California 2016 pt. 1

Yup... A Hawaii trip, a few camping/hiking trips, and a California and Disneyland trip all in the same summer. Remember how I said July and August were the best months ever?! Truth!
Gavin's parents found an awesome house on Air BNB about a mile away from Disneyland that accommodated all of us! They rented a 12 passenger van and took the whole family with them!

The first day we drove 6 hours and stayed the night in Nevada at Buffalo Bills. Of course we had to stop at the *Scipio petting zoo on the way. The boys spent the night *gambling and they did pretty well. For some reason we didn't ride the roller coaster this time. I think we were all just tired from travelling and ready for a break. Buffalo bills is where Owen started saying "To infinity and beyond," or "to iffy an neon!" then putting his arms out like wings and pretending to fly everywhere. It took us a while to figure out what he was doing and saying! He continued this activity throughout the whole trip, it was awesome!

We made it to California the next day and, like I said, our house was awesome! Go Sue for finding it! It was small, but it had a room for all of us. The whole house was Disney themed and Disney painted and very kid friendly! There was a pool in the back that was safe and gated off, thankfully, so the kids couldn't get in without an adult. The other part of the backyard was full of playhouses and kid toys. The three toddlers were in heaven! They could have played out there all day every day.

While in California we had a beach day, a zoo day, and three days of Disneyland. It was perfect. I'll cover the beach here, but the Zoo and Disneyland can get their own posts.

So, my family loovvees the beach. We have passed this love on to Gavin, but his family isn't as passionate about it as we are. I'm glad they agreed to a day in San Clemente so that we could share our love for the ocean with them. We brought our boogie boards, and the waves were bigger than I have ever seen before at this beach. There were some legit boogie boarders there! We also introduced the Scotts to Pedros Tacos which was, always has been, and always will be, a success. 
We checked out a couple beaches in San Clemente. Note to self: spend all your time at T-Street beach... it's the best one!

Yup... O is waist deep in sand right here!

Fish tacos people.

*Scipio is a town in between Salt Lake and St. George. There is nothing for a while before Scipio, and nothing for a while after. So... the people of Scipio have a perfectly placed gas station right off the freeway and at this gas station there is a petting zoo with goats, rabbits, and exotic animals. It is the most random thing but we always stop!
*The other day someone asked Gavin if he would gamble if he wasn't Mormon. He was like "umm, well, I do sometimes! haha maybe I shouldn't brag about that.

California 2016 pt. 2

San Diego Zoo

This was probably the only zoo trip I've had in my whole life where we saw multiple animals in action! A zookeeper was in the pen with the Cheetah while we were there and she was feeding him lunch and petting him. A polar bear was giving high fives through the glass. And the hippopotamus was trotting along the bottom of his pool.

 Owen loved the air tram!

I think this was right after Owen got pee all over me.

Hands up cuz we're on top of the bus!

California pt. 3

Disneyland!

My dream vacation would not be a theme park. Don't get me wrong, I was excited for Disneyland, but I wasn't thinking I would have the time of my life there. Well, my expectations were far exceeded and I loved it! Having a toddler there was so much fun! My favorite part of Disneyland was taking O to meet the Toy Story characters and Mickey Mouse, and watching him watch the parade. We definitely got to experience some "Disney magic" with O. 

O wasn't scared of the characters as long as Gav or I were holding his hand. *Mickey was his first one and O just seemed a little star struck! haha! When we met Woody, Owen told him to "reach for the sky", and with Buzz he said "to inny an neon" then acted like he was flying away. Owen was seriously in Heaven- he was so excited and so proud that he met his favorite characters. Oh my gosh it was adorable.

I have awesome in-laws who were willing to utilize the stroller pass thing so that Gavin and I could go on some big kid rides together. They even took O on some rides without us while we did Tower of Terror, California Screamin', and Cars. Those rides were super fun and I'm glad we did them, but honestly the most fun part about Disneyland was experiencing it with our little.

We ended our trip by eating dinner at Goofy's kitchen. While there, O went back and forth between being really excited about the characters and really scared. One minute he'd be dancing with Pluto and Minnie, and the next he'd be running away. Ainsley was scared the whole time haha but Ryker did great and played with Pluto a lot! The characters there were awesome, and so interactive!

After going to Goofy's kitchen, we took the kids to build-a-bear. We told O that he could pick an animal and we would dress it up in a Buzz costume. We handed him dogs and bears and monkeys saying how cute they would be and saying how soft they were. No matter what we tried, Owen wanted the minion. So this is what we ended up with.

Us: "Owen what's your minion's name?

O; uhhh...Bucky!

Alright...Bucky the Buzz Lightyear Minion...

Here's a few more pics of the trip

 Loving the carousal 

 About to ride Toy Story!

 Ash and Shay in their dancing car! 

 Kids, in-laws, and grandkids.

 Cousins on the teapot ride.

 Gavin and O in the Rocket Ship

Owen waving to the characters in the parade.

*When we were in line to meet Mickey, there was a special needs guy named Brandon in front of us. F-pod. He talked to Shay and Rick for about 20 minutes about his job, how good of friends he is with the Disney characters, and asking them to sign his autograph book.

Anniversary

On August 11th, 2008 Gavin and I were outside together and we saw a bunch of shooting stars and we were 18 so of course we ended up kissing a little. Come to find out, August 11th is the peak night of an annual meteor shower. We originally wanted our wedding date to be the 11th, but that didn't work out and we ended up getting married on August 16th, 2012. We tend to celebrate our anniversary sometime within the week and not always on the day of. This year we wanted to celebrate on the 11th by finding a cool place to watch the meteor shower. It was supposed to be awesome this year!
Bless my mom for taking O (again) the night of the 11th. Gavin and I took our first little overnight backpacking trip up to Lake Blanche. Not too shabby... except even though we were way up Big Cottonwood Canyon, we could still see the glow of Salt Lake City and guess what- I only saw one stinking shooting star!
The sunset that night though, was the best I have ever seen. Seriously. 
Again...iPhone camera... I'm not going to be able to share much, but it was beautiful and it made the whole trip worth it. I'm so glad that Gavin agreed to be my adventure partner!

Bryce Canyon and Escalante

This past August competes with this past July in the "Best Month Ever" competition. We played hard.

We took a weekend camping trip to Bryce Canyon with Maddy and Aaron. Through our sister-in-law we had access to some property to camp on. Little did we know that we would be the only people within what felt like a 1200 mile radius, which can get a little freaky. Fear, combined with the fact that M&A's air mattress barely fit in their one man tent, led us to all sleeping in the same tent on the last night. Sleepover! It was pretty funny.

On Saturday we drove to Escalante. It was quite the drive but it was worth it. I wish I had a whole week to do everything in Escalante. Unfortunately we only had time for one hike, but we picked a good one. Lower Calf Creek Falls.

We stopped at a pizza place on the way back to camp and O loved the sauce.

Sunday we hiked around Bryce Canyon then stopped for gifts and ice cream. Bryce canyon is so unique and so pretty. I have been before, but no one else had. It was fun to see everyone in awe of the beauty and hoodoos.

I hate that I don't have a nicer camera to capture these moments, but it's the memories that count, right? Which is why I blog about it all in the first place!

July 2016

I posted about our major awesome events of July. We did have a few mini-adventures in between the big ones. 

 A hike up to Cecret Lake because wildflower season is insane! It's my favorite time of year to hike because these meadows are no joke. Beautiful!!

 Shooting the tube...again... with my brothers this time.

 Perfect summer nights.

And this kid.