Wicked

For the second half of our anniversary celebration, we got tickets to go see Wicked on July 2, 2010. We've been to a few musicals these past few years (Les Miserables, Mary Poppins, Shrek, Miss Saigon) and this was by far our favorite. If you care, we'd rank Wicked first, followed by Shrek (really this one is cute), then Mary Poppins, Les Mis, and in dead last that we strongly recommend NOT seeing, Miss Saigon.

Just like our date on our actual anniversary, the weather was TERRIBLE! My parents were watching the kids for us and it was a pretty hair-raising drive down there. But we all made it safe and sound. They even kept our kids overnight so we could sleep in on Saturday--thanks Mom and Dad!

After the scary drive, before the play on July 2, 2010

Megan and Brooke enjoying their leisurely morning before their big sleepover with Granny and Grandpa

A common sight in July--Brooke standing, looking sturdy but not quite ready to take steps alone

We picked up the kids at the Independence Day Breakfast at their ward building and then spent the day at my parents' place, swimming, playing games, and relaxing.

Megan "relaxing" after a busy day!

Hair Cut...

Since it had been a good two years since my last haircut, I decided it was high time to shed some locks for the summer.  I LOVE it!  And as always, I wonder why I waited so long to get it done.

Before (June 27)

 

After!  (July 3)

Lazy Days of Summer

What did we do the rest of June? Well, we did a little of a lot of things...

Going to the neighborhood pool, June 8, 2010


Cute hair-do, June 9, 2010


Messy face Brooke, June 12, 2010


Ready for church, June 13, 2010






Riding the bike to and from the neighborhood pool, June 15, 2010 (so hard to stay awake on the ride home)



Brooke woke up as we got home on June 18, 2010


We made some matchy-matchy aprons. Here we are showing them off on June 18, 2010



Enjoying our "mini-trampoline", June 19, 2010



Brave climber on June 23, 2010


Helping Daddy work from home on June 24, 2010


Megan's unique fashion choices make us smile-she is so proud, June 26, 2010


And with all that playing and swimming and jumping and climbing--here's how the day ends (June 26, 2010)

Father's Day

For Father's Day this year, Dan got to sleep in while the girls and I made him breakfast in bed. Well really, we took his breakfast in to him and then he brought it back out to the table so we could all eat together. :) Dan is a wonderful father (just like I always knew he would be--seriously, it's one of the first things I wrote about him in my journal when we started dating). These girls love him and get so excited when he walks in the door after work. We love you Dan! Thanks for all that you do for us.

2 excited girls



After breakfast, he opened his present (a pedometer/heart rate monitor/watch)and spent the rest of the morning helping the 3 ladies in his life get ready for church.

Megan's hair looked cute (she did too but was refusing to face the camera!)


Megan and Daddy (I love this picture)


Cute Brookie


We had a great day at church and then headed over to my parents' house for a bona fide Southern shrimp boil and dinner courtesy of their long-time neighbor, Helen. It was a great day!

Children's Museum

On Saturday, June 19, we decided to make good use of our museum membership and headed on down to the Children's Museum. My mom, brother Tyler,and niece Chloe met us there. Megan and Chloe had a great time playing together. And Tyler was a big help chasing them around! Brooke enjoyed herself too. It was the first time Dan had been to the museum with us and we all enjoyed our morning together!

What's in a stroller...

What IS exactly in a stroller?

Well...if you're like me and you have a double stroller you LOVE because of it's massive cargo space and you're spending the day at SeaWorld in San Antonio, your stroller might just have:
*a swim tote containing 4 suits (1 for each family member--3 of those suits less than 2 months old), 3 beach towels, 2 bottles of sunscreen, a swim diaper, and 2 pairs of flip flops (for you and your husband)
*an insulated lunch bag containing 5 apples, 5 capri suns, 6 cheesesticks and 2 reusable ice packs
*another insulated lunch bag containing 2 bags of chips, skittles, pretzels, 4 jars of baby food, a bag of baby cereal, 2 baby bowls and spoons, and a pb&h sandwich (with the crust cut off)
*a plastic grocery sack containing a complete change of clothes (including socks and undies) for each family member (and 4 spare diapers)
*a sippy cup
*snacks that the rest of the extended family enjoying the day with you threw in for easy access

Now you may be asking--why on earth am I telling you this?
Because that's the list I got to fill out for the SeaWorld security guard and lost and found people when our stroller was STOLEN DURING THE 11:45 am SKI SHOW!

(our stroller on a happier day in April)


Who does this?!?

I'm sure they thought there were things like cameras/phones/wallets/car keys in those food bags and I hope they were sorely disappointed to find that we (being the smart tourists that we are) did NOT leave any of THOSE valuables in it. However, the stroller itself is worth $150 easy (it's only 6 months old for crying out loud).

And--I gotta say--those other "less-valuable" things--would have been worth a lot to make our day better at Sea World!

We would have gotten to enjoy the water park for one. Our kids wouldn't have been starving because they don't like any of the Sea World fast food. Our kids would have easily napped in our nice reclining stroller chairs. AND we wouldn't have spent an hour at the lost and found station! So at 5:30, we dragged our hot, tired, and crying children and our very disappointed selves out to the car...without our beloved stroller.

I was pretty upset. I did remember as the day went on that at least I had the most important things (the kids, wallets, etc). And SeaWorld let us use one of their strollers for free (thank goodness or we would have been done at noon). It's just stuff. Sigh.

I think we did have a good time other than that. And maybe...just maybe...we'll go back someday (we bought season passes for goodness sake). But this time we're bringing a lock (a BIG one) and carving our name into many places on the new stroller we haven't bought yet and maybe hiring a security guard (it can't cost much more than replacing our stroller and all the stuff in it!).

Let this be a lesson to you theme park goers out there--either take a stroller you don't care about or a nice big lock to spare yourselves our pain!

Sea World

Now that it's been a few weeks and we've replaced everything from the stroller, I have enough emotional distance to post about our day at Sea World:)...
We left early--6:30 am so we could get there right when the park opened at 10. Mom, Dad, Tyler, Shad, and Shad's oldest 2 kids (Hailey and Zach) met us there. We got into the park pretty quickly only to discover that no rides open until 11 am! Bummer!

Walking into the park (RIP little stroller, RIP)


So we went and watched a "4-D" pirate movie. Megan was a little nervous and didn't want to wear the 3-D glasses, but we watched the whole movie and she was excited to tell Dan about it when we got out(he sat outside and fed Brooke while we watched the show).


Then we headed over to watch the Shamu show--it was great. Megan loved it, Brooke loved it, and Dan and I really enjoyed it. It's just amazing to watch such huge animals swimming around. There is even a baby killer whale right now and it was so cute!



After Shamu, Granny took all 4 kids to get seats for the ski show while my dad, brothers, Dan, and I went on one of the roller coasters. It was great! And there was no one there so we went 3 times.


Here we are enjoying the ski show (meanwhile, our stroller disappears!). There were some pretty cool wakeboarding and skiing tricks. I thought the coolest thing was watching 2 of the guys barefoot ski--they'd start on the little dock, lying on their back! Ouch!


After a little trip to the security station and some lunch, we headed over to watch the seal show. Only one seal was cooperating that day (and he wasn't even doing much), so halfway through their little story, the trainer broke character to explain why. It was mating season for the seals and in the wild, they don't even eat during that time. So it's hard to use food to motivate them when they don't care about food. It was pretty funny to watch the trainers try to keep their story going when none of the animals were playing along!



It was getting pretty roasty at this point so we checked out the aquarium where the sharks are and also the penguin house. Ahh, air conditioned. It was nice and Megan LOVED it.



We finished out the day by watching the dolphins get fed and eating some sherbet. As much as Dan and I had mixed feelings about our day at SeaWorld, Megan had a great time and asks about going again at least twice a week (or anytime we see a commercial for it).

Swim Lessons

We started off the summer with a fun-filled four days of swim lessons at Granny's house (June 1-4).
Having taught swim lessons for a few summers, I knew I didn't want to be the one to do those initial lessons with my own child! They just listen better to another voice.
I recruited a few of Megan's friends to join in the fun (get a swim lesson from me and then play in the pool), but because of sickness and things, only one was able to make it.
We had a lot of fun learning and playing with Grace and her mom.
By the end of the week, Megan was swimming with her face in the water as far as she could hold her breath! Go Megan! (and thank you Granny!)

Granny and Megan


Happy little fish



Trying to convince Gracey that it's not too cold :)


All wrapped up! It was actually "cold" for Megan (you know, a chilly 80 or so) while she waited for Gracey to finish her lesson so she could get back in and play.