Happy Birthday Orrin

 It was Orrin's Birthday on the Saturday before Easter and it was a crazy busy day but we had lots of fun celebrating in between all the other stuff we had to do that day.

 Brad was super excited to open this gift. 

 MARIO KART !!!! The boys and Orrin had just finished an beat the new Mario Brothers game (and the only game we have) so it was Orrin's birthday just in time to get a new one.

 Even Ky gets in to playing the Wii with the boys. He demands that he get a remote too and then just sits there and chews on it.

Happy Birthday Babe!!! We love you so much. Here's to an awesome and adventurous 32nd year!

Spring Break 2012

This year Orrin's and Wes's Spring Break were at the same time finally, but it made it feel really short because we were used to celebrating for 2 weeks instead of 1. We ended up doing some spring cleaning in our garage/storage (getting ready to fill it with boxes) and then had some fun around town. 

We took walks on our favorite walking path, The Fanno Creek Trail.

The cherry blossoms were so beautiful. Last summer we had a blast picking and eating cherries from this tree on the path.

We took the only warm, sunny day at the Zoo. We love the Portland Zoo. 

Check out the penguin behind Brad's head. They are always so entertaining. 

The Zebra is behind them.

We were invited to go to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry).

 The new exhibit was all about Lego's.  In the background are faces made from Lego's.

The view of the I5 bridge from a widow at OMSI. I just love down town Portland with the Willamette River running right in the middle of the city. I love looking at all the old bridges. 

We also checked out the new Portland Oregon Temple visitor center. It has only been open for 2 months. Its supper small. They built it in the old distribution center building but it is loaded with fun interactive things to do. The kids had a blast playing  games and watching video clips on the big touch screens and iPads around the visitor center. They also had a movie room were you can pick from over 100 different movies to watch. So fun.

Elders Quorum CO2 Car Races

Orrin is in the Elders Quorum Presidency in our ward and in charge of activities for the quorum. So he was charge of and planned a Co2 car race.  Each elder had to make a car (like a pinewood derby car) and put a Co2 cartridge in the back of it and shoot it off.  It goes super fast. Check out this video  (Brad is right there helping).

It was a fun activity and I think Orrin did a great job. It was funny to see the elders get so into the races and fixing their cars for each race. The kids had a blast running the cars back to the front and the wives had fun talking and eating.

This is the best looking car if you ask me.  It's the car Orrin made. ;)

So I decided to make the trophies which was lots of fun for me, and lots of gold spray paint. We didn't walk away with one of them that night but there was some tough competition there which made for some fun races.

YMCA Basketball

We signed Wesley up for a basketball team with his best friend Matt through the YMCA. It was nice for him to be able to do something with Matt before we both move. Wes is already super sad about leaving his best friends, it was good to be able to play together one last time on a team. They have taken basketball and baseball classes through the parks and rec. together for the last 3 years.

 It was really fun to watch him grow and learn the game of basketball since it was his first time playing on a team.

We had fun watching him from the side lines.We experienced lots of different emotions while we watched his games; excitement when he made his first basket, laughter when he would do his victory dance after his team scored (almost every time), and then we just shook our heads when there were times like this picture. Its a bad picture but this is Wes sitting down during the game. He said he just got bored.

NO SCHOOL!!!

For the last 3 years every Presidents Day we have gone to Mt. Hood to play in the snow. Every year we leave when its raining and we we have gotten there it ends up being a beautiful sunny day. Well our luck ran out and it didn't work that way this year. We left and it was raining , we got there it was raining, we played and it was raining, and we came home and it was still raining. But in true Portland style we just acted like it wasn't there. You just can't let the rain stop you.

Kyson hasn't yet learned that rule and didn't like the rain in his face so Kyson and I spent most of the time hanging out in the car. Lucky I was able to watch the other boys from the car and it was also stocked with lots of snacks.

The boys had a blast sledding with daddy.

Look at those poor feeties. His shoes didn't want to stay on. 

Kyson also go to check out the snow for a few minutes before he wanted to get back inside the car. 

My little sunbeam

I always get mixed feelings when my kids hit different milestones. They grow up so so fast and I'm sad that   they are growing up and there is nothing I can do about it. On the other hand I get really excited for them and for the growth and progress they have achieved in their lives so far. I guess that is what life is all about and I shouldn't fight it right?

This year Bradley went into Primary and is now a sunbeam! It has been fun being in the primary presidency and be able to watch and learn the primary songs with both him and Wes in primary. Last week Brad got to give his first talk on Choosing the Right. Of course I couldn't get him to talk but he stood really proud up on the stand holding a CTR sign while I read the talk we wrote together.

I am so proud of Brad and his choice to attend primary so happily. I thought it would be a hard transition for him but he did awesome.

MLK Holiday!!!

We love national holidays because we get to spend more time with Orrin. He gets the day off from school too.  We decided to go to the children's museum because they had a Lego exhibit, and if you didn't know already my kids are in love with Legos.

these were built with Lego's

 When we can out of the museum it was snowing. The museum is on a hill ( at least that's what they call them around here but they are more like mountains) that also has a national park, other museums, the zoo, and the famous Portland Rose garden on it. I think we were just high enough to be able to get some snow.