San Diego

A day in San Diego with my family is just about the best day I could have. I love San Diego so much and miss being able to drive to all of my favorite spots. Mady is working on her 4th grade mission project so we decided to take a day trip to San Diego since that is where her mission is located. It was a picture perfect day down there. I was so glad the weather was nice since Mady has chosen to do a photo shoot of her mission. We stopped there first and let Mady go picture crazy at the mission. Fun California fact...the Mission San Diego de Alcala was the first mission established in California.

After Mady's photo shoot was done we went to Sea Port Village. It is so beautiful down there. The Village is right on the harbor. They have lots of fun little boutiques to walk through. Whenever we go we always get an ice cream while we walk around. It was nice to get out of the house since all of us have been battling colds!

This is the mission we visited.

I am so blessed to have these three amazing people in my life!

Brandon's just hanging out!

Mady couldn't quite get as high as Brandon. Wrong shoes for climbing!

Valentine's Day 2010

We had a wonderful Valentine's Day. Mady planned our entire day down to what we would eat. We started our day with pink heart shaped pancakes. They were really yummy. It's always fun to eat pancakes but when they are pink it's even better! For lunch Mady and I made heart shaped sandwiches and filled our picnic basket with goodies. We walked to the park and ate our lunch while we enjoyed the amazing weather (80!). The boys kicked the ball around while Mady and I relaxed and played with Ozzy. Then we went on a bike ride to Golden Spoon (our favorite frozen yogurt place). For dinner we had steak and shrimp with veggies. We finished our day with a homemade Pazookie! We had such a fun family day. It was nice to relax and enjoy each other's company.

It doesn't matter how old you are...swinging is fun!

Making Clay

Mady and I made clay. I got the recipe from my cousin (thanks Terri). Mady is off-track right now so we are finding things to keep us busy while Brandon is at school and Scott is at work. She decided she wanted to make Valentine's Day shapes for all of us. We had a lot of fun!

The clay is really easy to work with.

Working hard making her shapes.

Before they are cooked and painted.

She made all sorts of heart decorations for the house.

Here are the finished products!

The Rain Has Arrived

Rain, rain and more rain! That is what we have seen all day. I love the rain though. I'm just a little concerned by how much rain we are suppose to receive this week. They are predicting approximately 20 inches over the next 5 days. This is great but bad all at the same time. The city of Corona has required water rationing since summer 2009. On the good side, the rain will help that. On the bad side, the hills and mountains that burned can't handle this much rain. There are chances of major flooding and mudslides. We are fortunate that we do not live in a flood or mudslide area. For now I guess we will just wait and see how things go.

Loving our Weather

We have had some amazing weather for January. Due to some furlough days the kids did not have to go back to school until January 6th. We took full advantage of the beautiful weather and spent one day at the park. We took Ozzy with us. He does not always like going on walks but when he knows we are going to the park he gets a little more excited. I think he gets nervous because he is so small. He is full grown now and only weighs about 4lbs! Not much of a dog but he's perfect for us.

Ozzy looking all handsome

Mady is so in love with Ozzy. He's her little buddy.

We packed a lunch and Ozzy was hoping Brandon would turn his head so he could swipe his sandwich!

Mady being Mady!

This is what Ozzy loves to do...run!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010!

It's so hard to believe that it is already 2010. It seems like we just rang in 2009. Where did the time go? We spent our New Year's Eve with just the four of us. It's so hard to keep Mady up until midnight so we went to a later showing of the new Chipmunks movie. Then we came home and played a few of our new games; Guesstures and Sequence. Guesstures is probably one of our most favorite games to play. The kids got it for Christmas. We had so much fun playing it and laughed so hard. We all rang in the New Year and then promptly crashed.

New Years day we watched the parade and then headed out for a nice long hike. The weather was beautiful. It was in the low 70's which is a little high for this time of year. It was great though. I never get bored with our hikes. Scott and I went on another hike the next day in the mountains behind our house. Mady is not quite tall enough for this hike. There are several areas where you need long legs and lots of upper body strength. Scott and I are trying to prepare ourselves for our anniversary trip to Yosemite where we plan to hike Half Dome. Half Dome is approximately a 16 mile hike straight up the mountain. On average it takes about 10 hours to complete. We are so excited to do it but need to get some more strenuous hiking in first. Good thing we have 4 1/2 months to work on it.

This was at the top of our 2nd hike.

Making our way to the top.

This was New Year's Day.

This ecological reserve is one of my favorite places to hike.

We stopped under this huge tree to eat lunch.

Musicals and Trees

Last week Mady was in this Christmas musical at church. She sang in the choir and was one of the narrators. She did amazing! We had so much fun watching her.

Singing her great big heart out!

We also got our Chrsitmas tree last weekend. I love Christmas and love decorating our tree. We had the Christmas music playing while we dug out all of our ornaments. The kids love going through their stash of ornaments and remembering when they got them.

It's amazing how many ornaments we have collected!