Spring Break 2009 - Carlsbad

This year the boys school breaks do not coinside AT ALL!! Andrew and Joshua have 2 weeks off right now til March 27th and Triston has a week off in April...so we did separate vacations this year. I took the 4 kids and myself to Carlsbad for about 4 days to visit my parents, the beach and my sister and her daughter, Kira came down from Utah for some CA sunshine as well! We had a great few days together. We got there and immediately went for a walk to the 'hill' for the boys to dig for crystals and to see the view of the ocean. The next day we went to the local park, we love, and played and skateboarded, that afternoon we went to the outlet mall to walk around and have a treat. Tuesday was our beach day...we went, played and Grandpa and Grandma came to bring us lunch and eat with us. That afternoon we just played out side in front of their house. Wednesday we went to UTC mall and walked around, played on the park toys, ate lunch in the food court, kids picked out $1.00 of candy at the candy store and Stephanie and I got to pick out our 1lb box of SEE'S CANDIES!!! Oh ya! We celebrated Mom and Dad's bdays as well. Stephanie got them a beautiful windchim and the kids and I got them each an apple from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Was a wonderful week. We talked, oh and the girls went to lunch on Monday to a yummy french deli. We also gave ourselves pedicures and enjoyed the girliness of the three of us!

I also got to come home to a husband who had greatly missed us. He wrote me a special note with a great picture of the beach and had rearranged our family room for me. The house was clean and the spirit was wonderful to be home as a family and enjoy the evening together.

Ice Hockey

Troy and I were given 4 tickets to the Stockton ice hockey team from some great friends the Kellys. Stockton was playing the Utah team. We took Andrew and Triston and had the greatest time. We ate peanuts and sour patch kids...enjoyed the 2 fights and the enthusiam of the crowd. We even got on the 'dance meter' screen! Kids were suprised by what the game was like, but after the initial shock they really enjoyed the whole thing. We all had a blast. Thanks Kellys!!

Triston turns 10!!!

March 18, 2009 Triston's bday. He got to spend the day with his mom at disneyland. We celebrated his bday on Friday the 20th with a day off school and a family party of gifts from us, Grandpa and Grandma Schiess and Grandpa and Grandma Johnson. He got lots of great things. Was happy and enjoyed the day playing, riding his skateboard and having Christian Webb here for the day and a sleep over. We ate pizza, had cake and ice cream as well!

Valentine's

We all looked great for church the week of Valentines Day!!

Valentines Day 2009

So this year we decided to celebrate our family love with a delicious pancake with homemade "Aunt Net syrup" and sticky bun meal. We had not had pancakes for a very long time and everyone at different times had asked for them, so we chose that on Valentine's Day that is what we'd have for our family party. The table was festive, each with thier own bag of goodies, everyone got to create their own pancake plate...we ate and ate and ate...and then gave out our home made Valentines to one another. We had a really fun evening. We were all stuffed for sure!! Troy suprised me with a four page manuscript he'd written about many of our memories over the past 5 years. It was the best Valentine's