Lincoln's turn

Today is Lincoln's birthday and we all went to IHOP for dinner and then we went bowling!!!



Sierra

Ashton


Uncle Norris




Uncle Rich





WE LOVE YOU LINCOLN!
Happy 6th Birthday!

33!

I had a birthday! It's important for me to post my age because I frequently forget how old I am, maybe it's conveniently.:)
My family was very good to me! Husband and my mom went to the store last night and bought all of the groceries needed for dinner. My sisters came over early (their husbands and my brother were hiking through the Sierras and coming home tonight) and started to prep food. My mom then came and everyone was in the kitchen making food including Jake. :) I got to hold and play with sweet baby Lucy! Brenna came too! and brought me a chocolate cake and flowers. Oh, and see my necklace...my kids made that for me out of shells that they found on the beach! LOVE IT!

See all this yummy food and those beautiful flowers were from my hubby!

See sisters in the kitchen!

Kids under the tramp, LOVE all these kids!



Rossi blew out my candles. :)


Lucy is such a love!




We watched Soul Surfer, again! LOVE that movie!

Thanks family for a great day! Then when everyone left there was a knock at the door and lovely Kerrie and Olivia were standing there with cookies, a book and hugs. :)

A quick getaway

We decided at the last minute to go away, just the 4 of us. We surprised the kids, I got us all packed up and told them to get their suits on cause we were going to the beach. We went to Mandalay in Oxnard. When we parked and walked into the hotel lobby the kids were confused and then after Jake got us all checked in the kids asked, "are we staying here?" Yep! "we are?!" There were huge grins and pure excitement. They were so excited when we got in the hotel room to see every little thing. "Look at this, look at that!" We LOVED every minute. So fun to be together and spend that time. I told my little family as we were walking on the beach together that this is heaven on earth, being together in such a beautiful place.
This is us in the hot tub...
We were at the pool first and then we were at the beach and then back to the pool.
Showered and went and got pizza.
Picked up a liter of icecream and 4 spoons.
Got free nachos and popcorn from the hotels Happy Hour.
Went back to the hotel room and ate icecream, nachos and popcorn. What a combination! :)
When we checked in the reception upgraded our room to ocean view, THANKYOU!
We watched the sunset from the balcony of our hotel room.
We watched Yogi Bear.
Went to sleep.

Totally worth the one night, would do it again! :)
I LOVE this little family of mine!

My little Paleontologist

Look at all his treasures...Ever since we made our trip to the Natural History Museum Ashton has been digging in the backyard to try and find fossils...

He has also been playing with his dinosaurs and reading his dinosaur books every chance he gets.

Today the Young's went back in time...

Jake and I decided last night that we wanted to do something together as a family for our Saturday...I told him that I've been wanting to take the kids to The Natural History Museum. So we got up early and headed to LA, surprised the kids, they had no idea where we were going. When they found out there were big smiles.
First off we saw this awesome giant lever in the parking lot and Jake and the kids lifted up that red pickup truck.
Because we were there right when the museum opened we were one of the first ones in to see the Dinosaur Hall that just opened on July 16th.



TREX skull


Ashton wanted a picture with the fish fossil.



The top bone in the front leg of the Brontosaurus.


The foot of the TREX


The adult size TREX with a baby TREX underneath.



Stegasaurus was a favorite, it's brain is the size of a walnut. Ashton shared that fact with us, he learned it from a book.


We liked the eggs too...fascinating!


Velociraptor


Prehistoric Pelican


We knew alot from reading all of our dinosaur books but we still learned so much.




I know it's blurry but I love this picture because Ashton is almost 7 and he is a pretty solid boy and his daddy is carrying him on his shoulders. :)





We went and saw the Dinosaur Encounter...


A museum employee came over to us and asked if our kids wanted to be part of the show. They had a giant Plesiosaur puppet and they needed help moving and working it. Ashton went back with Sierra to check it out but was too nervous and didn't want to do it. Sierra was thrilled and excited to do it. They ended up finding 2 other boys willing to do it.Here is Sierra waiting with the boys for there part.


Here she comes...


See her feet, she is at the back of the puppet with pink flip flops.


Can you see her? She's in there somewhere! :)


Then this juvenile triceratops came out and he was so entertaining. This was Sierra's favorite part because when she was back stage she got to see it up close and pet it and stuff.


The puppeteers taking a bow. :)


The Butterfly Encounter

One actually landed on Sierra's finger and stayed there for about 5 minutes.

One landed on Ashton's finger too but only stayed for about 1 second.
We left about 12:30 and headed home, got In 'N Out for lunch and came home. What a great morning! We all LOVED it! The kids kept saying, "Thankyou for taking us!"
Favorites...Jake, the giant dinosaur skeleton. me, the Dino Lab where we actually got to see real paleontologists working behind a window uncovering real dinosaur fossils. Sierra, the Triceratops puppet. Ashton, all the bones. He actually said they weren't as big as he thought they were going to be.