Our Anniversary evening out...

Mandy offered to watch the kids while Joel and I celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary. We went to a new country club restaurant as per the recommendation from our neighbor. It was a great evening to set outside an relax. The food was quite fantastic too. We over ordered though and left with lunch and dinner for tomorrow...

Joel pretending to be sticker shocked when he opened the menu. It was surprisingly reasonable.

Reminds me of our days before kids when we lived on the golf course in Valencia...no key needed
Joel's artistic view of the lodge...

Our fantastic sunset on our walk back to our car.

The best part was coming home to the Tabor girls and our kids running hot laps through the house laughing. Ethan was so sweaty so they must have been doing it for awhile. They had a good time too. Thanks again Mandy.

Mom and Dad's party

Sunday was a big day as we prepared for my parent's party. We are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary, my dad's 65th birthday and my mom's 60th birthday. Laurie and Mandy came over to put the table arrangements together.

We scrambled a bit to get everything set before guest arrived but the party turned out really well. We all had a great time.

We sang happy birthday as mom and dad blew out their birthday candles and then they fed each other a piece of their anniversary cake. My dad went along with it but kept yelling out 'this is cheesy'.

Laurie had the fantastic idea to put together a kids table. The kids were immediately drawn to it and were busy while we all greeted guest and partied...

And of course, the chow line.

It's almost cake time. The kids anxiously waited all afternoon.

How much do you love your pacy Ethan? "this much mama"

Just a few of the kids. Mom and Dad gave all the grandkids matching shirts for Easter and it was fun to see all the bright color running around the place.

Mom and dad impressed everyone by singing the song 'walk through this world with me', the song my dad sang to my mom when he asked her to marry him 40 years ago. They did a great job. I know it wasn't easy to sing in front of everyone but it was the highlight of the night. Something everyone will for sure remember.

At the end of a fun evening. We love you mom and dad.

Last day in CA

After we sadly said goodbye to the Smith's we headed to Newport beach to meet with Dr. Lynn, the doctor who was our miracle worker in Gonzaga and stitched up Ethan. Nice view of the beach from her office too.

Lynn is super cool. The funny thing is she looked exactly the same as she did the evening on the beach, minus the white coat. Same hair, makeup, dress, spunky personalty, etc. We only got the top layer of Ethan's stitches out. The under stitches will stay in 6 months before they dissolve.

After Ethan's appointment we went to breakfast at a cute diner that Joel knew of in the area.

The kids got these cool model cars to put together and sticker.

Smashed faces in the entry door window...

After breakfast we went to LA. We needed to pick up Dylan's ring before leaving for NE the next morning.

When we got to the hotel Ethan took a good nap. Evie and Joel checked out downtown from our hotel room.

It was a nice but gloomy day. Not much traffic for a Friday afternoon. We had intentions of meeting up with a friend and Joel's sister but by the time the ring was done traffic was to intimidating so we stayed close to our hotel for the night.

We took a dip before dinner. The water was cold but the kids didn't mind.

Walking by the art museum on our way to dinner. Joel found this Vietnamese restaurant on-line that was rated really well so we thought we'd try it.

The Angels Flight tram was repaired and re-opened a few months ago so we took our .25 cent ride.

The waiter brought the kids desert because they are cute. :) The staff (all Vietnamese) was super friendly. One of them brought his phone over to show us lots of pictures of his boy who was a bit younger than Ethan. The food was fantastic.

In the morning we went to Brooklyn Bagel. We saw it on a food show one night about a guy who set out to find the best bagels in LA and every time he found a good bagel it came from this place. Turns out this place supplies bagels to most of LA. The bagels were pretty good too.

As we were on our way to the airport to return our car we drove past Randy's doughnut...also famous in LA. We had to stop. We did a quick turnaround and went through the drive thru...even though we were full from our bagels.

To our surprise "Randy" himself took our order. He was super friendly.

The kids of course loved their treats.

On our way home. Maybe not the best way to spend our anniversary but we had a good week to celebrate.

Our flight kept getting delayed in Denver due to weather...after about 5 hours of delays we finally got on our plane for home. We were there about 6.5 hours..eating lunch and dinner there. The kids busied themselves coloring for a bit after lunch. They did really well considering there isn't a lot of space to play there.

At the end of one of the terminals was this little nook. The kids had fun jumping from it. We also met a few other couples with kids who also had delayed flights. Randomly, we met one couple and the husband, now loving in NJ was from Crestline, the same place Joel's mom is currently living. Small world.

Visit with the Burger's in RENO

I had the chance to visit our dear old friends Nic and Ryan and meet their brand new baby Ewan who is three months old. Joel stayed with the kids in CA. It was my first trip away from Ethan and only second away from Evie. It was happy to take the time but nervous about Ethan after his accident. Joel said he did great. He kept them plenty busy. He was even brave enough to take them to Lego Land solo.

Nic gave me the grand tour of her work at Patagonia. It was easy to be impressed. The picture above is only a small aisle of the repair department.

Nic, being her cute self is in front of the sample rack. If a customer calls and has any questions about the product employees can quickly pull samples and verify color, style, etc.

Just a few boxes. Nic's location provides Patagonia to our global world. That means there is a lot of fantastic clothing out there.

I had such a fun time just chilling with Nic and little Ewan. She and Ryan are quite the smitten parents and rightfully so, Ewan is an adorable bundle of joy.

Ryan and his little sweetie

Too cute!

Sadly my trip went all too fast. I lost a lot of time my first evening being stuck in the airport with a cancelled flight through San Francisco. I was re-routed but didn't get in until 10:00pm. A day later we are on our way back to the airport for my evening departure.

On our way Nic took me on a tour of the biggest little city in the world.

As we drove by this little soup shop Nic said they had the best tomato bisque soup ever. It was funny as we both looked at each other and decided to stop for a quick dinner. The soup was yummy too.

They had a lot of good choices to choose from. I tried the tomato and a crawfish gumbo...they were both great.