Travel Town

Creed was so delighted with himself that he was sitting on this little bench. He is still not walking, it is so weird. He knows he can get where he wants by crawling. Creed had RSV and dual ear infections last week. Obviously he is recovering well, but he was pretty sick for a couple days.
Mom, we never get to run on train tracks! this is awesome! savvy said. She had bronchitis last week! I felt so bad because I totally was bugged when the school called and said "your daughter threw up at recess" I told Mike, that's because she was coughing! She just has a cough! And I sent her back to school the next day! The next day I had Creed's one year check-up and a follow up appointment for Cole so I decided to bring her in as well. I told the dr, she just has a cough, he was like let me listen. Yup, it's bronchitis. Bad mom!!

Check out those wheels

We had to get a couple things from Ikea last week, so we decided to stop by Travel town. Cole absolutely LOVES this place. The whole way home he was asking us who we liked better, Percy or Gordon, Thomas or blah blah. I can't remember all their names, but he can.

Zoo Day!

Mike, working his daddy magic getting Creed to sleep
Beautiful Santa Barbara
They look like newly weds, huh :) So cute

Nana and baby Creed
Creed LOVED the penguins!



We loved having John and Donna here for Creed's birthday! We spent Friday at the zoo, it was a gorgeous day.

Happy 1st Birthday Creed!

Happy Birthday little man, we love you so much!
He isn't doing too well with whole milk. He throws it up a lot and got these rashes around his mouth when I started giving it to him. So we are going to try Soy milk.

Thanks for the laptop Nana!
Staring at his balloon
My cute little guy
Do you want some?
he was so confused as to what we wanted him to do with it. I don't know why, he usually LOVES making messes
Yuck he was not too impressed
The kids wanted to help him blow out the candles

Happy birthday baby Creed! You are not a baby anymore, you are a toddler. Although I will still refer to you as a baby until you start to actually toddle. How funny is it that the more kids you have, the less of a 1st birthday you have? With Savannah we had pizza, balloons, a pool party, cake, ice cream, and presents. With Cole it was like dinner, cake, ice cream and presents. With Creed it was like OH yeah, it's his birthday, come over and have cake!! Wonder what happens with baby 4, I draw the line at no cake.

Little Miss Integrity

Savannah is such an amazing girl, we love watching her grow up and learn new things. Yesterday we went on a drive and saw a rainbow. On the way home we saw a deer off the freeway. Savannah goes "Oh my gosh, this is my lucky day! I saw a rainbow and a deer in the same day!" the next sentence she goes "I wish we could shoot it". Mike was so proud. I was just curious as to why she wanted to shoot it so I asked. "then we could keep the meat in the freezer and put the head on the wall". OK she is definitely a daddy's girl.
I love how all the other kids are holding theirs out but Savannah is just looking at it.
Going up to accept her award
It was red shirt day, crazy hat day, and 100 day at school! It was a huge deal, Savannah had the best day.

To sweeten the deal- it came with a free kid's meal from our family's FAV burger place, the habit. We all love it. The other day we (actually I should say I since Mike was anti anything not the habit) decided to try out this new burger place called the Counter. Well on the way home COLE told us he didn't like that place and wanted to go get hamburgers from the OTHER place, the place that has yummier food called the habit. Mike turns to me and says SEE even a 3 year old gets it.
Savannah received an award at her school for having Integrity! We are so proud of her and love watching her grow and learn and really try to set a good example for others.

Tis the season for Camping!

There are some definite bonuses to living in Southern California. This posting is about just one. Camping! I have had an itch for awhile now to get out and enjoy the outdoors. While most of my family (sorry guys) are up in Utah braving the cold, I am enjoying the beautiful balmy weather down here in Cali. So the picture above is what I picture myself to be in about 50 years. The picture below is me last weekend. It's not really a picture of me, but it gives you an idea of what I did with some friends over the weekend.

Nicole got a phone call from Carinn who said she wanted to come and visit us. Apparently she doesn't like me too much because from what I gathered, she didn't want me around. So Nikki asked if I would like to go camping. Would I?!!! So I called up a buddy, who called up some buddies and before I knew it, we had a plan to go camping and shooting. So we drove up to the Antelope Valley to a place past Mojove, set up the tent trailer and had a great time. We did some shooting, .22 long rifles, multiple 12 gauges, 30-06, .45's, .40's, a couple 9mm's, and many more. Good times. Thanks Nikki for letting me go off and act like a cowboy.

So like I said, I am chomping at the bit to go camping. So far I have five campouts planned between now and the first weekend of June. I already turned down an offer to play softball with the guys this spring because I don't want it to get in the way of spending time with my family at the beach's. So below are pictures of the campgrounds or locations I have booked so far.

This is Carpinteria State Beach. It is a great little campground (Always Crowded) near Santa Barbara. Nikki and I are taking the kids this weekend and then we are going to the Santa Barbara Zoo on Saturday.

This is El Capitan State Beach. The campground is up on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. It is a larger campground with lots of trees for shade and privacy. The beach is supposed to be a great scuba/snorkeling location, so I'm sure we will be doing some spear fishing. We are going with a bunch of families from our Ward so it should be a great time.

This is Leo Carrillo State Beach. It's only about 20 minutes from our home so it's a great place to just get up and go to. Of course you can't really do that because you have to book your dates way in advance, but still a great place. Another great place for spear fishing.

This is Wheeler Gorge. A wooded campground up the canyon from Ventura past Ojai. It has a small stream that runs through it and lots of places for the kids to play. This (I think) is where we are having Fathers/Sons this spring. I took Cole last year and he had a blast. I'm still holding off on taking Creed. Maybe next year kid.

This is a picture of two lovers snorkeling in the waters just off Catalina. When I go, there will be no hand holding as it is just a group of guys going (cleverly named Mancation). There will however be lots and lots of dead fish as we are going to be doing some serious spear fishing. A friend of mine has even started a breathing program so that he can increase his ability to stay down under the water for longer periods as we are free diving. If you have never tried it, you need to. Spear fishing is a blast!

So we are going to be on Catalina for 3 days just fishing fishing fishing.

I'm sure that between now and June I'll find some more camping opportunites, but it's a good start I think.