Wait, is this supposed to be Summer vacation, because it feels more like Summer work harder than ever. J has been working harder than ever at his dream job and praying that he gets an offer. He loves what he is doing and gets very excited about the high profile cases he gets to work on. He only has 2 more weeks of this internship left and then we probably won't hear back about an offer for a few weeks after that. We have also been keeping ourselves busy busy with our apartment coordinator job and our church callings. With so many people gone for the Summer my calling as Relief Society President has turned into quite a few different callings in addition to that. I'm not complaining, I love serving in any way, I am just documenting that that specific detail is one of the reasons this is a "Summer work harder than ever". One of the things we have been doing is going to a lot of work events for J's firm. Again, I'm not complaining, just documenting. One of the work events was an overnight stay in a cottage get away 30 minutes North of San Diego. Here is a picture of the front room of the cottage. There was a fire place, which we used, a great bathroom, a comfy bed, I don't think I have ever stayed anywhere so nice. We flew my mom down from Las Vegas to watch the kiddos and it was my first trip away from our kids. We were spoiled and waited on the entire time. So much food, so many great people, so many fun activities. The first day Friday we got to our suite, and then went out to the hospitality house that the firm had rented. They kept it open 24 hours a day and it was stocked with great food, board games, video games, and a humongous open bar (not for us, we don't drink alcohol but there was a lot of it there). We had a catered dinner and then socialized with all of the other Summer associates and attorneys until 11pm. The next morning we got ready, ate a catered breakfast at the hospitality house and took a shuttle to the beach. At the beach the firm had a huge set up for us. There were tons of beach chairs, a huge cover to stay out of the Sun, lots of food and drink, beach volleyball, frisbee golf, other beach games, and ocean kayaking. J and I played 6 rounds of volleyball before we did anything else. We weren't use to going to the beach and getting to actually play sports together. We are used to taking turns babysitting. It was a blast. And I had some pretty good serves and saves (in my opinion) and so did J. Once I popped a blood vessel in my wrist and rubbed my feet raw with sand, we took a break, ate some food, played some frisbee golf (I must brag- I got the world record high score at the event, must be from all of that Ultimate Frisbee coaching I did in college). J and I then decided to be daring and we went Ocean Kayaking. This was no ordinary ocean kayaking trip. There were over 10 feet waves and the guides tried to get our group to cancel ocean kayaking because of the waves but everyone begged them, promised they wouldn't sew if someone died, and we got to go anyway. Oh it was an adrenaline rush. We did pretty well at first. We paddled hard through those huge waves and made it over a dozen of them, but then a monster wave came and our kayak tried to overcome it but it was too big. We went vertical and then the kayak came down on top of us. We were ok, but after that monster wave we decided we were done. That same wave wiped out another couple and one of the riders got hit in the head with the kayak and got a black eye. It was quite the experience. After our awesome day at the beach we cleaned up, went to a fancy restaurant, and then went back to the hospitality house and convinced a group of people to play "Life's a Pitch" with us. It's such a fun game, our household favorite game. If you have never played it, you've got to. It's especially fun with a bunch of attorneys who really know how to pitch an opinion. The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast and went home. It was such an awesome weekend getting to know everyone J works with every day and getting some along time with J. It wasn't all that relaxing, more high adventure, but it was fun nonetheless. Other work events we have gone to included an artwalk downtown LA prefaced by amazing appetizers at the penthouse suite of one of the attorneys who live downtown. We went to an in home dinner of an attorney at the firm who barbecued some of the best ribs we have ever tasted. We went to the Hollywood bowl and watched Westside Story on the big screen while the orchestra accompanied the movie. That was an incredible experience, the orchestra never even missed a beat. We ate gourmet sandwiches while we watched. We went on a Hollywood sign hike and we even brought the kids to that one. Yup- Jif on J's back and Reese on mine. It turned out great and we had delicious Indian food at a restaurant afterwards. We still have another at home dinner and a Dodger's game to go to. We are running out of babysitters fast! Yes it has been a fun summer with tons of cool experiences, but BUSY!
Finally the 4th of July weekend came and we wanted a break so we first went to Hollywood and saw CARS 2 at the El Capitan Theatre. And behind the theatre there was a big cars themed amusement park that you got entry to for 3 hours with the purchase of a ticket. Believe it of not, both kids actually sat through the whole movie. That was our first movie ever as a family that we were able to go and sit through with the kids. The amusement park was really fun. I have more pictures of that on J's phone that I will try to upload later. There was a playground made entirely of tires. Jif loved that and we could tell that he was getting overwhelmed with too much of a good thing because he had a couple of meltdowns so we had to take a break and get some lunch and then we were ok. They had life size replicas of Lightning McQueen, Mater, and Finn McMissle. Jif got to shoot his first nerf gun at the bad lemon cars of CARS 2, and he didn't hit a single one but loved it nevertheless. They had a car show going on showing classic cars from around the world and Jif loved that one. And we even strapped Jif to a bungee cord and let him jump on a tire trampoline. He barely made the weight cut off, 30 Ibs exactly. Then we drove down to Orange County and went to my friend's wedding reception. Before the wedding reception we got some Rubios. I am in love with the Rubio's shrimp burrito, it is true love and stopped at Old Navy and got Jif a CARS 2 shirt, sunglasses, and some sandals for me. After the wedding reception we hopped in the car and drove to Las Vegas, our favorite vacation spot. My parents were waiting up for us and it was a blast hanging out with them. We stayed up talking way too late that night. The next day was Sunday and we went to church with them, relaxed (yes finally some relaxation this Summer) and had yummy food. The next day, the 4th of July my grandma (Jif and Reese's great grandma) came down from St. George with a cooler full of baked beans and potato salad. Truly the best baked beans and the best potato salad I have ever eaten. We barbecued hot dogs and corn on the cob and had ourselves a perfect 4th of July feast. It was so great to see my grandma, I don't get to see her nearly enough. She is one of my role models in life. They had to get back to St. George and my parents and my family all decided to go to the park, play and have a photo shoot.
And this is my favorite picture of Reese and her mama. I must admit, I love love love having a little girl, it doesn't get much better than this. That night grandma, Jif and I went on their front porch and watched the fireworks. Las Vegas is the best place for fourth of july fireworks because each Casino does it off of their roof so there's a billion fireworks in the sky all at once. Love it. Then we took off in the morning, I was sad to go, I love my visits there. Definitely one of the highlights of the Summer thus far.
A funny story, for those of you who haven't seen Mickey Mouse clubhouse, it's one of his favorite shows and in the show a little guy named Toodles will often provide tools to help the clubhouse team with their problems. The other day Jif accidentally threw a ball into the street. Jif knows that he is not supposed to go into the street so instead he looked up into the sky and yelled "Oh Toodles". I think he really believed that toodles would come out of the sky and provide him with a tool to get his ball back. What a funny kid. Sometimes I wonder if toodles is his imaginary friend because he talks about him a lot.
My Reese is growing up way too fast, here she is playing with a friend. She is rolling all over the place and scooting all over. She hasn't really mastered scooting forward but she will scoot sideways and backwards and roll until she is where she wants to be. She is loving solid food and will eat practically anything I give her, sweet potatoes, apple sauce, bananas, green beans, peas, peaches, oatmeal, rice cereal, barley, the only thing she doesn't like is avocados. Well I can't blame her, I used to love avocados but when I was pregnant with her I couldn't tolerate them at all and even now 7 months later I still can't eat them. It's just something about Reese and avocados that weren't meant to be. She is so sweet and so fun to snuggle with. She thinks her big brother is the best thing in the world.
So that's it for now.
Fun! Your little daughter is such a beauty!
ReplyDelete