Grandpa Cec

I have been very lucky, I have had the joy of having all four of my grandparents my 32 years of life. No divorces or death. I have stayed close to my grandparents my whole life. They have been there for everything. I feel very blessed to have had these relationships. But, as we all know, nothing can last forever. Last night, around midnight, my beloved Grandpa Cec died of natural causes in his home. I am grateful he died this way, in his sleep and in minimal pain. I love him very much and I am not sure, exactly how to feel. I know that he is with his brothers and sister, his mom and dad and also his son, who died last year around the same time. I will miss him. He was a teacher all his life. He loved reading and writing. He loved a good joke and told many. His passion was music. He could sit and listen to all the classics for hours and hours. I am grateful I had 32 years with this fun, intelligent, sprititual man. I will miss him, but I know I will see him again someday, and for that I am eternally grateful.

I love you Grandpa, and I will always remember and miss you!

We have reached that point.

I have to start out by saying that I am an only child. I did not grow up fighting with, playing with or being with other kids on a daily basis in my home. It was me and my parents. This, of course, was good and bad. Good because I didn't have to worry about whether I was going to get attention or love from my parents. I am their life. I know this. I also didn't have to worry about fighting over toys, clothes, and again, attention. On the other side it could get lonely. I always wanted a sibling. I think I was naive in thinking it would be great to have one growing up. But, now that I have two kids and one on the way, I can see where being a sibling can get bothersome. We have now reached the point where Hannah and Lia bicker quite a bit. Over everything. These are common phrases in our home: "Don't touch me!", "She pushed me!", "That's mine!", "I had it first!", "NO!" and many many more. I guess I was, once again, naive in thinking that my kids would not do these things....

On the other hand, these two little girls can be very loving and caring for one another. They love to hug and kiss each other. They do play together quite a bit and as Lia gets older, they are able to play longer. They love to dance together and play games such as patty-cake and hide-and-go-seek. I hope that the "love" traits will outweigh any sibling rivalry. I have seen different families let petty things break up these precious relationships.

Like I said, I am an only child so I don't really understand how complicated the sibling relationship can be. But I pray that my kids will never let petty differences or sibling rivalry stop them from being a big part of each others' lives. I hope my kids will all know that each one is our favorite and that not one is loved less than the other. They are all the best in their own way :)

I love ALL my girls :)

San Diego with LOTS of pictures :)

This is what is was like the first couple of days...but as you will see the rest of the time was mostly sunny...and only a little cold :)

I love that little face...

Up and close to the Lions! So COOL!

We had a lot of fun at the Wild Animal Park

We were able to see the BEAUTIFUL San Diego temple! Even though it was raining :)

Cookie Monster eats little girls as well as cookies ;)

The girls got to meet Elmo and Cookie Monster as well...and Lia didn't run away!

We went on a couple fun rides at the Sesame Street Park in Sea World.

We had the most amazing experience with this awesome dolphin, Deke. We did a behind the scene tour and we were able to pet and feed this beautiful dolphin! It was such a great experience! We had a lot of fun with him. (Lia slept through the whole thing)

Hannah feeding the eels! She loved this!

Loved Shamu!

Waiting for the 3d pirate show...

We went to Old Town and saw the Mormon Battalion Show...it was great!

Lia refused to look at the camera...again our stinker ;)

The sea lion show is one of my favorites!

They had a fun Halloween special at the sea lion show! This was Thriller :)

Lia kept taking this block from the little kids with the blond hair (she is a stinker)

It was so fun, I got to see my friend Amanda at Sea World!

(we also were able to meet up with our great friends the Whites, who helped us so much during my stay in Michigan, when we got Lia)

So I am a fan of warm weather and the ocean. We had planned this trip to San Diego in between a few other things that were going to be in the way of us going...first of all our IVF, we wanted to wait so that (we hoped) enough time would have gone by for us to get pregnant and then for me not to be too sick, second, Halloween, I thought it would be lame if we were gone for that. Third, Flavio and I are going to San Fransisco for Flavio's work right before Thanksgiving. Forth, Thanksgiving. I love spending that holiday with family, so we needed to be here for that. And Fifth, Disneyland, Flavio's work spoils us every year and takes us to Disneyland for Christmas, around the first of December. As you can see, we had a very limited time frame for this trip. You might be asking, why did you go on this trip? Well, once again, Flavio's work spoils us and sends us all on a family vacation of our choice each year. Well, San Diego was our choice (well my choice) and so that is where we went. :)

We were so excited. I packed our swimsuits, our summer clothes and told Hannah we would be able to swim at the hotel's pool everyday and that it was going to be warm and sunny! As the time grew near we watched the weather forecast and noticed it was going to rain while we were there. We called a couple of friends who live there and they said not to worry about it ;) Well, I packed a couple of jackets and sweatshirts just in case. I am so glad I did, not only did we have to use the warm clothes, we had to buy rain ponchos while we were there! San Diego received record rainfall while we were there! If we had gone the week before or after it would have been the sunny San Diego we all know and love. Hannah was pretty sad when she only got to swim once, and it was cold. But as you can see from the pictures, we still had an amazing time! Thank you DigiCert! We are so blessed to work with you!

Halloween and Lia's Birthday

Happy Birthday Lia!!!

Happy Halloween!

So, I am now just catching up with our own pictures. Taking pictures of other people and editing those pictures makes it hard for me to want to do my own...but I have done it. So instead of putting everything on at the same time, I will do it in phases. I will be going through quite a bit, as we had a fun and crazy summer. ;)

The first pictures are of Lia's birthday. She turned 2! We can't believe it! We had a fun time with my parents celebrating her birthday and then did a little party with just the 4 of us a couple days later. We wanted to go to Thanksgiving Point for a party with friends, but we all ended up getting sick :(

The next pictures are of Halloween. We went to my husband's work party at his boss's house, where everything was pirate themed. It was amazing! He had a full size pirate ship in his yard! There were canons going off and talking skeletons everywhere! We had a lot of fun! The other pictures are of our girls. We had a fun trunk-or-treat with our new ward and the kids got a lot of candy. Hannah and Flavio then braved the rain (in ponchos) and went out for more candy :) We had a fun and safe Halloween!