Happy Birthday!

So, Ryan and I recently had birthdays (we were born a couple days apart, so we usually just celebrate the entire week.) Anyway, I have to admit, this year was pretty awesome. We had an early cake-and-ice-cream thing while we were up in Utah - thanks Grammy Cloe!

Back home, a few days later, Ryan's birthday was a little slow, but he was able to play his new MarioKart for the Wii and got treats and cards from lots of people. Oh, and his work gave him balloons tied to a little cement paperweight (he pretended that he had gotten the balloons for me). Connor liked the little weight so much he threw it at the living room window - so now we have one more thing to explain to the landlord if we ever move out of here!On Saturday I was given my choice of anything in the world (meaning in L.A.) I wanted to do, so we took our first trip to the Los Angeles Arboretum in Arcadia. I was expecting it to be pleasant, kind of like Descanso Gardens, but this place was totally amazing. We wandered through dark bamboo forests, walked across the Australian outback, fed some very aggressive geese, and even saw a wild bobcat crossing the path ahead of us (probably looking for the geese).After the Arboretum, we stopped at Porto's in Glendale to get lunch and a birthday cake. I love few things in the world more than Porto's baked goods, but I think I've found my absolute favorite. Their strawberry-shortcake-cake is my new true love. Sorry Ryan. We had planned a fancy birthday dinner-date for Friday night, but our babysitter got sick at the last minute, so we ate burgers with the kids at the Americana instead. I was feeling very sorry for myself, I must admit, but it turned out to be pretty fun. Then, Saturday night we had planned to go to Ryan's work party, but, again, no babysitter. We've finally come to terms with the fact that 16 year olds are just too busy, so we've since shifted down to 12-13 year old babysitters with much more success.

Instead of the work party, we went to the Ward party, and Connor got to meet Santa! He was a little confused at first, but when he saw that candy was involved he was all about standing in line for twenty minutes. His understanding of Santa is currently "the guy who gives us candy-canes".

Just to clarify, we are NOT anti-Santa. We just don't enjoy trying to convince the kids of something that isn't true. It seems awkward for us, for some reason. Sooo, we simply told Connor that Santa is a fun game that even grownups like to play - kinda like witches and ghosts on Halloween (but, obviously, a good guy.) I have a bad feeling, though, that this may get us into trouble down the line when Connor goes ruining it for his playmates.

Oh, and I got a new camera! Thanks Ryan! The old one was okay, but it took about thirty seconds to focus and snap anything, so my shots of the kids were based on high-volume and luck. The new one is a much-updated version of my old one, and I'm excited to see if there's any improvement at the blog level (the main reason for taking pictures, of course!)

Here are the remnants from the old camera. Elise helping unload the dryer and Ryan and Elise's "photo-booth" pictures.

At Last . . a Thanksgiving Post!

Hi again, everybody! I've certainly taken my time getting this post written, so my apologies. We had a great Thanksgiving vacation last month. I was able to fly up to Springville with the kids about 1 1/2 weeks before Thanksgiving, and Ryan joined us the day before Thanksgiving. (He drove up in the van [with the dogs], so we were all able to drive home together.) The flight wasn't as bad as I had feared - JetBlue's individual TV's and kid-friendly snacks kept them mostly occupied. Occupied, but not quiet. I was lucky enough to sit next to an older lady with lots of grandkids at home, so she was pretty patient.

Our vacation in Utah was great. The kids and I were able to spend alot of time with my family, including my brothers and sister-in-law. Kevin actually spent the whole Thanksgiving weekend at my mom's, which was awesome, and Kelli and Kyle were really nice to sacrifice all their free time hanging out with me each evening. We stayed up practically all night playing Arkham Horror, which is really fun despite being ridiculously complicated. (Note: Kevin was in attendance, but he was the one taking the picture.)

Here are some pictures out at my mom and Chuck's property near Elberta. Nobody should know where Elberta is, by the way, but it is very pretty. My mom let the whippets run, and Connor walked for a couple of hours without being carried, I was proud of him. He had alot of fun finding the pink ribbons in the trees that marked the property boundary, and used them like a scavenger hunt to lead us back to the car (he thought we might be lost.)

Connor spent what was left of his strength that evening grinding wheat. He has this thing about licking flour off countertops that drives me nuts, but he's convinced that anything whitish in a canister is a treat, so this was like making candy for him.

Thanksgiving itself was great, too, as always. It says something about me that a day dedicated to being thankful for food (among other things) is my favorite day of the year. It's probably not my mom's favorite, since she does the majority of the work . . .

We left for home Monday night, hoping that night driving would be easier with respect to entertaining the kids. I'm not sure what the verdict is on that. It was definitely easier and less stressful dealing with kids (they slept most of the time), but then there's always that falling-asleep-at-the-wheel-and-plummeting-off-a-cliff thing. That can be stressful, too. We're thinking next time we'll try half-and-half, where we leave in the early evening and get home around 3am.

I guess I'll quickly do the Thanksgiving name tag Kelli sent me, although I apologize at how dorky and lame my answers are. They are sincere, though.

E: Elise, Connor, & Ryan. These guys are my reason for getting up in the morning (metaphorically as well as literally - I'd like to sleep in once in awhile.) I love them more than I thought I could love anything.

R: Relatives. Spending time with so many members of my family reminds me how lucky I am. Family is the most important thing we have in this life, and I'm grateful we have such a great one, both in Utah and all over the country.

I: Income. Just happy we have one. Quite a few of our friends have lost their jobs in recent months, and I know how stressful job-hunting can be. I'm also grateful for how hard Ryan works to support us.

N: Nation. Reading the news is depressing enough on the "national" page, but the international stuff can be truly nightmarish. I'm so thankful to live in a country of relative freedom, peace, and plenty.

N: Nazarene. Okay, this is stretching Google's "N words" search to it's breaking point, but I couldn't find anything else beginning with N. (Thanks, Kelli, for the tip, by the way.) By Nazarene I mean the Savior. Not the kind of thing I normally blog about, but I have to mention my thanks for Him and for our Heavenly Father. Everything good in my life is somehow the result of their love and inspiration.

An Elephant and a Chicky

Okay, first of all, it is no longer November 16th, no matter what the date above says. It's more like November 23 or something. I took the pictures almost a month ago, uploaded them last week, and it's taken me this long to post them! Pretty sad.

Anyway, here are the long-awaited photos from Halloween. We went to a ward party that night for dinner, then went group trick-or-treating in the neighborhood around the Bishop's house (which was an awesome neighborhood, by the way). This was the first year that Connor really understood what was going on - particularly since he had all the older kids to watch and follow. He started out running from house to house as fast as he could go, screaming "Trick or Treat!" as loud as he could at the unfortunate residents. We had to keep reminding him to say thank you, and kept having to explain that you can't tell people what kind of candy you wanted, you just had to be happy with what they were offering. (He kept telling people he wanted green lollipops, because they were his favorite.) By the time we got back to where we'd parked the car, he was so tired he was dragging his candy bag behind him. Elise was still too little to really participate, but we carried her and let her sample her brother's loot, so she enjoyed it.

About a week later, we went on our first beach bike ride. The weather was beautiful, which kind of surprised me. The kids did a lot better this time in the trailer, mostly thanks to generous amounts of snacks. We rode north from Dockweiler Beach for about an hour, then turned around and came back. They have a great bike trail here that, as far as I know, connects every beach in the LA area. When we were done, we all played in the ocean and the kids got totally filthy in the sand.

This is Connor after his first night working in the morgue. He actually stole paint out of his (usually locked) bedroom cabinet and painted his arms and leg to make them look like "muscles". I guess he wanted to be like the skinless guys in his anatomy books.

Cowboys, Bees, and Cars

No, this is not a post about Halloween costumes, although that one is coming soon. This is about our exciting Saturday-before-last. Saturday morning we made our first trip to the Autry, a museum dedicated to "western heritage". It sits right next to the LA Zoo, and we've passed it dozens of times, but never went in until now. It was pretty cool, actually. We were able to pan for gold in the courtyard outside (Connor just splashed in the water), and saw a ton of pioneer and cowboy artifacts. I spent alot of time thinking about my grandpa.

After the Autry, I had to go do some church stuff for a couple hours, so Ryan put Elise to sleep and told Connor he could play outside (while Ryan sat in the lawn chair studying his CFA books). Connor, I guess, asked if he could run through the sprinkler, and Ryan told him to just take off all his clothes and go ahead (something we often allow, since our yard is so secluded). Anyway, the poor kid had a yellowjacket land on him, and despite his efforts to "be really still", it stung him. This was his first bee sting, and although he didn't have a life-threatening reaction to it, I came home to a very unhappy, naked little boy wrapped in a towel on my bed. I have to say that Ryan took really good care of him, but the location of the sting was not ideal by any means. For some reason, Ryan saved the offending yellowjacket, whom he executed without trial.

Anyway, as Connor's ibuprofein and benadryl started to take effect, we decided to go ahead with plans to meet some friends out at the Irwindale Speedway for our first NASCAR-style auto races. Connor still wanted to go, despite his injury. I had my doubts about this activity. I'd never been to anything like this, but the idea of watching loud cars drive around a racetrack with two little kids in tow just doesn't sound fun to me. I expected Elise, especially, to last about three minutes. Things didn't look any better when we got there, mainly because Connor's Benadryl had sent him into a state of altered consciousness. He was acting totally weird - alternately crying and laughing and jabbering nonsense words. We got a little worried, but food seemed to snap him out of it.

(Connor on Benadryl)

The first couple of races were okay, (thank you to Rich for loaning us earmuffs for Elise!), but we had just decided to head home when they pulled out their main attraction: Figure Eights. I have found my inner redneck with this sport. It's the coolest, most bloodthirsty car event I've ever heard of. Go ahead and google it if you want, but basically it's a bunch of psychos racing around in a figure eight that intersects in the middle. How do they avoid crashing, you may ask? Well, that's kind of why people watch it. It was getting too late for us to stay very long, but I'd definitely go back. Even Elise loved it - she sat on the bleacher bench and clapped her hands and squealed.

Pumpkins

Last Monday (10 days ago), for family home evening, we decided to go to a pumpkin patch and let the kids pick out pumpkins. We didn't feel like doing a whole day trip like last year to Pomona, so the "pumpkin patch" was just a place up the street - more like a Christmas tree lot, covered in straw. Connor was totally excited about getting the "best" pumpkin, although we told him that it had to be one he could carry himself.

When we found out that the pumpkins were priced 10-20-30 (as in $10 for a small one), we let Connor pick his out, paid for it, then moved the remainder of our party to the local grocery store, where we got pumpkins for everyone else. We really had intended to only carve Connor's, but it looked like so much fun we did one for everybody (Elise's excepted - she got a drawn on face).

Elise was convinced that pumpkins were for eating. She got really mad at us that we weren't sharing the pumpkin guts that looked so delicious.Here are the results. Connor designed his himself, and even helped cut alot of it. Ryan's is the big warty one, mine is the white one. This is the first Halloween we've been on top of things enough to carve - usually they just sit intact 'till Christmas on the porch.

Unfortunately . . . . .

Living in Los Angeles does have its downsides. We've had 90 degree weather for the past two weeks, and, besides the sad lack of fall ambiance, that also doesn't do good things to pumpkins. Here is a picture of them exactly one week later:

I I meant to take another picture of them yesterday, but Ryan had already thrown them out. Only two days later, they had completely flattened and liquefied all over the porch. There were worms and everything. Yes, it was creepy, but not the Halloween decoration we wanted. I went to Trader Joe's yesterday and got a (reasonably priced) new pumpkin for Connor to do tonight. We have hopes that this one will survive until Halloween.

On another note, I came out of the shower the other day to find that my son had opened up Google Chrome, found our blog, and started clicking links all over blogspot to watch people's videos. He especially liked Erik's cereal-box guitar song, I think he watched it about 20 times. That was kind of cute and amazing, but mostly it freaked me out. I'm really not in the mindset of worrying about Connor's "internet use" yet. Should we get a filter? Should I put the computer out of reach when I'm not around? I thought I had a couple more years before I had to worry about this.

Lastly, who out there has ever recieved allergy shots? Kyle and I both got them through high school in a vain attempt to normalize our immune systems. I would always get a welt on my arm after each shot, which is normal. The funny thing is that these allergic reactions would also show up at other random times. Even on my mission, years later, I would occasionally look down and see an itchy bump right there on my arm where the injections had been. A couple days ago, the same thing happened, for no real reason. Arm just started itching. Apparently the tissue retains some sort of memory of the experience. Kinda weird, huh? Makes you wonder what's going on in there.