Camping in Santa Rosa

So for months I have been looking forward to getting the camper out of the garage and into the wilderness.  Seeing how Memorial weekend would give us the extra day we headed out on Saturday morning to explore New Mexico. We headed East on I-40 to Santa Rosa State Park (and lake).

By the time we actually got there it was probably around 2 in the afternoon; and the place was packed! We thought we would be able to camp on the beach...there was no accessible beach.  The "beach" we were told over the phone that we could camp at, was actually rock cliffs.  Not to mention it was filled with partiers.  So we had to camp a few miles from the lake in a more remote camp ground, but it all worked out.

The kids had a blast! Levi had a few "accidents" of falling in the chaos but the poor little guy was fine without even a scrape or a bruise. After getting all situated the whole family (including Gus) went down to the lake.  Gus was LOVING to FINALLY have the opportunity to go for a swim and Lucas was just as excited to see it.

After an extremely rough night with Levi having a super hard time sleeping and me panicking that it was still too cold we decided to head home on Sunday.  We packed things up in the morning and decided to head into Santa Rosa to see a few things.

This was the Blue Hole. It's in all the New Mexico travel guides so we had to check it out. It would probably be neat for diving, but was WAY too cold for swimming in my opinion.

In other news....Summer is finally here!  Which at my house means way too many otter pops...

Gratitude 2

I have to say that today I am particularly grateful for my family, friends, and life in general.  Not saying that everything in my life has been perfect, but I haven't had any major traumatic events in my life.  My parents raised me well, taught me the meaning of working hard, loved all of us, gave me religion, and provided a home for us (and any "strays" that they found - as in people that they even met at Wal-mart).  Although I fought like crazy with one of my sisters growing up, the past is the past and we have a good relationship now (I actually talk to her more than my sister that I have always had a good relationship with). I have a husband who although is quite the opposite of me, is also perfect for me.  He treats me well, provides for our family, is wonderful with our kids, and most import LOVES me (as I recently told a friend, he's not perfect, but neither am I - it seems like every year our marriage gets better and stronger - can't wait to see what we're like in 20 years!). I hope that I can give my kids the same kind of love that has been given to me, that they may find the friends to support them, the faith and values to guide them, and the opportunities to be the kind of the people I know they will become.

Anyway, THANK YOU to all my family and friends who have helped shape me into the person I have become.

Levi 9 months

Well for my journaling purposes I figured I would update on what Levi has been up to since he is 9 months old as of Monday.
- Still refuses to crawl but he "bum scoots" everywhere
- Loves his big brother! He wants me to hold his fingers so he can walk everywhere right behind him.
- Pulls up to his knees on everything but most of the time doesn't make it to his feet
- 2 teeth
- Has decided the past two weeks that he is done with baby food, he just wants to gnaw on real food
- Started waving, it's not pretty, but I think his whole jerky arm wave is super cute
- Says "dada" and not on accident, he only says it when Brian's around
- At his appointment he finally made the 50th percentile for height and head, but his weight dropped to the 0.8 percentile! He was only 15.7 lbs, but in his defense he has been sick the past week and hardly eating anything so I am sure he lost weight before the appt. (at 8 months Lucas was 22 lbs)
- Sleeps awesome (unless he's sick), usually 11 hours at night and around 1.5-3 during the day in naps

That's all I can think of for now :)

Red Cliffs

So on Saturday I wanted to do one last fun day with my family.  My dad was excited cause he wanted to take his 12 passenger van for a spin.  My sister Daniela, her 4 kids, my parents, my 2 boys, and I loaded up and went to Red Cliffs (State Park?) for the day.  I LOVE that place.  It could only have been better if I had thought about wearing swim suits and if Brian had come, and if my other sister had been there....okay I guess it wasn't "perfect" but we did have a good time at one of my favorite places back home.

 The ride

 It's a good thing Levi is tiny or I would have been super worn out by the end!

 Awesome tree cave

 Can you tell he likes to "CHEESE"

 The boys leading the pack

 Pit stop

 Ok hard to tell from this picture but it is a mommy frog carrying her baby on her back! I tried to get a better view but she kept on hopping away.  *....so funny story....after Brian looked at our blog and saw this picture he Googled mating frogs...turns out it's not a mommy and her baby...what makes it especially hilarious is I took a similar picture with grasshoppers probably 5 years ago and showed Brian how cute the grasshoppers were and then he noticed what I hadn't!*

 Lucas stripped down the second he saw the pools

 The view going up, from top to bottom there is the lower pool, small waterfall, upper pool, large waterfall (people slide down these waterfalls), and then there is the stream at the top and more hiking that I have never been through.

 Vovo teaching the boys how to skip rocks

 Lucas kicked his cousin off this rock so he could say "CHEESE" and get his picture taken!

Great way to end a great trip!  Thanks to everyone who took the time to come and visit us :) I love that we have so many great friends, and that so many of my friends I have had since I was 7 years old and the literally the day we moved to Panorama Parkway and a little 4 year old brunette girl came over and made me play with her!

Mother's day and more

It was really fun to be in SG again for Mother's Day this year.  I wore my new skirt that I made right before going there!  So fun to turn a Kohl's clearance sun dress, that I bought when I was pregnant with Lucas and never wore, into a skirt.  In church the Primary kids sang a few songs for Mother's day and when they were done, Lucas was super sad because he wanted to sing a Mother's day song.  By the time we got home I had completely forgotten about that and went about visiting with Brian's mom who had stopped by.  Lucas went digging through some of my mom's stuff and came out with this little harp thing and started playing and singing "Happy Mother's day, Happy Mother's Day, Happy Mother's daaaaay!"  Talk about melting my heart...I will never forget that as long as I live!

One night we decided to have a Lucas date night.  We took Lucas to Fiesta Fun and he got to ride the "Kiddie Car" and then we all did the bumper boats.  Naturally Lucas and I rode together and Brian soaked us so bad that we had to walk around outside for a while for me to dry off!  It was pretty fun though and I can't believe that  was my first time EVER doing that.

One night we decided to have a Lucas date night.  We took Lucas to Fiesta Fun and he got to ride the "Kiddie Car" and then we all did the bumper boats.  Naturally Lucas and I rode together and Brian soaked us so bad that we had to walk around outside for a while for me to dry off!  It was pretty fun though and I can't believe that  was my first time EVER doing that.

 For my niece (Soleil) birthday I made her this super cute little apron and oven mitts and the Capri Sun purse pictured below

I have also been working on ways to make bows/flowers for hair and I made this one my Mom was wearing one day while in SG

Sand Hollow

There are so many places that we love to go back home, but this was the trip to do the things that we don't get a chance to do every time.  We got to see some of my besties that live up north that I don't normally get to see (Booo for me not taking pictures though! - Love you Nik, Shan, and Christy).  This little day trip was just for my little family.  The boys had tons of fun and Brian and I had fun, but wished for the good old days when we had our boat :(  That's at the top of Brian's wish list.

Sand Hollow State Park - This place is even more awesome than 2 years ago when we were here every single weekend.  Tons of beach for hanging out, water for wakeboarding, cliffs for jumping, and sand to ride in.

Driving to SG!

As always it is a happy occasion to drive home for a visit.  With kids the 9 1/2 hour drive quickly turns into an over 11 hour trip so this time we tried to leave at 5:30 am.  For the first time we decided to stop at Colorado River

 Lucas drank his entire water bottle between Flagstaff and here so he had a little "accident" on his jeans so he was sporting his new cowboy boots with no pants :)

 I thought it was the cutest thing ever but some really old grandma's there kept giving me looks like they couldn't believe someone would let their kids out in public with no pants!

Levi insisted on trying some Oreo's on the drive, they were a hit.