National Zoo

This is Evan's first zoo experience.

Except, I don't think he was as impressed by the animals as much as he was by the misting posts.
OK, when he was talking to the prairie dog, that was pretty cute.
But like I said, all he wanted to do was go back to the misting post.
Overall, we were pretty disappointed with the National Zoo. The Toledo Zoo is 100 times better. Represent on the T town.

Fun in San Diego

I had to photograph a wedding this past weekend in San Diego and so our family decided to make a weekend of it. We took the kids to Coronado Island the they had fun playing with the pigeons (remind you of anything us kids did a LONG time ago?) They had fun. We visited with Mike's grandparents and hung out with them.

After I photographed the wedding at the San Diego temple, Mike took me to La Jolla Cove (the SD temple is actually in La Jolla, CA). It is gorgeous there. I wish we were filthy rich and could live on the beach. :) Anyways, it was beautiful and if anyone wants to come visit, we can go.

My Cutie Pies

Lukie Boy is our handsome boy.

Victoria is our Sassy Pants.

Taylor is our Pretty Miss.

I took my kids to the Fashion Island mall in Newport Beach and they had a great time riding the carousel and the trains. We went with my friend Dawn and her son Cade. We had never been there before, but it is complete shopping bliss!! ( That is if you have lots of money to spend, but it was nice to pretend. :) )

Taylor and Victoria on the train.

Luke and Cade on the train.

Temple Trip

There was a Filipino cultural exhibit at the DC Temple. There was an etching of Evan and me. Evan was so fat when the artist took our picture. So was I, I'm just glad she slimmed me down for the piece.

Dad's testimony was also featured along with select others. These testimonies were showcased in the middle of the exhibit.

Evan was just interested in running around the temple grounds.

It was such a beautiful day to go to the temple. We were lucky not only with the weather, but also because it was the very last day of the exhibit. It was supposed to have been taken down last week, maybe they were just waiting for us to come see it.

Happy Burday

Even though it was Friday the 13th, I had a great birthday. It started off with breakfast in bed. Lysle woke Kaori up to make breakfast and she was in heaven. She would be telling Lysle, "Okay, honey, it's okay. " They made me an omelet, toast and pancakes with "dip". Kaori was very excited to butter my toast....can you tell?

Then for lunch a bunch of girls came over and we had like a potluck lunch thing. It was fun just to hang out with a bunch of girls for a couple of hours. After they left we had nap time and then we woke up and had some CAKE!



That evening Lysle and I went out to dinner for sushi. It was our first time to do sushi and I was completely lost on what to order. We ended up getting a combo dish with some sushi and some sashimi. It also came with a California roll, spiced tuna roll, and and roll with tempura shrimp in it. We also got a crunch roll, which was very good as well. We pretty much had a "safe" dinner...nothing too drastic. Sushi is one of those things that you can totally pig out on,but it feels "light". However, later...it hits ya.

Saturday night I went out with my friends to my favorite Mexican restaurant. I've got great friends here, I'm pretty lucky. It just sucks that I'm one of the "older" ones of the group. SWEET!

Who is this girl?

Ever since Kaori started to wear "big girl" underwear she has become more outgoing. It's so great to see. She was in swim lessons in June and was getting use to going under water right towards the last couple of days of the swim session. So I decided to put her in the July session as well. Today was her last day and she was this little girl who thought she was a "dolphin". (that's what she told me she was). She was jumping in and the instructor would let go of her arms and she would be moving her arms and kicking. She would come up for breath with this big smile and then go back under....it was great. Then she would get to the wall of the pool, look right at me and say, "Yeah! Look at me!".




Then yesterday Lysle took her outside and she figured out the tricycle. Well, she actually decided to move her legs. Notice the sunglasses....so cute.



And then there is Rori.....she is still my baby. Right on my lap, as always.

I Love My Zoo!

On Monday Enoch, Gabriel and I went to the Toledo Zoo. Gabriel's favorite was the aquarium where he got to see lots of fish. He also got to ride a turtle.



He also got to hatch out of an egg...



By the time we went home he was pretty tuckered out...


>

But not too tired to hit the pool and cool off. It hit about 95 degrees and it felt sooo nice to go for a dip...

4th of July in VA

This 4th of July we walked over to our neighborhood fireworks show. Evan got to ride his car, which he loves.

He got to watch from Dad's shoulders...
...but after a while got pretty restless.
This is the only shot I really got of the fireworks. I kept missing and taking shots of blackness.

Playing on the Freeway.

On June 23rd, we took the kids to play on the new 210 freeway.
This is something that most people don't get to do.

The county had a special event on the freeway, but there were so many people there
that we had to walk about 3 miles before we even got to the event. The kids just scooted
along on their scooter things all the way.

But, of course, Luke got honery because of the distance and heat.

One thing cool we found out is that Victoria loves to run. She said to Mike, "Daddy, can we race? I can run all the way there!" Mike was hesitant because we still had about 1 mile to go before we got there, but didn't want to discourage her, so he got on her scooter and she ran. The girl is FAST and can run like no other!! She didn't even get tired. She ran back to me and Luke afterward. Here is Victoria at the ending point at the entrance of the fair.

She always asks us if we can race with her. We never knew
that she could run like that. Girl's got endurance!

It was a good morning. The kids will never get to do anything like
this again. We are glad they had the opportunity to do so.

A Real SHOCK!!

Ok, so we totally thought that we were going to have a girl because we had that feeling like we always did with all of the other kids. Never wrong before, so when we went into the ultrasound and the tech told us that she was pretty sure that it was a boy. IT WAS A SHOCK!! We are excited and it will be good for Luke to have a buddy. The baby is still due on November 28th, but our babies always come early, so around Thanksgiving time. Hope all is well with you.

Do you want to pet my monkey?

Evan loves his monkey.
He really enjoys making him play the drum...











... taking him for a ride in his truck and
having him play the ABCs on the Phonics Bus















But most of all, he loves to give him kisses!

"I Did it!"

So last week I think I said "pee pee" and "poo poo" at least every 20 minutes. Along with some "damns". Of course, the latter was to myself for not cluing in. It seemed that every time I would be on the phone is when Kaori would decide to have an accident. One time, it was a trail of poop to the bathroom. That one was awesome. I would ask her seriously at least every 20 min., "do you need to go pee pee? are you sure? Please put pee pee in the potty." She was running around bare butt. It was so cute. You just wanted to pinch her cheeks all day! Well Lysle took her to Walmart and they came home with a tea set, since the Cinderella dress that was hanging up in the kitchen wasn't working. Well the next day, Thursday, the girl did it! She did it twice in a row. So she has her dishes and Cinderella dress. It's been pretty successful so far. No accidents. Yesterday, I was on the phone and she comes in and says, "Mom, there's a snake!" I'm like what the heck? She takes me to her potty and lifts the lid. "Look a snake! I did it!" To celebrate this miracle we had a potty party for her yesterday. It will be a celebration to remember. Rori is showing some interest as well, but I'm too lazy and love diapers. Anyway....life is okay now. Swimming lessons start up this week....yeah!

Our Big News!

Okay, so we don't really have any big news. There have been lots of exciting announcements lately (Congrats Mireille & Brett and yea for Evan walking!), but none for us. Life is happy and fun and that's good for right now. Gabriel is now learning to run, which gets a little rough when his feet get a little to far ahead of him. He loves going to Walbridge Park and playing on the jungle gym there. They have one w/ the meshy rubber floor which is nice for Gabriel's tumbles. Right now we're gearing up for fireworks on Tuesday. Gabriel was in awe of them last year, so here's hoping for no tears. Love you! Joy, Enoch & Gabriel