Fun week with Aunt Becca!

Yeah for Aunt Becca and her boyfriend, Phil! They came to visit this week for their spring break and it was lots and lots of fun. We got to hang out with the whole family more than once and being the only little girls in the family makes us special and everyone tries to play with us.

Aunt Becca and Phil were the best. They went to Jumpin' Jacks, the carousel downtown, and the lake with us. He even got us our first tattoos! We had never met Phil in person. We got to talk to him over skype a bunch before but this was the first time we really got to see him in person. It was great. We spent a lot of time with them in the sun. He was even good to hang out swim with us little girlies while Mommy and the other big girls just laid out in the sun. (Hey Mommy says on the bright side, we all have a little color. Especially Cara. She's already a golden brown. Jealous.)

We can't wait for them to come back in May!

Thoughts and well laid plans....

Guest post by Mommy:
Happy St. Patrick's Day. I love this holiday because everything is green which is my favorite color. Everyone wears green, all the decorations are green and it means that warmer weather is on the horizon. (I am defining warmer weather as 80 degrees!)

On this particular St. Patty's day, I find myself in a contemplative mood. I feel I have bitten off more than I can chew in several projects. Well I guess not really. Only one project has a bite out of it and the others are all jumbled in my head making it difficult to have restful sleep.

I am currently trying to learn two new releases for both of my Group Exercise classes. That means learning choreographed moves to 10 songs for each class. (Not dancy. Very tough moves. Especially in lifting. We don't dance. :) ) Okay so I guess that's a big bite but I've done it before and really I just need to buckle down to be ready by Apr 2nd!

The real big project that I've taken a bite into is this:



Which currently is making my garage look like this:



And needs to go here:



That's right. We bought the monster play set at Costco. It was reduced $200 and I had long thought about buying it. And now we want to turn that empty looking side yard into a kid paradise. Drop our tramp in the ground. Put some fruit trees in. And have this magnificent playground. The reality is we need help . The yard is completely unlandscaped and Pete and I kind of don't have the right skill set which means I'll be plunking down more money. But who knew that people wouldn't be willing to return your phone call for estimates that day or maybe even the next day? I was so gung ho on the Thursday I bought this. I wanted the work on the yard started that next Monday. Here I am a week later with not even a phone cal back yet. I am hoping it means all estimators were on spring break. Otherwise I guess I'll be asking the scouts to dig a very big hole! And probably emailing a few landscapers with some choice words about how they practice business!

What we've been up to...

In a slurry of photo collages....GO! (I think this is what instagram is all about...you just post pictures and say NOTHING about what's going on or why you took the photo....)





Okay I just need to say on this one, this was my first day of gymnastics! I finally got signed up again! I did this once in SLC and one other time at some place not nearly as cool. Also the day after, I promptly told Mom that I was all done with gymnastics. Mom was perplexed until I informed her that I need to move on to ballet. She said no. Sigh.

The Wedding!

The long awaited day final happened for my Uncle Marty and his high school sweetheart, Hailey. He'd been home from his mission probably a week when he realized that nothing about their relationship had changed and that if anything, it was better. He needed to lock in and seal the deal. He proposed the first week of January I think (meaning he had been home 6 weeks!) and they are already married! They were sealed in the St. George temple last Friday, March 2nd. (Mommy had to come screamin' in from the road to make all the celebrations!) It was a nice sunny day but a little chilly waiting outside the temple for Aunt Hailey and her princess dress!

I loved the party but both Cara and I have had a vicious cold and Cara was even on antibiotics for her first official ear infection so we had to leave before the dancing really got started! Mommy says it was a blast though! (Daddy took us home, what a good sport. Or maybe he just didn't want to have to help with the clean up!) Hailey's mom had transformed Grandma's church into a beautiful summer beach party or something. It was so lovely.

We are so excited to have Aunt Hailey be an official member of the family. She's been around since right before I was born. I've never known life without her! Congratulations to them!

Grandpa's Girl....

I love my Grandpa. He is so amazing. If you remember, just in January I got to go on a hike by myself with Grandpa and I got to try rappelling for the first time. Well I've been begging to go again and I want to go camping with Grandpa and climbing. I talk about it just about every day.

Last Sunday, Mommy took us girlies to go for a quick hike with Grandpa and I loved it. I hiked around and would try and follow him up any of his scrambles. We had a great time! We played with Moki Marbles and looked off of big ledges very carefully. It was neat.











I didn't stop talking about climbing and camping though.

Grandpa has been listening. He even bought climbing shoes that are almost small enough for me! They are just a little bit too big for me but they still work. Yesterday, he, Daddy, Double Grandpa, and Uncle Caylen took me climbing in Snow Canyon!







I ripped a hole in my pants when I couldn't figure out how to properly come back down with my feet on the wall. (I slid down on my bum.) But they spent some time and I figured it out. Now I'm pro and can go again any time Grandpa wants to take me.

One More Disney Day!

Do you know what my Mommy did without me?! She went to Disneyland on LEAP DAY! (Which is why we've backdated the post!) She and 6 of her friends took off from our church at 8 pm on Tuesday night and drove to a small hotel next to Disneyland. They arrived at 2:00 in the morning and basically slept for maybe 3 hours and then got up and hit the park at 6 am!

You see, Disneyland was having a party for Leap Day. They were going to be open from 6 am to 6 am. My Mommy casually suggested it to her friend, Sarah, in front of other people and the idea spread like wildfire. Mommy was all for it except for the fact that she had a wedding to be helping with. But she persevered and they found five other crazies to go with them. They split hotel rooms and gas from one van between them all, Mommy paid for meals with her annual pass, and they tried to get discount tickets (which didn't work and led to us being a little late getting into the park and being very angry at some man named Jules) to help everyone keep costs low. They even were able to have an EIGHTH friend join them because she happened to be visiting her hometown, 15 min from Disneyland! Mommy and her friend, Sarah, surprised the gals with a room at The Grand Californian that opens onto California Adventure. Both of them had always wanted to stay there and it was well worth it and a beautiful hotel that came with these nifty fast passes!

She came home tired but glowing from her 40 hours with friends! They didn't quite last in the park all night because wouldn't you know it...it hit MAXIMUM CAPACITY at about 11:30 pm. That's right. It didn't hit full until after decent people go to bed. Plus most of them were Moms whose dream vacations included nothing but sleep! She giggles frequently and keeps talking about how much she loves her friends in her ward. I still feel like I haven't spent much time with her because then she was running around trying to make up for being gone for the wedding but I love her and her Disney enthusiasm anyway. Just so long as she takes me next time.

Curly Girls

Guest post by Mommy:

I was introduced recently to a new way of living by my amazing sister in laws. I actually think Margaret told us about this method and the book a few years ago but it was tried and didn't really stick. I don't remember even trying it. I certainly didn't read the book anyway! Just before Christmas though, Rachel happened to have in her possession the new edition of this book:

"Curly Girl" by Lorraine Massey.




And she said she was going to dive into it and even buy the products. I am talking about hair, people. Curly hair. My in laws also have wonderful curly hair on their side. I so wish I had a picture of Pete in high school scanned on my computer. His curly hair was impressive. Anyway, I digress. Rachel was going gung ho and I had a few minutes to myself at her house and started reading. I had straightened my hair for this quicky trip up north and was instantly shamed for doing so in the book. Now I don't think I should have felt shamed but I did. And so I decided to embrace my Curly Girl and go for broke. Okay maybe not broke...I didn't buy the products because they are a bit expensive but I decided to not straighten my hair again and use the other methods for doing/taking care of my hair.

And I have LOVED it. I find it kind of freeing. Besides, Becca and Eric are well known and loved for their fantastic curly locks. I wanted in on that. It makes us unique. If you really start looking around, the curly people are out numbered. Or actually more truthfully, according to Ms. Massey, we appear outnumbered because nobody knows how to love and care for their hair properly.

I still have trouble spots on the top of my head with hair that wants to be straight but it's not like my straight hair didn't have it's issues.

Anyway, it's been 2 months of curly hair and it was time to document it! So this last visit up to see my ladies, I made sure we got a picture! I just love these fellow curly girls, even if I am envious of Rachel's gorgeous ringlets.