Spring Break

Eli's spring break was last week, so we went to Utah.  We drove all the way from Aberdeen to my brother's house in Logan in one day.  It was looong!  Eli doesn't recommend it. :-)

We originally were going to Utah because Eli said he wanted to see the prophet in person.  We thought it would be great to take him to a session of general conference.  Unfortunately, Josh's sister told us right before we got our tickets that you had to be eight or older to attend (most likely for reverence reasons, I guess).  We had no idea of the age restriction, but the LDS website confirmed what she said.  We decided to get the tickets for Josh and me and my parents.  After going to the session, I wish we wouldn't have known.  There were obviously kids there who weren't eight or older, and Eli is usually really reverent in church anyway.  I guess ignorance is bliss.

We did end up taking Eli to the tabernacle on Temple Square for the Sunday morning session.  He seemed to enjoy it.  My brother and his wife, who live in Salt Lake, then took Eli to their house for the afternoon session while Josh and I went with my parents to the conference center.  It was a great experience!  Unfortunately, we forgot the camera, so there are no pictures.  In fact, we didn't take any pictures the whole time we were in Salt Lake.  I think we were just so busy with general conference and visiting various family members that we didn't think about it.  We had a wonderful time though.

The Monday after conference, we traveled down to St. George to visit my family for the week.  We enjoyed some beautiful, sunny, warm weather.  I'm much more conscious of the weather now that I live in Aberdeen.  Can you tell by my blog posts? :-)  Right now the temperature is in the low 50s, and I'm wearing my warm slippers and a fleece jacket over a long-sleeved shirt.  Just a week ago I was wearing capris and flip flops, and the temperature was in the 80s.  I sorely miss my shorts/capris and flip flops.  I rarely get to wear them anymore, even in the summer, so I cherish the times when I get to. 

Eli gets spoiled by everyone when he goes to St. George, so he loves it!  Josh and I enjoy it too, of course, but Josh's visit was spoiled by either something he ate or a bug he picked up along the way.  He wasn't feeling too well for a couple of days.  I was so shocked that Eli and I didn't get sick.  We are usually the ones sick, and Josh doesn't get anything.  We lucked out this time.  Despite Josh getting sick, however, we had a great time picnicking and hiking in Zion National Park, going to the St. George children's museum, swimming at the rec center, playing kickball, and visiting Mountain Meadows and Pine Valley.  Here are some pics of the fun-filled week.

Eli got a fun little ball catching game from his Aunt Megan while he was up in Salt Lake, and here he is playing it in St. George with his Aunt Monica.

Here we are at Zion's at a little river before we went into the park.

We hiked the Observation Point via East Rim Trail hike.  It's near Weeping Rock.  It was a little strenuous, but the view was beautiful.

Eli with Aunt Monica

Here is Eli with Uncle Kendall.  This was at the children's museum.  They had a political/voting booth area.

This was the auto area of the museum.

This was Eli's favorite at the museum.  He could have stayed here all day. 

Experimenting with bubbles at the museum

Eli and Aunt Monica swimming

I get a kick out of this picture.  Poor Josh wasn't feeling well enough to go swimming.

Eli loves climbing!  Here he is at the rock climbing wall at the rec center.  He knows how to climb up that thing pretty well, and he does better than most kids his age.

This was at Zion's, but as you can see from above, it might be what he'll be doing when he gets older.  Scary!

This is at Mountain Meadows.

This was in Pine Valley.

Six Years Old!

My little boy keeps growing up.  Eli turned six a couple of days ago.  For past birthdays, we've just celebrated with family, but this year we threw him a birthday party where he invited his friends as well.  Wow!  It takes a lot of energy to plan, prepare, and put on a birthday party!  I'm glad I haven't been doing this every year.  I told him he can have another one in six more years. :-)

Eli wanted his birthday party to be lego-themed, so I've had nothing but legos on my brain for the past two weeks.  At least the kids had a blast.  They played lego games, built with legos, ate lego-shaped cake, etc.  And now Eli's stash of building/construction sets is quite large (at least in my opinion for one little boy).

Lego decorated snacks and birthday banner

I had this going a little differently in my mind, but it still turned out okay.

Josh and Eli helped decorate for the party.

Emmet from The Lego Movie.  Do you like our 12 year old TV?

In this game they had to pass the lego sculpture around and add a piece to it.  Music was playing while they did it, and when the music stopped, whoever was holding the lego sculpture was out.  You can see the lego toss game in the background against the wall.  That was another game that they played, trying to toss the lego piece into the lego head decorated jars or the bigger colored baskets.

The kids loved this one!  They had to suck through a straw to pick up the lego pieces and move them across the room.

Once the legos were on the other side, they had to see which team built the tallest tower.

This was the favor bag.  You can't really see in this picture, but the yellow buttermints had lego head faces drawn on them.  They also got to take home their own lego creations from another game in which they each had a bag of legos to build something.  Prizes were given to the most creative and best looking creations.

We had his birthday party this past Saturday, and his actual birthday was on Tuesday.  Tuesday was low-key in comparison to Saturday, but I did have a little bit of leftover unfrosted cake that I had put in the freezer.  I turned it into a miniature ice cream cake so that he had at least something on his actual birthday.  I think that's another reason why I don't like to do friend birthday parties.  They usually have to be held on Saturday in order for the kids to be able to come.  I like to do the celebrating on the actual birthday, so parties bother me a little.  I know, I'm weird.  I'm sure Eli didn't care one bit.  He had tons of fun!

This is the small cake he had on his actual birthday.

They gave him a birthday crown and sticker at school.

Here's a quick little birthday anecdote.  We were eating dinner, and Eli commented that now that he's six, he knows everything.  I laughed and said, "No, you don't."  He said, "Yes, I do, except I don't know what you're thinking."  Picking a random multiplication equation, I said, "You don't know what five times six is."  He was quiet for about 10 seconds.  Then he said, "thirty."  I stared at him.  Really?  I didn't think he knew that.  Both Josh and I had a good laugh over it, and Eli still thinks he knows everything. :-)

San Diego

Since Eli's mid-winter break was last week, and Josh's sister Megan and her husband Matt invited us to spend some time with them in their family condo in San Diego, we eagerly packed up and headed somewhere where we could get some vitamin D.  The weather was fantastic, even more so knowing that it was stormy and rainy in Aberdeen the whole time we were gone.  I know California is in the middle of a terrible drought, but I sure was grateful for it while I was there.  Now that we're back, I'd gladly send some rain down their way if I could. :-)

We had so much fun that Eli is now equating California with the Garden of Eden.  Last year we had a great time at Disneyland in March and then again in San Francisco in August.  This trip just solidified Eli's love of California because we have gotten such great weather and have had such a good time while we're there.  We mentioned that it might be fun to go to Hawaii some time, and Eli said, "No, I want to go to California again."  Hilarious!

Eli wanted to go to Legoland on this trip.  We took him out of school a couple of days before his break started because it was cheaper to fly on that day.  I'm glad we did because we were able to go to Legoland on a day with minimal crowds.  There was only one ride we had to stand in line for, but the rest were smooth sailing with short to no wait times.  It was a great amusement park for Eli because he doesn't like roller coasters and "scary" rides.  Older kids and adults going alone would probably not enjoy it very much, but it's great for younger kids, especially if they like legos as Eli does.  In fact, he has now decided he wants his birthday party in a month to be lego-themed.

Driving School was Eli's favorite ride.  He did this one first, and then he did it again, and he would have kept doing it if we hadn't told him he would never get to any other rides.  He even got his own "driver's license" at the end of it.

It's amazing what they can build out of legos.  They built various mini-versions of cities all over the United States.  Pictured here is San Francisco. 

We were in San Diego on Valentine's Day, so Matt and Megan generously watched Eli for us while we went to the San Diego temple that morning.  The temple was packed!  I guess a lot of people felt the temple was the best place to spend Valentine's Day.

We visited Historic Old Town San Diego, including the Mormon Battalion.  Eli enjoyed "panning for gold," listening to the "talking pictures" and other activities while he was there.  I enjoyed strolling around and seeing the historic sites (it was a beautiful day).  I've been to San Diego a few times, but it was the first time I went to Old Town.  

Eli got to try "washing his own clothes."  Behind is where he "panned for gold."

Later we went to Coronado with Matt and Megan and their twins.  We had planned to do a bike ride on one of those Surrey bikes, but much to Matt's chagrin, the twins weren't allowed to ride because of their age (younger than a year old).  Instead, we took a nice, leisurely stroll along the pier.

On Sunday after church we visited Josh's Grandma Rosie's old house and some family graves in a cemetery nearby.  Josh was actually born in San Diego but moved up to San Francisco by the time he was six months old.  However, he still has a lot of family history there.

We spent President's Day in Point Loma.  We toured the old lighthouse and Cabrillo National Monument.  Then we took a look at the tide pools nearby.  We also spent some time at Imperial beach outside the condo earlier that morning.  

I told Eli to put on his swim suit before going down to the beach, but he said the water was too cold and he would just play in the sand.  Obviously that didn't happen. :-)

Our last full day in California was spent at San Diego Zoo Safari Park.  We loved it!  I was surprised by how many birds they have there.  Eli loved the parrots and the lorikeets.  He was totally fascinated by the fact that parrots can mimic and got a great kick out of the bird show.  He also had a blast feeding the lorikeets.  They happened to be very hungry at the time we went, so he got quite a show as the birds tried to peck at my ear and my hair and tried biting Josh's finger.  I thought one had mistaken my hair for a nest and was going to make a permanent home on my head!  Of course, we also enjoyed the tram ride where we got to go around and look at all the African animals.  Eli's favorite animal is the giraffe. 

Toothless

 Eli lost his first baby tooth and obviously had a little bit of inner conflict doing so.  He has wanted a loose tooth like some of his friends for quite a while now.  When his bottom front tooth came loose a couple of weeks ago, he was so excited!  However, when the tooth finally came out as he was eating dinner one night, he started crying.  He didn't want to lose his tooth, he told me.  I could tell that it was one of those bittersweet moments where he's not sure whether he wants to grow up or not.  He's had a couple of those moments.  I've had many of those moments.  Life can be exciting and scary all at the same time.