Quick trip to Heber

One of the ladies I work with got married up in Heber a couple of weeks ago. She asked me to come up and take her pictures. I do not do photography I let her know but I do like to take pictures for fun. This was a second marriage for her and she just asked to have some pics taken and they would pay for our family to stay a night at a lodge up there. Deke and I are always looking for an opportunity to get out of the ridiculous heat of the valley so I agreed. They were married literally on the edge of the rim and it was actually really a beautiful spot to take pictures. They got married in the morning and then had the reception afterwards so at about three o'clock we were free to wander around. So we headed for a scenic drive around Heber. Amazingly even though it is summer it was actually quite green everywhere. We drove down by the lake and found a fun little stream where Deke and Hunter tried to catch crawdad's and waterdogs. Hunter was in heaven climbing trees, finding cool sticks and all kinds of lizards and bugs. We spent like two hours playing around enjoying the grass and trees. Then we went by the corner market and picked up some food and headed back to our room. We got the kids in jammies then used our in room microwave to have hotdogs and chips and potato salad. Then we sat up and played board games and UNO and dominoes as a family and then snuggled into bed and watched a movie together. The next day we woke up and went adventuring again. This time we came across this cool field of flowers and I had to have to kids go out and explore. It was so nice to get away from the city and just be out in the trees. I can't wait to leave AZ and go somewhere with trees and seasons and leave the congestion and heat behind. It was nice to see that there are places here in AZ that are actually green.

Vacation continues...

Well as if the cruise wasn't enough vacation for one week, as soon as we got back to San Diego Dave and Nalene came out to Cali and met us for two fun days at Sea World. We had my mom and Eden, GG and Papa and Dave and Nalene. We opened and closed the park down two days in a row and we still didn't get to see everything. It took us like half an hour to get Avery to touch a starfish but finally Grandma Tobar got her to touch one. However she would have nothing to do with the sea cucumber that she kept saying "it's yucky!" Deke and I however were taking bets on how long it would be before Hunter went into the tide pool head first since he was leaning in so far. I was convinced that as long as he didn't hit his head on a rock that he would be fine if he fell in other than maybe a little startled. But he didn't :) Both the kids loved the Shamu show, I had forgotten how fun that one is. The lines were not bad at all, the only bummer was that it was pretty warm out. Ave absolutely loved the turtles they were her favorite, both the ones in the water and on land. I think we went back to see them three times because she thought they were so cute. I thought that for sure Hunter would be totally fascinated with the sharks and he did love them but he was more enthralled with the sting rays. When we got to the area where you can touch them one of the Sea World people came over and gave the kids a huge handful of little fish to feed the rays. Once we started feeding them they would come right up to you and stick their head up out of the water looking for fish. They are so cool feeling and Hunter was loving every minute of it. Deke and I cracked up when a big one came by and got spooked, it splashed its fins down quickly to get away and drenched Hunter head to toe. He turned around water dripping and then exclaimed "that was awesome!" He ended up choosing to buy a stuffed animal sting ray at the end of our trip and naming him "Manta" I of course loved to see the penguins, two years ago when we went to Sea World Deke asked someone to walk us behind the scenes of the penguin encounter and they actually took us into the penguin habitat. Then they took us to the penguin nursery and brought a penguin out that we could touch and see up close. It was so cool. It was so much fun to watch the kids experience everything, they were so cute. Hunter went on the big rollercoaster (his first actual big rollercoaster ride) and went on the rapids ride. Two days was just perfect to get in all the shows and get through all the exhibits. Thank you Sea World for providing such a fun family vacation :) :)

Day four and five

Alright time to finish up the cruise posts and move on to other blogging goodies so this we be the last one :) On the fourth day of the cruise we woke up and had breakfast together on the deck which was as usual fun and relaxing. Then we all headed upstairs to play some serious rounds of volleyball. It was so much fun, my dad is a pretty wicked volleyball player, and I had fun reliving my freshman Sunrise Mountain volleyball days. We played for hours, of course everyone had to talk trash and put on their game faces :) Then of course there was the institution of team names, can you guess which team Brenn was on??? Yep, the seagulls, yeah I know we are lame :) :) We had a whole bunch of other random people on the ship come up and join our games off and on throughout the morning. By the time we were done we were all sunburned and I even had a nice little bruise on my arm from playing. After we were done with the volleyball we still evidently had not had enough outside time so we headed over to the minature golf course. Golf is fun but none of us are very into it except maybe Dad and Deke so the rest of us played and sort of goofed around. After golfing we all sort of split up and enjoyed a couple hours. Deke and I played some giant chess and some ping pong and then headed to get the conference room set up for my dad's birthday present. I had gotten pictures for each of the girls of them and dad and made a DVD starting with the day I came home from the hospital through each child including grandbabies. We had each picked music that made us think of dad or that had a emotional tie for us. We went to dinner and all during dinner there was schools of dolphins tons of them jumping through the water right out the window it was so cool. After dinner we made dad skip dessert then hurried him down to the conference room. We had the room all to ourselves and set up chairs just for us in front of the TV. When I started the DVD a picture came on with my dad in a rocking chair holding me in a little pink blanket and I was barely a few weeks old. "Arms wide open" by Creed was the song I picked and it was so perfect. It didn't even take thirty seconds for his tears to start coming followed by every one of us in the room. It was so perfect, so worth it to see his face. Then we hit up a couple of shows and then headed to the upper deck to have desserts and played the drawing game. I will not go into explaning the game but Dad and girls here are a couple of pictures to remember it by :) :) We partied the night away and the next night got off the ship. It was such an amazing vacation I am so glad that we were able to take it together it was really special for all of us. My dad is such an amazing person, I am so thankful for him and the relationship we have. I love his quirkiness and how much fun he is to be around. Happy 50th dad, WE LOVE YOU!!!!!!