Monday...

Monday was kind of a bust.  Will and I had to attend a timeshare sales presentation which ended up taking 5 hours and the kids were stuck in the hotel room the whole time!  Would you believe we ended up buying a timeshare?!  (Post edit two weeks later: as soon as we got home we both had buyer's remorse and canceled the timeshare purchase.)  Once we were done in the timeshare office we took the kids deeper downtown to a Mexican restaurant for lunch.  The restaurant doubled as a punk rock club at night and was run by a bunch of guys my age and it showed.  When I was in high school there was a club in Portland called Zoots.  It was black-walled, graffiti, neon signs, and patten leather furniture.  We would go and listen to a band called Rustic Overtones.  Back to this restaurant, Cotler had to go to the bathroom and was told it was downstairs.  He came up, horrified.  The bathroom was too scary and weird.  First, the walls were black with neon graffiti all over.  Second, there were skulls and weird sayings on the wall. Lastly, in the men's room, one stall door was broken and the other stall didn't have a door!  It was too much for this little dude to handle.  When I went down to the bathroom, I felt right at home.

After lunch, we made our way north to watch the sunset on the beach. 

Colter wanted me to take some artsy silhouette pictures as the sunset.  I obliged. 

After sunset, we went over to an ice cream place called Handles and met our old friends from buisness school: the Goodsons and Archibalds.  

The Midway

Will and I took an anniversary trip to San Diego last year.  As we were leaving we got sold on prebuying a long weekend back in San Diego at a new downtown hotel.  We figured we could bring the kids down sometime, this weekend was the time!  

After stopping to see Lorien we drove the rest of the way to San Diego.  The next day we had our first adventure.  We went to church and then headed to the USS Midway.  It was so cool!  

Everyone found something fascinating in the control room.  Colter found a rotary phone.  Adell liked looking for "friendly" "unknown" and "hostile" ships on the radar.  Wyatt found an interior air siren that only he was tall enough to reach and activate.  Clare...well...I don't know what Clare loved in the control room but she loved it too.

Up on the flight deck was super cool!  We talked to a volunteer Veteran who explained how the planes took off with the air pressure system.  All of it was so interesting!  We spent about four hours and could have spent four more. 

When we were done with a self-guided audio tour the kids all got their wings!

When we got back to the hotel (after some DELICIOUS Shake Shack burgers and shakes) we naturally watched Top Gun. 

Leap day = Lorien day

Hey, February has one extra day this year!  We decided to use our extra day to drive down and visit Lorien.  Really, we had a little family trip to San Diego planned for this weekend and needed to drive down on February 29th.  Lorien was invited on our family trip but decided to stay in LA to work and go to school.  We stopped at her apartment on the way to see her place and take her out for lunch.

We all enjoyed seeing how our collager is living in the city.

My sister-in-law gave us all mugs from Kayla's mug collection.  I took an extra and brought it to Lorien.  She was happy to have a piece to remember her cousin with. 

We were all horrified at the post-fire view of Lorien's apartment building.  The bottom 9 floors are still closed and severely damaged.  There are security guards in the elevators now keeping people from entering those floors. 

Really, looking down from Lorien's window and knowing what she saw on that horrible day was sobering.  I am so thankful she is safe!

We walked to a local Indian restaurant.  Lorien had to contend with her whole family not knowing how to walk in the city.

I cleaned up Lorien's undercut...sliceing up her neck in the process.  It was lovely to see our big girl in her college element.  I am so proud of her for doing this on her own.  She is growing and maturing so much! 

The Sac...

Adell is my fourth fourth-grader!  We moved to Danville when Lorien was starting the fourth grade.  Each kid has ventured with their fourth-grade class up to the Capital of California, Sacramento, for a field trip.  Adell is the first kid I have chaperoned on this field trip.  Adell is the kid who got my least attention at school.  Lorien and Wyatt started school at a parent participation school where I was in the classroom almost once a week.  Then I worked out a babysitting swap for Adell with two other mom's so we could be in the classroom for our Kindergarteners when Clare was in Kindergarten.  Adell got skipped altogether because I had a baby, Cotler, and no one to swap child care with.  Colter is the last child so I got to be a room mom for his Kindergarten year and be in the classroom once a week.  To make it up to poor skipped Adell, I try to go on field trips with her.  I much prefer being in the classroom...

First, we took a bus up to Sacramento.  The ride was easy and uneventful...I was especially grateful I didn't get car sick.  We started at the Capital where we toured and learned about previous governors of California.

We got a special treat in being able to sit on the floor of the Senate.  Normally, the tours only go in the gallery above but our representative, Steve Glasier, got us special permission to go down on the floor.  It was interesting!

In the legislature, we had to sit up in the gallery to view/tour the room.  It was still very cool. 

We also toured Sutter's fort.  Learning about an early pioneer in Calfornia and the advancements (for better or worse) he implemented in California.

Our last stop was a train museum...where I took zero pictures.  The trip was a success!

Lorien's accomplishments...

When Lorien was nine or ten years old, she had an excellent Sunday school teacher named Heather.  Heather was fun and very cool.  She wore wild high heels to church and always had beautifully painted fingernails.  Heather gave thoughtful lessons about the gospel of Jesus Christ all while making sure these girls knew she loved them and Jesus loved them.  When we moved to Danville, Heather kept in touch with Lorien.  Even coming to take Lorien to the movies one Saturday.  Lorien and Heather are still friends and communicate via Instagram today.  Today Heather sent me and Lorien this picture of her old Sunday school class.  It was fun to look back and remember these times of Little Lorien.

Lorien loves Dungeons and Dragons...well, I think she actually loves listening to podcasts about playing Dungeons and Dragons.  Around the time her apartment building was catching fire she drew a piece of fan art for one of the podcasts.  She posted the art on Twitter and tagged the podcast creators.  They retweeted her art and as a result, the day she was being evacuated from her apartment many other people saw, liked, or retweeted her art!  So all day, whenever she was feeling down and worried about her burning building, she'd get a little notification about someone else retweeting her art and it would cheer her up for a minute. 

Now, a few weeks later, she just got a communication from the podcast creators asking if they could use her art in their email newsletter.  She is so excited and so am I!  It is awesome to know someone likes your work!  Here is her work, by the way:

Brace face and wrestling...

Well, I had recently made complete peace with my crooked smile.  I considered it cute and quirky and something I could live with for the rest of my life.  Alas, in the summer of 2018 I chipped a front tooth.  I didn't think it was a big deal but my dentist assured me, I would continue chipping teeth as long as my teeth were crooked and crashing together incorrectly.  So I bit the bullet...literally and got braces!  Eeep.  Clare has been the braces trailblazer in our family getting her braces on a year ago in March.  Her teeth already look so much straighter!  She is my inspiration.  Hopefully, I'll get these off in a year and a half and have a straight smile without chipping teeth.  Wish me luck!

Colter and Adell started Jiu-Jitsu this month.  Colter has been asking to do martial arts for years and Adell decided she wanted to try wrestling.  Jiu-Jitsu was a great way to combine both of their interests and have them both going to the same place two days a week.  So far, they love it and can do excellent squats!