Now and Then

Here are some comparison pictures from our San Diego vacation in 2005 and 2013. Boy how Bradley has grown from an adorable toddler to a handsome pre-teen.




3 years old

 

10 years old

 

 

This picture is one of my favorites of Bradley.

 

Vacation: San Diego

This year Ricard and I decided to take the kids to San Diego to go to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park, Lego Land and the Beach.

We went in 2005 with Bradley (3 years old) and while pregnant with Olivia. So Olivia has had this complex about never going to a beach while she was born. Even though when we last went we spent a total of maybe 20 minutes on the beach, because it was hot, Bradley did not like the waves, and I was very uncomfortable. Plus I really don't believe Bradley remembers anything more than the pictures we took. But he could claim he had been to the beach, and Olivia saw this as unfair.

We decided to not tell the kids until we were actually on the road. The last day of school they got home, the car was packed, (unbeknown to them) and went to lunch. After lunch we started driving south, Bradley caught on that something was not quite right before we even hit the freeway, but we kept dodging his questions until right before Lehi. We told them by giving them Vacation Journals that I had made for them. The vacation journals included pictures of Shamu, the zoo and of course the beach. When they saw the journal pictures and put it together they were yelling and hollering. They were amazed we were able to keep it a secret, hey so was I. Also they were so excited that we packed everything, even their swimsuits (that is one of the first questions Olivia asked).

We stopped in Las Vegas the first night and stayed at the Treasure Island. We saw their pirate show out front where they sink a boat. The kids really enjoyed that.

Lego Land



It is a lot like Lagoon, but with a lot of Lego exhibits, and an aquarium. But boy did the kids just love it.

  Lego Yoda

Lego Poseidon outside the aquarium



Sea World

 Breakfast with Shamu

Besides seeing all the different shows and displays we had Breakfast with Shamu, and went on a Behind the Scenes Tour. On the tour we got to feed Sea Turtles, feed moray eels and pet and feed dolphins and give them hand signals to do tricks.

San Diego Wild Animal Park

Here the animals are in a safari like setting. We fed lorakeets, and saw a cheetah run at full speed, but best of all we rode in a hot air balloon.

San Diego Zoo

Besides seeing all the animals, we rode their sky ride and a double decker bus.

Mission Bay Beach

We spent many hours at the beach this time. Both the kids loved the water, we bought them boogie boards, and they loved to ride the waves. Both the kids and Richard got buried in the sand, we actually couldn't keep Olivia from burring herself over and over.

Olivia as a sand mermaid

Bradley burried

Our Hotel was right on Mission Bay, we had wonderful views of the Ocean and Mission Bay. There was 3 swim pools that the kids swam in every night. One day we rented a motorized lounge chair and took it out on Mission Bay.



Our view from the hotel.





We didn't take any pictures of us in the chair, just the scenery.



Rockhounding in the desert

This year for a kickoff to summer, we we went down to Delta Utah and set up a base camp for a couple days of staying out in the desert among the rocks and searching for treasure.  We weren't looking for gold or silver, but fossilized anthropods (AKA: Trilobites). Along with a stop at Topaz Mountain, Obsideon Hill, and Sunstone knooll. 

Day 1:  The day started off with a very long trip on a dirt road to a place called U-Digg Fossils.  This place was a private Quarry that you had to pay to use, but was well worth it.  We found plenty of trilobites, and it was very easy to split the shale rock and expose the layers where the Trilobites were.  In addition to finding lots of trilobites, we brought back a lot of large pieces of rock that can still be split open and searched.

One example of a trilobite about the size of a penny.

Some trilobites were extremely small, this one actually came out
of the  rock in one piece and as you can see it is real tiny.

This one has about 10 trilobites in it.

After digging up trilobites, we went back to the Hotel and settled in for the night.  Of course there was a pool and the kids wanted to spend as much time as possible in the water.  It was nice to cool down in a pool after spending the afternoon in the hot sun breaking rocks apart.

Day 2:  We had a lot in store for the second day, and planned on visiting 3 different sites.  The first was Topaz Mountain.  It was about a 45 minute drive along a paved road (with a lot of small birds trying to play chicken with our car), and then we turned on to a dirt road for the remaining 5 miles to the dig site.  It started out real easy, but before long we needed to start driving very careful and turn on the 4 wheel drive.  We passed a few campers and kept going up the mountain to try and find a good spot.  We found a turnoff that led up to a small flat area that looked just large enough to park the car.  It was a little bumpy, and we bottomed out a couple times, but we made it.

We took all the tools and set out on finding our treasure.  At first, the only thing we could see were several rocks that had very small topaz in them.  They were glittering in the sunlight and the kids were very excited, but we couldn't really get much out of them.  We decided to try and break off some larger portions of rock and see if we could find some area that wasn't already picked over.  I started chipping away at a crack in a large rock, not sure if it would do much, but maybe I could find something in the crack. 

After working on the crack for a little bit, I got the entire rock to shift and the crack widened.  It then became my sole mission to get this rock out of place and see what we could find under it.

After about 30 minutes of prying with a large prybar and having Amanda cheer me on, I finally got the rock to break free so that I could get up on top and slide it out of it's resting place.

A couple large heaves and the 1000 pound rock slid out of place and landed upside down, exposing the bottom side of the rock and leaving the ledge that it was on also exposed.

As soon as this was done, we all went to work.  Amanda found some amber colored topaz on the rock  and started chipping away at it.  Olivia was without a doubt the best at spotting what we might have looked over.  She kept pointing out little clusters of topaz, and even a few large ones that were sticking out of the newly exposed surface.  We ended up with quite a bit of good amber colored topaz, and lots of rocks that sparkle.
 

These are some of the cleaned up topaz.  The large one on the right is the biggest one that Olivia found.

After leaving Topaz mountain, we drove about 7 miles to an area that was rich in Apache Tears. 

Most of the rocks were laying on the ground.

Some of them were embedded in the mountain.

We ended up with about 200 of these Apache Tears (Obsidian) about the size of large grapes.

After this, we went back to town and had lunch.  We went to one last place after lunch called Sunstone Knoll, but didn't have much luck here.  There were supposed to be a lot of shiny crystals littered around the ground but we only found small ones that were stuck in rocks.  We brought some of them back so we can break them apart and see what they have to hide.

We left the next morning and headed home, tired, a little sunburned, but every one of us had a lot of fun.

Moab

We took the kids camping (much to my chagrin). We wanted to go somewhere we had not taken them yet, so we chose... Moab... in the middle of August.... Did we think that through all the way? No... my advice go in the early spring or fall.... it was H.O.T.

We did however have fun. We saw dinosaur bones encased in rocks, dinosaur tracks frozen in time, breath taking scenery and did a little rock climbing (well mostly the kids climbed).

A dinosaur rib bone,

Dinosaur Tracks



The kids got to show off their rock climbing skills

Tough man Bradley

Exploring our first arch.

Double Arch Hike

 

Showing off their wild sides and being ONE with nature.

10 Year Anniversary

The beginning of this month marked Richard and mine 10 year wedding anniversary. It has been a wonderful 10 years with us both growing individually and together.

For our anniversary we decided to take a trip (without the kids). I was having major anxiety leaving the country to Mexico, Caribbean or even our Virgin Islands. Since Europe was not quite budget friendly, we turned to the Poconos.

We went to a resort in Mt. Pocono, PA (think Dirty Dancing in 2010 just in hills not mountains). Since we were so close to the East Coast we also decided to spend a few days in Boston. The trip was a nice relaxing and energizing trip. We even got some history in for Richard.

Poconos

This is right out side of our room/cabin.

We took a carriage ride around the resort.

Boston

This is the view from our hotel on the wharf.

The Old North Church that Paul Revere rode to.

Disneyland Slideshow

So the slide show below is some of our pictures from our trip. We took almost 1000 pictures and I really didn't want to bombard you with all of them. The highlights of this slide show is when Olivia got to meet the Princesses and when Bradley got to be a Jedi in training.

We waited in line for two hours (Yes really two hours) to see the Princesses. And when I say we, it was mainly the girls, my mom, Heather, Olivia and myself (does Ivy can't as a girl? I always thought of her as the brother I never had. Just kidding, Ivy has really turned into a girly-er girl. She just wasn't willing to stand in line to see the Princesses). Anyways, back to my main point. Two long hours, but it all didn't matter when we turned the corner and Olivia saw Ariel, the real live Princess Ariel. Her eye lit up and she was just so mesmerized. Next we saw Princess Jasmine and Belle. I think Olivia was shocked, or maybe stunned is more appropriate. It was wonderful to see that innocence and amazement through her eyes. And the Princesses were wonderful. They were so nice to Heather and Olivia. It was one of the best moments from the trip.

My other favorite moment was on our last day, right before we left the park for good when Bradley was picked for Jedi training. He was the VERY last kid to get picked and his hopes had started to fade at this point. But he was chosen and the Jedi masters taught them specials skills. Then Darth Vader showed up and wanted the kids to chose the dark side. But none of them did. So he called Darth Maule to help him fight all the kids. So each kid took turns either fighting Darth Vader or Darth Maule ( yeah I probably butchered the names). Bradley fought Darth Maule. The Dark side lost and all the kids graduated Jedi training. Bradley was so excited the rest of the day and wanted to teach everybody the new skills he learned. His face was just priceless.

So there are a few memories, and few pictures. Disneyland was awesome, Thanks Mom!
~Amanda