Weekend in Arrowhead

We loaded up the kids on Friday and set off for Lake Arrowhead. Eric's boss so kindly let us use his cabin and we were joined for the adventure by Chris and Amber, their kids and Amber's brother Jonathan and his new wife Gina. We had a super fun time hanging out and a few great games of settlers in the evenings.

Here we are on Friday evening by the lake as we checked out the local farmers market. Then we had to hit the local grocery store for some staples such as milk, they had a cool car shopping cart and spot our crazy child, she never sits still these days!!

Saturday morning Kate wanted to do a boat ride on the Lake and so we took the tour, the boat was crowded and hot and it was a 45 minute tour, the kids did get a little bored but afterwards when I asked Kate how it was she said she liked it, when I asked her if it was a little long she said "no, it was good" so I'm glad she liked it, our crazy one kept us busy though!!

Saturday afternoon we went to a local event called 'mountain top days' there wasn't a lot going on really but they had fire trucks and Kate was able to play around in them, this alleviates a small amount of my guilt from when I dragged her over to a fire station visit I had arranged for her and some other kids when she had her eroded cornea (long story if you don't already know it!) Anyway, the smile on her face just melts my heart.

Then we rounded off our day and drove up to Big Bear and visited the Moonridge Zoo. It is a really cute zoo, set on only 2.5 acres so it is really small but makes it easy to see everything. They have different animals, no lions, giraffes or elephants, some that I can remember were the grizzly bears, bob cats, wolves, a beaver, foxes, raccoons and a deer that was extremely friendly and licked Kate's wrist. They even have a bear that only has 3 legs, when it was found it had been hit by a car and should have weighed 60lbs, it only weighed 13 and its leg was gangrenous. Anyway, they took off the leg, rehabbed the bear and it can be seen playing around having tons of fun up at the zoo. It was a really fun trip, nice to get away and spend some time with Eric and the girls, its my favourite time just being with them.

Pregnancy Cravings!!

O.K., let me preface this by saying "I am 110% not pregnant" I was just able to re-live a pregnancy craving tonight. When I was pregnant with Sara I craved the Wetzel Pretzel bitz, it had to be the bitz, one time I sent Eric out to get me some and they were all out of bitz and so he brought back a pretzel and it just didn't cut it. I even think one time I went to get some and Sherman Oaks was all out so I drove all the way to Burbank just to see if they had a Wetzel Pretzel in the mall (they didn't). This afternoon I was at the mall and Eric mentioned about getting a pretzel and so I got my pretzel bitz, as I was eating my pretzel bitz tonight I realized that they are just O.K. and not to die for as they had been when I was pregnant. It is just amusing to me that when you crave something when you are pregnant you will go far, far out of your way to get that prized item, then when you eat it, it tastes divine, even better than you had imagined it and now I am wondering what it was all about?!! Anyway, I'm not one for tagging but Brooke does have the best story about the most expensive Slurpee she sent Jason out for when she was pregnant one time so maybe check her blog and hopefully she'll post it.

The Champions!!

We are the Champions!

1st picture - me, Brooke, Julie and Christie

2nd picture - Brooke, me, Julie, Rachel and Christie.

The race - The Admirals Cup sprint tri-athalon

400 yard ocean swim, 12 mile bike ride, 3.2 mile run.

Our fabulous friend Julie did this sprint tri-athalon 2 years ago and this year she managed to convince the rest of us to join her in the endeavour. A little crazy perhaps? I have been pondering this for a while as we have spent countless hours in the pool, running, biking and doing bike rides immediately followed by a run. Our last training was Wed night when we biked 10 miles and ran 3, crazy but prepared, or so I thought.... as a swimmer I wasn't too worried about the swim portion, I can swim a mile without too much problem but as we began the race I realised how naive I actually was. The swim was about the hardest thing I have ever done, in short it sucked! My friend Brooke describes more eloquently than I, check out her thoughts here. I biked, riding around Balboa I thought I was mediocre but there I was biking along on my trusty mountain bike being passed by countless riders on their super duper fancy bikes. Then the run, my motto for the run was slow and steady and slow and steady I went but it seemed like the course just looped and looped and went on forever. About 2/3 through the run I met up with Christie and Brooke and I am a much slower runner but these two amazing women (both of whom have 3 children each including a baby under 9 months) decided to hang back for me so we could cross the finish line together, they got me through the last leg of the race and as we came to the finish line it no longer mattered whether we were 1st, last, the time it took no longer mattered it was that we had finished, we had made it and believe you me it was not as easy as it seemed.

Sara's Birthday

Happy Birthday Sara

We love you

1 today!!

Cool Slideshows!

Heroes

I know I already did a new post today but I just have to blog about the fabulous LA City Firefighters. We had an O.K. day, Haylee and Ethan came over and the kids had fun swimming then around 4ish as they were leaving all these fire helicopters were circling over our house. As I look up I see smoke and through the front window there is smoke coming over the hill our house faces and Amber saw flames, but never fear the firefighters are here!! And this time they brought their helicopters. My girls watched for about an hour as the water dropping helicopters made pass after pass dumping water and before we knew it the smoke was gone. They flew real low and as they came over our house it was real loud and the windows shook. What am amazing set of people, it was humbling to watch them work, just makes me want to bake them some cookies.

Sara is so big, she had a hissy fit until I pulled a chair up next to Kate's so she could look out of the window too.

Also a shout out to Eric's dad, Bruce Thompson, who flew helicopters for LA City Fire Dept. before he retired.

I have so much to do that I don't seem to be able to find time to update my blog but I decided to put a few things aside and type for 5 minutes. Gabrielle has put up a few cute posts lately and on one she tagged me and the other she was asking about how we all met our husbands so anyway, I have to combine 2 in 1 or I'll never get either done. The picture is of Eric and I New Years day 1999, we had been friends for 3 months, we went to the LA 1st ward and all of our mutual friends lived down by the temple and so we would carpool everywhere together and saw each other almost everyday. I was adamant we were just friends but over Christmas Eric went to Utah for family and I went to Big Bear with some friends and I missed him terribly, I remember thinking that "this would be so much better if Eric was here" and it was the first time I realised I liked him as just more than friends. Anyway, we started dating at the beginning of January and were married on May 29th 1999. We don't have an actual 1st date story like Gabrielle, it just happened over time and I can truly say that we were (and still are) best friends when we got married. I have to post this too, its a valentines day card got Eric got me in 2003, it just sums up our story.
It says:

Boy meets girl, Thinks she's great,
Asks to take her on a date.
They have dinner, see some flicks.
Before they know it, something clicks.
Soon they're lovebirds
Through and through.
They tie the knot. They say "I do."
Now he's hers, Noe she's his,
oh, how sweet their marriage is!
Life goes on,

With joy and laughter...
It's known as,

"happily ever after!"


Now onto my 4 things list:

4 jobs I've had: 1) Burger King 2) Proof operator (in a bank) 3) Bank Teller 4) Dr's receptionist
4 movies I can watch over and over again: 1)Bride and Prejudice 2) French Kiss 3) You've Got Mail 4) About a Boy
4 places I've lived: 1) Manchester, England 2) Studio City, CA 3) Springville, UT 4) Sherman Oaks, CA
4 favorite TV shows: (we don't have TV service now but I used to like: 1) Wheel of Fortune 2) Jeopardy 3) American Idol 4)The City Gardener
Places I've been 1) Hawaii 2) Spain 3) Caribbean 4) Mexico
4 favorite foods: 1) Eric's dad's grilled tri-tip 2) lemon meringue pie 3) turkey 4) chocolate
4 websites I visit daily: 1) my blog 2) my email 3) all recipes 4) my friends blogs
4 places I'd rather be: 1) at the beach 2) at Wimbledon 3) swimming 4) My dads house
4 blog buddies I want to tag: I'm not tagging anyone but if you want to post your list its fun to know new things about other people.

Love this book, love the recipes, love, love, love the cake.

I heard Jenny Jones in an interview on the radio one morning, talking about her book, about how super foods keep you healthy, and that 100% of the proceeds of the book go to breast cancer research. So I bought the book, I like the recipes, I've mainly tried the sweet ones and her main point about cakes etc is that if you are going to eat cake at least it should have something nutritional in it, my favourite is the Sweet Potato Chocolate Cake, it has 2/3 cup of sweet potato and so is full of beta carotene and its one of my favourite cakes. She also has a great recipe for apple breakfast bread, grapefruit cake and a lemon blueberry bunt cake.

We just made the cake for the missionaries and Kate was super excited to do the sprinkles, while I made the frosting I found her pouring sprinkles into a cup and drinking them, Sara had tried to grab the cup, obviously Kate protected her loot but the sweet big sister she is a moment later decided to quiet Sara's screams of protest by placing a fingerful of sprinkles into her mouth and then for good measure pouring a bunch onto the table so she could just keep helping herself!! Do you remember the days of your 1st child when no amount of sugar would even go within a 1/4 mile radius of your darling little one, then there's #2 who is eating sprinkles at 11 mos!!