May 2016 - Jay's artwork

Jayden brought home some fun art from preschool. I like how she uses lots of colors and always wants to fill the entire picture. (Chase used to do the minimum marks - sometimes just a line or a dot - haha). I'll actually save most of these, but I usually take a quick picture of all the kids artwork before they go MIA, aka, me trashing them. You can only have so much clutter, right?

2016 Memorial Day Weekend - Palm Springs

 For Memorial Day weekend we packed up the car and headed to Palm Springs. Grandma Nish used Ron's timeshare points to book a three bedroom condo for our family, the Isaksens, Ron, Grandma Nish, and Marcus. There were also enough points for them to book a two bedroom condo for the Endows. We were in different places and for us it was a tight squeeze with 12 people in three bedrooms, but we all got along nicely and had a good time.

We left around 12:30pm after we pulled Chase out early from school and picked Jayden and Riley up too. Traffic was pretty good and we got to Palm Springs in about 2.5 hours.

The weather was in the 90s and Riley and Jayden helped to keep an eye on things while Tanner unloaded the van~

Here's a picture of the pool from our balcony (we were on the second story). We arrived just in time to see Miles going down the slide. Scott is on top and Kamery is at the bottom ready to catch him~

We all quickly changed to our swim suits and enjoyed the pool. Unfortunately, while I was putting Riley's water wings on, Chase and Jayden went in the pool without asking me. The pool was 3 feet deep so Chase could stand up and not have any water in his face, but the water level was just above Jayden's nose. She was following Chase without thinking and pretty soon she was bobbing up and down and panicking. Chase called my name and I grabbed her quickly. She was fine, but just really scared. So the weekend in the pool did not get off to a good start. For the rest of the weekend, Jayden was extra scared of going into the water.

Tanner and I got to spend an hour alone at the pool the next day (Saturday) when Kamery and Scott took the kids in for a nap. Smiles of joy~

On Saturday evening we went to Bernard's house. It's BEAUTIFUL - so new, modern, clean, and of course, perfectly decorated. They hosted a BBQ for about 20 people and it was fun to see the Cottles who have a house across the street and to meet their next door neighbors. I wish I had taken more pictures of everything, but I was too busy having fun and trying to make sure that Jayden and Chase were taken care of.

Here is Jayden - terrified of the water~

Jayden made poor Katie Cottle carry her everywhere~

Our Sunday consisted of going to the Endow's condo for a wonderful brunch they prepared - eggs, pancakes, fruit, sausage, mimosas - and swimming. I was in the pool the whole time trying to care for the kids and Tanner was out golfing with mom, Marcus, and Ron. So again I neglected to take pictures.

More swimming on Sunday afternoon~

Then, like a flash, it was Monday and time to pack up this crazy crew and head home.

Tanner went golfing early Monday morning with Bernard and Marchetti, so Ron helped us pack up the van and we all waited at the Endows condo until he came back around noon. Note to self - never leave Palm Springs on the Monday of Memorial Day weekend after noon. The traffic was HORRIBLE. It took us an hour and a half to go 30 miles. Yuck! We made it home safely around 4:30pm.

Ending on a good note - Tanner golfed very well that Monday morning and had a score of 100 on the hardest PGA course in Palm Springs.

Mother's Day 2016

Mother's day started out with a great big bouquet of beautiful tulips from Tanner. They are one of my favorite flowers and they put a smile on my face~

The vase didn't fit all of the tulips so we had to use another pitcher to carry the overflow~

Then Sean came over in the morning and delivered a bouquet of tulips from himself, Erin, and Bryan. I'm one lucky mama!

While the guys took care of the kids, my mom, Kamery, Auntie Naomi, Erin and I went to Great Maple for breakfast. It was delicious and so nice to have some time to linger over a nice meal without children interrupting. It was another wonderful gift for Mother's Day. I took a picture of my yummy mocha, but forgot to take pics of the food because I was so hungry. I had the prosciutto and avocado flatbread and we had these delicious maple bacon doughnuts afterwards~

I came home and took a nap after all that food. Later on Grandma Nish came by with Ron and we had a Mother's Day dinner at our house with Marcus, the Isaksens, Alberts, and Okamuras. Jenni had ordered chinese food and my mom got bulgogi and salad at Costco. 

Marcus made our Grandma Nishihara's chocolate chiffon pie from scratch. It was very good, but it did not taste like my memory of my Grandma's pie. Marcus did explain that he had no measuring cups or spoons so everything was by his "eyeball". He had all written out "I love you Mom" on the pie but did not realize that the cookie gel icing you buy at the grocery store is not made to be used as lettering. HAHA! 

Fooling around with Uncle Marcus~ 

Chase has several loose teeth and he was complaining that they hurt so much he can't eat. At the end of the day he was very cranky, especially when Tanner kept trying to sneak up on him and take out his tooth~

Before all the crying, Chase and Tanner had been working on throwing accuracy. Chase has a pretty strong arm and so Tanner has been guiding him on how to aim and work on pitching. 

 It was a nice and relaxing Mother's Day. I love that I live so close to so many family members. It was really fun to spend the day hanging out with everyone. Next time, I need to take more pictures!