A Visit from Grandma and Grandpa

Brock's parents came down a couple weekends ago to celebrate Brock's birth. On Friday the girls were excited to take them to see the Mormon Battalion visitors center. For those who haven't been recently, they have a fun interactive tour and then you pan for gold afterwards and get to take one shiny nugget home. Whahoo. On Saturday, Ashlyn's soccer game was canceled due to projected thunderstorms, so we hit a park since she was anxious to show off her new-found courage and strength in conquering the monkey-bars. Her prowess was obviously inherited from Grandpa Solano.

We then went to my parents house to watch the BYU basketball game, and I went with my mom and Brock's mom to Claim Jumper for lunch, which we just had to wash down with their chocolate motherload cake.

Grandma captured this next picture of Lara who was very happy about her new St. Patty's day get-up. (We owe a debt of gratitude to Grandma Jo for keeping us prepared to celebrate the holidays in style.) Lara cracks us up. She thinks she is so grown up and expresses her opinion quite decidedly for one so young. At night, after we've put them to bed, if we have to open their door for any reason, she'll say, "Hey! Why are you doing that!? I'm not talking." Lately she'll also sing, "Wa-Wa-Wa WAWA War-ren" to the tune of Dora. Next time you see her, try to convince her she is not Lara and she'll put you straight.

I love this next picture too. I don't know who told a joke, but with his three crazy sisters running around, Warren has a lot to laugh about.

See what I mean. Here was a dress-up party with Grandma...no one will be pinching us this year.

On Saturday evening we reinacted Brock's b-day and ate Bday cake #2. A new favorite that I found on allrecipes.com called a Raspberry Walnut Torte. Brock deserved to celebrate a second time since we were all sick around his real birthday this year. As you can see, Claire just wanted to blow-out the candles. It was a wonderful, memorable week-end but the icing on the cake that made it perfect was BYU beating SDSU at basketball.

Tide Pools

When my brother Jesse came into town with his wife Cami and their two boys Ezra and Henry we all met up at the tide pools. My Dad also came with my sister Becca and her little boy Joshua. It was a beautiful brisk day, low tide was at 3, and Ashlyn was happy that her cousin Ezra did not mind that the water was freezing. They both got soaked jumping over the waves. The girls love exploring the pools. We did not make any amazing sea life discoveries aside from hermit crabs, anemone, and muscles (oh wait, I think those were just J-man's new muscles from P90X :)). We dug up tons of baby sand crabs, my dad worked on teaching the girls how to catch a football, and Joshua made sure the sand still tastes good.
I've lived here most of my life, but am still amazed to get gorgeous days like this in February.