July In San Diego

Lacy and Joe came in town all the way from Florida, which meant

 it was time to party.

We all squeezed into Nana and Papa's house for a little over a week and slept and walked on top of each other, (mostly Nana and Papa with four kids at the foot of their bed climbing in with them at the crack of dawn... that's love)... ate lots of yummy food, watched a lot of olympics, and filled our days with activities that would knock our kids out come bed time. We did...

- The zoo

-Legoland

- Swimming 'till our hair stayed crispy even when clean and matched the grass.  Yikes.

- A girl's only 8 mile walk in the most beautiful San Diego weather where we wandered the most charming farmer's market in Little Italy (hence the overload on pretty-produce photos.)

- Point Loma Seafood where I could eat every day.

- A birthday party for Joseph's 7th complete with a pinata, swimming, and pony rides!

- The tide pools in Point Loma which were really just beautiful but terrifying cliffs overlooking the water since it was high tide.  

- The zip line.  Many a time.

- The trampoline with no enclosure.  We like to live on the edge.

- A girl's night celebrating my step-brother, Kirk and Janice's upcoming baby!

- The beach.  Oh the beach.  You fill up my senses.

- A date night to enjoy delicious food and ghiradelli down town with Lacy and Joe and no kids

- And ANOTHER in Coronado.  We were spoiled.

- And Nana and Papa's younger-kid cousin's camp complete with a beach day, arts and crafts and a Dinosaur Hunt!  Obviously Papa found huge oversized cardboard dinosaurs to scatter in the yard while scary dinosaur growls were pumped out the windows on loud speakers.  Obviously.

It's like 115 today back in the desert.  Seemed like a good day to download my phone pics and dream of 75-degree heaven.  And cry.

Some pictures from Thanksgiving. 2010. Why not?

I'm working on my blurb book. (Which I think is as fun as having to call Dell back when my lap top would break and talk to somebody in India while they made sure in many many minutes that I knew how to plug a chord into an outlet.)

Super duper fun--- in other words. If that comparison was too hard to follow.

Anyway--- desperately trying to get our memories and family events down in print has made me realize that my blog has evolved a bit. And I seem to be forgetting... or skipping more of our normal family things. So I decided that although I'm seriously late, I'm still squeezing in Thanksgiving. You wouldn't know it was Thanksgiving. No yummy-food pics or anything... luckily darling cousin-pics are more important in the long run.

These four were so cute together. Sophia is such a little leader and somehow became the toy everyone was fighting over.... (lots of tears out of whoever couldn't sit by Sophia... she only has two sides, three people... reoccurring problem.)

My sister in law, Brooke, had her third baby boy exactly two months before me, so I snapped a few of him and his big brothers....

Crazy baby eyes. I love 'em.

And while I'm catching up... on Biesinger family time... here's the one measly time I pulled out my camera while Nana and Grandpa B were here to meet Finn and keep my house running while I figured out life with three kids. What would we do without grandparents?

Pretty sneaky how you weasled out of that second one, Nana. :)

La Jolla Cove, seal beach, a picnic, some volleyball, and then back to mom's pool...

Memorial Day. This is Sophia in mourning. There was one sad little seal on seal beach by himself. "Is he dead?" Sophia's asks… to which the lady-who-hands-out-postcards too quickly replied "Yeah…. crawled up yesterday and died."

She was devastated. We've had a few more talks about death lately than I prefer, and this sparked all sorts of questions. Why did he have to die all alone? When is Heavenly Father going to come get him? Is the sea going to get him? How will Heavenly Father find him in the sea? Why is Heavenly Father so mean?

uh oh.

She had that same response when I tried to explain why we couldn't swim on Sunday because Heavenly Father likes us to keep the sabbath day holy…. etc.. (in kid language).. I think I'm going to have to take the blame for a while.

The rest (I think- I'm not making any promises) of Florida.

I thought if I squeezed four in a collage and took away your option to pop-out maybe it wouldn't be so bad. (We forgot to try for one more the last morning Lace--- oh well!)

Below we tried out there new tart yogurt joint. There's is serve your own--- and those places are making a killing in this market because of people like me. Me--- the girl with the 13 oz yogurt (a serving is 4.) I have a problem with portion control. How dare they take advantage of my weaknesses for profit.

Oh but I must say, I love u-serve because you can get the kids like an ounce if you want. Everyone gets there own. Everyone's happy. My handsome nephew- a pro on this bike.
Ok and it just so happens that my friend Michelle from Freshman year at BYU Hawaii lives in Gainsville... so we got to play! I'm hoping it was fun for you Michelle, even though we teased you with fresh cookies but forgot to give you any, and my little bully, Mila attacked Annie, unprovoked... more than once. Hopefully the Popsicle (above) will sugar coat the memory for her. Miss you. Sorry I didn't have a better photo of us since you think you're posing funny and I have uhh... who knows what- all over my shirt. We're even.

Oh and um-- are you kidding with that girl's lips? I never realized how luscious they were 'till I saw her this time in person. Wow.

This was our trip to Lacy's natural history museum--- Sophia was too scared to go through most of it (I don't know what the deal is, but she's terrified of fake outside inside things (like fake thunder and skies and loud noises INdoors. I don't know. Fearless of REAL things mostly, but Snow White's Scary Adventures and the American Indian Exhibit... no way.

But the butterfly exhibit-- AMAZING. They land on your shoulder and flutter by your face with their BEAUTIFUL turquoise wings and you try to remember how beautiful they are when they get too close and you still instinctively swat and squeal like they're big ugly grasshoppers. Really though- lovely.

Miss miss miss missing my sweet sister, her funny husband, and smart-darling kids.

As if traveling cross-country with my girls in tight quarters isn't reason enough to cry all the way home...

I have to leave my sister too. :( Tomorrow.

Here's just a few photos of our days... hmm... I'll have to get one of the two of us tomorrow morning before I leave- we haven't been very good at that.

It's a good thing we've got Ross waiting on the other end or tomorrow would be a dark, sad tunnel. We're gonna miss them- tons.

Blogging from Florida

I Survived the flights! Yes I may have spent 130 bucks at Target the night before (to Ross' dismay... and disgust) on junk food and new trinkets to pull out of my bag of tricks. I didn't even waste room on healthy foods or expired toys... only the best for this adventure. I wasn't going to risk any MAJOR melt downs in Continental's tight quarters if I might possibly be able to bribe them away with a little high fructose corn syrup.

And guess what? It worked. For the most part, worth every penny. (Well Ross might disagree on the inside but since his outsides didn't have to endure 6 hours of airplane travel with two small children, he keeps that nice and quiet.)

And I didn't even dive into a few things... so MAYBE (we'll see after the flights home) I'll get to save a few things for the two birthdays in our house coming up. So what if a little milk spilled and then ripened in Barbie's hair before I noticed?

Now? Enjoying the balmy Florida weather and my poor nauseous sister and her LOVELY kids. We're swimming and eating and being awfully lazy. And I already got to see my friend Michelle that just so HAPPENED to move to the same town as my sis. It's wonderful.

On a different note, check out my new post on the photo-blog here. And then come to Palm Springs and stay in this hotel because it's .... SO. cool.