The Smith House and Jessica Visit

The kids have had a blast being able to run around the beautiful Smith yard. Evie has picked flowers until her heart is content and taught Ethan to do the same.

Evie even decorated Shilo

Ethan is saying back off my chicken noodle soup. Grandma Joyce heard Evie's favorite soup is chicken noodle and surprised us with a yummy snack.

The kids have loved the animals at grandma and grandpa's house. They also have cats. Shilo is a sweet dog and is so gentle with the kids.

Later that afternoon we stopped by to see grandpa at the shop. A few minutes after we got there Joel got a call from Malcolm asking where we were that he was at home...

Soon enough!

Aunt Ashley takes such good care of the kids.

Ethan sporting dad's gloves

Ma, I want this one...

Joyce made a birthday cake for Ethan's birthday which was in February but while we were in Taiwan. Unfortunately he fell asleep before cake but loved his new tool set. Thanks grandma and grandpa

Princess Evie is just happy that the suitcases are now open and she can change into a new princess dress every few minutes

We enjoyed the day with Jessica also. The week went by so quickly so we didn't get much time. Luckily she is coming back to Ne for Easter so we'll get lots of time then

A visit with the Voyle's and the Nesmith's

The kids and I were able to catch up with some friends while Joel was at a magazine meeting. Thanks Lance and Janet for the great afternoon and fun play date. It was a much needed break after spending the past day cramped on an airplane. Ethan and Ashley shared a snack.

Lance is a crazy fun dad. He reminds me of my brother Jeremy and I mean that as the greatest compliment. Jeremy is a fantastic dad!

Janet and Aiden. It would be fun to hang out more often. Who knows, maybe some day we'll return to So Cal...

The kids chilled out and watched a movie and ate pop corn. Thanks again for lunch and the fun play date Janet and Lance. Guess Evie picked out the movie because they were watching Snow White...

On our way to Riverside we drove through Pasadena and stopped by our friends Pete and Sally's house. It was our first time meeting their daughter Erin who turns two on Saturday. She is a doll. The kids had fun playing with all her toys also. Thanks for sharing so well Erin. We came in strong and quickly out numbered her and she was so cool with it.

Well, we're on our way to Riverside. Thanks for dinner and the play date. We hope to do it again the next time we're in town.

At the airport

We made it to the airport but the morning felt a bit scrambled. We had to wake Ethan from his nap and it felt like we had a lot more to clean and pack when our van arrived. However, we made it with plenty of time for our flight which is always a relief.

Joel practicing writing in Chinese. It was really difficult.

A display near our boarding gate celebrating the New Year

Ethan, making a wish for the New Year

Evie is quite the social butterfly...

Evie met this little girl who lives in California and until our plane boarded they were inseparable. They were really shockingly similar. It makes me excited for her to start school and have little buddies she can play with every day.

On the plane. The kids are chilling and watching a movie. They both traveled and slept amazing. (A little medicine helped). Ethan only slept a few hours of the 14 hour flight on our way to Taiwan so Dylan helped us get some cold medicine at a pharmacy before we left. It did mellow him out and he was a good boy on the whole flight.

We have started our descent into LA

LA has a lot of rain recently and the hills were green and the coast looked tropical

Yeah, we're almost there...

Now that's some city sprawl...

Joel entertained Ethan the last few minutes of the flight by tickling his little feet.

I guess just a 'few' people live in LA...

The kids were so sweet as Joel collected our bags.

This is turned crazy for some reason but Evie surprised me and said 'mom, look, it's your friend Amy' and sure enough she wrote Ami. Sometimes I wonder how much is sinking in and then I see a little reward like this

Evie had fun coloring at our hotel room. We stayed in LA our first night and went to dinner with Drew and Carrie, some of Joel's dear friends. Randomly, Drew who is a drummer for the band Chicago was in the Philippines the same time we were and only about a mile away from where we stayed but neither of us knew it

Evie enjoys coloring. She carried this picture to dinner and told everyone she could find that she was going to be an artist

Packing our bags...

These posts are a little behind since we are now in Cali but thought I would show the end of our trip anyway. We brought the motorcycle and car over to Dylan's, along with a carload of misc stuff. Dylan kindly stores a lot, and I mean a lot of Tomac stuff at his apartment for us, which we are grateful for. Joel gave Ethan a slow ride around the parking garage. He was panicking because Evie got to go for a ride. Maybe next year the helmet will fit him and he will be able to go on rides too.

Just leaving our apartment and on our way to Dylan's. This guy on the scooter had a huge smile when he saw Evie on the front of the moto.

We encountered lots of fun sitings on our drive...however, the beach is long way away. He should make it by sunset though...

Ethan had fun watching Evie and Joel ride by

Chatting it up with a fellow cyclist. I was taking their picture and he was taking a picture of Evie and Joel

Joel would get Ethan ramped at the occasional stop light

While I was packing Evie had me pretending to give her ponies manicures. They would sit on the red heart and I would pretend to paint their nails. I would get back to packing and she would pick out another animal and we'd do the same thing. I must have taken a long time getting back to her because when I finally did I had quite the line of customers...

The kids had fun while we packed. It's always exciting playing in boxes isn't it...

Ethan is in the box next to Evie

Our present day Daniel Boone