Day 2 (1/2/11) Dirty Car

This is what our poor car looked like after one week in the snow. Only problem is, when we returned home, it was raining so we couldn't wash it for another week.

Day 1 (1/1/11) St. George

So I decided to take the photo a day challenge to journal a year in the life of our family. Unfortunately, either my vision is worse than I thought, or my camera is worse than I thought because the pictures so far are blurry! Ugh! I can already tell my issues will be with posting the pictures.

Day 1 (1/1/11): Traveled from Matt's parents house in South Jordan to St. George, Utah. View from our hotel room at the Marriott and Matt & Jared relaxing after being cooped up in the car for hours.

Griffith Park Observatory

Since we were unable to go to our family reunion due to our kid's crazy schedules, we decided we would take a few day trips. Well those trips even had to be scrapped, but at least we got one trip in. We headed up to Griffith Park Observatory after a quick stop at the Citadel Outlets. It was an extremely smoggy day, but I guess that was to be expected.

Maelen, Jared & Kendall love to pose like any statue they are near. This is a monument of the following astronomer's: Hipparchus, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Herschel.

I'm not sure why, but we were wildly entertained by the kids making crazy faces between these two pillars.

I'm not sure what Jared is even doing here, but it sure captures his personaltiy.


The kids thought this should be their picture for our Christmas card this year. Too bad it is so smoggy you can barely see the Hollywood sign and Maelen has her sunglasses on. Oh well....we will wait until Maelen gets her braces off!!

Catalina

This past weekend we had the awesome opportunity to go to Catalina on our friend's yacht. Tom & Kelly Olds were kind enough to wait until Maelen returned home from camp so she could come along. Jared was off on a Scout campout, so he missed out. Eliot and Heidi Mason also came along with two of their kids, Ty & Aubrey. The yacht is 82 feet and beautiful from top to bottom. Here we are leaving Newport Beach.

The kids enjoyed the view from the top deck. They also were entertained by Captain Josh.

Here is the back of the boat. Stacy our housekeeper/cook/friend is waving at us.
This is Eliot showing Kelly, Tom, and Maelen his form on the mini golf course. Apparently this used to be very run down, but it has been redone and was really beautiful We had so much fun.
I took a picture of the kids in the theater at the casino before we were told that was not allowed. Apparently casino is an Italian word for entertainment. This particular one was built in 1929 and has a theater and a ballroom.
We took a golf cart tour of Avalon. Their were many beautiful homes and tons of nature to take in.
Here is the view from our bed. We had it shut at night to keep this riff raff out.
Here is the bedroom we stayed in.
Here is our bathroom.

Check out my mad photography skills taking a picture of Maelen jumping off the top of the boat. Wow. Way to capture the moment. Kendall made Matt go in with her and then we couldn't get him out. The water wasn't terribly warm, but it was sure clear and beautiful.


On the way home we cruised for quite a while so we could find dolphins. We lucked out and found two separate schools of dolphins. They were so fun and playful. They love to swim along side the boat and jump up over the waves to get to the boat.

What an incredible weekend! Even though we felt like we were still rocking all Saturday night, we would love to have the opportunity to do it again.

Jared - Part 2

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this. This is Jared's version of making his bed. To the untrained eye it may seem he is still in the bed! It never ceases to amaze me that my kid who is so responsible about getting assignments done not just on time, but early and also takes pride in the work he does, makes his bed in this haphazard manner. I guess some things are just not as important!!

The Month of Jared

This post makes it look like all our energies are focused on Jared! He just happens to have a lot going on this month. This Court of Honor was actually in May. Jared received his Tenderfoot and Second Class along with four merit badges. He is moving right along! He is enjoying scouts and wants to earn his Eagle by 14. I am all for that!


Jared also had a piano recital. It's all we can do to get him to practice, but I get the feeling he enjoys performing for an audience. He is a ham like his daddy. He managed to do quite well even though he wasn't able to get to his master class since he was in the middle of playoffs for baseball. Never a dull moment!


Jared also talked us into signing him up for Junior Lifeguards this summer. I always thought he would end up hating it because it is 3 1/2 hours EVERY DAY during the summer. We will see how that goes. The selling point is that he can earn 7 merit badges during the summer. He also has something to do for at least part of the day. The afternoons he still is running like wild with his friends. I don't know where he gets his engergy.


In Jared's GATE class this year, they did what the teacher calls a "Great Brain Project". They had certain topics to pick from and did a HUGE report including pictures and a project. She had it spread out over a few months so it was painless. Jared has always been good about getting his work done ahead of time. His project was the Roman Coliseum. He wanted to make a sculpture, but I talked him into painting since drawing and artwork are his thing. He had never painted before, but I think he did an amazing job! His teacher asked to keep the painting to show future classes. He thought that was pretty cool and quite an honor, however, we didn't have any pictures of it, so we went to his class room to take pictures.

Random.....

I was rushing around the house trying to get ready to take Jared to his game and this is what I found. I have to take pictures when my kids actually get along to prove that it really does happen. Maelen had a rare afternoon with nothing going on and Jared was just "patiently" waiting for me and decided to go have a chat with his big sis. I am probably glad I don't know what they are discussing.