I don't want to hear it!

You do not have to tell me I am a lousy blogger, I already know. But you are going to appreciate this one because not only did I post a photo journal of summer 2009 but I also included a video that is truly for your entertainment. I almost feel bad posting it because everytime we watch it, we laugh hysterically at our little girl who has been living in LA for a little too long. Enjoy... Hope everyone is doing well.

Of course, life would not go on in our house without our visits to the see the Princesses...my children will happily wait in the 10 hour line it takes to get to them. (Cole is in love with Jasmine!) However, trying to get them to sit through a 1 hour sacrament meeting on Sunday is almost cruel and unusual torture.

We had some visitors this summer...My brother and his kids, Maddy and Luke and cousin Lydia came to spend a week with us.

Seth came too! He flew all by himself...we picked him up at the airport and after a few days of nonstop entertainment, we sent him back home to Utah. Brian says if anybody needs a little break from their kids, just send them up...we would be happy to take them.  Brian just told me not to write that...people might think I am serious. 

The animals at the LA zoo are really friendly!  

Are you kidding me?!   The apple doesn't fall far from the tree in this family.  Hopefully he gets Brian's temperament too.



So this is my one and only picture that I got from going to the finals of So You Think You Can Dance at the Kodak Theater...the sign says no cameras!? What!?  And I was so excited to get a shot of me and Nigel...how disappointing. But what really ticked me off is when I got into the theater I found out everyone except me had smuggled their cameras in and where snapping shots left and right.

Ella learned how to swim this summer thanks to Tami!  She loves her green googles.

The next series of picture took place within a time span of about 2 hours.

Ella's end of the year Preschool Party.

Owen, one of Ella's best buds...don't be decieved by the cute faces.  They are Bonnie and Clyde when you turn your back.

How we do weddings here in California.  After the ceremony, everyone was invited to strip down to their swimsuits for some sweet volleyball.  Awesome!

Our summer gym class...Superkids.  Cole's favorite thing to do was swing on the rings and give no one else a turn.  It was awesome!

So You Think You Can Dance!

This year's dance recital theme was "Toyland."  Miss Cari went all out as she does every year...her opening speech was done in a full sized barbie box!....it was out of control.  Definitely a crazy week but so much fun.  I was so proud of my students and especially little Ella who thought she was the queen of the recital.  The kids were so happy...it was a great night.  Thanks to everyone who came and supported me.  Here are some of the pictures.  

The "Wind it Up" dolls

Backstage at dress rehearsal...Ella got to watch from the side and get out of the kid's room for a couple hours...200 hundred kids...those poor volunteers...usually to never volunteer again.

p.s. This is the first picture I think we actually look alike??


This is Ella and Bailey...she was a jump rope girl.  I love her!

This is me attempting to take a picture with Ella and Cole after the show.



The teacher dance this year was Pinnochio's I've Got No Strings.  I was a dutch puppet with Miss Sabrina, Miss Carina was the russian, Miss Courtney and Nastasha were the can can puppets and Miss Cari was of course Pinnochio.  We laughed so hard choreographing this dance...Cari was hysterical.  She is now 5 months pregnant...is that carma or what?!!!!  Ella got to be the fairy who turned her into a real boy.

By the way, in case you are wondering, this is the lipstick I wear on a daily basis....



Ella awaiting her big moment.

This was the boys Power Ranger break dance.  They are actually really good...the little one is so cute...his name is Dunkin and I want to take him home.  I told Brian I wanted to put Cole in something like this one day...pretty sure that's not happening.

The Rainbow Bright girls

Ella was a Jack-in-the-box this year.  I loved this class and the song.  I got it off Party like a Preschooler...so funny, you have to check it out.

ALASKA

I had the opportunity to do a Humanitarian trip to Alaska with the Air Force this March. It was a great trip. We sent medical teams of 8-12 people to a lot of the eskimo villages on the coast of the Bering Sea. It was a huge change in weather from southern CA to say the least. It hit 50 below with the windchill at times. We flew in black hawk helicopters...a couple of times the pilots would fly about 20 feet off the ground so they could follow the snowmobile trails because it was so hard to see from the blowing snow. We rode from the gym to the hangar in this cool looking cat track mobile. It could go surprisingly fast in really deep snow. I wanted to take it out for a test drive but of course they wouldn't let me. The medical team I was on consisted of a Navy Medical Doctor, Navy Nurse, Army Dentist, Air Force Dental Tech, an Air Force Optometry Tech and myself. We had a good team. We were able to treat a lot of patients that really needed some care. Some common themes regarding their vision: glaucoma, excess sun exposure problems, and lots of uncorrected near-sightedness. Most of the patients hadn't worn glasses for 5-10 years and when I checked their vision they were 20/400 without glasses. (20/400 is Extremely blurry) The village I was in was Newtok, they are Yupik eskimos. Most of what they eat they hunt themselves and almost all the women wore really cool fur coats that they would make themselves. One of the pictures below is a fur coat made entirely from squirrels. The other coat below has a fur hood made from fox, wolverine, and raccoon. Eating MRE's on the trip got old in a hurry. Although, one day out of nowhere I got a package of cherry nibs in an MRE, I could have sold them for good money but I like them too much and ate them all myself. The principal of the village school took the kids out at recess and made them chase the golf ball (colored black with a marker) he hit with a 3 wood. He liked giving the kids exercise. In the picture where I'm golfing I'm standing on about 6 feet of snow. The golf ball just rolled right on top of it. Although the principal had never golfed on a real course he had a pretty good swing. It was Muskox season while we were there. I had an emergency patient come in with a bleeding/black eye. She had just shot a muskox and scoped the heck out of herself. I told her I would fix it for her only if she let me take a picture of her muskox.

Ella's Big Haircut

We were wondering if this was a good idea when the whole next day Ella kept saying, "I don't like my hair...I want my old hair back." I kept reminding her that Snow White has a great bob.  I also told her that I used to get my hair cut when I was little and before I knew it, it would be long again.  The next morning she suddenly remembered what I told her...went straight for a mirror, looked in it with hope and finally said as she slumped her shoulders..."Still short." I don't think we will ever again be able to convince her to cut her hair.  I had to do it though...it was taking as long as mine to do in the morning...that's just not right.

Redondo Beach

Ella took a fieldtrip with her preschool to the Redondo Beach Pier last week. This is one of my favorite areas where we live...right next to the pier there is a farmer's market and a really nice park for the kids to play at. We got to play around for awhile before meeting everyone on the beach for lunch. All the kids brought kites to fly...even though we don't have seasons, we still like to celebrate them for those of you who are curious.




Cole was really excited about the whole kite flying business...he would get mesmerized by it and forget he was holding on to the end. I had to run after it like a fool a few times.




Cole loves the beach...I think this picture is so funny. He looks like he is just chillin




This is Ella's friend Natalie. They took turns holding our $1.00 kite from Target. These pictures make it look like I am a kite flying genius...turns out flying kites by the beach is really easy (no running involved)







Ella calls this thing the twisty turny. It is so funny to watch kids get on this...all you have to do is give it a little turn and it somehow goes faster and faster. They are always laughing as hard as they can and trying to hold on to it at the same time. This is them in action







People at the park call Cole Little Romeo. He is crazy about little girls his size. He can't get enough of them and will follow them around relentlessly trying to hug or kiss them. Most of them push him away and cry and then he starts to cry. I don't get it...he just loves them and won't give up. He is going to have a couple hard lessons to learn if he can't cut this habit. This little girl on this particular day happened to not mind all the attention. He was all over her...the only time I really had to intervene was when he went for the open mouth kiss. Her mother did not like that.