beach bums and angels

happy 6th anniversary! amber took this picture for us while we were eating dinner.

so, once again, lots of things have happened since my last post. first, i would like to update you guys with some pictures for the birthday party we had at the beach. it was tons of fun. sarah and i posed for some pictures as nathan took them....

do i have something in my teeth?

he likes to take candid shots!

happy birthday, ladies!

so, following our party, we had lots of food left. so, we decided that probably for every monday until the end of the summer we will have a bbq at the beach so we can eat all of our leftover hotdogs! here is a documentation of our first party. bryan wasn't able to make it since he was working at school, and we missed him. since the guys were at school, it was left to the girls to start the fire. so, i started it with some wood, matches, and a couple sheets of the church news... all we had was 4 pieces of newspaper. i think we did pretty good without any lighter fluid or anything. that's putting all those yw camp experiences to good use! here is grace lounging around as she eats her sandwich.

on friday, the 20th, bryan didn't have to go to school, so we headed down to the beach again. crescent bay was tons of fun and mike and amber met us with their kids. grace has discovered sand crabs, and she loves them. it is so funny, because she really is afraid of every little creature or bug that moves. for some reason, she loves the sand crabs. spencer would catch them for her, then she would just hold them. after a few minutes she would say, 'let's let him go back to his home with his mommy and daddy.' so she would let him go. it was pretty cute.





this past monday, we went to the beach again with the thompson's and the swiss family. we decided to try our hand at foil dinners... i think we need more practice. ours turned out just ok. but we still had fun!

on thursday, sarah and i decided to take the kids to the beach. we wanted to try a cleaner beach, so we headed down to newport. it was so much fun. we hung out by a rock jetty, and the waves were considerably smaller since they were breaking on the rocks. we didn't have to worry too much about the kids playing in the water. well, it was tons of fun up until the part where i decided to help paige and fill up her bucket with water so she could wash her hands. i took the bucket to the water and stuck it in and the force of the wave drove the bucket back. the bottom of the bucket got caught on my big toenail, and ripped it almost all the way off. yuk! it didn't hurt too much when it happened... luckily it happened so fast... so i went to the lifeguard and he wrapped it up for me. i called my mom and asked her to talk to dr. carron (a podiatrist in our ward in missouri) and he said i needed to cut as much of it away as possible, so i went home and started to cut. i got about 2/3 of the nail off and then it started to hurt. so, that night, nathan and bryan cleaned it out as best they could. there was so much sand in it. on friday morning, bryan told me he thought i needed to go to the doctor to have it removed. so i called up a podiatrist close to our house and it must have been a blessing... the doctor answered the phone and i told him my problem and that i was worried about the shot because it would hurt. that is when he told me about a painless injection... i thought to myself... where have i heard that before... oh yeah, bryan is always begging me to let him give me a painless injection in my mouth... yeah right! so, i had my doubts, but i dropped the kids off at sarah's and headed to the doctor. well, all i can say is that the doctor was true to his word... i did not feel the injection at all. whew... i was so relieved... and he removed the rest of my toenail... double yuk! apparently it will take like 6 months to grow back, but at least there won't be any infection from the sand and it will grow back normal.

ok, moving on to the more pleasant.... last night we went to the angels game for lds family night. that was a lot of fun. grace seemed to like it, but raegan was a handful. it probably didn't help that the game started at 7:05.... almost her bedtime. well, we ended up leaving just before the 7th inning stretch, but it was a good game.

big waves, fireworks, las vegas, the crab cooker

ok, i have totally been slacking in the department of blog posting. i don't know what has happened, but we have been super busy. needless to say, lots of things have been going on. let's start at the beginning.

congratulations to rachel and danny who had a baby boy on 2 july. his name is ty cayetano devine and apparently he is super cute. we can't wait to go and visit them in august.


way back on the 3rd of july, we went to the beach. bryan had the 3rd and 4th off, so we headed down to crescent bay with the thompsons and the scrivins. we had a blast. we spent the day hanging out and swimming. well, the waves were huge... i mean probably the biggest waves i have ever seen. so, me and bryan head out to play in the water. well, i don't know what we were thinking, but we were debating about whether or not to come in or stay out... and i guess we drifted a little too far to shore... and suddenly we were bombarded by the waves. we were caught in the part of the wave where you just get thrashed around and all jumbled and don't know which way is up. so, the waves were coming in sets of 5 or 6 and that was the first one. we finally got out, but about 2 seconds later we were in another one. once we made it out of that one... another one was right behind us and i see the lifeguard running towards me. all of the sudden i am trying to get out of the water, but the current was soooo strong pulling me back to the ocean that i lost my footing and bryan and the lifeguard carried me out. i was saved by the lifeguard. i didn't really feel like i was in any sort of danger, but i don't know how many times i could have gone under with the waves crashing on us before i had no breath at all. so, i was grateful he was there and paying attention. we have a short video where we tried to capture the size of the waves, but they don't really look that big. they were so big!





ok, moving on to the fourth of july. we had a great time. we had a bbq at lin and malia thompson's home which was so fun and then we lit off some fireworks. the fireworks that are legal here are pretty lame, but the kids loved it. after a late night, we headed home for some r & r.




the next weekend, we decided to go to las vegas to visit auntie pam. nannie was coming for a visit, so we thought that we would surprise her and come for the weekend. nannie sure was surprised! on saturday, we went to hannah's swim meet at unlv. she is an excellent swimmer and took 9th out of 49 (i think) in one of her events! go hannah! then, on saturday night, we went to a bbq at steve and deb tidwell's. deb is cousins with nannie, but she has kids that are my age, so we got to see emily and ryan, who we haven't seen in about 10 years. it was a lot of fun. then, we left on sunday and headed home. grace, once again, didn't want to leave. she said, i'll just stay here, ok? we wish we could have stayed longer, but it was a fun little trip. we tried to get some good pictures of nannie, the girls, and me, but they didn't want to cooperate. as you can see in the following pictures. i also have a super cute video of pam and grace. grace loves pookie (their dog), but at the same time, she is terrified. you can see how she stands back and looks at pookie from a distance, but you know she wants to pet her. it is pretty funny.








on the next monday (9 july), mom horspool called and said, they were all going down to newport beach for taylor's last day. he would be heading back to reno on tuesday. so, me and the girls headed down to meet them. grace and raegs had a blast hanging out at the beach, and then we headed to the crab cooker for dinner. yum! we love fish. bryan met us down there and it was good to spend some time with tay before he headed back.







this past weekend was our 6 year anniversary. we got married on friday the 13th of july, 2001... and finally, friday the 13th has rolled around again in july. it only took 6 years. mike and amber came down and we went to dinner and to see transformers. then, on saturday, sarah thompson and i planned a joint birthday party for us. this year was our golden birthday (mine was 27 june, hers 27 july... and we are/will be 27... 27 on the 27th!) so we planned a big party at the beach. we got a fire pit and had hot dogs and smore's. it was a blast, but unfortunately, i forgot my camera. when sarah emails me the pictures she took, i will put them up!

long time, no post

well, after several phone calls and pleas from nana, i have decided to update the blog. we have been very busy lately and it seems that there is no time. finally, i have a short time today while raegs is napping and grace is preoccupied with finding nemo. so, here we go... a catalog of the past 2 weeks events...

for raegan's birthday we decided to get her a little pool for the backyard. well, raegs hates it (not really, she just hates the cold water from the hose) and grace loves it. we set it up in the backyard and grace loves to play in it. raegan actually loved it when we hooked it up to the warm water. it seems to be just perfect for them and our little yard.


ok, here is a picture of gracie with her swim goggles on. she loves to wear them at her swim lessons.


here are a few videos of gracie at her last day of swim lessons. she really improved and erin's goal for her was to try to teach her to always swim to the wall or to mom or dad... in case she ever fell in. well, these videos will show you just how long grace can hold her breath under water (quite a while for a little girl). and how much she has improved. i feel we have a little fish on our hands!



this video is of grace trying to touch erin's nose with alternating arms... teaching her how to swim with her arms under water... she has just touched erin's nose 5 times above water (with erin holding her), then 3 times underwater swimming on her own.



in this video, erin is having grace swim to the wall. erin has taught her how to grab the side and doesn't help her at all reach the wall.



this last one is of gracie trying to dive! how cute!



ok, so, these are pictures of grace and raegs last sunday. finally, we got raegan to smile at the camera at the same time as grace. usually raegs tries to get the camera and grace runs away. they are getting to be really good friends and love to play together. i crack up when they are running around the house trying to chase each other. they are usually laughing their heads off and it is such a pleasant sight!

grace's swim video

here is the video of gracie at her swimming lesson. she really loves it!

no, not tomorrow! today!

so, grace started swim lessons yesterday. she takes them monday through friday for 2 weeks. seriously, she loves them. she gets very sad when she has to get out of the water. she say, 'i want to swim still!' i have tried to explain to her that the person who takes the lesson after her needs to swim, but she still gets pretty sad. then the whole way home, she talks about how she wants to go back today. i will tell her that we will go back tomorrow, but she says, 'not tomorrow, today!' needless to say, she loves it. erin, her instructor, is great with her and helps her to learn lots of new things. i have a video, that i will post in a bit. for now, here is a picture.

ok, so grace has been asking to get earrings for quite a while now. one day out of the blue she says, 'i can get earrings when i go potty in the toilet.' alas, that day has come. i took her to get her ears pierced yesterday. they look very cute and she really likes them. every now and then she will look in the mirror or put her hand to her ear and say, 'i have earrings!' with a huge grin. oh yeah, i also cut grace's hair yesterday too! it looks super cute!

i took some pictures of the girls this evening, but raegs was a bit sad. she is quite afraid of the football. it really is weird, but i think that she is afraid because of the odd way it rolls on the ground. i rolled it to her a few minutes before i started taking pictures of grace and it rolled into the hallway. i just left it in the hall and went to the living room to take pictures. grace and i kept calling her to come to the living room, but she stood frozen at the doorway by her bed unable to walk past the football! how crazy is that? she certainly is a silly girl. she also had a rough day today. we took her to the doctor for her 12 month and she had to get 3 shots! she weighs 18 1/2 lbs. and was about 28". after grace's swim lessons, i had to take them both to have some blood drawn to check their iron levels and some other stuff. grace did pretty good... even with all the screaming. raegs had a rougher time. the nurse couldn't find a good vein on the first arm, he tried twice. her other arm proved to be much better, he found the vein the first time he stuck the needle in. well, she screamed too. tonight she seems to be much better. her and grace are wrestling around on an inflated ball and having a blast!

raegan turns one!

we have had another eventful week! on wednesday, i took the girls to the beach with some friends. we went to mother's beach in long beach. there are no waves, so its like playing in a lake. at first i was afraid that grace might want to jump in and swim around, so i told her that she couldn't put her head or face in the water. she had a blast. raegs also loved it there. she stayed on the sand, mostly. she doesn't really like the cold water, so she didn't go near it. she played with some toys and walked around while eating the sand. i hope she didn't eat anything too yucky!


on thursday, it was raegan's actual birthday. in the morning, the girls went and played with jaxson and nik, and then that evening we sang happy birthday to raegs again and had some cupcakes. i tried to take some pictures of them, but raegan didn't want to smile too much. she mostly tries to chase the camera!



on saturday, bryan and i went to some soccer games at the home depot center. the gold cup is going on and we saw el salvador play guatemala, then when that game ended we saw the u.s. men's team play trinidad and tobago. it was awesome. we got a video of the second goal the u.s. scored. landon donovan assisted to eddie johnson who scored to make it 2 - 0. it was pretty cool. we had a blast!

raegs is mobile! or more mobile than she was!

this is the latest video of raegan walking. this is how she gets around now. pretty much walking the whole time! near the end of the video you can hear her say 'uh oh' after bryan says it. and then she waves bye-bye. she is getting to be such a big girl!

happy birthday to raegan

we spent memorial day weekend with bryan's family in yucaipa. we had a ton of fun swimming and bbq-ing. grace has become quite the little fish. she loves to swim and jump in the water. saturday, she spent the day helping grandpa clean the pool. they were out there for hours, then she went swimming for about 3 hours. what a good time! monday, they had a big extended family bbq. grace again went swimming all afternoon. here are a couple of videos of her in the water!





on saturday (02 june) we had raegan's birthday party. her actual birthday isn't until the 7th. i can't believe that she is going to be one! we decided to have a polka dot party for her. rachel gave us the idea when aurora turned one, and it was a success. we loved setting up the decorations (especially grace). she was so thrilled with all the pink, blue, and green dots. bryan's family came down and we also had a few friends from church and our neighbors over. there were so many kids! but, we had a blast. raegan got many presents, lots of clothes and toys to keep her busy for the next year. she has really started walking a ton and is getting to be such a big girl. here are a few pictures of the decorations and the girls. the last picture is of all the people wearing their polka dot clothes!








after the party, bryan and i headed up to hollywood to see wicked at the pantages theater. it was a really great show. bryan's mom and heather took the girls back to yucaipa for the night and we joined them in the morning for baby andrew's blessing.