Didn't you Know? It's still July

At least in blogland. In July we were able to take another fantastic trip down to the beach house! Shannon (my sister in law) was gunning for a new bike. She didn't find one in Monterey, but Ethan sure did. Oh and it wasn't this fantastic green one. He wanted the purple one with streamers and all the frills. It really was fantastic. (Just don't tell John I told you).We spent some much needed time down at the beach. Ethan L-O-V-E-S the water. Even though I thought it was freezing cold, he didn't want to stay away. And really, let's face it. I'm quite a baby when it comes to things being cold, so it wasn't THAT cold. It's still July, remember?
He would spend some time just running around the beach and warming up. This kid loves to run. I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up being a track star.
We also went to the tide pools this trip and E was the perfect age for it this trip. He loved splashing around and was surprisingly good at balancing on all the slippery rocks. We made lots of discoveries...

Mr. crab
Lots of those squishy things that squirt water when you touch them. Anyone know what they are called? E was definitely hesitant at first.
Then he finally decided that they looked harmless enough.And he couldn't wait to find more.We also found a mermaid there! On no, that was just the starfish. We found I think a total of 5 down there. One was bigger than John's hand!

A successful trip to the tide pools.

After that, we went on a bike ride downtown.

The boys got to be lazy and get hauled around in the carrier. Ethan was thrilled, Henry was less than thrilled. Maybe because Ethan got to wear the pretty pink helmet? We had a fantastic trip at the beach house. Oh how we love you beach house. And we love my dad for sharing.

July unfortunately brought sad times as well this year, with our good friend April (well her whole fam) moving away to Southern California. We did get to see a friend, Naomi, who moved away a few years ago, who happened to come into town to celebrate our last get together. Here she is on the left, pictured with our non-moving friend April. I know pay attention here, it gets confusing.

Here is star of the evening, April, on the left, with Hayley.

Tammy & Teri.

The whole shebang. Whenever April plans to get together with people it always seems like everyone can come. She's fantastic and we will definitely miss her.

Oh and I can't forget to give a shout out to my sister in law Shannon who gave us the recommendation for the place to eat. The food was AMAZING. And we would like to hire you pro-bono to find all of our gathering venues.

April and I couldn't stand to leave one another, so we ended up getting together for a "date-night" later that week. We found another fantastic place to eat (via Shannon), and devoured our dessert for two.

Bye April! Miss you already.

My Oh My it's the 4th of July

I can't believe how quickly this summer has flown by! 4th of July already seems like a distant memory, although it was a fantastic celebration. We started the day off at our ward annual breakfast. (I only took one picture.)From there we went with the fam -- which included my brother, Jared, his wife Shannon, and their son, Henry as well as my dad, Rex, and his wife LeeAnn -- to Tilden Park. It was our first visit ever and we discovered that anywhere in Tilden Park there is no cell phone reception, just to warn anyone who may consider visiting. We miraculously ran into Jared & Shannon at the the little Farm, and I miraculously planned ahead and brought celery and carrots to feed the animals. Much to my dismay, it has signs posted all over that you are not to feed the animals carrots because it gives them bad gas. As usual though, Jared pretended that he couldn't read and went on ahead. After all, what the heck was I supposed to do with a Costco 10 Lb bag of carrots anyway? Did I mention how I'm excessive in all things?

Ethan at first was super hesitant and wanted nothing to do with any of the snotty-nosed animals, and looked on in horror as we approached.As soon as he got a little better perspective though, he was willing to bend the rules and offer a piece of wilting celery.He got off Daddy shoulders and quickly found this fantastic bench to relax on -- the relaxing lasted about 3.2 seconds.Then went onto explore more animals finding the "doats" and sheep. And used his super sonic scream to notify us that there were in fact, rabbits and "piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigs" on the premises.After that he was the expert on feeding and was pulling up weeds to feed that animals. Who knew you could go through 10 lBs so quickly, eh?FYI, they do call this the Little Farm, Why, you may ask? Ask this bohemouth, maybe she knows. After the farm came the Steam train. I think I was more excited than Ethan. Please note too, the fantastic timing of this photo as the steam train was in motion behind us. Thank you very much.Getting comfy in the cars.The whole crew, well except for me, because you see, you can't do a timer on the train and expect it to turn out. Thanks for a great outing!

Oh yes, the fireworks part? Well we actually went out to dinner in San Francisco, and got shafted by the hostess in seating and ended up waiting over an hour for our table, and heard the fireworks going off as we paid our bill. But I was trying to keep the blog positive, so you'll understand why there are no pictures explaining this part, because if there were, they might be of us, giving the bird to House of Nanking. Happy 4th!