Palm Desert with Grandma and Grandpa

In May we ventured to Palm Desert and what was supposed to be 4 days turned into a whole week vacation because wouldn't you know it started raining over here in the coastal areas and I wanted no part in that so we just stayed in Palm Desert where it was wasn't hot but it was at least sunny :D. We drove over on Thursday and Bryan joined us on Friday he rode his motorcycle which he had been dying to try out on a longer journey and had lots of fun doing it when it wasn't freezing or so windy it was blowing him off the road. Here are about a 1,000 pictures to show you how much fun we had!!

It was 97 degrees when we rolled in and first on our list was ice cream for all. So we stopped at the Rite- Aid which did not have thrifty ice cream :( and bought an entire box of ice cream sandwhiches and ate them all :D

Day one we woke up early and did the timeshare thing. I took the two older boys to the kid center and they got to feed the fish their daily food. Lots of fun and the boys loved it!!
Once Bryan got there we headed over to the J.W. Marriot and hopped on a little boat and took a tour which ended at the restaurant we ate at!! YUM seafood buffet's are soooo my favorite!!

The seafood was awesome but what really stole the show was dessert!!

Saturday I got to go to the "Quiet" pool with my mom while the boys hung with Dad and Grandpa, by that I mean they all slept :D

Sunday we went hiking in Palm Canyon! It was a beautiful day to do it as it had cooled down substantially and there was a breeze!!

We did two miles and Kevin and Adam hiked on their own the whole way!

Rainbow on a cloud??

We could see the rain that our friends were getting but we didn't get any of it!!

The view of our place from the park!!

the Marriot playground was tons of fun!!

we brought the scooters knowing we were going to need wheels to get around town :D

Isaac after a bath...too funny not to add!!

Our unit was right in the front of this building!

Thanks for inviting us Grandma and Grandpa, or did we invite ourselves, can't remember but it was so much fun!!

Easter Recap!!

I know, I know so late but I am going with the better late than never idea.


Easter this year was interesting we had lots of big plans and they all fell through, probably for the better though because as the day got closer it ended up being a rainy like day and Isaac was pretty sick so He and I stayed home from church. We ended up having my parents over for dinner and were able to pull together the classic Easter Meal at least at out house. We had Ham, Mashed potatoes, green beans, and rolls. Here are some pics from the big day!!


Kevin had lots of Easter celebrations at school including parties and such so Adam and I had our own parties one of them was coloring eggs. Isaac sleeps during Kevin's school each day so it is just mom and Adam time.

The Easter Bunny didn't bring Candy this year but Grandma and Grandpa did!!!

The boys looked very handsome in thier Easter Best, (mommy too) even though Isaac and I didn't make it to church I dressed for the occasion.

Easter dinner was super yummy and super fun with family around!!

Long awaited Kauai!!

We stayed on the East side of the Island for the first night and the water was pretty rough there, but not in this area :D

Waimea Canyon

roosters everywhere. The whole island is covered with them, apparently in the 90's the big hurricane that hit spread these guys from coast to coast (on the island) and now they are free roaming and there are TONS of them EVERYWHERE!!

Bryan looking at a cool valley below with a single house and farm in it :D

this was the pathway to anini beach it was soooo steep but the beach was fun and we later found out there is a parking lot down there and you can just drive, I suggest you do that when you go :D

in case you were wondering where the boys got their brilliantly blue eyes...(see below)

anini beach....there is a reef out there and it makes the ocean look like a lake very serene and quiet...almost too quiet and serene :D

The light house!!

on the catamaran on our tour of the na'pali coast

secret falls!! we hiked and kayaked in and it was worth the wear out :D

a storm a brewin'

Smith Family Luau!!

can you see the giant waterfall that was what we saw out front of our condo :D

farmer's market!!

Hanalei, oh I wish I could have flown the kids out and just stayed here forever :D

more secret falls!!

Just trying to avoid the paparazzi!

yesterday while goofing around on the internet...ie...looking at floor plans for the new models going up in our neighborhood...I came across this picture!!!

You can link to the website here...and I'm not trying to get you to move here...okay so I am, (we love our community and our home) but you should check it out and the new floor plans too...they are building single family homes and town homes for your viewing/living enjoyment...and you get to see a picture of Adam on the homepage top left hand corner in the slide show there is about 6 pictures and he is one of them...they think he is a cutie too :D

update: I went to the sales office today and saw that they had one framed picture of Adam at the park on the wall and three pictures of the boys two of Adam and 1 of Kevin and Adam at the park on their giant screen slide shows in the office...Yes we are like local celebrities...

Did I mention Isaac and I were in the newspaper because I spoke at a press conference...I can't remember if I blogged about that or not but here is the link to the newspaper article :D I fear this picture of me in the newspaper is like the worst picture EVER but the family pic is not so bad so there are two in the slideshow :D

Feeling the MOM vibes

So it is official we bought a minivan I only thought I was a mom of 3 before, now I feel like a mom of 3. We love it!! It is gorgeous, I am so glad I didn't settle for anything but the really hard to keep clean BLACK one because, I love it. ( I have a strange affinity towards black vehicles, I believe all vehicles look better in black) It drives like a dream compared to our 99 dodge durango with a V8 , 5.9 liter engine. and will probably use about half the gas which will be nice come this summer when gas will be 5 dollars (it is already 4 dollars here for those of you that don't live on this side of things) The boys think it is SUPER fun. Their favorite feature (we have not gotten the entertainment system installed yet) is the sliding doors that open "all by themselves" in Kevin's words "now I don't have to get soooo tired opening and closing the doors" I love that kid :D....

Now for the car buying story....(there is always a car buying story)

We wanted to do it the easy way you know through costco... get a price...go buy it...be done....

we tried it and we didn't like the costco price, of course, why would we want it to be easy. but we went and met with the costco guy which was a meeting at 6:00 p.m. an especially hard time of the day of course and so we waited for Bryan to get home raced over to Costco, I had to get some things that night for a party I was having the next day at my house ( a belated wedding reception) and the boys ate while I shopped then we rushed over to Miller Toyota and ....kinda liked the car.....and really didn't like the sales guy (who was not a sales guy) but honestly who doesn't want to be told why they WOULD want to buy a car and start making car payments when we haven't at all for a couple of years. He knew very little about the car and we felt blah about the whole thing and then the price was blah too and the color was blah....gray (that is blah for me, other's love gray) So we went home....late....and the kids got in bed by about 9:30....
The next day we set up an appointment at another dealership, Puente Hills Toyota, with another guy that had given us a better quote online...So after the belated wedding reception party we went to the dealership and saw more gray and white minivans but now the price was in our range it wasn't really the entertainment system we would have preferred but hey they have nothing now the kiddos weren't going to complain, and the payments were comfortable so we thought, you can't get everything, or can you???? We ended up getting the exact entertainment system we wanted and my last minute request...."Could we Get it in BLACK?" So a few calls to some other dealerships and voilla!! a black Toyota Sienna with the drop down flat screen from the ceiling/roof...automatic doors, back up cam and my favorite feature, bluetooth, which can play my Meaghan Smith album right off the ipod feature of my new iphone through the car speakers and I am one happy Mama!! Of course, although we got to the dealership at 5:30 p.m. we didn't leave until 10 p.m. and of course we missed dinner (good thing I had water and an abundance of animal crackers in my "purse" Luckily they had a big screen playing toy story 3, and some motocross racing video games there and that entertained Kevin and Adam but Isaac was a force to be reckoned with. ( he is like Kevin and for those of you that knew Kevin as a baby, you know he ONLY sleeps in a bed...so does Isaac) he sleeps fantastically in a bed but not so much anywhere else, even the car. Long story, less long, we were going through an in&out drivethru at 10 p.m getting 3 plain cheeseburgers on our way home and all of this in time for daylight savings that night!!!

The boys are trying to catch up on their sleep the last 3 days they have slept in till" almost 9, and 8:30 which for them is way late as they are 6-6:30 a.m. boys...but we do love the new car!! and eventually we will catch up on our sleep too :D

It may have been this video that made us buy it :D

and Here it is

recent favorites

Here is a grouping of random pics from the last few weeks.

Here is Adam climbing a tree. The boys had their first sleepover at Mima and Papa's house a couple of weekends ago and had tons of fun. One of their adventures was climbing trees!!

Kevin too!!

a cute pic of Adam I just love this one!!

Isaac loves being pushed around on the scooter. He feels like one of the big boys!!

too cute to pass up!!

we love going to our very own park. Isaac loves driving the train!!

Apparently it warmed up substantially from the morning, when it was freezing, till noon, when it was hot!!

handsome boys!!

Isaac recently experienced his first lollipop, it was a hit!!