Happy Easter!

Gimme a little credit here

I completely stole this idea from my friend Carrie's blog (thanks:). It was just so much fun to play with and everyone says my kids look just like Rich so I wanted a little credit. Oh, and you can also upload your picture and the website will tell you which celebrities you look the most like. I looked the most like Anna Nicole Smith and Rich looked the most like Barack Obama:). I can't speak for the website's accuracy but it's still fun!


Ok fine, I guess Rich wins this one.



Yeah, baby. He's at least part mine.

I've been tagged

My friend Jen tagged me 3 months ago and it's taken me that long to come up with 7 interesting things about myself. Here goes:

1. A lot of foods that I don't eat have nothing to do with bad taste--more like how they're made or grown. For example mushrooms are gross--not because of the flavor but because they're a fungus. Eggs--yeah, they came out of a chicken and that's weird. And I have a lot of other strange aversions, too. So, yeah, I'm kinda picky.

2. I have used Steve Young's bathroom. Some of you have already heard about this but, hey, I don't have that many interesting things to write about. Before Steve got married he lived in a guest house (which included a performance studio) that someone in our stake owned. I was part of a stake youth choir that was practicing to sing at a conference Steve was speaking at. We practiced in the studio portion of the house but weren't allowed to go to other parts of the house (for obvious reasons). One time my friend Tina and I had to go to the bathroom really bad and didn't have time to run across the yard to the owners' house. So, we were allowed to use Steve's bathroom. One interesting thing about the visit was that he had a life sized cardboard cutout of himself right outside his bathroom door. Hmmm, maybe I should get one of those:).

3. In 8th grade I won 6th place in a national spelling competition. Ok, this isn't the kind where you stand on the stage and spell crazy long words. It's called Wordmasters and it tests students' vocabulary and verbal reasoning (I got that from the website). And it's written--so no stage fright. My husband's intelligence is by far more superior than my own so it's nice to have one thing I can hang over his head:). Especially when we're playing Trivial Pursuit and his wheel is full and mine is empty.

4. I'm not a big fan of flying. I attribute this to watching La Bamba at too young of an age.

5. I'm an animal lover and I've had almost every pet you can legally have in the state of California (and maybe some illegal ones, too). The most interesting pet I've had was a hedgehog. He was a good conversation piece but grumpy and not good for cuddling. I'm sure when I live in place that allows pets I'll start a new collection.

6. I'm not a big fan of reading fiction. I'd rather just watch movies.

7. I sing a lot. It doesn't sound pretty at all but it's silly. It comes from my Dad and I've passed it on to Ryan.

So, I'm supposed to tag 7 other people but I'm not even sure that many people read my blog so I'll pick 1. Renae.

Our girl scout cookie

We got our girl scout cookies last week and they're already all gone (5 boxes:). Macie was totally entertained by the box they came in--now, why do we buy toys for kids?? And don't mind the mess behind her. Recently Ryan discovered how to print things from the computer. Ever since then our floor has looked like this. Oh yeah, and after he prints things he cuts them up for us, too.

Bondcicles

Rich's company rented out the local amusement park for the day. It was absolutely freezing. Ok, like 58--but it was blustery so it really did feel super cold. As Ryan gets older it's so much more fun taking him to these kinds of places. He gets really excited and can go on quite a few rides. Last year I took Ryan a few times a month (even when I was like 7 months pregnant) because he loved it so much and it didn't require much work on my part (we all love those kinds of outings, right moms?). We'll see how I do this summer with Macie in tow. Anyways, here's a recap.


Here's Ryan on a wasp ride. He digs making it go up and down on his own.


Ryan's finally tall enough to ride this roller coaster. I think Rich was more excited to ride than Ryan. He's trying to teach Ryan how to hold his arms up in the air as they go down the hill.


More arm raising lessons.


Ryan's just barely tall enough to ride this. If his hair were cut any shorter he would have been kicked off. You can see this is a new fav.


Macie's favorite ride. Do you ever feel like you have to take pictures of both kids even if one of them really isn't doing much? I feel guilty if I ever leave her out but really she just sits there in the stroller.


Ryan was freezing but he still insisted on eating this popsicle that he was given at lunchtime. Ah, childhood.

Shoup Shoupee Doop

Today we went to a new park for us--Shoup Park. It's located in the beautiful Los Altos hills. The park was awesome for bike riding (for a three year old). And there's this great little creek that had ankle deep water and plenty of rocks to throw. Since Ryan's already working on being a good boyscout--"Be Prepared"--he always wears his rainboots. I attempted to take some Easter-ish pictures (hence Ryan wearing church clothes) but it's pretty much impossible to get 2 kids to cooperate, look in the same direction, and look happy.


Finding the perfect rock is critical.


The more rocks you throw at once the cooler you are.


Rock throwing can be a very intense activity.  Luckily no one was hurt. This time.


I'm usually too lazy to push Ryan on the swings so we were both glad to have daddy there.


Miss Macie. We just love her. She usually ends up in bed with us at around 4 am. This morning at 6:30 am I awoke to someone's fingers up my nose. No, not Rich's fingers--Macie's:). And I still love her.


This is what Ryan does when I say, "Hey, let's take pictures!"


Gosh, don't they just look like the happiest children ever? Ok, this is torture for them. Oh well, it's for posterity's sake, right?

Castle Rock

The rain has stopped again so today we went to Castle Rock. It's a fun place up in the Santa Cruz Mountains that has these giant rocks with fun nooks and crannies to climb around in. Ryan had a blast with Rich and grandpa. Grandma kept Macie entertained when she wasn't sleeping. I, of course, took pictures and carried Macie on my back.


Rich and Ryan celebrating after the treacherous climb to this cave.


Grandma humoring me for a photo.


Rich, Ryan and Grandpa on top of a big ol' rock.


Yay, I'm actually in a picture:). Macie loved the ride and seeing something other than the inside of our apartment.


Here's my National Geographic shot--we were looking for a place to sit for lunch and found a log right next to a ginormous ant hill with ginormous ants. At first the ground just looked like dried pine needles--until I noticed them moving. They were pretty fun to watch.