Long Overdue

7 weeks ago a precious little baby was born into my family. This last week I finally got to meet her! I drove up to Carson City to visit them. Just me and the girls drove up. I'm not going to lie, I was super scared about going on this trip without Ty. But the girls were amazing and I don't know if it could've gone much better!

 

 Once you get through 2/3 of the trip you finally get out of the ugly California desert and enter beautiful scenery. It drives pretty close if not right through Yosemite (not quite sure where the boundaries are) and there are beautiful lakes and huge trees. I wish I wasn't driving so I could've taken better pictures!

 

Beautiful sunset of the Sierra Nevada Mountains

Meeting beautiful Brooklyn (who I nick named squeaker)

Lindsey looks too big compared to her!

If you know me at all, you know that I paint every baby girl's nails in the hospital. Well Ash was kind enough to not let anyone paint Brooklyn's so I could be the first. :-) I know it seems weird but I started out with 3 nephews and I was promised that when I got nieces I could paint nails til my heart's content.

I know this is blurry but this was poor Brooklyn's whole week. Two new little faces right in hers. They were so enthralled with her and constantly wanted to be around her and hold her.

When they weren't mauling Brooklyn they were playing with Samantha. Sam was so kind to share her house, parents and all her toys the whole week. They had such a blast.

 I got the opportunity to watch Brooklyn for a short time while Ash went to lunch with Nic. Brooklyn sometimes likes to be a little fussy. Now if you know anything about me past experiences have made me pretty immune to fussy babies. It may sound heartless but it doesn't really phase me anymore. I was interested to see how the babysitting would go and I surely didn't want her crying when Ashley got home. Well, she was an angel the whole time. She is such a pretty baby! I'm so glad I got to spend so much time with her!

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Isn't she so precious?!

I even got her smiling!

 We drove up to Lake Tahoe one evening. Holy cow that place is so pretty. The water is so blue and the scenery all around it is so gorgeous.

This is the only picture of Ash and I from the trip. :-( Sadly the sun ruined it.

We took the girls to see Brave the morning it opened. They all really loved it and keep talking about it. Whitney keeps pretending everything is her bow so she can shoot arrows.

Gotta love a sleeping baby.

I loved holding the baby any chance I could. I had 7 weeks to make up for.

Whitney loved playing on Sam's new tramp. Aren't they cute in their matching outfits?

Cousinly love. (Get it...like brotherly love. I miss that show btw haha)

I posted the sunset so I had to post the sunrise over the mountains. Since we left at 2am I got a nice view of it.

Here is the sun actually coming up.

 I was so glad to see my sister and her family. It made me want to keep driving on to Utah to see the rest of the family, but I'm grateful I get to go home in a month!!! Woo Hoo! This is shaping up to be an awesome summer!

Legoland

Last week we got offered 2 tickets to Legoland from an awesome couple that used to be in our ward. He got them at work and has already been so he thought we'd enjoy them more. Of course we jumped at the chance to go. I've been wanting to see what the fuss was about and who is going to complain about saving that much money, right? Well, Ty has late class on Thursdays so we decided to go today. Whitney was a little confused as to what it was and just kept asking when we are going to Disneyland. Once we got in and started exploring, she had tons of fun. Ty had to leave to go to class so we missed riding a few rides, but we had fun on the ones we could go on. I should probably preface that we have no legos in our house. We have one bag of mega bloks and that's it. So, my girls haven't had much exposure to them, but I think they are awesome. I really loved seeing everything they could do with them.

Can't you tell how excited they are to go inside? :-)

There are lots of places that you can play and build. Lindsey decided to be a helper and just kept bringing this kid more legos. She'd come pick one from the bucket then take it to him. He just said thanks and added it to his sculpture. It was hilarious.

A picture on the map had kids riding go carts and Whitney kept asking if she could ride. I didn't think she'd be able to, but they have a track for 3-5 year olds! You have to steer and push on the pedal. Needless to say she made it about ten feet. The whole time.

Afterwards she said, "I just kept bumping into stuff!"

The safari ride was her favorite.

Lego Harry Potter and Hagrid

Playing in the Duplo Village

All of the statues/sculptures were incredible. I mean we are talking hundreds of thousands of legos just in this elephant. So awesome!

The Sydney Opera House was one of my favorite things. I think because I just finished watching Dance Academy haha

The Statue of Liberty with the Freedom Tower in the background. We took a boat tour to see all this stuff, so that was cool.

I found my dream home in a lego version. Now, how do I become one of the cute mini figures? :-)

The Star Wars part of the park was one of my favorite places to see. (And I'm not even a huge Star Wars fan) It was just cool to see actual scenes from movies made from legos.

Come on, have you seen a cuter ewok? And you thought the ones from the movie were cute!

Minitown was pretty cool. Ty like the mini Las Vegas.

The mini Washington DC was so awesome. I wish my sisters could see it. Here are the girls in front of the Washington Monument. Look in the background at the White House! So awesome, right?!

I promise that Lindsey did enjoy herself. I don't know why she looks grumpy in every picture. This statue reminded me of the water fountains at the Hogle Zoo.

Honest Abe

Included in the free ticket was admission to the Aquarium. Remember we went to a huge aquarium a month ago, so it wasn't that great in comparison. But, the Aquarium of the Pacific did not have lego scuba divers and submarines. heehee In this pic you can see a blurry ray swimming past. There were lots of sharks so the girls liked that.

All in all, we had a really fun time. It's definitely geared to older kids than mine, but there's plenty for the little ones to do. The girls loved it and weren't happy about leaving. I'm so glad and grateful that we got to go!
What adventures have you been up to lately?

Sunday Excursion

 I'm really beginning to hate the weekends. I know it makes me sound crazy, but with Ty's new schedule he works every Friday night and Saturday. It just is boring and lonely for me. This last Saturday Ty worked 14 hours and needless to say he was exhausted. I thought he would just want to relax on Sunday, but he surprised me and said he wanted to drive up to LA for the day and visit the Temple and some other sites. (I've never been up there and have been asking to go) So after church we changed and got on the road. The temple was a lot prettier than I expected. The visitors center is so awesome. If you are ever in the area, you need to visit. The sister missionaries/couple missionaries were so insightful and great to talk to.

Christus Statue, notice the painting behind it. It was breathtaking!

Whitney really loved the grounds.

I can only imagine the amazing shots that people get on their wedding day.

 I told Tyler I wanted to see Hollywood so we drove around for a little bit. We had no clue where we were or where we were going so we would just stumble upon things. So, forgive me for the off center/bad shots that include part of the car door. I wanted to document what we were seeing. Part of it reminded me a lot of New York City because of how many people were there and the feel of the place (and smell).

Grauman's Chinese Theatre was packed with people

It was a little surreal to see the Hollywood sign. Sometimes I still can't believe we are down here.

All in all, it was a fun little unexpected trip. And before you ask, no we didn't see any celebrities haha. It was just great to spend time as a family and explore. What new things have you discovered lately?

Inspiration

Do you ever feel stuck in a rut? You're depressed or down about something but don't seem to have the courage or energy to do anything about it? Well, it just so happens I had been in said rut for a few months, until two weeks ago. 
I have a tendency to save every handout I get from church. In my scripture case I have SO many handouts (especially from my seminary years in high school). There's just something about church stuff that I can't throw it away. I feel like I'm throwing away the scriptures or something. Well, the girls figured out that there are fun colorful pieces of paper in mommy's bag and they soon I found them strewn about the house. I thought I had picked up all the papers but a little while later I found a straggler in the girls room. I told myself I would throw away this piece of paper, no matter what it was. (I'm determined not to turn into a hoarder of church quotes) Well, I picked it up and happened to glance at it and if I didn't know any better I'd think this wrinkly piece of paper was really an anvil that was dropped on my head. Here's the quote:

"I do not believe people can be happy unless they have work to do. One can really be more of a slave to idleness than to work. Work also keeps us humble and reminds us of how all our blessings come to us from our Heavenly Father. The gospel of work is a very important teaching of the church. If we learn to work early in life we will be better individuals, better members of families, better neighbors, and better disciples of Jesus Christ. Who himself learned to work as a carpenter." -Elder Neal A. Maxwell

That was all I needed to get up off the couch and start working. Sometimes the hardest part about being a stay-at-home mom for me is being motivated to actually do things. My time is my own and I don't need to report to anyone on this earth. I'm not perfect and my Heavenly Father knows that, and I'm grateful for random things that remind me who I am and what I'm striving for. I'm working hard, but slowly because it takes time to change your life and develop habits. I'm feel that I'm slowly but surely climbing out of my rut and work is the only way to do it. I will share more as time goes, but I don't want to jinx myself. Just know I'm already feeling better after two weeks! And yes, I'm still holding on to random quotes. :-) This particular handout now currently resides on my fridge. Life is a continuous battle filled with never ending weaknesses we need to work on, but if we work hard, we will be blessed! Where do you find your inspiration?

"When you fail at something, that's when you learn and grow the most." -Jillian Michaels