San Diego

Last week we tagged along on yet another of daddy's work trips....this time to nearby San Diego. We WERE going to come for the whole conference he attended, from Wednesday through Monday. Then we thought better of cramming all four of us into one hotel room for 6 days, with me trying to come up with things to entertain the kids while still maintaining a regular nap schedule for Alex, and so I brought the kids just for Saturday through Monday.

Here's the view from our hotel room looking toward the water.

The best part about the trip was our hotel. The room was small, but the view was fantastic! It was right off the water, within an EASY walk to the Seaport Village with lots of shops and restaurants and Avery's favorite, THE CAROUSEL!! We took some nice walks through the area, looking at the beautiful ocean, and rode the carousel TWICE. Alex loved it too.

This is the view from our hotel room looking the other direction, toward downtown.

The hotel had an awesome fitness area, complete with basketball court, volleyball court, tennis courts, horseshoes and shuffleboard. The kids loved to run and run, playing with the balls and other sporting equipment. What a blast!

The big touristy thing we did in San Diego was visit the USS Midway. It's a gi-normous aircraft carrier that you can explore. We got to climb in some of the planes and helicopters and see where people ate, slept, commanded the ship, etc. So cool.

I think we may have a pilot or two in our future...

Avery couldn't believe that the planes were ON the boat. Woah.

Recognize that famous kiss?

On the way home, we passed RIGHT BY the San Diego temple. I didn't realize how CLOSE to the freeway it was!! These photos were taken as we drove by.

Such a pretty temple. I'll have to go inside someday.

What a fun trip. I'm glad we went, but I'm also glad that we're done traveling for a while. This is the first year we'll be spending Thanksgiving and Christmas at home---for many reasons, but mostly so I can get some quality work done on my last step for my doctorate: the dreaded document. Wish me luck.

Sunday Posing

As I was getting the kiddos ready for church recently, I thought they both looked particularly adorable, so I got out the camera. What a cute boy in an adorable suit!

Sweet "smiling" girl wearing the flower clips I made. Oh yeah, and Daddy's old broken watch.

Darling siblings.

I'm glad I periodically record these moments, especially on a day like today when the kids have been driving me out of my mind!!! I'm sure most of the insanity has to do with my husband being gone for the last three days. Breathe....in and out.... Repeat this mantra: "I love my children. I love my children. I love my children."

I really do love them. You understand, right?

A KINK-y Weekend

I had the most fun these past three days. I was involved in a choir named Vox Society that was contracted to sing backup for Ray Davies, the lead singer of the 60's band, "The Kinks." You may know them from "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night." Apparently the Kinks have released a new album called the "Kinks Choral Collection" in which they arranged several of their hits for choral accompaniment. They came to the US to to a short tour (San Francisco, LA, NYC and Boston) and we got to be the choir for the 2 California concerts. Thursday morning we all got in a bus in Hollywood and drove 7 hours to San Francisco, stopped at the hotel for an hour, and then spent the rest of the night doing sound check and waiting for our turn to go on during the second half of the concert. Here are several of the 7 sopranos in our choir.

Friday we drove back home to Los Angeles, and then did the concert again on Saturday. Here's the view from the stage looking into the audience at sound check. I think the first picture was in San Francisco, and all the rest are in LA.
This is our amazing choral director, David Temple, who put this project together with Ray Davies, and whose choir recorded the cd they were promoting. He was so awesome---he rode in the bus with us from San Fran back to LA. We loved his typically English dry sense of humor and his adorable accent.
After the concert in LA we had a little "backstage afterparty" with the band and the managers and all that. PJ came to the concert, so he got to meet several choir members, band members, and the man himself, Ray. Here's a TERRIBLE photo of the group all together. You can kind of see Ray in the middle, and the tippy top of my head just to the left of center. This picture is a tiny bit brighter, but still not great. I'll have to steal some pictures from other choir members and post them later. You can see the drummer well in this one---the guy with the white shirt and tie. He was from Australia and was HILARIOUS to chat with backstage.

Here's a promotional picture of Ray, so you can see what he really looks like.

The music was surprisingly beautiful and really fun to sing. It was tricky to hear ourselves on stage, even with 4 monitors, because the band was really overpowering. Still, I think it sounded fantastic, (as our choir director would say) and the audience LOVED it.

The best part is that I am now officially a rock star!

Update: here is a recording of the concert in LA. More can be found on YouTube if you're interested

Halloween 2009

So......I'm finally getting around to posting about our Halloween activities.

Avery and I cut, baked, and decorated sugar cookies. It created a huge mess and I had to struggle hard not to yell from frustration sometimes while guiding a 3-yr-old through this activity, but it was fun regardless.

We went to a Halloween party with our playgroup where we decorated pumpkins with these awesome Mr. Pumpkin Head body pieces. One is a princess and the other a dracula (whose nose is unfortunately missing.)

PJ and Alex at the ward Trunk-or-Treat party: PJ was dressed as a cyclist and Alex as a pumpkin.

Here's a photo of Trick or Treating on Halloween night. We went to a street in our neighborhood with elaborately decorated houses. There was even a house belonging to a set designer that was AMAZING---a movie theater built onto the front of the house that was turned into a haunted house. There was a line stretching at least 6 houses down the street. We didn't try to wait with two tiny kiddos. Maybe some other year.

We found this awesome free Halloween party on the corner. It was thrown by a local church and so we let the kids run around and jump in the bouncy houses and get their faces painted.

The beautiful Princess in her castle

THE HAUL!!

We let the kiddos have some "trick or treats" that night and the next day, and then Avery picked out her 10 favorites and left the rest for the "Candy Fairy" to take away in exchange for a toy. This worked out perfectly!! I highly recommend it.

Wheatland With My FIRST Eternal Companion

After spending time in the Bay Area, I went with the kiddos up north past Sacramento to Wheatland, CA to visit my former mission companion Bethany and her family. We had the BEST time with them. Avery and Abby became bosom friends, and Alex played well with twins Liam and Lily.

Avery's favorite part was visiting Bethany's parents on their farm. Here's their horse.

Here's the playhouse--kid paradise!

Here are Bethany's adorable parents

Here are Bethany and Paul and their three kiddos

We did a little craft to kill time one day: I made these adorable flower clips for Avery's hair. Check out Bethany's craft blog for more details: mypaperpony.blogspot.com

Then I took Avery and Abby to the AWESOME pumpkin farm

Here's the petting zoo in the pumpkin farm---this is the Goatel 6

Brushing the goats

Riding the rocking horses while waiting for our train ride

The train! Blinding sun, apparently

Bestest friends

Back at Bethany's parents' house, riding the horsey swing

We LOVED spending time with Bethany and Paul! This is the first time we've lived in the same state, and yet I wish we lived closer!! If you're curious why I call her my first eternal companion, here's the reason. On the mission in Portugal (where Bethany, Paul and I all served together) Bethany and I were made mission companions not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES. This is virtually unheard of, so we called each other "eternal companions." Our husbands understand that they are seconds....but they're not the jealous types, so it's ok.

Bay Area Adventures

PJ had another work trip, this time in the Bay Area, and we were lucky enough to tag along. We had a NICE Residence Inn hotel in San Jose, which was great because of the kitchen and the two bedrooms and two bathrooms! I was able to keep Alex's nap schedule pretty consistent and we parents didn't have to hang out in the hallway while the kids were sleeping (which we've done on a number of occasions while traveling with kiddos and all staying in one room!)

While Peej was out recruiting high school students to come to USC Thornton School of Music, we visited friends and family in the area. First we went to the home of an Elder from my mission. They have two kiddos roughly the same age as my own, so they obviously had a ball playing with toys in the bedroom while we adults sat around and chatted. I know this picture looks like Brian and I have these four kiddos....but his wife was taking the photo and my husband was busy working. But we do make a cute family, right? ;-) Just kidding. Thanks, guys, for the photos, by the way. I love how Avery is "taking a picture" in the picture.
The next day we saw my grandma and my aunt Mary Lynne and her family in Saratoga. We played with the zillion beanie babies and other toys in my Grandma's house, and then ate a delicious spaghetti dinner with Mary Lynne and fam. Avery is becoming rather dramatic lately. The first thing she said when we walked into Mary Lynne's house was, "Oh where oh where will I ever find the playroom???" The playroom was subsequently found, dinner was made and eaten, and then we had a little musical performing---often a Hulme Family tradition.

We were lucky enough to visit with my parents' mission president's wife, Clo Barnes, the next day. She is like a surrogate grandma as well. She made us a yummy lunch and we played with her grandkid toys and talked about my parents when they were missionaries--how weird is that?!?

The next day we visited with my Aunt Kristine and her two boys living at home. Dinner was again delicious, and Avery discovered the toy basket right away! We overheard Ben's awesome saxophone lessons and caught up on everyone's going-ons. Don't ask me why she's trying to gouge her eye out...but everyone else looks fabulous!

We went to San Francisco the following day and checked out the Sea Lions on Pier 39. MAN were they LOUD and there were SO MANY OF THEM!!!I was surprised that the kids weren't afraid of the sea lions. They thought they were so cool.

From Pier 39 we could see Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge.

The fog was barely thin enough to be able to see them both.

We briefly hit Ghirardelli Square and sampled a bit of chocolate. Here is the ice cream shop where you can watch the machines that make the chocolate.

That evening we met up with my cousin Dan and his wife Diana for pizza. It was a little crazy trying to get our schedules to work together, but we had a great dinner even if it was a little rushed. Thanks for working us in your day, guys!

We headed up to Sacramento/Wheatland after the Bay Area....I'll continue in the next post.

Visiting the AZ Grandparents

September/October is the really busy travel season for PJ. So, when he had a 12-day trip to Baltimore and Texas planned, I decided to take the kiddos on a little road trip with me to Arizona to visit PJ's parents.

We drove all 9 hours in one day---and they did really well in the car. A lot of that was due to my awesome friends who lent me their portable DVD player for the trip! YES!

We played all week long with Grandma and Grandpa. We played in the playground at their apartment complex, we went swimming every day in their pool, and did fun kiddo things like going to the park, the library, the play place in the mall. The funny part about the trip was that we were with PJ's parents while he was with my parents.

Avery loved watching new DVD's like Madagascar 2 and old favorites like Fantasia. Alex amused himself by walking around the apartment holding a toy in each hand.

The weekend was spent watching as much of General Conference as we could (with the distraction of two children in a small apartment) and celebrating with Grandpa as he passed a big certification exam for his job. Hooray!

After a whole week with the grandparents, we drove to Phoenix, where we picked PJ up at the airport. We hit some rough construction traffic, but got home without incident.

We love that we live so close to
family now (by comparison, I suppose) and we look forward to many more trips to Arizona to visit the grandparents. Thanks so much for putting us up! We love you!!!