Visit from Chi Chi and Papa

My parents came out to California to visit us last weekend. It was my mom's birthday and the 4th of July, so we had plenty to celebrate. We had a crazy fun time with them and filled every hour. My mom doesn't like to be called Grandma, so she goes by "Chi Chi," which is the name she called herself (for Sherri) when she was a little kid.

We went to visit daddy at work at USC and saw his new office.

Then we took a tour of campus and made a special stop at the track where PJ and Avery trained for their races on Saturday....much more on that to follow.

I had a concert that night with the Southern California Mormon Choir. This was my "How Can I Keep From Singing" solo.

The next day we took a trip to Costco---always fun, but SUPER busy because it would be closed on the 4th of July. Here's my adorable mom who just turned 60 the day before!

Crazy kiddos

That afternoon we had a picnic at a park under the Hollywood Sign

Alex is just figuring out how to crawl over obstacles in his way.

Saturday we woke up bright and early to drive down to Huntington Beach for our races. PJ and I ran the 5K and Avery did the 1/2 mile. Here we are in the HUGE crowd of runners before the race.

Here's PJ rocking his race at just over 20 minutes.

Here I am finishing my race (with a little moral support from PJ) at 30 min 31 sec --a record for me.

Avery "running" her 1/2 mile with PJ keeping her on track the whole time.

Avery getting her MEDAL at the end of the race!

Some of the local celebrities: the NEW Miss California (after the whole craziness with the previous one...don't get me started), Miss Teen California, Miss USA and Miss Universe were all there. They were actually really nice and posed for pictures and signed autographs all morning.

Happy 4th of July!!!

Swimming party and barbecue at some friends' house later that afternoon.

We had the greatest time last weekend. Thanks, mom and dad, for making the effort to come and visit us!! We love and miss you.

Redondo Beach

We had a free Saturday this past weekend so we decided to escape the heat of the valley and head to the beach. Since we've only ever been to Santa Monica we decided to try another one. We headed south to Redondo Beach and spent a lovely afternoon there. The weather was perfect, the beach wasn't too crowded, and the water wasn't TOO cold. The kids and parents loved it.
We're trying to take advantage of what LA has to offer, because we never know what our future holds and how long we'll be here. I think we're doing a pretty good job so far. :-)

Hollywood Bowl & Rose for No Reason

I was in charge of our June date, so I decided we should go to the Hollywood Bowl to see the opening concert. It was a 10th Anniversary Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame Concert, with two new inductees: Kiri Te Kanawa (!!!) and Josh Groban. I had never seen either of them perform in concert, and they were both amazing.

We went with a group of friends from church and had a wonderful time. We brought plenty of snacks to pass around and share, and enjoyed a beautiful night under the stars. The finale with John Williams conducting Star Wars and coordinated fireworks was pretty spectacular as well. My photo of the stage didn't turn out too well, since we were sitting WAAAAAY up high, but you get the idea.


Here we are after the show finished (look at the clock! 11:30pm!) waiting for our bus to take us back to our car, which was parked at the zoo. And it WAS a zoo in that parking lot! I'm glad we didn't park at the Bowl.


PJ was going to get me a flower for the date, but couldn't find a perfect one. So the next day, he and Avery went shopping and came home with THIS! So gorgeous. The picture doesn't do it justice. I am one lucky lady.

Diving for Dinner

Alex likes to dive for his bites of food. It gets dangerous sometimes....but it's so funny.

Disneyland Revisited

Some friends of ours offered to get us into Disneyland FOR FREE! We couldn't pass up the opportunity to go back, even though it had only been a few weeks since our first time there.

We did both parks: Disneyland and Disney's California Adventures.

Here's a montage of the letters in front of California Adventures and if you look really closely you can see Avery posing in all the letters.

We hit our favorite rides first, like Finding Nemo and the Carousel and It's a Small World. We really lucked out with lines and never had to wait very long. Avery was so brave and even went on the Matterhorn!

Dumbo
Teacups

Toon Town

Goofy's playhouse

Giving the Sorceror's Apprentice Mickey a HUGE hug.

LITTLE EINSTEINS LIVE!!!

(Avery's absolute favorite show)

Conversations with Crush

An interactive show where audience members get to ask Crush the Turtle whatever questions they want. My favorite was when he named all 63 of his kids.

Near the end of the day: still smiling

Asleep before we even left the parking lot.

Talk about a long day! We got there at 8:30 am and left after 11:00 pm. The kids were awesome. The only time Avery freaked was at the fireworks---she doesn't like loud noises.

Other than that, we had an extremely successful day. We have to pinch ourselves every now and then to remind us that we LIVE here. Wow. Who knows if and when we'll be back, but we enjoyed getting to know Disneyland these past two trips.

Cute Kiddos

I have the cutest little kids in the world.

They take after their daddy
Maybe we should have a dozen more...

Jolly Jumper

This is mostly for the grandparents who want to see my bouncing baby boy.