Lake Tahoe

After Sequoia, we drove up 5 1/2 hours to Lake Tahoe where we met up with my friends from High School- Barb & Gareth, Mikall and Conner, and Paul & Marin Sutton.  We stayed at a cabin in Tahoe City.  It was a little crazy with 8 adults and 9 kids, and Bridgette was the oldest! 
The first day we let all the kids play with each other and explore the house, and then went for a short hike along the Truckee River.  Penny was in heaven throwing rocks!

 

The next day, we were more adventurous and drove over to Emerald Bay to spend the day.  What a beautiful place!!

For some reason, Penny was absolutely inconsolable and wouldn't stop screaming.  We aren't sure what set her off.  I had Tyler take this picture so we could always remember how our poor, sweet Penny melted that day.  Apparently it was quite a show, and there were lots of people laughing and giving me, "Poor mom, you can do it!" faces.  She continued to scream the entire hike down to the beach, only stopping at the little waterfalls along the way to throw rocks in.

Bridgette was a great little hiker and had lots of fun walking with Addy and Teven (Mikall's son).

 Once we got down to the beach, and ate our lunch, Penny was fine and had fun playing with the kids and feeding the ducks her sandwich.

 Penny, Bridgette, Harrison, Addy, Sawyer and Teven.  (Missing Paul's 2 kids!)

 My cute little ones playing in the sand.  Harrison was much too busy touching the sand to look up!

Addy let Bridgette try out her Princess fishing pole.

  Our family.

At the beach, there is an old huge mansion which the girls thought was cool because it looked like a real castle.

That afternoon, the moms left dads in charge and we got pedicures.  It was so much fun to relax, chat and get away from the madness!
But, while the girls are away, the boys will play...

 That night, we had a kids movie night and they watched Toy Story 2 and had popcorn while the adults hung out in the hot tub.  It was the best babysitter ever!  Look at all those cuties zoned in. 

 The next morning, surprise- Penny threw up. 3 times.  We had no idea where it picked it up from but it meant I stayed home with her and Harrison while Bridgette and Tyler went to another fun beach.
 This was on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe.  It had huge boulders that kids (and dads) could climb on.  They found tadpoles and waded in the water.

 Such great dads!

 Each night after all the kids were asleep, we could play games and laugh.  It was so fun to have good friends to reminisce and laugh about things with.  Overall, the kids were well-behaved and happy, and it went much smoother than we all expected.  We can't wait to have another reunion trip soon!
  Thanks for planning it all Gareth and Barb!

Sequoia National Park

For Tyler's vacation week, we took a family trip to Sequoia National Park, about 4 hours away.  We left early Saturday morning and were able to do a short hike in the giant forest that afternoon.  It was really foggy, so it was difficult to see some of the trees!  It was also very cold, about 45 degrees!

 Trying to hug one of the trees, so big!

 Family shot between two giant sequoias.

 In front of General Sherman Tree.  The largest tree in the whole world!  Ground circumference is over 100 feet!!

 The next day, we hiked the large granite monolith, Moro Rock.  I swiped this picture from a google search, so you could see what we climbed.  There are stairs (almost 400) up the back side of the rock, that take you up 300 feet in just a 1/3 mile.

 Bridgette hiked the whole thing, but Tyler had to carry Penny most of the way.  It was one of the coolest hikes I've ever done!  The view from the top was amazing- so many mountain peaks in the distance.  Just when we made it to the top, the fog rolled in, again...

 Resting on the way down.  (On the non-drop-off the cliff side!)

 On our way out of the park, we drove through a tunnel tree.

 And even saw a black bear in a field!

I'm so glad we made the trip!  We've been trying to explore our beautiful state while we are here!

Harrison at 8 months

Harrison is growing up so fast, I can't even keep up!

At 8 months, Harrison is finally sitting up on his own without falling over.  He loves the new view this provides.

 He has learned how to hold his sucky-bag to slurp out juicy fruits.  He loves grapes and watermelon!

 He is army crawling all over the place.  He is getting pretty fast and can make it to anywhere he wants now.

 He finally cut his first top tooth.  Thank goodness- we had one cranky baby!

 He celebrated his 8 month status by a smoothie, and the accompanying mustache.

 Remember how I said he was army crawling all over?  Yea, he already discovered the toilet paper!  Oh dear...  We have a curious explorer on our hands!

Moore's quick visit

Grandma and Grandpa Moore came for a quick weekend visit.  We got to play at a new park, and eat yummy tacos on Friday.  Saturday we headed to the fairgrounds for a special Imaginarium event at the petting zoo.  The girls loved it- we watched a sheep get sheared (kind of scared Penny), pet baby chicks, and see lots of new baby animals.

 There were other fun activities there- digging for root vegetables.  Both girls loved this!  I guess I need to let them dig in dirt more often!

 Bridgette did an egg race which she took very seriously.

 They got to milk the fake cow.

We went out to lunch at a fish restaurant and then ate dinner at home and played.  We loved having them come visit!

Tyler's Birthday/Harrison 7 months

Tyler's birthday was April 10th.  He chose to go lemon picking at a park in Tustin.  It is so fun to see all the trees there!

 Love these cuties so much!  Can you believe how similar they look, especially when they smile?

 

When we got home the girls helped clean the lemons and make lemonade, yum!  We have made everything lemon you can think of and still have about 12 lemons left!

The next day was Tyler's 32nd birthday and Harrison's 7 month mark.  I love these two handsome boys of mine!

 

Daddy with all the kids before church.

 Harrison at 7 months is on the go.  He can roll and almost army crawl.  He is very curious and starting to explore.  He has discovered the boingy doorstops and plays with them often.

 He loves smiling at himself and was cracking up taking these baby selfies this month.

He loves eating solid food and is currently working on getting his top teeth through.  He is still such a joy and happy most of the time.

Joshua Tree National Park

Last weekend, we took advantage of the free admission to the National Parks and drove the 2 hours over to Joshua Tree National Park.  We woke the girls up early and left at 6am. We drove right into the sun for a while, so they were happy to try out their new shades.

 The park was beautiful and there were tons of wildflowers and flowering cactuses.  We just missed the Joshua Tree's blossoms by about 1 or 2 weeks. 

 We started out with a short 1 mile loop hike called Hidden Valley.  It goes along inside a huge circle of boulders where cattle thieves used to store their stolen cattle.

 It was pretty and had lots of good rocks to climb.

 I'm proud of Miss Penny who walked the whole thing by herself, including lots of the rocky steps up and down.

 Adjusting shoes.  Our little copy cat follows whatever big sister does!

 Tyler and the girls on the top of a climbing rock.

 We saw several different kinds of lizards and lots of wildflowers.  Bridgette wanted to climb all the boulders and Penny wanted to smell all the flowers.

Next we drove up to Keys View at the top of a peak, so you could see the whole valley and San Andreas Faultline.  When we started walking up to the viewpoint, it was so windy I thought the kids would blow away.  It totally scared them all and we didn't even dare take a picture.  We ran as fast as we could back to the car and then heard about how windy it was up there for the next several hours.

Our next stop was Skull Rock for some lunch and climbing.

 I love this stink face Penny has been giving us lately.  She certainly has spunk!

 Harrison was there too!  He was such a sweet baby, just hanging out most of the time in the carrier sleeping and looking around.

 Skull Rock is behind us.  It is supposed to look like a skull from the erosion.

 Our last stop was the Cholla Cactus Garden.  It was crazy how much Cholla cactus there was growing.  This is on the other side of the park, so there are no Joshua Trees here.

 Penny had fallen asleep in the car so Tyler pushed her around in the stroller asleep and Bridgette had reached the "I'm over this" stage (as evidenced by this picture, haha!), so we headed home right after.

We had a long trip back, got stuck in a little traffic and so stopped for ice cream and a play break at Chick-fil-A.  We had a great time exploring the desert, loved hiking and seeing a different area of California.  The girls loved the desert and finding lizards.  Bridgette was mad we drove home to "normal part of California" and even told me she wants to move to the desert!  I guess that means our visit was a success!