Summer Fun - Lost Photos Edition

I've been having computer troubles lately - for the past few months.  I think I'm circling in on what the problem is, but haven't successfully fixed it yet.  I just don't have a lot of time to sit down with my computer and try things.  But I'm starting to get things sorted out.  Sadly the main problem affects my photo library so I've had trouble getting blog posts posted.  And I had some pictures that I thought were lost, but I was finally able to get them back.  Hooray!  They were lost but now they're found.  Here are some of the formerly lost photos.  This is me and one of my Illinois buddies, Alisa, on the last day of school.  One last goodbye before rolling out of town.

Anna's friend, Andrew (Alisa's son).  It looks like he gave her flowers, but those were from me.

In the car on our drive west.  Anna was upset about something. 

You can kind of see how packed our car was.

At one of our hotels along the way - Lincoln, Nebraska

On the road - somewhere in Nebraska I think

Getting to Cheyenne.  We stayed on the Air Force Base in Cheyenne one night.  There were a lot of pronghorn antelope just roaming around the base.  I should have taken pictures.

 In a hotel room - this must have been Cheyenne

 West on 80

So many miles to go

We finally made it to my parent's house in Utah

Here's Anna doing a puppet show for us

Here's John at a splash pad one day

He liked the water that sprayed out of the ground

Emma at the splash pad.  She did get to play in the water.  She didn't like it that much, but she has enjoyed going to the swimming pool and splashing there.

Anna at the splash pad.  This splash pad had a little river with rocks and water jets that shoot out of the ground.  It was lots of fun.

Summer fun means getting ice cream cones at the local grocery store.  Macey's in Lehi sells soft serve cones.  Not many stores like that sell ice cream cones anymore.  So it was exciting for me to go get cones at the store.  Here's John with his ice cream.  That cone looks like its in serious danger of falling on the ground.  And SPOILER ALERT...it DID fall on the ground later.  We were able to salvage most of it though and all was well.  He looks so excited.

Matthew with his cone.  He thought the chocolate looked like the grinch.  :)

Anna and her shoes.  Anna is 6 years old, almost 7.  Buying clothes for her seems extra difficult these days.  We often disagree on matters of style when it comes to clothes.  The clothes she picks out sometimes are not ones I want to buy...because I think they are ugly.  Maybe I am just too old and not up with the latest fashions.   :)  But I just don't want to spend money on things for the kids that I hate.  Anyone else have that problem?  Anyway, Anna needed new shoes and told me she had found some perfect shoes at the store.  She showed me the shoes.  They were just like these ones (pictured) but pink and leopard printed.  I just could not bring myself to buy them.  Here are another pair she liked.   These ones I didn't hate as much.  But I still didn't want to buy them.

In the end I persuaded her to get a different pair that I felt more comfortable with.  These are the ones we got.  I guess as she gets older I should be more flexible about letting her pick things for herself, provided they are appropriate.  

Stay tuned for more summer adventures!!  Maybe I can get my computer issues sorted out!

Thanksgiving Point Gardens

Things have been busy here.  Busy and hot.  We just finished two weeks of swim lessons and have done a few other outings here and there.  Here are some pictures from an outing to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens.  It's very beautiful there.  I liked the waterfall.

The secret garden was also a favorite

Inside the secret garden

At the Italian fountain.  That's Matthew and my cousin, Suzanne, who toured around the garden with us.  She was a good sport and even carried children around quite a bit.  Thanks Suzanne!!  I should have taken a better picture of us together or something. I always forget about those things until its too late.  :(

A giant fake flower

And just a bunch more pictures.

My mom holding Emma.  It was warm that day.

Grant and I went on a detour to the bathroom.

Here we are on our trip back to find the rest of our people.

We had a nice time at the garden.  The kids were thought it was a hot, long walk but I think they had a good time too.  We'll have to go back.

House Hunting

Scott has been out in California working at his new job for a few weeks while the kids and I have been staying in Utah with my mom.  For logistical reasons, Scott and I had not been on a house hunting trip prior to his starting work.  So we finally got a chance to go.  My parents watched the four older kids (no small feat) while I flew out to CA with Emma to look for a house.

If you are familiar with the current Bay Area real estate market, you know that it is crazy expensive because of the tech boom in Silicon Valley and general housing shortage in the area (among other factors).  A house equivalent to our house in Colorado would cost three times as much or more in that area.  Not to mention just the general low inventory of houses to buy there.  Houses selling far above the asking price (because of bidding wars) is commonplace there.  So we had our work cut out for us.  I've been researching online where we could live and we decided to look in Livermore (30ish miles from Scott's office to the north east) and Gilroy (40ish miles from Scott's office to the south).

This (above) is a house we looked at in Gilroy.

Scott has been staying at his sister's house in San Francisco.  I was checking out the row-ish houses near their house.  And the June gloom.

This is a picture of some vineyards we saw as we house hunted in Livermore.  I wanted to like Livermore, but it was more crowded and trafficy to get there than I thought.  And competition for homes is a bit stiffer there than in Gilroy.  Our realtor also cautioned us that homes often get multiple offers, driving the price way up, and sellers may refuse to work with you based on what kind of loan you want to use or whether or not you will waive an appraisal of the home.  Or for other weird reasons.  I was pretty discouraged after looking in Livermore.

Gilroy was much more encouraging.  I liked that it was less crowded, we could afford a little more house there and the competition isn't so stiff.  There are a lot of newer houses there too and a commuter train that makes a stop right next to Scott's office.  We looked at many houses in Gilroy and made an offer on one.  We couldn't come to an agreement with the sellers about a price for that property so we are now looking at other properties.  We're also considering having a house built.  I'm hoping we can have something figured out before school starts, but time is getting short.

 Scott in San Francisco.  Cody and Alycia (Scott's sister) took us out to eat in the city.  Lots of fun. 

Alycia showed me some cool sites in San Francisco one day while Scott was at work and I was done with my house hunting tasks.  This windmill is in Golden Gate Park (I think).

 Golden Gate Bridge

 We even got to go to the beach!!  Lulu welcomes us!

 It was Emma's first time at the beach...but not the last

The trip was overwhelming and felt a little unproductive, but at least we know what areas we want to pursue now.  Anna came to the airport (with my mom) and made me a nice sign to welcome me back from the house hunting trip.  Very sweet!

Up the Canyon

While my sister and her family were in town (in Utah) we went did some exploring up Cottonwood Canyon. Ruth and family go on lots of hikes in Washington and Oregon (and all over the US actually) so they are pros.  Here are some pictures from our adventures.

 Found the waterfall

 Boys checking out the water

 Matthew followed Uncle Dana and then started running up some trail (unauthorized).  Luckily Uncle Dana helped him get down and he only got a little wet coming back over the water.

 Emma was pretty good

 Crossing the stream

 Cousins!

 After checking out that waterfall we drove a little ways to see another one

It was raining a little when we started so some people waited in the cars with the littlest travelers.

 Anna along our little hike

 Beautiful views once we got to the waterfall

 Grant!  He had fun hiking up but then got tired.

Magnus and Matthew wanted to follow Uncle Dana up some really high rocks to the top of the waterfall.  I didn't let Magnus go up and I think he was kind of ticked off at me (sorry Magnus).  I wouldn't have let Matthew go either except he just ran up there without asking.  (Head shake)  Little mountain goat.  Magnus got mad at me later when I tried to prevent him from walking through the stream.  So, sorry Magnus!!  I'll try to be a cooler aunt next time.  We had lots of fun on our hike!  It's nice to see mountains again.