Since moving to Utah...

Since we've been blog-absent for quite a while, here's a quick summary of some of the exciting things we've been doing in the past few months. Michael and I relived the glory days by going to a concert of one of our favorite bands from college, Peter Breinholt.


We took a visit to Dinosaur Park in Ogden.


Sam turned 6!

Sam's first year of soccer. He loves it! All it took was putting on that snazzy blue uniform to drum up the enthusiasm.

First days of school. Sam started Kindergarten and Simon started preschool.

We took a camping trip to Idaho. It was super fun to catch up with friends, fish, play games, and go exploring. It was beautiful! One of the highlights was when Simon caught a pilfering chipmunk in camp with his net (see videos). The weekend gave the group some car battery problems, and a broken off muffler and exhaust system, but overall it made the trip all the more memorable. I hope we can do it again soon.






Thanks to Abby and Jared for bringing along the raft for some water fun and a good arm workout.

Pirate Party!
Visiting the lake up Little Cottonwood Canyon.

HARVEST TIME! We had a fabulous time at Wheeler Farm picking out pumpkins, going through the corn maze, having a wagon ride, and especially milking the cows. The boys picked out the very best pumpkins!

They took some pony rides.

Caught lots of grasshoppers.

And best of all, they found a secret hideout fort. They built up all the rooms very meticulously. Absolute stealth was required to ensure that the secret location remained private. They even remembered to engineer a seesaw in the play area of their fort.

Simon took the training wheels off his bike. He rides a two wheeler now!

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Goodbye California!

We're moving to Utah this week! We are very sad to leave all the fun places and great people we have met since we've moved to Irvine. In between our packing, we've been trying to squeeze in all of our last fun. It was great to spend some time with family, especially cousins.

Practiced diving skills in the tub in order to maximize our last few days with unlimited pool access.

Went to one of our favorite places one last time. Watched the rockets shooting up at the Science Museum's new Rockets Exhibit.

Went paddle boating on the lake by our house. I hope I still have time to try out the single bicycling boat.

Took some slippery rides down the slides at the lagoon by our house.

Shooting balls at the Science Museum.

One last ride on the huge helium balloon at OC Great Park. We'll miss the fun events at that place. Hopefully we can come back and visit when the huge OC park project has been completed.

Graduation ceremony for Michael. After many years and lots of hard work, he's finished his training! What an accomplishment! We're grateful for his hard work and dedication.

One last Jedi Training session at Disneyland so as to not forget valuable skills.

By a stroke of luck, we got into Disneyland one last time when our card was supposed to be blocked. We tried to get in all our favorite rides one last time.

Spent a good week at the beach with my family. We've had a great year here. We'll have to make the trek back to visit sometime soon.

Good Times

Even when there's nothing particularly exciting going on, it's nice to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Here are a few.





NOTE: No lizards were hurt in the process of capture.

3-2-1 Blast Off!

We had the best time at the rocket launch done at Boeing. We got to make our own bottle rockets. The objective was to make the rockets stay in the air the longest. The winners were to get tickets to a real rocket launch. Unfortunately, Michael was out of town, and wasn't able to add his skillful touch to the project.

We had some troubles with pre-launch parachute ejection.


It was a lot of fun to watch how differently all the rockets projected into the air and back to the ground, based on their design.

The boys got to launch their own rockets.

And met a real astronaut and others training to be astronauts. What a great event!

And First Prize Goes to...

Our latest diversion has been lego contests by Sam's suggestion. The boys create their best to enter into the lego contest.

The Most Realistic Droid Award goes to Sam for these creations. He just looked at some pictures in a book and figured out the rest on his own.

The Biggest, Most Colorful Spaceship Award goes to Simon for this creation. Simon will assure you that this bear looks deceptively friendly. He is really a storm trooper in disguise. His true identity is only revealed if you push a button in his armpit.

I'm impressed with the boys' imagination and lego skills.

Lil Leprechauns

Irvine is so well maintained that sometimes it's hard to get your hands dirty. Fortunately, just in time for St Patrick's Day the lawn mowers came along. The boys scurried out to rake up the cut grass before the workers could come and blow it away. They had a great time while they turned completely green.



Sam also made a great find at the beach! Take a look.

Edward Scissorhands

Our home has been visited by Edward Scissorhands on more then one occasion recently. By accident a few random chunks of our children's hair left with him. Any ideas on how to thwart this unwelcome visitor?

More you missed

Sam and Simon both caught a fish or two on the pier with the aid of a kind seasoned fisherman.

A classic quote, "Disneyland? No! Can we just watch a movie instead?"

Darth Vader made of legos at Downtown Disney. Turns out you can make some pretty incredible things with legos. Just take a walk through the store if you don't believe me.



Simon was fascinated with a nearby family who were burying one of the kids in the sand. He instantly wanted to do it too. After I completed the job I had to laugh. He looked just like The Gingerbread Boy who would hop up and run away at a moment's notice.
Looking for creatures in the rocks.

Dressing up is a favorite pastime around here.