Happy Birthday Lucy

Lucy turned 19! She took off work on her birthday and JJ was off that afternoon.  We picked him up at UMSL around lunch time when he was done with work and headed to Illinois. We headed back to Lake Lou Yaeger to swim for the afternoon.  Nolan and I had so much fun when we went up and wanted to go back as a family.  The past several years we have always been down at the lake with friends around Lucy's birthday.  For her there is usually some hype about doing something fun and I knew she wanted that again this year.  It was nice to spend the afternoon as a family as well.  She leaves soon for Utah, and I know our family outings are limited with her.  We had fun swimming, floating, playing on the inflatable and relaxing on the beach all afternoon.  The diving board area was closed, and Nolan was disappointed about that.  We thought the water was too low, but it was because the seagulls were all sitting on the platform and they didn't want to disturb them.  They had also made a mess all over the area and it would need to be cleaned.  When we were done swimming, we went to a Mexican restaurant in town.  It was so yummy, and we were all pretty hungry.  I am glad we had such a fun time.  When we got home, she opened some gifts.  We got her some new things for her apartment in Utah.  We are saving cake and ice cream for the weekend when we have family over to celebrate. JJ and I can't believe she is 19, she has grown up so fast.  When my kids were little people would stop me in the store and tell me how fast it goes and to enjoy it.  They were right.  I look back and I really have enjoyed all these years, all the stages and different phases in her life so far.  She is a joy to have in our family, and we love her.    

 

Family Pictures

 

When we got back from California it was so hot.  We were under heat advisory all week long.  It was miserable, almost to hot to even be at the pool.  We tried to stay inside as much as possible.  I felt bad that our week was so boring.  I decided Friday afternoon to take Nolan back to the climbing gym.  JJ meet us there when he got done with work.  They had fun climbing together.  

Nolan got into cooking by himself recently.  He helped me make some slushie drinks one evening.  It was the perfect cold treat.  I showed him a cookbook Grandma and Grandpa Smith sent several years ago.  It is a cookbook for kids, and he has really enjoyed reading it and making some things out of there. 

Garrett and Lucy both graduated from physical therapy.  It is so excited to know they are both healing well after all of their hard work.  Garrett had an appointment with the orthopedic and he cleared him to play football.  Hopefully we can all stay healthy and not have any injuries for a while.   

Despite the heat Nolan started football practice.  

We watched Harley for a while.  Sadly, they had to put Bentley down recently.  This is the first time we have had Harley without Bentley.  Their little trio is down to two.  It was interesting to see how the dynamics have changed with Bentley gone. 

 

Sunset

I am glad we had a day to relax before heading home.  We all slept in and then spent the day relaxing at the house.  There weren't any plans, and we all enjoyed laying around.  Garrett napped a lot, we watched movies, played games, swam and sat by the pool.  It was wonderful and felt so good after two very busy days.  After dinner we went to the beach to watch the sunset.  We decided to go to a different beach.  We went to Bolsa Chica State Beach, and I really liked it.  It made me wish we would have tried another beach instead of doing Seal Beach twice.  We were surprised to have it be so chilly in California.  We all wished we would have packed a sweatshirt.  Especially at the beach that evening, it was chilly and windy.  That didn't stop Nolan from getting in the ocean one last time, in his clothes. We were ready to head home early in the morning.  We all had our bags packed before bed so we could wake up early and get to the airport.  It was a fun trip, lots of fun memories and it was the perfect length.  We were rested and ready to go home.     

 

DisneyLand

On Wednesday we went to Disneyland with everyone.  JJ's parents got us all tickets for our birthday gift this year.  Disneyland is celebrating its 70th anniversary and JJ's mom is also turning 70 in August.  This trip was to celebrate her birthday.  We got an earlier start on Wednesday so we could be there right when it opened.  We went right to the Star Wars line so we could do that ride first.  We knew we couldn't use a lightening pass for that ride and the line would be long all day.  It was a really cool ride and Garrett especially loved it.  At the end of the day, I asked him what his favorite part was, and it was the Star Wars ride.  We spent the day just making our way through the park and seeing what we could use our lightening pass on.  We rode the Princess and the Frog ride and got soaked!  It said you may get wet, but we got completely soaked.  I wish we would have watched more of the Disney classic movies before our trip.  It was fun to see so many rides from the classic movies.  I really liked how the rides at both California Adventure and Disneyland were such fun experiences.  We didn't stay together with the whole group the whole day.  We naturally split up but spent most of the day with Rachel and her kids.  The cousins had fun riding rides together.  The thought the strangest ride was the small world ride.  After talking with one of the Disney workers we decided to watch the light show on frond of the small world ride.  It wouldn't be as busy, and it gave a wider area for the show to be projected onto.  The parade also started right in front of small world so as soon as the parade was over, we could follow it down and get a good spot for the light display.  We sat and saved seats for everyone right by the beginning of the parade.  JJ went and got pretzels for us to eat for a late dinner.  It was nice to sit and relax while we waited for the parade.  We loved the parade! It was so fun and especially fun with all the lights at nighttime.  We then walked down and got front row seats to the light display.  Everyone loved the light display and were thankful that we had made the effort to get good seats.  The parade and light display were maybe my favorite parts of the whole day.  I remember liking them a lot when I went to Disneyworld.  After not being able to see the water show at California Adventure, I am glad we made an effort to see the show at Disneyland.  After the light show and fireworks we started until almost closing and rode a few more rides.  Garrett maybe would have wanted to do the Star Wars ride again, but the line was really long, and it was late.  We spent 15 hours at Disneyland.  After spending two days walking around the parks, we were exhausted.  We also felt like we did a lot, everything we wanted to do.  I'm sure there were things we missed out on and things that we would have enjoyed.  We had a great time and were glad we did both parks.  The kids thought their Disney experiences were magical.  We were thankful we were able to go!