Date Night

A couple of weekends ago, Stephen and I decided it was high time for a real date night.  Actually, the idea was hatched when one of my friends asked me when the last time Stephen and I had gone out with each other.  I could only recall a handful of times since Ian was born, including a couple of trips to the movie theater when we were up at my mom's place and a quick dash to Soup Plantation on our anniversary in December, the same night we returned from a long road trip to Louisiana.  Does that even count? How embarrassing!  So we dropped off the kids at a friend's house and went for a fun little hike on some trails at the nearby Torrey Pines beach just a few miles north of where we live.  It was a gorgeous sunset that we enjoyed and I kept kicking myself for not having discovered and taken advantage of this awesome scenic escape just minutes away from our house.   I felt like such a tourist in our own backyard!  
Isn't he handsome?  I love how odd-ball this tree was.  It was a unique landmark and a crazy cool natural archway over the path, I thought.
I loved looking down below and the wave-laced shoreline.  Words cannot do this justice.
Okay, so I had to get a funny shot in of Stephen.  We picked up some sandwiches on the way and we intended to eat them as a picnic at the beach, but it was getting cold and late.  Besides that, I wanted to hit up a frozen-yogurt place before picking up the kids!  So here is Stephen enjoying a romantic candle-lit dinner at the beach, gazing into the eyes of his adoring wife.  Yeah right!
Our view to the northwest as we walked back to the car.
This was where we came out of the trail and down to the beach, behind us as we walked back to the car.  The stripes of colored rock and sandstone on the cliffs were very pretty.  They really looked golden - not in these pictures, but earlier ones - as the setting sun lit upon them.  I posed really ridiculously against them, pretending I was in a sun-tan lotion advertisement.  They pictures are seriously blackmail material, so for my own safety I will leave them out of this.
Isn't it weird how a sunset can last forever?  It was hard to tell for that last long while if it was still the sun lingering on the horizon, or if it was just trailing rays of light.  I'm not doing so well at explaining a probably basic scientific principle.  Any experts out there?
Stephen, pondering the eternities...or waiting for the other people to move out of the way so we could snatch "the perfect photo spot."

More Reception Photos

Here's the family photo shoot with the reception ambiance in the background.  It was a beautiful room in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.
Brooklyn's expression here is the best.  

Thanks again, Auntie Carolita, for the cutest ever tux on our little squirt!
Grammy displays beautiful Pantene hair as she catches a smile from Ian.   
The men folk.  From top, left to right: Stephen, David, Taber, Eric, Skyler.  Bottom row: Mark, Terry, Ted, T.J.
The lovely ladies.

Rebecca's Wedding

I know everyone has already posted lots of cool pictures of Becca and Taber's wedding, but that doesn't mean we can't add to them!  Rebecca looked fabulous in her dress and more importantly, the happy couple radiated.  I couldn't have said it better than T.J. did at the luncheon, "Now I know what perfection looks like!"
I commend Rebecca for being so calm, cool, and collected throughout the whole weekend.  It seems like so often weddings and the events surrounding them can be stressful and exhausting, even though they are supposed to be enjoyable celebrations.  Weddings become even trickier to coordinate as the extended family continues growing. Great job to Rebecca, Evelyn, Bethany, Kimberly, Ted, and everyone who worked together to pull this off!  It was fun to see everyone even though it was a quick trip.  Best of luck to the new Mr. and Mrs. Taber Cope!  
My boys at the temple.
Cute cousins Brooklyn and Alyssa.
The gang in attendance. 

More pictures to follow!  The wedding weekend was definitely the highlight of our month.  So, the coverage of it is not yet complete!

Visit from a Vampire

Sadly, Ian got savagely bitten by a mysterious vampire that visited our home last night.  The assault was answered by a loud scream and some crying from the victim, which brought the off-duty police and detectives to the scene.  The accused declines to comment and would like to remain anonymous.
Unfortunately for the vampire, case workers have recently discovered two dangerously sharp white teeth emerging from the lower jaw of the victim.  Beware, vampire!  Next time you strike, your victim just may retaliate!

BYU Grads. and 5-month Ian

Congratulations to Rebecca, Jessica, Cindy, and Eric for all graduating from B-Y-Woo-Woo!  We celebrate your awesome achievement.  Now good luck finding jobs!
Brooklyn talked me into giving her a couple of gummy bears.  While they were within her reach, she then proceeded to line several more of them for her friends, just in case any of them happened to stop by wanting gummy bears!  Impressive display though, right?
Here is the boy child.  Happy and handsome.

Our Awesome April

Easter was great fun. We hunted for eggs and baskets and Aunt Helen and Uncle Eric's house in Del Mar.  The Bernd kids did a great job leaving the "obvious" eggs out for Brooklyn to find.  They also brought back some groovy socks for the kids from their recent skiing trip to Colorado.  The socks the got for Brookie are pink with a brown bear who is "bear hugging" the sock/foot.  Ian got some orange and brown socks with racoons on them.  They say "little rascal" on the bottom in raised print like the "tread" of the sock - as if he needs it.  Funny and cute.
Ian got his first taste of rice cereal.  It was brought to him by the Easter bunny, of course!  How do like the nose shot of the mom?  So I thought he was into it, the cereal, but Stephen wasn't convinced.  I don't know why... What does that face translate to you?  Okay, so he wasn't THAT into it the first time, but I think it's because he had eaten not too long before.  I just didn't want him to feel left out with all the snacking and treats and what-not.
Here's what a sugar crash looks like!  We have another shot like this of her, but she's lying on the livingroom floor, probably watching the He is Risen animated church video.  I didn't want to reveal my messy floor to the world though, so we'll leave that photo to the imagination.  I'm sure she was cuddled up to some dirty clothes for her pillow.  Anyway, this is the same child who would NOT, I repeat NOT fall asleep at our friend's house at 3AM when Stephen and I went to the hospital to have Ian.  While she stayed at our friend's house, she just watched movie after movie, waking up my friend when each one had finished so that she could get a new one going.     
This was yet another zoo visit.  This time we showed up at the right spot to see a camel's feeding time.  Brooklyn tried to hand-feed it, but the worker didn't want her fingers to get munched off in the meantime.  So really, we just got front row seats, and pretended that we really did some feeding.  
These are the moments that we really live for...Here is Brooklyn reading Pat the Bunny to Ian upon my request.  She has the book memorized and when she reads it, she "allows"/forces him to do each activity.  In case you haven't noticed yet, yes, she is very dedicated to her dress-ups.  This daily mourning ritual has been brought to you by the producers of our most prized hand-me-downs (older girl cousins), by old halloween costumes, and by lots of aunts and uncles who get married and have graciously included us in their extensive wedding parties. (Oh, and the beads are from last year's Mardi Gras and the "slippers," like Cinderella's, are from aunt Pip last Christmas - those chunky hearts are hanging on for dear life!) 

April at a Glance

I HAD to get this post in so that I can balance out my life by at least posting one new entry to our blog in April.  This month has just wizzed by!  I can't even believe that May is only an hour away!  Does life ever slow down?  

My excuse for non-blogging this month is that I've been on a sewing frenzy.  Anytime the kids were asleep, if I wasn't cleaning or cooking, I was pretty much sewing.  (In a perfect world, right?  I'm sure there were a few other not-so-productive activities squeezed into there too! :) April for us included two trips to the zoo, and a visit to the Wild Animal Park.  Thankfully we have not yet tiree of the good ol' San Diego Zoo!  We also made a trip up to L.A. for a baptism and birthday party.  We listened to General Conference - Aaaaahhh.  (That was the most relaxing thing we did all month!)  We also made a whirlwind trip up to Utah and back to witness Rebecca and Taber's wedding and Jessica, Eric, Cindy, and Rebecca's graduation. Phew! 
Our first zoo trip was a part of Stephen's work "retreat."  We decided to share the experience with his "SHAS" buddies. (Scripps Health Administrative Something) It's basically the project management department in which Stephen has been working.  Did I mention April also brought us/Stephen an official JOBY-JOB?  Stephen got a job offer working for the Scripps Memorial Hospital at La Jolla as the Patient Logistics Manager.  We are excited that he is finally officially permanent.  We also realize that even though his formal education days are over, the real deal is only beginning. 
Okay, queen of tangents is now back to the pictures and April recap.!  The above two pic's. are of Brooklyn before and after spotting the polar bear.  Pretty telling, huh?  Do you love how Stephen's sporting the Blackberry in one hand and the tutu'd toddler on the opposite shoulder.  Nice one.
Next is the conference tent.  Stephen and I love listening to our prophet and the brethren share with us the most inspired and timely messages.  Thanks to some great suggestions from our friends via sacrament talks, we found ways to try involving the kids.  We took out the centerfold of the previous conference Ensign that shows all of our previously current general authorities.  We wanted Brooklyn to try and recognize the First Presidency and know their names.  Most importantly, she can identify the prophet 99.9% of the time.  When a new speaker begins his/her message, Brooklyn could earn a small treat by matching their face with one of the pictures from the chart.  Even though she needed a lot of help with that, it was motivational.  To a 3-year-old, many of the men look quite similar, like, well, GRANDPAS!  I had to resort to distinguishing features such as glasses or no glasses, hair or less hair, and white or dark hair.  I also made a collage of pictures from Friend magazines.  When a topic was mentioned, if she could find a representative picture, she could earn yet another treat.  (What a spoiled girl!)
Between sessions of conference, Brooklyn had her first mini-lesson in soccer from her dad.  She probably showed interest for about 3 minutes before picking up those two sticks in the picture above and chasing the birds with them.  Life is never dull around here... 

To be continued!