out on Sunday night.

He went off to school on Monday and this is how he came home. I guess you have to go to the principals office if you loose a tooth at school. I am sure it has something to do with lawyers.

He wanted to keep the tooth and take it to his moms so he wrote the tooth fairy a letter asking her (in this case him) to keep the tooth. The tooth is in the envelop they gave him at school and you can see the letter he wrote the tooth fairy.

The tooth fairy granted his request and when he got up the tooth fairy had left him $5. (The night before the tooth fairy did not have anything smaller than a $5) Bronson was very excited the next morning and came into show me. He asked me.... "Dad why did the tooth ferry not leave me a note back? At my moms house I got a $1 and a note." (This tooth fairy had no idea I need to leave a note) I told him.... I am sure the tooth fairy was in a hurry and then asked him.... Would you rather have $5 or $1 and a note? He was quick to answer $5.

We love the snow

A great thing about Utah is the snow. I love the snow and the kids love the snow and luckily Utah gets great snow that we can enjoy. This year both Bronson and Emory are in ski lessons. Emory seems to be a bit more natural at it, but Bronson really likes it and went on his first green run this year.

Emory skiing in both of these pictures...its hard to tell because they both have red coats.

Bronson in these pictures.

Costa Rica

We took a trip to get out of the cold and decided on Costa Rica. It was one of the most beautiful places we have ever been and would go back in a second. We stayed at the Marriott in Gaunacasta, it was only a year and a half old and was amazing. We stayed on the "dry" part of the country which was about 95 degrees during the day and had a low of 70 at night, but was only a couple of hours from many rain forests and volcanoes. We rented a car and drove into the local surfing town every morning to walk around, get groceries and site see.

The beach was pretty, but reminded us of California...the sunsets were spectacular.

One of our daily drives was spent touring the volcano and rain forest. We woke up at 5:30 am to start our day of adventure. The big attraction was Arenal volcano...it is active, but hasn't erupted with lava for the past couple of months. The drive was 4 hours each way on mostly paved roads (the roads are not in the best condition and apparently they don't believe in shoulders on the road). The most interesting part of the drive was not the chickens, dogs, iguanas, cows or donkeys in the road...but the police pulling everyone over doing passport checks on the pan-american highway. Luckily for us we had a copy and didn't leave the trip with one of those "funny" stories on how you end up in jail for a night.

Our first stop at Arenal was a zip line tour. This was my first zip line tour and I was really excited...that was until I found that the zip lines don't take you in the jungle they take you over the jungle from canyon to canyon about 200-300 feet in the air. I sucked it up and went along for the fun. We ended up having a great time and I think it was the highlight of Wade's trip.

After our adventure with zip lines we had a very nice relaxing afternoon. Costa Rica has amazing hot springs that are naturally heated by the volcano. Our hotel suggested a hot spring location that was partly man made. This was the best suggestion ever, we avoided the crowds and mud of the other hot springs and spend our time enjoying the nice warm water on big rocks with a waiter bringing us food....the water came straight from the ground but was pumped into nice pools in lush beautiful grounds. This was my favorite part of the day.

After the hot springs we headed to a local restaurant to eat dinner before heading back on the long 4 hour drive.

This was the view from the restaurant...spectacular!

Sun set dinner in front of the volcano...can't get any better!

The rest of the time we spent touring the local towns and just relaxing at the hotel pool. We love the ocean, but Wade and I both agree that it is really nice to see the ocean and hear the ocean but we can both do without the sand and salt water. This hotel was the best of both worlds with the pool ending on the sandy beach of the ocean.

The hotel grounds...

All in all we had a great trip with lots of sun, really good local food and plenty of relaxation.