Grandma and Grandpa Come to Play!

We have been so excited for Grandma and Grandpa Allen to come out and visit us! They got here Sunday evening and we completely wore them and us out! Most of these pictures are from one day but I will post more when I get some from their camera. Anyway, Wednesday we went to the Getty Center. It was such an amazing place! Here is our favorite fountain.

Another pic with the fountain. The only kind of bad thing about this place was Crew was seriously being red flagged everywhere he went. Not entirely kid friendly but it didn't help that he was touching paintings and throwing rocks in the gardens! Whose kid is that anyway?One of the highlights from the whole experience was taking the tram to and from. Crew loved it.

After the Getty we took them to Malibu to our favorite Zuma beach. It was pretty overcast and chilly when we first got there but after about a half hour the sun came out! Thank goodness! It was still a bit cool but a lot of fun.

Crew's new favorite thing is being buried in the sand.

He also still loves jumping the waves and just running in general on the beach.

Matt and Dave did some pretty intense body surfing! Check out this wave! It looks like a tsunami is coming!

After a few hours on the beach we went up to the nearby tide pools at Point Dume. It was really fun to find all the star fish and other sea life. Matt found this dead starfish. Poor guy!

Crew even got brave enough to touch the starfish.

The week went way too fast but we had a lot of fun! We love visitors especially grandmas and grandpas! Thanks Allens for such a great week!

Christian's Visit

Christian and his buddy Ben came over Sunday to spend a couple days with us. We loved having them! Sunday night Crew and I took them to the Observatory while Matt was at meetings. It was a fantastic night!


Crew actually asked me to take this picture of him with Einstein
We saw this hawk in a tree right by the Observatory! It was so beautiful

The boys

Monday we went to Chinatown and ate at Yang Chow's.

Crew was really good at eating his fruit snacks with his chop sticks

Christian ordered for us in Chinese which was really fun. It was pretty good but Christian swears the slippery shrimp was the best shrimp he has ever had. I will just take his word on that one.

Exploring Chinatown After Chinatown we hit Santa Monica beach. It was a great day and we did some serious sandcastle building!

Pretty impressive huh?

The boys showing off their muscles

Matt, Ben and Christian did some body surfing. Crew and I are all about jumping waves but the water is still pretty chilly to get totally in! Christian couldn't find his swimsuit so he had to borrow Matt's which was way too big! He tied Ben's shoelace around it to keep it up. He looked pretty funny with his hobosuit and could barely keep it on in the waves!

I look supper nasty in this picture, but check out these gorgeous purple trees in the background. They are everywhere right now and I love them! This was saying goodbye to the boys this morning. We really loved having them and miss them already!

Really, June?

June has started out as a wonderful month here in South Pasadena! It has rained at least four days and the other days have been in the 60's and 70's with cool cloudy mornings! I know that the heat is inching closer so we are really enjoying this fantastic June Gloom! Rain drops in the pool.

Crew riding his trike in the rain Another fun thing we've done is the L.A. Natural History Museum. Crew loved this place right from the start. Cool stairs are a great way to start any adventure!

Crew and his buddy Kate in front of the Dinosaur bones

Welcome Home Elder

Let me begin by apologizing for the super long post. Matt told me after I had just downloaded the last pictures that I should do a bunch of short posts so I don't overwhelm our readers. But by then it was way too late so for all you who are getting overwhelmed just reading this I am sorry and will do better next time!

Anyway, hooray Christian is home! We had a really fun week last week and I have lots of shots to show you. We must begin at the airport. My mom had shirts made and everyone who came to the airport was wearing one. We got a lot of attention from other travelers. Some thought it was an adoption, others thought military service, but when we would tell people why we were there they all were impressed with our mormon missionaries! Christian's flight landed a little after 5:30 and the anticipation watching for him was killer! Here is Crew watching through the window.
After what seemed like forever, we saw him coming. I love this picture of my parents faces when they could first see Christian coming. There were a lot of tears, but they were tears of joy and gratitude!

This is the crowd that greeted Christian at the airport

Our family together again. Christian looked taller but he was really just skinnier if you can believe it! Still 6"4' just maybe only 140lbs!

Christian was not sure what to do with himself once he got home so we tried to plan lots of activities. He and I took the boys to feed the horses once morning.
We also all went bowling. This was a hit especially with the little ones.
Crew was hilarious bowling. He would do his awkward run with the ball up to the lane and throw it then strut back with the biggest grin on his face! Thanks to bumpers he scored 60 and 75 points in his games! He also entertained us with break-dancing to the music when he wasn't bowling. What a funny kid.

It was great to have Christian get to know our boys again. Parker was especially fond of Christian.

We also did lots of swimming

Jumping off the diving board
Do you think the goggles were a little tight?

The lines did fade after about an hour!

Crew wanted to jump on the tramp every minute of every day! Luckily after swimming it wasn't quite so sweltering hot!

Big Surf was another highlight of the trip. The kids loved it and let's be honest, so did the adults! We loved having some of the Allens join us at Big Surf. Michael changed his flight to New York just so he could surf a couple hours! What these boys will do to surf! This is Becky with Bella

Buffy and Becky with the girls

Cam catching a wave

Crew catching a wave

Christian did a great job on his homecoming talk Sunday but unfortunately, my parents ward isn't till 1:30 so we had to take family picture before Bishop was done with his duties to get to the airport on time. Don't worry though, we got a picture of grandpa in similar lighting so he can be photo-shopped in!

It was a really fun week and so much fun to have the boy home from Taiwan!