We love Summer!

Matt finished up his winter semester and had a few days off then started his summer semester. We are really enjoying this "summer school" because his load is much lighter which means lots of play time! We have gone to Disneyland twice, our passes are blacked out starting in one week for the entire summer so we had to get our fill. The first time we were able to meet up with a bunch of friends: the Madsen family, the Copples, the Smiths, and the Matsons. Danny Matson grew up with Matt but this was my first time really getting to meet him and his sweet family. We had a blast. This is us with Danny and Jessica minus their FOUR kids! Yeah, we are seriously behind!

Notice Matt's corn dog? As with everything at Disneyland, they are amazing!

Crew loves Cars and was pretty excited about Lightening McQueen and Mater

Last weekend there was a surfing Expo in Ventura so we hit it up with the Adcox family. Well, Matt and Josh hit it up while Jamie and I played with the kiddos. It was a really fun day and great to explore somewhere new. The kids loved the pier and everyone who stopped to talk to us asked if these too were twins. It was pretty funny!

Crew and Zoie loved to peek through the cracks in the wood beams to see the water and we saw a lot of fun things from the pier. This is a dolphin, not a shark! We also saw a baby seal in the water and a huge crab scurry across the deck. It was very adventurous!

My sweet little boy

Disney part two was just our fam. We are really excited because we have finally convinced Crew that it is fun to sit on Dad's shoulders! Ah!!!! This is so much easier!

Crew always makes us ride the merry-go-round first but his other favorites are Buzz Lightyear, he loves shooting the guns and is getting pretty good...
Autopia is definitely a favorite! He is always asking me to drive our car so it is nice I can let him take control at Disneyland since he still has 14 years to go in the real world!

It is kind of nice to be a family of three so we all can fit in one car! Those three rides are musts but he loves lots of other little rides too.

Today we enjoyed a great day at Zuma beach. Crew was in heaven and should sleep great tonight!

Blowing bubbles

We are really going to make the most of these next four weeks! Oh, and still no more rats!

And does anyone remember this guy? Well, he gets home from his mission this Tuesday and we cannot wait! Crew and I are flying out that morning and I can barely stand it I am so excited to see my little bro! WhooHoo!!!! Welcome home Christian!

Allens vs. Rat

So, remember our cute little anniversary garden? Well, it has been through a lot the past couple weeks. About four days after we planted, all the leaves off most of our plants were gone! We thought a little girl in our complex snipped them all off because we saw her trimming other plants around the complex with scissors. So we nicely explained to the 8 year old after replanting, that "this is our garden and you can help us watch it grow." A few nights later, it happened again. So again, we had to replant but this time we weren't sure who would be picking on our pour little plants! Finally, it happened again, only this time the attackers just got most of the bottom leaves. Now we started to think that maybe this was an animal eating up our jalapenos, basil, and cilantro. So we asked the local garden guy what he thought and he said it was either a raccoon or a rat! We weren't sure how a raccoon would get into the complex so we set a rat trap. The first night Matt put peanut butter on the trap and the next morning it was licked clean but the trap was still set. So last night he put a piece of bacon on the trap. Matt got up early to go surf this morning and when I woke up I saw this sign in the bathroom.
Needless to say, the bacon worked! Minus some gruesome details, Matt disposed of the not so little culprit and felt pretty proud of himself! I was laughing so hard when I woke up to this sign but to be honest the rat should have at least four points! I guess it is the last point the really counts! We will see what we can catch tonight!

Few More Pics

Here are a few more pictures from our trip to Maren's that she took with her nice camera. This was our bikeride around Miramar Lake.

These are swimming at the pool

These boys look mean!My little fish
What a sweet face!

Back to the Fun

With everyone feeling good we are back at the fun and we had two really great weekends that I need to fill you in on. Two Saturdays ago we went down to Dana Point, which is about an hour from here, and spent a great afternoon with family and friends. Matt's cousins Jeff, Melanie, Kirsten and Aunt Nancy met us there for a few hours. Mel's little girl Sadie is so cute and she and Crew really enjoyed themselves at the beach. My camera batteries died before I could take pics of the rest of the clan, but Matt and Jeff surfed and we really enjoyed seeing them. Part two of the afternoon was with the Townsends/ Andrews. Wade and Cort ran in the L.A. Ragnar Race which ended in Dana Point so we got to spend a few hours catching up with the Andrews (Wade and Whitney were good friends in Provo) and visiting with the Townsends. It was a great day.

For our anniversary, Matt helped me start a garden. This is something we have been wanting to do for a while. He came home Thursday night with everything we needed so we got to work.

Crew was a great helper. We just have to hide the shovels now that things are planted so he doesn't uproot them all!

Ah, our little garden. Let's just hope the sun doesn't totally bake them on our patio! We are very excited about it.

Friday morning Crew and I left early and drove down to San Diego to meet Maren and my parents at Sea World! Crew and Carson were thrilled to see each other and other than one major melt down, it was a good day. Crew loved climbing the cargo nets and exploring the tunnels.

Parker is such a sweet kid! He has really developed a fun little personality and he really enjoyed watching Crew and Carson play. He will be by their side soon enough.

Crew's favorite thing, by far, is Shamu. He can't get enough of it! I must say that I agree.

After Sea World we went back to Maren's. My parents packed a cool little suitcase full of presents for the boys. Man are they spoiled! Luckily my dad finds fun little cheap things but the kids love them! Going through the loot!

Matt took the train down that afternoon and my parents and Maren watched the boy so Matt and I could go out for our anniversary. It was great to go out just the two of us and so nice to know Crew totally enjoying himself instead of wanting "mommy." Speaking of my little boy, my parents found these beanies that are still a little big for him but he wouldn't take this one off for most the morning on Saturday. Funny boy!

The boys doing what boys do

Saturday morning we went to Miramar Lake and let the boys ride bikes then fed the ducks.

After the lake we went to Chucky Cheese (I think that is how you spell it?) and that was a hit. Crew got pretty good at skee ball!

Grandpa was really good at skee ball!

Crew really enjoyed this place. It was his first time anywhere like that and it went over really well. We won 1200 tickets in two hours with $40 in tokens. I'm not totally sure who enjoyed this place more, the kids or the adults!

After Chucky Cheese we got some lunch at the Studio Dinner, which was totally delicious! Then we said goodbye to grandma and grandpa and spent the rest of the afternoon playing at Maren's and swimming in the pool. We left that night about 8 and Crew zonked the entire way home and the rest of the night. It was a great weekend and we love having family somewhat close by!

One more thing, we often go to the South Pasadena high school track on Sunday evenings with a bunch of families in our ward and let the kids burn out the rest of their Sunday energy. Crew picked up the long jump from some older kids there and it was quite the site. He runs the entire runway and jumps off one foot into the pit! All the pictures of him jumping turned out too blurry but it made his mama proud that he likes to long jump!