California Day 1 (5/31/2009)

We headed to California for a little family Vacation before Brent's UT rotation. We had a great time, it was fun to spend time together with the family without all the worries of school and home.

Day one was spent mostly traveling. When we arrived in Anaheim we checked into our hotel, unloaded the car and headed to the beach.
This was Ava's first time at the ocean and it was a little chilly out there. We just got our feet wet, played in the sand and of course fought the wind. After about an hour we had had enough and were quite wind blown, so we ate dinner at the end of the pier a Ruby's Diner, the view was incredible. We were able to sit at a booth overlooking the water. We had BIG yummy burgers and fries and even splurged on super yummy milkshakes. There were a ton of surfers and fishermen too as we walked to the end of the pier, always fun to watch people surf, not so much to see gutted fish.

Here is Ava playing in the sand


The girls

Our family

Katrena, doesn't she look beautiful

Brent and I
(Its nice having a child old enough to take a decent photo)


Sunset

Ruby's Diner on the pier

Walking...

During the months of April and May Ava and I would get up and put Trena on the bus and then go pick up our neighbor Erica and sweet little Reed and we would go for a walk.

We loved these morning walks and both looked forward to them everyday, when Trena was through with school she joined us for the next week. After that we headed off to CA and then UT for 7 weeks and Erica and Reed moved to ID as her hubby graduated from medical school.

Reed and Ava



Our walking group (Trena was taking the photo)

Erica and Reed we sure miss you guys and our walks and talks, every time I hook Ava in her stroller I think of you. Hope you guys are doing well and loving ID.

A little late I know, but Trena's last day of school and sad goodbyes...

Trena's last day of school was May 21, it was a day filled with much sadness. She had to say a lot of goodbyes, at the time we thought that she would not be returning to the same school, but things changed over the summer and she was able to return.

We had a class party with root beer floats and patriotic ice cream hats, we then went outside and had a palm tree piniata to celebrate the last day of school.


Our sad goodbyes included telling her favorite bus driver goodbye, and Sarah as well as all of her other classmates and then her super sweet teacher.

Trena and her BFF Sarah

The piniata, all but about 5 kids got to take a whack at it. Unfortunately I was in trouble because my daughter didn't get a chance.

With her teacher

We really love this school and are happy that she gets to spend at least a few months of 3rd grade here.

She's got talent...

As always so much to post about, and so far behind. I had to skip over about ten other posts to make sure this one went right up! So, as I do other posts I will connect links to the older posts so that you know they are there.



Here is our star!!! (Ok, I am too stupid to know how to upload a Youtube video on here, so here is the link).

Trena's talent show performance


She did such a good job last night performing, we were so proud of her. She put a lot of hard work into it. She had to stay after school every day for an 1 1/2, that's a lot for a kid. She was also one of the youngest kids to perform, there were no kindergartners or 1st graders, she was one of 4 2nd graders, and 3 of them were in the same class. There were also 2 other little girls from our ward who performed.

There were some very talented performers and we have one very animated little girl, she definitely enjoyed performing and wants to do it again. I also wish we'd had a 2nd video camera to record her little sister as Trena performed. Ava could barely contain herself as soon as the music started she started jumping up and down and squelling with delight. She knew it was her sister up there, and definitely recognized the song.

Hope you enjoy watching our Star!

Katrena with her partner Sarah

These three girls are all in the same 2nd grade class, Breanna, Trena, and Sarah

With Mathea, one of the girls from the ward (I wasn't able to get one with Kaitlyn)

Part of the backdrop, they had all the kids names with their handprints

With her hands