Great Day

Is it bad to let your daughter miss school to go get her ears pierced? Right after spring break?

Let's just say I had my reasons and Lauren coming was one of them. I tried to capture the cute hair Lauren did before leaving..

Lauren was a Kate hog the whole time as you can tell.

Syd was so brave! This pic is not posed. And she doesn't have to go to the bathroom. She is about to cry, because they were hurting(about 5 minutes after).

I love memories like this. Sydney's ears pierced. 9 1/2. Spring of 2010. With Lauren. :)

Conversation on the way to elementary school

Sydney: So Heather, did you think about our business? I brought the notebook with some ideas.

Heather: Ok. What?

Sydney: It's called -Your Little Puff Ball. We charge $4 an hour. That would be $2 for me and $2 for you. We walk their dog, or groom it.

Erin: Uh, I don't know if you could groom it guys. That's pretty hard to cut a dog's hair.

Sydney: Yes we could mom. Oh and we'll wash them too.

Heather: My dad said it was too much. He said we have to charge $2 an hour.

Sydney: No way. I'm not charging $2

Heather: OK

Erin: What about $3 an hour? Then you could each have $1.50

Sydney: No mom, we're not doing 50s.

Heather: Oh, my dad says we can't buy a house for them to play in, that it's too much.

Sydney: Not a REAL house. Just like those playhouses at Festival of Trees. Like a shed. (those houses were about $1500 custom built dream playhouses)

Heather: Yeah that would be perfect. That would be easy.

Sydney: We'd have to probably work 2 hours a day though to buy one of those.

Heather: We could take our dogs on the walks too.

Sydney: Yeah.

These are so darn lifelike sometimes.

And Now the Pictures..

So here is the house we settled on. We think we can be happy here. Do you like it? JK JK!!! We totally cannot afford this little beauty. Would be cool though huh?

Kate and me on Rodeo Drive. We kind of liked hanging out together each day. She really liked it as you can tell. I asked a German tourist to take this picture. I have maybe 6 just like it. Kate and me on the swings at the beach...Kate and me on a walk...Kate and me in the hotel...Kate and me at lunch.... bffs
The girls with Jay.
Kate with cousin Bryan. How cute is this picture? Bryan is a sweetheart and loved Kate.
Aunt Darcy with Katie and my girls before she sacrificed her whole day to stand in line for hours and sit in the back of the American Idol theatre while the girls got to be in the front.

Trip Summary

We did not go to Disneyland.

We did not go to Universal Studios.

We did not go to a museum.

We did go to the beach.

We did go see "Last Song" with Julianne. Too bad for Miley that her boyfriend wasn't anything to write home about.

We were in an earthquake.

We got stuck in traffic.

The girls saw dolphins do an hourish jumping show yards from the beach they happened to be at. For free.

We found a great gelato, taco and omelette place. Ovbiously not the same place.

The girls went to American Idol front front row.

Babies like naps, even on vacations.

Babies like sand and random things in the sand. Especially in their mouths.

I lost and then found my keys, my credit card and my phone. All at different times.

I saw Paul McCartney.

Brett was interviewed by Jay Leno.

We got stuck in more traffic.

I saw 5 guys being handcuffed just outside my stopped-in-traffic car.

We missed our son. He makes life fun.

We bought boatloads of fruit at the swap meet.

Houses cost a lot of money in California.

I wanted to go home, I was glad I was there, I wanted to go home, I was glad I was there.

I didn't want to move, it will be fine to move, I didn't want to move, it will be fine to move.

Kate woke up a record 7 times a night with me feeding her the only way she wouldn't wake up anyone else.

Music listened to: Wings, Paul Simon Graceland (thought of the Keem), Aztec Camera, and more Wings.

Was stopped all of the time by people wanting to touch, talk to, smile at Kate.

Made it home late Friday night just in time to show our house at 10a.m. this morning. I didn't care though--I was just happy to be home, even if it was cleaning and doing laundry.

Next Year

Random Musing:

I just finished reading my friend's blog. She tells of her little shy son rigging the toilet fill tube on April Fool's day. He put it just under the lid facing out, so that when the water rushes through it to fill the tank, it instead shoots water outward and soaks whoever is, well, uh, using the toilet. The cool thing was that they happened to have the missionaries over for dinner and by the time they realized that and ran to the bathroom to warn the missionary, they heard the flush. They were too late.

What a great story! So here's the musing. I decided just now that I like and I mean really like anyone who takes the time to prank people on April Fools Day. What's not to like about people who don't take life too seriously and have a little fun once a year?

We have a neighbor, who I'll just call Ray or maybe Raymond to protect his identity. This is a man with 7 children in his 50's and is a respectable scientist kind of guy. Not just kind of guy..ok, he IS a scientist. Let's just clarify that. He is a disciplined, rule following, trustworthy, hardworking man. Once a year, on April Fools, he fools a LOT of people. You just don't expect whatever prank he is going to pull.

One year, he put a for sale sign in his yard, which shocked everyone, because people just don't move out of this neighborhood very often. The next year (and this is the one I thought was the best), he sent out an email to everyone in the neighborhood supposedly from his wife, Laurie, announcing that at age 50, she was pregnant with their 8th. It was so classic as he used words like, the Lord has blessed us once again...I can't wait to experience it one more time.... Oh man, that was funny. The next year, while I was serving as Young Women's President, I get an email from Elder Holland explaining that they needed strong women such as myself to come to church headquarters and be on some board to help the brethren decide some youth issues...something like that. Those pranks made Ray go up about 5 notches on my cool-o-meter.

So this year, Brett and I were in L.A. and our kids were here in Utah. All we could think to do was to call Maddie and tell her as seriously as we could that we decided to move to this semi-scary area that she knew about and that we just had a super strong feeling that is where we were supposed to live. Did she trust us as parents? You could have driven a semi truck through the pause on her end. Well, do you trust us? She finally quietly said, Yes I trust you. When I finally told her April Fools, I think she started crying. She was so relieved.

Now, that was pretty lame, I'll concede. I have just decided that I want to be more like my friend Ray and more like my friend's son(the toilet guy) on April Fools. Next year. Mark my words...

It's ok, it's ok...I'm alive.

Hey everyone! I was just in an earthquake! We are at Brett's brother's house in Newport Beach. We were all in the kitchen. I was walking and suddenly felt like I was on the tilt o whirl...a cruise ship in rough waters? It wasn't a shaking as much as a rolling, making everyone off balance. It lasted for about 20 seconds. We were all saying, "whoa. What is happening? I think this is an earthquake." We didn't know if we should duck, because it would get worse, or what. We didn't. We just stood there off balance.

Wow. An Earthquake. Memorable trip. I'd better go before we have an aftershock....