Oakland Zoo

Tuesday we spent the day at the Oakland Zoo with Trina and her four kids. What a blast. Absolutely perfect day. We left about 11am and were still going strong at 6pm with only a short snack break. The kids were great! Since the Oakland temple is only minutes away we headed that direction (trying to avoid traffic), ate pizza and toured the temple grounds. We finally made it home a bit after 9pm. What a fun, full day. Out of all the zoos in the area, Oakland is our very favorite.

We actually took this picture thinking of Grandma, she hates snakes so in all reality, she'll never see this, but...

Pretty flamingos who aren't getting enough salmon to turn them deep pink. (It is salmon that changes their color to pink, isn't it?)

The sun bear. He's teeny... for a bear.


We got to the elephants as the area was being prepped for dinner. The elephants had been moved to a smaller pen and the keepers were cleaning and spreading food all around. They explained it as a "hide and seek". They hide their food in different places so the elephants can get excercise as the hut for it.

Uncle Zea and Aunty Rene (and Christine) have been in Hawaii this week so we have had Stephanie here with us. I wish we could keep her. She's a lot of fun.

Kaleigh's Room

Kaleigh has wanted her bedroom repainted ever since Megan moved downstairs. While she was at EFY Megan and I painted and re-decorated her room. Check out our make-over.

If I'm tagged, so are you!

This is how you do it. Grab your camera and take these ten pictures: fridge, kitchen sink, laundry room, favorite room, favorite shoes, closet, toilet, what your kids are doing right now, self portrait, dream vacation. No cleaning, wiping, sweeping, or swishing allowed.

Okay, it's Monday... what do you expect in a laundry room?

This is my only cheating picture... I took it yesterday, not today. Megan and I spent all last week repainting and decoration Kaleigh's bedroom as a surprise while she was at EFY. That's why it's my favorite room, at least for a day or two longer.

If I'm not barefoot, this is what you'll find on my feet... unless it's Sunday.

Not sure which closet, but this is the hall closet with our stash of chocolate chips that you can't even see. Haha!

There's something icky about taking a picture of the toilet.

Taleah doing her favorite activity - writing. That is only after playing outside in the dirt... check out her face and shirt. Her dad calls her a dirt magnet.

Erina watching Incredibles with Kaleigh and cousin Stephie.

Kaleigh keeping Erina company watching movies.

Okay, so this isn't what Megan was really doing "right now", but I had to wait until she got out of the bathroom.

Yes, I really am "that old". Or, I'm showing my Maori side. :D

Kawhia, New Zealand

Now, I tag Brittany, Allison, Janis, Mindy, Gina and Melanie... yes, all of you. I'll be waiting anxiously to see! I would tag Kerianna, but she's not at "home" I'll give you a break, unless you want to add to the fun.

Priorities

After a late night of playing mafia with friends (midnight) and helping Kaleigh pack for EFY (1:09am - not bad, actually) I sat down to make a list of my responsibilities for the day starting with waking up at 4:30am to get Kaleigh & Amanda to the airport, then David to church, food into crock pot for dinner, practice for a song I'm accompanying in sacrament meeting (hadn't practiced at all yet), Taleah doing scripture/prayer in Primary, playing for RS, helping the choir after church. I hadn't figured out what to do with the girls when I played in sacrament meeting since Kerianna is still at school, Megan is in the YA Ward, Kaleigh is at EFY and David sits on the stand or what I would do while I played for choir immediately after church since David had tithing responsibilities. Well, none of that really mattered. I got home from the airport at 5:20am to a little one (Taleah) buring up with a fever. Nothing else got done. I stayed home and held Taleah. Priorities.

A Month in Pictures

The story goes like this: I was checking blogs and Erina walked in. "Mom, I'm sorry to tell you this, but Taleah and I made a mess. Not a little mess but a big mess. We used up all the flour in the container and just couldn't stop because it was just too fun. I'm really sorry mom." The clean up process wasn't too bad until I got to the area in front of the sink and realized everything was wet. Ugh! And then it was trying to get the flour out of their hair. Ugly! Even when I showered them tonight (5 days later) I was STILL getting paste balls.
Taleah ran straight from the car into the ocean. Her favorite thing to do is jump the waves. She laughs and giggles and can jump for hours. Honestly! When her lips turned blue and her entire body was shivering I convinced her to take a snack break. That was the only way to get her out of the water, food.
There were so many cute beach pictures from today, but Erina was just facinated with all the different types of sea weed she was finding.

This week started off hot and was supposed to get progressively hotter every day. By Tuesday it was 101 but instead of getting hotter each day it cooled off. We had planned this beach day early in the week thinking by Friday we would need a break from the heat but when we got there it was overcast and almost too cool. The girls didn't mind, of course. They LOVE water.

Watching the parade pass by. Small towns are so fun! A bubble blowing clown on rollarskates, a John Deere tractor, dancers, gymnists, motorcross club... you know all the good stuff.
This was $.20/gallon ago... Just a silly attempt to document the summer of 2008.
Megan walking at graduation. She LOVES being done with high school and has jumped into the young adult world/ward/life with both feet.

Taleah's silly pose. I have no idea where she got that from, but when I ask her to smile that's what her little hands think they need to do, too. This is the "Pin the Nose on the Clown" that we made for her 4th birthday. David with the little girls in Aunty Tam's pool on the 4th of July. Taleah was thrilled that she could finally walk on the bottom of the pool and then Uncle Bill topped the pool off and she couldn't touch the bottom any more.

Craziness

So yesterday there was a knock at the door. It was 3:00 and 101* out. It was a home security salesman dripping with sweat. Actually it wasn't drips, he was a faucet. Poor guy. We invited him in, gave him a glass of ice water and told him that Dave would call him back after 9:30pm which is when he would get home from work. I didn't think anymore of it until at 6:30pm when we were expecting the sister missionaries to show up for dinner along with Scott, Nathan, Julianne, and Lauren he passed by the house again. I told Scott to go and invite him in for dinner. After a couple "are you sure?", Scott went out and invited him in. Within moments of him/Rich walking in the door Megan's arms were wrapped around him in a huge hug. Come to find out, Rich is a friend of Nicole. Nicole is Megan's friend from EFY in New York. Megan even has a picture of Rich and Nicole on her bedroom wall. Crazy! Rich is from New Jersey. This is his first week on the job. How is it that he ended up on our street... dinner time... with Nicole connections... and said 'yes' to a dinner invitation from complete strangers. Yes, he's LDS. Someone else must have been watching the big picture and it all fell into place. And no, we are not buying a home security system.