Monthly Archives: August 2013

Raine’s first day of kindergarten

Raine has been excitedly anticipating the start of kindergarten for at least six months, so when the big day finally arrived she was ready to get going.

IMG_0075_Rkindergarten

Mom, on the other hand, was not as prepared. I turned on the camera to take this picture of Raine outside her school and realized that the battery was dead. Fortunately, I brought a second camera and so was able to get a picture before she lost all patience and headed to class.

Once inside, she sat right down and got to work storing her new school supplies in the table-caddy. I stood there trying to get the settings right on the back-up camera in order to take a photo with Mrs. Boegner. But alas, this was all I got before it was time for parents to get out so they could get down to the business of kindergarten.

IMG_0078_class

Raine is going to love kindergarten. I have no doubt that we made the right decision in starting her a year earlier at a private school. It will be fun to see her learn and be challenged academically this year!

Daddy’s 36th birthday

We celebrated Daddy’s birthday a couple days early, while Grandma and Grandpa were here. Unfortunately, I did a terrible job of photographing the event and these are the only good ones I got. I guess we were just having too much fun to capture in pixels!

20130810_2138_RCDbday

20130810_2144_Cpinata

20130810_2147_Rpinata

20130810_2154_Cdino

Grandma/pa Dewey’s quick visit

Grandma and Grandpa (aka Elder and Sister) Dewey came for a quick visit this weekend to see Daddy sustained as the new bishop of our ward.

20130811_2167_family_sm

Between school shopping, kindergarten open house, and Daddy working all weekend, we didn’t have a whole lot of time for fun, but we managed to squeeze in a trip to the American Airlines Museum on Friday.

2013-08-09_AAmuseum

The kids loved the legos.

2013-08-09_RClegos

2013-08-09_Clegocar

This is the lego car that Carter made. He put it in front of the green screen, took a photo, selected a background scene, and gave it a name. Then it emailed the photo to us. Pretty neat!

C_lego

Carter was asleep when Grandma and Grandpa left but Raine was there to say good-bye.

20130811_2176_GmapaDewey

It was a quick trip, but we were happy to have them come!

Raine’s loosing teeth

Raine lost her first tooth August 7.

20130807_2133_Rtooth

That night, she left it for the tooth fairy on a shelf above her pillow and awoke to find THREE dollars in its place!

20130808_2134_Rmoney

The tooth fairy has since learned that, although inflation has increased the value of teeth from the 75 cents she received as a kid, it has not increased to three dollars. In her defense, the tooth fairy inadvertently fell asleep prior to making the exchange and was a little out-of-it when she jerked awake at 5:00 am fearing that she would fail her first opportunity to serve in this role. She was also feeling a little generous since this tooth saved the fairy $149 — the price quoted by the dentist to pull it out at 8:30 am that very morning, August 8.

Instead, the dentist just pulled Raine’s other bottom-front tooth for half the original quoted price! (You can see the permanent tooth half grown-in there behind the first one, that is why the extraction was scheduled for both teeth.) The tooth fairy’s dear husband took care of the exchange of the second tooth and again left three dollars, so we may now be locked into that rate . . . we’ll see how well she remembers when it comes time to do it again.

Hopefully Raine won’t be loosing too many more teeth anytime soon. Four-years-old is quite young to be loosing baby teeth — the pediatric dentist we went to said this was definitely one of the earliest he has seen. I think Raine just wants to make sure she fits-in when she starts Kindergarten next week!

Here are those two bottom teeth first coming in on March 20, 2009:

IMG_0607_teeth_2

Northern California – Days 7 – 8

We spent Tuesday sight-seeing in San Francisco. It all started with a Duck tour.

20130730_2022_Rduck_mirror

The captain told us to blow our wacky quackers at everybody we passed; Raine took it to heart and was quacking just about the entire time we drove through the streets!

20130730_2010_RDCtour

We passed all the must-see landmarks in town and our driver had all sorts of interesting stories about them. It was a really fun way to see the city — weaving through traffic in our big ‘ole amphibious vehicle! Here is a random assortment of photos from the tour:

San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park

20130730_2014_bay

Two America’s Cup boats out for a practice run in the bay

20130730_2015_Americascupships

Chinatown

20130730_2020_chinatown

Dewey Monument in Union Square

IMG_0020_deweymonument

AT&T Park from McCovey Cove

IMG_0029_ATTpark

Raine took a turn driving the “boat” around a couple giant ships.

IMG_0030_Rdriving

Bay Bridge

IMG_0036_baybridge

After our tour we had lunch at Fisherman’s Wharf and then continued down Jefferson St.

20130730_2036_Rbear

We walked out the Hyde Street Pier to see the ships at the National Park.

20130730_2042_tugboat

20130730_2045_ship

Then for the real reason we came to San Francisco!

20130730_2048_ghirardelli

Our tour captain told us how to make the most of our visit to Ghirardelli Square by visiting each of the stores, thus maximizing the number of free squares you receive — brilliant!! We stopped for a little ice cream too.

20130730_2051_Ricecream

20130730_2055_Cicecream

20130730_2056_cocoa

What a tasty place!

20130730_2062_Rfountain

After satisfying our need for chocolate, we headed back down to Pier 39.

20130730_2088_pier39

First stop: the sea lions.

20130730_2065_sealions

Carter loved watching the sea lions play “King of the Mountain” and push each other into the water.

20130730_2067_Cmonkey

Next stop: the carousel.

20130730_2072_Rcarousel

20130730_2074_Ccarousel

We took in the view from the end of the pier . . .

20130730_2095_Cbay

. . . and played on the hitching posts until Carter fell asleep.

20130730_2097_RChitch

Daddy carried Carter as he snoozed through our souvenir shopping. Then, we made our way back to the car, via the Boudin bakery. We decided to drive to a few more sights; the first destination was Lombard Street. As our tour captain said, this street used to be the most crooked street in America, however, it was recently surpassed by Wall Street!! Ha ha ha!

20130730_2100_lombardst

Next we headed up Telegraph Hill to the Coit Tower. Here is a view of Lombard St from the top of the hill.

IMG_0044_lombardhill

Raine in front of Coit Tower

20130730_2107_Rtower

Alcatraz from Telegraph Hill

IMG_0048_alcatraz

Wednesday we packed up, played some ball at the hotel, and flew home.

20130731_2129_RCball

What a GREAT vacation!

Northern California – Days 5 – 6

Sunday and Monday there wasn’t a whole lot going on. After church we just hung around the house.

The kids performed their “show” for us. They had been working on it for days. If you asked Raine, it was a mermaid show; if you asked Logan, it was a ninja show. Carter and Carson were the dogs, of course.

20130728_1978_show_sm

Carter and Addy eating popcorn.

20130728_1977_CApopcorn

This little doll was my best friend. She would climb on my lap and want to play with whatever “toy” I had in my hands — especially the camera.

20130728_1980_Addy_sm

Aunt Sara

20130728_1981_Sara

Monday morning we packed up while the kids played. At some point, Raine took the camera upstairs to capture some photos of the cousins. They were mostly extreme close-ups!

IMG_0007_AL

IMG_0010_Addy

IMG_0013_Logan

IMG_0016_C

The whole group, one last time before we parted.

20130729_1990_everyone_med

We headed south, back through the redwoods and the Avenue of the Giants, to San Francisco.

20130729_1993_Rtree

20130729_1999_R_sm

20130729_2003_C_sm

Northern California – Day 4

Saturday was our beach day.

20130727_1960_collegecove

We made our way to College Cove at low tide and set out to explore the tide pools.

20130727_1943_tidepools

Aunt Sara, Logan, and Raine found all sorts of fun creatures hidden among the rocks — sea shells, sea anemones, crabs, and . . .

20130727_1945_RLStidepools

sea stars!

20130727_1948_seastar_sm

20130727_1951_RLseastar_sm

20130727_1953_seastar

Carter liked throwing rocks. It was Daddy’s job to make sure he didn’t fall in while he was doing it!

20130727_1956_DCrocks

20130727_1954_Cseastar

Once the tide started coming back in we headed back to the beach to play — although, not before a big wave came up and soaked us!

20130727_1962_beach

It’s not hard to tell who’s from hot Texas and who’s from cool Oregon!

20130727_1966_Cbeach_sm

Before we started back up the hill to our car, we stopped at a little tree swing to give everyone a turn to swing.

20130727_1971_Rswing

20130727_1975_Cswing_sm

We drove into Eureka with the intent of going crab fishing, but it didn’t pan out so we took in some of the sights instead, like the Carson Mansion:

IMG_0002_CarsonMansion

At Eureka Bay we watched the seals pop their heads out of the water.

IMG_0003_EurekaBay

We even came across a turkey out for a stroll.

IMG_0005_turkey

Northern California is a really “interesting” place. The people are . . . well . . . earthy! Everything in the stores is organic and sustainably grown. We’ve seen more dreadlocks in our few days here than I’ve seen in my entire life. Not to mention the incredible number of drifters making their way around the area with all their earthly possessions on their backs. There is certainly no shortage of people roaming the streets as high as a kite. On our way back from the forest the other day we passed a pipe circle on the side of the freeway. There were no visible cars, bikes or other modes of transportation, just several individuals sitting in a circle in the grass along the freeway, in the middle of the forest, passing around something that I suspect was less than legal. Yes, it is definitely a different world up here.

Northern California – Day 3

Friday morning the kids awoke to find their cousins had arrived during the night. (Actually, it wasn’t a surprise to Raine. She woke up at 2:00 am, when they arrived, and talked off Uncle Daryn’s ear for a good 15 minutes before I was awake enough to realize that that little voice I was hearing belonged to Raine!)

After breakfast, we drove into Redwood National Park. Our first stop was the Lady Bird Johnson Grove trail.

20130726_1910_cousins_sm
Logan, Carson, Carter, & Raine

Hiking buddies.

20130726_1912_RLogan_sm

Many of the trees were hollowed out by fire, they looked like little tree houses ready for exploring.

20130726_1914_cousins_sm

It is impossible to capture the enormity of these trees . . . but I tried. Here is another photo-stitched panorama of the trees.

20130726_1919_trees_sm

After our hike, we drove up the road to Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. Along the way, we saw a herd of Roosevelt Elk eating lunch on the side of the road.

20130726_1921_elk_sm

20130726_1925_elk

We had lunch on Gold Bluff Beach, right next to another herd of elk.

IMG_9983_kidsBeach_sm

Our next hike took us into Fern Canyon. It was AMAZING!

IMG_9992_FernCanyon_sm

We hiked along the creek bed, surrounded by 30-foot walls of lush green ferns.

IMG_9995_canyonWall

IMG_9997_waterfall_sm

The little creek was full of fish fry.

IMG_9996_fish_sm

The hike was a bit challenging for our little ones. We were constantly crossing the creek and scaling giant fallen tree trunks. The kids loved it (and no one fell in) but eventually we got stopped by a series of fallen trees that we couldn’t quite conquer and decided to turn around. It was a beautiful hike!

IMG_9994_RCferns_sm

IMG_9987_family2_sm

On our way back down to Arcata, we stopped at Patrick’s Point State Park. The fog was rolling in and it made for quite the ambiance as the waves crashed against the jagged rocks below.

20130726_1926_PatricksPoint_sm

20130726_1931_Rhiking_sm

20130726_1933_family2_sm

20130726_1938_everyone_sm
Uncle Daryn, Logan, Aunt Sara, Adelyn, Raine, Carson, Daddy, Carter, Momma

I love this shot. There is a little orange sea star clinging to the rock.

20130726_1941_SeaStar

We stopped for dinner at a little restaurant in Trinidad and had some delicious clam chowder and fish and chips. Then the kids proceeded to play at the house until almost 11:00 when we finally made them go to bed! I don’t know how Raine and Carter stayed up that late, it was well after mid-night in Texas.

Northern California — Days 1 – 2

July 24 – 31 was our family vacation to Northern California. We had been looking forward to this trip for months. When the day finally arrived, we excitedly boarded the plane and flew off to sunny San Francisco.

20130724_1840_driveSF_sm

The first two days were mainly travel days. After landing, we picked up our rental car and headed north.

20130724_1833_driveGG

We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge . . .

20130724_1838_driveGG_sm

. . . and then headed out to the Pacific Coast Highway.

20130724_1843_drivePCHwy

The views were stunning.

20130724_1846_driveCoast_sm

It was a little cooler than when we left Texas!

20130724_1852_RCcoast_sm

As we drove toward our hotel in Sebastopol, we stopped to pick some of the blackberries that were growing like weeds along the side of the road. They were delicious!

20130724_1861_Dblackberries_sm

The city map provided by the hotel listed a “super playground” in the city park, so the next morning we stopped on our way out of town.

20130725_1865_Cmonkeybars_sm

20130725_1876_Rplayground_sm

20130725_1872_Cplayground_sm

After burning off a little energy, we hopped on the 101 and headed north through the vineyards, into the redwoods. Raine told us before we left that she wanted to drive through a tree, so we stopped at Drive-Thru Tree Park to fulfill that wish.

20130725_1880_tree_sm

This tree was gigantic. I had to take three photos of it and then stitch them together in order to capture all of it. The sign says it is 315 feet tall by 21 feet wide with a maximum age of 2400 years.

20130725_1889_DRCdriveThruTree_sm

The opening is six-feet wide by six-feet nine-inches tall. Our small SUV barely fit through the opening. Raine loved it! She stuck her hand out the window and touched the tree while we were driving through.

20130725_1904_Rtouchtree_sm

There were plenty of trees to climb on as we hiked around the area.

20130725_1891_Rtree_sm

20130725_1883_Ctree_sm

20130725_1900_RCtree_sm

20130725_1896_family_sm

After leaving, we hopped back on the Redwood Highway and drove along the Avenue of the Giants . . . it was spectacular, but impossible to capture with a photo.

20130725_1886_sign