Slacker

I know, I know, I've been a blog slacker lately.  I am planning on redeeming myself though, and thought I'd start with an update on a few of the things that have been keeping us busy lately.  In just the past week, we have-

-had my car in the shop to get it repainted because of some oxidation that was starting to occur.
-sold Josh's car (he was pretty sad about that)

-bought a new minivan (I was pretty happy about that:) )

-studied for and took a huge 9 hour board exam (that was just Josh)
-had hernia surgery (Josh again)
-and of course played with 2 cute kids all day

  -but it's this kiddo that has taken up most of my energy, and probably the biggest reason for my lackluster posting. 

I am due March 20th and feeling a little better every day, though I'm waiting for life to settle down a little!  Let's face it, I don't think that will be happening anytime in the next year to be realistic, but I am grateful for lots of good things in our life that keep us busy and bring us so much joy.

 



The Dettingers Make Everything Fun!

Case in point: we went to visit them in Milford, Utah (you know that little town Beaver that you pass through when you drive to Utah?  Well, it's an hour drive through nowhere from there to get to it.)  and we had such a blast.  How could it not be a party with all these little boys around??  (8 under 8 years).  Shane was a little intimidated I think but he got right in there with them whenever the hose or sprinklers were involved.  Grandma Dettinger is so much fun!

I was glad that we made it out to see everyone for many reasons, but one big one was that none of Josh's siblings had even met Marissa.  She is the lone girl of the bunch and I think they liked seeing some bows and dresses.  Don't let her cute little face fool you though,

 

she was definitely the bully of the group!  She was not trying to be mean at all, she just LOVED her little cousins and could not keep herself off of them.

We took a few little trips while we were there.  One was to Cove Fort, a historical church site.  Here's the whole gang.

And to a fun indoor swim place in Cedar City

But mostly we had fun just spending time with everyone who we don't get to see near enough.  Shane suckered Grandpa into reading him quite a few books

And Shane enjoyed teasing Jake.  Jake would ask him if they could be friends and Shane would get a funny grin on his face and tell him, "No, I just want to be rude."

They had fun with all their aunts and uncles, and I wish I could have gotten more pictures but most of my time was spent prying a little girl off of her cousins;)

We even got to see Josh's grandparents and aunt and cousins.



We were flying out of the Vegas airport so we stopped and stayed in St. George with Josh's sister Hannah, who was the only one we hadn't seen yet.  It was so good to see her and we had fun swimming in her pool and hanging out.

I will say though, that we are super excited that Josh's parents just moved to Truckee, California (Lake Tahoe), and can't wait to visit them there next time!  Thanks for such a great time Greg and Shelley!



California: Where All Your Wildest Dreams Come True

The first leg of our trip west was to my parents' house in California.  All of my siblings were there and we had a blast.  I have been debating about breaking up the posts or just doing a big one and my laziness won out, so I am just doing one.  But it's okay, because I realized that our time in California can be summed up with the above theme: all our wildest dreams came true on this vacation!  I.e.-

Sand!  As far as the eye can see!

 Yum.

 

Not to mention the ocean- home of scary sea creatures such as sharks, whales, jellyfish, and let's not forget sarcastic fringeheads.  That is pretty cool stuff in the eyes of a 3 year old boy.

 One of those frozen yogurt places where you can put whatever you want in your cup?

An Angels baseball game

 In other words for Marissa- an excuse to stay up way past bedtime, eat treats, and bounce like crazy on mom (my face is probably saying- eek!  is this child ever going to get tired??)

A park with a lake and ducks within walking distance from home

And a theme park with a whole big section with rides just for us.  It was so fun to watch Shane at Knotts this year, last year he kind of just tolerated the rides but this year he was loving them.

You can't really see his face here, but he told me that this was his favorite ride

And I loved hearing his belly laughs on this one with his cousins

 

Marissa even got in on the action too

 I think this one was her favorite, you could count on her to ask for more after it was done

All these things were fun but I think we were just as happy to just get to be with some of our favorite people.  Marissa's favorite was Bryce

And let's face it, he may have been mine too so I could have a moment of peace every now and then!

I think he may have liked her a little bit too, though she can get a little close and personal (and slobbery!) at times.  She doesn't settle for cheeks!

She and Grandpa bonded over Cookie monster videos, and of course food

And miracle of all miracles, she would insist that Shannon brush her hair.  I'm trying to figure out a way to get her to my house every morning!

And who isn't in love with Grandma?

We got to meet baby Livvy, and all quickly fell in love

Unfortunately for Liv, Marissa doesn't quite know how to direct all that love yet.  This was a rare instance she was not lovingly patting smacking her. She was like a magnet to her and could not contain herself.

Jamie knew how to win Shane over and casually threw out deadly sea creature references like nobody's business.

And I loved watching him with his cousins

So thank you mom and dad, for making dreams come true!

Of course, this title may not be true for Josh since he had to stay home and work while we went and partied, but he was working the night shift the whole time I was gone so I like to think we gave him the gift of daytime sleep:)  Thanks for letting us go babe:)

Let's Start From the End

Well hello there! The kids and I just got back from a couple weeks in California and Utah and I am just catching my breath. Thinking about where to start posting is a little daunting, so I thought I'd start with the end. We all have our bad airline stories, but I actually got a good one on my way back home. As I was checking in at the kiosk, I thought it was weird that I didn't get charged for my bag but just shrugged it off. But when I got to the baggage drop, the lady asked if I had paid for my bag and I said it told me it was free. Then she looked at the screen and told me I was in first class! What??!! I sure as heck didn't pay for that! She told me not to question it, just to enjoy, and I realized she was right! I was a little worried about bugging all the hoity toity first classers with my two kids, but they actually did quite well thanks to a $3 Jungle Safari set I got from Walmart, sticker books, and oh yeah- a barrage of goodies and whatever we wanted every 20 minutes. Still not sure how it happened, but I'm glad it did!

(My little travel buddies waiting for our connecting flight home)  

Fun at the Park

A couple of the parks close to us put on free activities for kids every week in the summer.  We tried them out last week and had a lot of fun.  The one in our town was having a pirate day, and Shane has gotten into pirates lately so I knew he would like it.  He even let this lady paint a pirate beard on him.

Here he is making his "treasure map"

The one in the next town over was really cool, it was Safety Day and they had a fire truck,

policecar,

and ambulance there.  I was telling Shane about how the ambulance takes sick people to the hospital in that bed, and he hopped up there and laid on that bench and pretended he was sick.  He wanted to go to the hospital, because he knew daddy was there!  These ladies got a kick out of that.

They even flew a helicopter in and landed it on the grass.

They had this fun fire truck big blow up slide that the kids could down for free.

And then of course, they played at the park.  Any park with a sandbox is a winner to my kids.  And Shane loves it when his friend Kate is there.

They are such sweet little friends.

And it happened to be 7/11 so we stopped on our way home to get some free Slurpees, my favorite way to end any outing.