It's a Surprise Party!

With this year being Kevins 40th birthday, I wanted to do something different.  So I came up with the idea of having a surprise party for him at his latest favorite hangout- Fizz drinks.  Its a soda shop owned by a local member and Kevin is a big fan and frequent customer.  I had a couple friends- Jamy and Stephenie, go early and set it up and my plan was to suggest after dinner that we take the kids to Fizz.  It seemed an easy enough plan which got complicated by the fact that the day before we went shopping for a new van and decided overnight to go buy the van- the next day- the day of the party!  I asked the salesman how long it would take and he said we could be done in an hour and a half- which would have been plenty of time but three hours in and we were still chatting it up with the finance guy.  They finally took us out to our new car and I knew we had to get out of there.  So things got a bit tense as I told the salesman we could figure out the rest on our own and Kevin got annoyed because he wanted to "enjoy the experience."  So it was a tense ride home and I told him we needed to pick our kids up from JAmy at Fizz.  Well, all was forgiven as we walked in to Fizz and all our friends greeted us with a big sign and cheers.  Kevin loved his surprise and it all turned out great in the end.

I did make his traditional cake which we ate before the picture taking ;)

Girls Camp

This year was Stake Girls camp.  It was the first girls camp for Brielle, and Makennas 4th year!  And I was lucky enough to be asked to be a cook again so I got to go and witness the fun.  I stayed in the first year cabin so didn't get to see much of the other girls but I enjoyed it and Brielle loved it and Makenna had a good time (but it was certainly not her best year ;)

Wrestling Camp

This summer Emmitt has two camps- wrestling and tennis.  Braydens wrestling camp was at the same time so we got this cute pic.

Emmitt, Brayden and Major Reed

Worlds Worst Haircut

When we got back from vacation and picked up Gracie from the sitters house, she was super matted.  The groomer had no choice but to shave her down.  It was a sad sad day.

Before

After

Our Cali Vacation!

We left the day after school got out for our Newport Beach/ Disneyland vacation.  We stayed at Marriotts Newport Beach Coast Villas.  It was a beautiful location.  We were able to spend time at the cute beach called Crystal Cove that was just a short shuttle away.  We also enjoyed the pool and grounds.  The resort was lovely and we had a great ocean view and lots of space.  We spent three days enjoying Disneyland -mostly we enjoyed California Adventure because sadly. my kids are more into thrills now than characters.  We hadn't done DisneyLand before and we loved it.  It was a great time.  One of the days we were joined by the Albertis.  It was a blast to be able to spend some time with them.  They hosted us for Sunday dinner and we enjoyed reconnecting with them. We also got in a temple trip and beach day with them too.  And of course Brayden tried to get in as much Nolan time as he possibly could.  Overall it was a fabulous trip and we all loved it!

When you watch this as a "Live Photo" Emmitt jumped up and hit his head on Jacks chin which was apparently very painful to Jack and also very humorous to everyone else.  We all laughed about this pic all day.

Huntington Beach

Here was a special treat of the trip. We went where we suspected Ben was going to be attending church and then we luckily ran into him in the parking lot.  He was completely shocked and it was really fun to see him.

Emmitt became quite the fan of In N Out.  Its what you do in Cali ;)

Sunday dinner at the Albertis.  Special guest was Brielles friend Ella who is in our ward but was visiting the same resort as us at the same time.  So fun.  And those were some delicious tacos!

Exploring the tide pools at Crystal Cove beach

Saying farewell