Thank you Grandma

We are so lucky to have a Grandma that makes us COOL stuff. The girls have been sleeping with their new gear and Kaori's bag is full of junk....it's so heavy!

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.