Vegas and California

Wow, this summer has gone by fast. We have done so much in the short two months. It started off with a trip to Vegas and California. My clogging team takes a trip to Disneyland every year and whoever wants to go can perform if they want to. So quite a few from my team went. I tried to download a video of us dancing but it wouldn't work. Sorry. Before we headed to Disneyland, we stopped in Vegas and spent a few days with my sister. Then we headed to John and Ema's for a couple of days. We had our nephew Connor with us as well so that he could spend some time with our other nephew Ezra. They are best friends.


Connor, Clara and Collin at the Hoover Dam. The new bridge is almost done.

Mark and Simon. Right before I took the picture Melissa told them to make a manly pose. Really this is what they came up with? Mark and his cheesy grin, and Simon with his umbrella.


Me and Melissa.

Most of the group. Collin, me, Clara, Connor, Sam, Melissa and Lucy.


We also went on a little hike at Red Rock. It was super hot so we didn't last long. Plus Simon was so worried about Lucy getting sunburned that he followed her around with the before seen umbrella. The kids had fun rock scrambling though.

After the heat in Vegas it was nice spending time in Thousand Oaks with John and Ema. The beach was a little cold the day we went but the kids had fun anyway.

Connor, Ezra and Clara. All the same age.




Then it was time for Disneyland. We spent 3 days there and had a great time. It's nice having kids that can ride most of the rides. Clara got to ride the bigger rides twice so both Mark and I could go on them. It was fun performing. My clogging team came to Disneyland when I was 14 and it was weird being a performer at 34. But it was an excuse to get a discount to Disneyland.

4 years ago, we took a lot of time seeing way too many princesses but Clara was in that age and phase where she was so excited to see them. This year Collin is in the Buzz Lightyear phase. So the Toy Story Characters were the ones we wanted to see. Luckily for both Buzz and Woody we were able to jump in line close to the front and didn't have to wait too long. Clara was a little sad that we didn't see any princesses but thankfully she's over that phase and got over it pretty quickly.


All of us from my team who performed. If we can, we're going to try and go next year.

Hiking the Y

I thought it would be fun to hike the Y with Clara this year. She's big enough to not complain about all the walking. I didn't want to take Collin since he would complain and he's way to big to take in the backpack on such a steep hike. I can barely heft myself up the hill let alone with 25 pounds on my back. So Clara and I decided to go on Memorial Day. I think that is the craziest day to hike it. There were so many people there. But we had a good time. Clara did so good and didn't complain at all. She did fall running down the hill at the end and scraped her leg up. She told everybody she didn't have a good time because she hurt herself. But I'm pretty sure she had a good time and I was so proud of her getting all the way to the top.



Clara wanted a picture with the Y really small in the background.

At the top.

Mysteries of Monster Grove

Here are some pictures from the show I just designed the lights for. It's called the Mysteries of Monster Grove and it is a fun kid's show. As you can see the costumes are really fun. It's based on some children's books written by a local Utah author. If you have kids and are looking to go to a fun show, check it out. Nelke Theatre at BYU 7 p.m. running for the next 2 weeks.

My funny kids

I still have some pictures of Collin's birthday to post. My parents gave him the cutest Buzz Lightyear dressup thing that he carries around in the Buzz Lightyear suitcase my sister gave him. There's a funny story about all that that I will share when I get the pictures.

In the meantime, some other funny things going on. Collin has moved into a toddler bed which hasn't been to hard of an adjustment. He goes to bed really well. Doesn't do the whole in and out of bed a million times before he falls asleep. However, he does like to get up several times during the night now. Well, as some know, I am not a very good sleeper, especially when I am startled awake by a child thumping his way up the stairs and then screaming our names. Mark was convinced that it would pass after a few days. So Mark got to find out if it would pass, while sleeping on the couch. After about a week of that, even Mark was tired of it. We tried putting a child gate over his door so that we could hear him but he couldn't come wandering up. That worked for one night until Collin figured he could push things over to the gate and climb over. The best was when we found his dirty clothes hamper emptied and pushed over. He's resourceful if anything else at 3 in the morning. So we finally put a child door knob thing on the back of his door and shut his door. It's seems to be working for now. He doesn't yell or get out of bed. He doesn't like those door knob things though. We have one on our food pantry so he doesn't rummage and snack on chips all day. Below is him trying to open up the door with his large, plastic tools. He tried several of them including a saw and screwdriver. As a last ditch effort, he tried the wrench. It didn't work, much to his annoyance.




Clara has written some rules for her room and proudly displayed them on the door. This was prompted by Collin tromping on a very elaborate dollhouse she had created for her playmobile figures. She really has no patience for Collin and his antics. He is in kind of a destructive phase right now.

0. (Obviously added after she wrote 1-9) Don't make faces.
1. Put the things you got out away when done.
2. Don't reck eney thing.
3. Don't take eneything off of my dresser without asking.
4. Don't hide in my closet or under my bed.
5. Don't get eneything of a shelf without pramishen.
6. Don't try to get the fish or it will maby Die.
7. Plese don't get my dressups out without pramishen.
8. Make sure my brother dosn't come in when I made something.
9. Daddy needs to snugle every night.

Easter

Just a quick post on our Easter festivities. We had the 3rd annual Ohran family glow in the dark easter egg hunt with Mark's family. Plus we did a traditional egg dying/easter egg hunt with just us. Minus the fact that it snowed Easter morning, we had a good time.




We used to make these bunnies when I was a kid, and they were fun. So Clara and I tried them this year. They're kind of and orange roll. Clara had a good time punching the dough and forming the bunnies. Collin helped roll the tails.

Before the baking.

The final product.

Collin's BD

I can't believe Collin is 3! It has gone by so fast. Collin is such a sweet little boy. Although he is starting to be more independent and throw more and more fits. Normal 3 year old things. He currently loves anything airplane or rocket ship. He's starting to get into super heroes. Big surprise being an Ohran. He loves Buzz Lightyear and got Buzz shoes and kite for his birthday. We took him to his 3 year checkup and the doctor is surprised that he eats so much because he is so skinny. He is the 25% in height and 3-5% in weight.
Anywho. We had a small birthday celebration. I always envy my friends or family who have these extravagantly themed parties. I don't have the creativity to pull those off. So there really were no decorations and we didn't do any games. We just had dinner and cake and ice cream and opened presents.




One of the presents we gave Collin was a spiderman scooter. He loves it.

I tried and tried to find a Buzz Lightyear topper or cake decorations of some sort and there were none to be found. So I made his cake myself. I really have no cake decorating skills but he liked the rocket. He didn't eat any of it but was upset when we cut into it and ate it. He wanted to later know where his rocket cake was and when I showed him the nearly empty pan, he was sad.



Good thing it was fairly warm the next day so he could try out the new scooter.

Clara's fashion sense

Collin's BD was on Monday and I have pictures to post but haven't downloaded them yet. I'll get to that soon.
But Clara just said something so funny and I have to write it down before I forget it. She is constantly running late in the morning because she spends a lot of time picking out just the perfect outfit. I tell her that I get to pick out her clothes once a week just so on one morning we don't have drama. Tonight I told her she had to pick out her clothes before she went to bed so she's ready for the morning. She was getting in the shower so she told me I could pick out her clothes. "But pick out something cute" she yelled from the shower. Pause. Pause. "My cute not your cute" she punctuated. So I went and asked her what she meant by that. "I am fancy cute. You're just normal cute" I was speechless. I couldn't even come up with a response to that.