California July 2012

Unexpectedly, we ended up having the Olsen Family Reunion in California this year. Normally we have it at Duck Creek by Cedar City, which I have loved, but of course I love my sunny California! The weather was so perfect, as always, not too hot and not too cold. The only downside was Sheldon being sick pretty much the whole trip. Sheldon has really bad timing when it comes to getting sick, but we still had a fun trip.

We were able to meet up with Sheldon's brother and his family for lunch and a trip to the park. The park was a really fun park, but absolutely no shade so the slides were all to hot to slide on.

 After the park we had to go cool down and have some ice cream at Farrell's. I had never been there but it was a crazy party place. It felt like the waiters were always singing, there was a lot of birthdays and they even sang to us when we finished our ice cream, even though we didn't really finish it.

Halle was getting a little tired at this point and not very happy as you can tell from her face.

 This is the 'trough' of ice cream we ordered. It was huge, but very delicious. We ordered cookie dough ice cream and Sheldon let me dig out all the chunks of cookie dough.

 If you finish your trough of ice cream they sing to you and make you hold your nose like a piggy, then they give you ribbons. We didn't come close to finishing our ice cream, but they were nice enough to sing to us and give the kids ribbons.

We got to go to the beach twice while in Cali. It took Halle a little bit to get used to the sand, she wouldn't even touch it at first. But after a little while she would dig and play. Tucker was in heaven running around and chasing seagulls and knocking over my sandcastles.

 I think I've posted on here about Sheldon's awesome power kite. It is so fun to fly but it wasn't quite windy enough at the beach.

 My awesome sand castle I built. Yeah, it's not very cool, but Tucker doesn't let you build very much before he wants to knock it over.

It is tradition to bury Tucker in the sand, he loves it. Maybe next time we will be able to bury Halle. Since she was just starting to play in the sand we didn't think it would be a good idea to bury her.

 Lots of fun at parks, the farmers market, and the pool at my parent's condo.

Although we couldn't make it to Disneyland, we did walk around Downtown Disney. The Lego Store is amazing of course and Tucker could have spent forever in there. I loved these muppet hats we found at one store. Tucker makes the funniest cheese faces sometimes.

We stayed at my Grandma Weather's house for 2 nights since it was closer to all the action and we didn't want to drive all the way back to my parents every night. Tucker and Halle loved all of my Grandma's stuffed animals.

I love this picture because it is cute of Tucker and Halle, but also because of Sheldon in the background blowing his nose. A Perfect example of what the trip was like for him, poor Sheldon.

The USS Iowa just came into port by my parents house. If you are from Iowa it is free for you to tour the ship! Not that I know many people from Iowa, but just in case. We had fun touring the ship and it learning its history since it sailed in WWII and other wars.

 For some reason I thought this picture was really funny. It's instructions on how to perform CPR and of course watch out for those loose dentures when performing CPR :)

This is the picture they take before you get on the ship. I love that it looks like Sheldon's head is getting blown off. And there's the condensed version of our trip, congratulations if you made it this far! It was lots of fun and we are counting down the days til the next reunion.

Summer Randomness

A few pictures and updates from our summer so far. Halle has finally started talking a lot just within the past week or two. Some words she says most often include hot and 'meme' which is how she says money. She also says please, thank you, love you (lolo), and she loves to say cheese now and smile. She is still very independent and now insists on helping put her diaper on, but at least she will throw the diaper away for me. Tucker is loving learning letters lately and he may turn out to be ambidextrous because he still uses both hands to write, although he is probably a little more dominant with his left hand. Sheldon has been loving playing soccer this summer and is doing great at getting back into shape. I cheer him on and talk about getting back into shape but have yet to do anything about it. The highlight of our summer was our trip to Cali a week ago, except for the fact that Sheldon was sick the whole time. Pictures from our trip in the next post!

We love swimming in the pool at our complex. Tucker is great at swimming around with his floatie and Halle loves jumping off the side and someone catching her. 

There are some friendly cats in our neighborhood and Halle always gets so excited to see them and screams with excitement. She is pretty good at petting them softly, except for occasionally pulling their tails. 

I love these pictures because Halle chose to eat fresh peas from Sheldon's parents garden instead of a Sugar cookie. Such a healthy little girl, don't worry, I ate her cookie for her.

Bath time fun! I love that they have so much fun in the bath together.

Very sad face, I can't remember why, probably because I wouldn't get her the camera.

More bath time fun. I guess there's a few more pictures of Halle in this post than of Tucker. Right now she just has so many funny faces, but we love Tucker too!

Halle - 17 months

About a month ago we took Halle for her 16 month appt. Of course all the doctors would do is look at her she would cry. She's just too smart and knows that shots are coming at the end.

Length: 31 in  71%

Weight: 21 lb 38%

Head: 19 in 95%

Does this girl have a big head or what? She has finally started talking more and still loves to climb on everything.  She is so independent and always has to dress herself and feed herself and of course very stubborn, but she definitely doesn't get that from me (haha). My mom visited a month ago and took this very cute picture of Halle.

updates...

I have no idea how May and June went by so fast, but here are a few fun things we have done the past month.

In May we went down to Salt Lake for a day with Sheldon's family. We had a lot of fun taking a quick tour of the conference center. Then we headed to the Church History Museum that has a fun children's area. It is really cute and I encourage you to check it out if you are ever in the area.

Halle loved the stuffed animals at the church history museum. This girl cannot get enough of anything soft and fuzzy or animals.

Tucker loves his cars and especially loved the boat that you could pretend to fish on.

We went to Thanksgiving Point Farm country one day with friends. It is really nice being so close to thanksgiving point, we've been considering getting a membership but haven't decided if we use it enough to make it worth it.

To celebrate my birthday I made cupcakes with the kids to deliver to our neighbors. Sheldon brought me home an awesome ice cream cake, yummy. Tucker and Halle are great helpers in the kitchen. Tucker will only eat the frosting off the cupcakes. Before I knew it he had secretly eaten the tops off three cupcakes, next time I should really just give him the frosting straight up.

Halle relaxing in her little lounge chair from Ikea. Her hair is often in her face because she pulls out her clips all the time. We bought this chair thinking Tucker would love it, but Halle has actually claimed it. She climbs all over it and uses it to get up on the couches and will actually sit in it to watch things with Tucker.

Halle loves reading stories, especially stories with animals. The other day we read a book with a picture of the baby crying and Halle pretended to cry.

We have been to Trafalga a few times and Sheldon decided to take Halle on one of the rides even though I'm sure she wasn't tall enough, but they still let her go on. I love her face in this picture even though she calmed down after the first drop and didn't seem to mind it too much. It looks like we torture our kids, but I promise we don't.