More family fun :)

We spent the last week at my sister's house and we did tons of fun things. We took the kids to jump on it again, which they absolutely love, swimming at the rec center, slip and sliding, going up the canyon for barbeques and we also helped my sister open their barbeque restaurant. I pretty much worked all week with my fam at the restaurant while rich watched the kids. It was quite the operation. Sad, I don't have a picture to upload yet cause we looked pretty snazzy in our outfits! My sister's and I worked the registers, which was actually kind of fun to hang out and do that together. More play than work I would say :) My grandma was there this week, from Iowa, and It was so good to visit with her. We enjoyed her company so much. Kai and Meili loved her. Meili loved to sit for an hour and apply lotion with her. She's such a girl. They would 'ooo and awe' over how she smelled, and she was so excited about how pretty she smelled. They truly enjoyed eachother's company. They were so sweet together. They sat together on the porch for an hour and talked about one of Meili's hurt fingers and ended up laughing about something. I didn't want to disturb them so I took pictures from inside, but you can still see them laughing at eachother. I just loved it! We miss her already! We had so much fun at aunt shel's and we can't wait to see them again soon.

Vernal Visit

We spent the week in vernal with my parents and the kids loved it, all 3 of them, rich included haha. He loves taking the kids fishing and prairie dog shooting. Kai caught about 5 fish and reeled them in himself. He was so happy, saying "Oh my gosh, I just caught my first fish!" Which of course is not true, he's been fishing so many times, but I guess a first for him on this trip so far. He loved driving the boat and even scared us all when he started it all by himself and pulled the handle! Good thing we weren't close to shore! Meili loved the fish and wanted to touch every single one. She probably would have kissed one. Kai, grandpa, and daddy spent a day shooting, which is another favorite past time of theirs. Rich planned it so we would be in vernal over "prairie dog season", yes there is a season... Sorry the pic of the family moped ride is sideways. We always take the kids for rides when we are there and Meili is a pure thrill seeker. She giggled with delight. We also spent time at the parks, and had plenty popsicles and donuts, curtesy of the donut tree, which blooms when a powdered cheerio is planted ;) That's an old one that I grew up with haha. Don't think I really figured it out till middle school or so :) We had so much fun and Kailer begged us to stay, but alas it was time to move on :)

Family!

We continue to have a rockin' vacay starting earlier last week with my 2 sisters. We had so much fun relaxing and watching chick flicks together. Seriously, we got some serious movie watching in! I love hanging out with my sisters and laughing non stop, we have so much fun together. We took the kids to jump on it and they absolutely loved it. Meili was a crazy lady and has no fear. She kept jumping off the red block in the middle that was as tall if not more than she was. She loves getting a good adrenaline rush. I can totally see her bunji jumping or something when she gets older. Love these pics we took in the canyon with my sister :)

Then with the weekend approaching we headed to price to visit rich's Dad and we got to see some cousins there as well. Kai loved playing with them even though the weather was pretty nasty. They didn't let it stop them, they played in the rain and 50 degree weather anyway! They were freezing and wet, but loved every minute of it, ha, even Meili was out there! Then we spent our last day with cousin Joey. We took the kids golfing 9 holes at Uncle Jordan's course, and even though Kai was very tired he still had fun. He loves to golf and so do we so it worked out great! The course was beautiful and the weather was great. Meili and cousin Ava were just happy to ride the carts. Then we followed golfing with some good ol' fashion crawdaddin'! If you know what that is, then you may be a redneck. Haha, we sat on the docks and threw raw chicken in and after a few minutes pulled it up to find crawdads on it! The kids loved it and we ended up with a whole bucket full. It was quite a day, the kids were so spent, but had so much fun.

In conclusion I would like to leave you with some recent "poop talk"... Enjoy...

"Dad? You know what I think? I think all food is just junk, because it just goes in my belly and comes out as poop and poop is junk. All food is just junk..." :) Hahaha, A bit gross, but intelligent, wouldn't you say???

Dland and Sea world

We had an awesome start to our vacation by heading down to my friends place in California. We went to Dland and Sea World and stopped off at the beach before we left. Disney was a bit crowded for my liking, but the kids still had fun. Kai's favorite part was the Toy story shoot

'em up ride and watching the Jedi training show. Darth Maul was putting his fingers to his eyes and pointing at Kai the whole show saying "I am watching you" It was pretty freaky cause he was a black guy that had his face painted really well and had pretty crazy fake teeth in. It was pretty intense. Darth Vader was huge and Kai was a bit intimidated. Next time he wants to be picked to fight them, but this time he just watched. He got a pic with the army man from toy story and that was definitely another highlight for him, who cares about woody right... he walked right past him and went right to the army dude :) The fireworks were awesome and Kai actually fell asleep on rich's shoulders watching! They were so hammered. Then we went to Sea world and met Kai's little buddy there. The shamu show was a big let down and the kids were super bored because it was so long. The trainers of course weren't allowed to swim with the whales anymore, so it was kind of lame. However, to make up for it the new dolphin show was awesome. The kids were so drawn in, they couldn't get enough, they were in a trance it seemed. The playland there is great and we spent a couple hours running around there. Then our plans to drive to sequoia national park flopped so we just decided to sit at the beach for a while, so that is what we did. We played in the sand, buried eachother, saw seals in the ocean, and caught lots of crabs. It was great fun!

New Slide Show!!!

4th year!!!

It's official! We now have 1 year left! I can't believe how fast time flies when your having fun. We have had so many good times this year. 3rd year required a lot less studying so we really had some good family times. The kids are growing up so quickly and before you know it I will have a 2 year old and a 4 year old. Speaking of my 2 year old, I want to shed some light on some mis conceptions about her. This is what she appears to be...

sweet, kind, loving, precious... those words might be used to describe her. Mostly folks, she's just pretty to look at, because this, is what I deal with on an hourly basis... Prepare yourselves, it isn't pretty... oh and try to ignore me I'm kind of rediculous, sometimes I just light to spur her on...

Sometimes I feel like I am dealing with a preteen. She is hormonal and naughty and sometimes I just wish she'd get over this phase! Meanwhile, I'm trying not to wish away her premature terrible two's...

Family

Despite getting together for a funeral, we had a really fun time with family we haven't seen for a long time! It was so great to have everyone on Rich's side together. It was great to see all my beautiful sister in laws again and let Kai and Meili reacquaint with their cousins. Meili and Ava became little buddies. They would chase eachother around and as long as they kept an arms length away from eachother, Meili couldn't injure her! hahaha :) With a little encouragement they did really well :) Kai loved playing with all his little man cousins and loved seeing the new baby Alysa. He now says that I am going to have a boy baby named Taylor. What??? whatev. Maybe he knows something I don't ;) He played so well with all his man cousins and it was so fun to see him be rough and wild with them! We stayed up late everynight and played games. Rich gave a great talk at the service and I actually think Kai understands that the spirit and the body separate at death. We had some lengthy conversations during our drives and he surprised me constantly with his knowledge of the subject. It even shocked me that during the viewing Meili said, 'Ganpa Jensen', when she saw him. It was crazy, I'm thinking she picked it up during our talks in the car, but really not sure. It was neat. Everything went well with the funeral and we enjoyed time with our family. We are blessed in countless ways :) enjoy these picssorry these pics turned on meMei and ms Alysa :)

one of the highlights of Kai's weekend...dragon jammies