Hiking a local mountain trail

Guest blogger Robby here. In preparation for our Grand Canyon hike, we took family practice hike #2 yesterday, with special guest stars Aunt Andra and Audrey. This time we actually managed to bring our camera.

Here are a few of the highlights, from the cave (more like a large alcove) at the top:

Jenna enjoys some rock climbing. (It's not as steep as it looks--the camera was tilted.)

Our good-looking boy, still looking a little flushed from the hike up.

As you can see Little Robby wasn't the only red-faced one in the group.

Jenna's looking fresh because she got to ride up the whole way. We had three loads of about 25 lbs.--Jenna, Audrey, and a backpack full of 72-hour-kit goodies--that the three adults passed back and forth up and down the mountain. (Jenna did walk part of the way down.) Little Robby carried about 12 lbs. of water in an ill-fitting school backpack, although his load lightened quickly as we consumed its contents.

Overall, we gained 800 feet over the 1.6 miles to the top, close to the grade of the Grand Canyon trails we'll take. We were pretty wiped out by the time we returned to our starting point.

Here are some bonus Jenna pix, as she models several of her favorite moods:

For our birthmom...

Today, as I was taking a little bit of time surfing the internet, I stumbled onto a YouTube video about birthmoms. As I watched it, I began thinking about you and decided to write a message here especially for you. While writing this, I sit here wondering where you are and hoping that you might feel the love I have for you. As an adoptive mom, it is quite frequent that my thoughts reflect upon my daughter's birthmom. Everytime I hug her and kiss her my unending gratitude goes to her beautiful birthmom. I can't truly describe the feeling in words. When I think about you, my heart is already feels that same love and gratitude for the choice you are making. I know we haven't met, but I also know you are a beautiful person, and at the right time we will meet. We can't wait for you to become part of our family. I hope that in the meantime you can feel our prayers of comfort and peace for you.

With love,
Sharon

Let's do the Shamu Splash!

On our second day in San Diego we decided to try out Sea World.

When we arrived it was raining a little, and we sadly realized that we only had one umbrella for six people. I forgot to pack the another umbrella, so we all huddled together as we waited to go through the admission line to get in the park. Fortunately, the rain was not drenching, just steady and a little heavier than a drizzle.

My parents decided that they would rather not get wet in the rain so we went to the gift shop in search of another umbrella. They had sold out by the time we got there, so we ended up getting ponchos instead. We found out later that we were glad to have them because...

Little Robby wanted to sit in the "Soak Zone" during the Shamu Show. Okay, "Big" Robby has not stopped giving me grief because I told him that although we were sitting in the "Soak Zone" I figured that sitting 10 rows back it wouldn't be so bad, right?! I figured we would be splashed, but not "soaked."

Well, as you can guess, I was wrong! Laugh all you want... Poor Jenna wasn't laughing. She was a little disturbed by Shamu splashing her. About the worst part was that I tried to cover Jenna with one side of my poncho to protect her and managed to accidentally expose my lap in my haste, so my legs got soaked. Yes, soaked!

Fortunately, the whole show is not about Shamu splashing the audience so Jenna still came out with a smile in the end.

Here is my one picture of Shamu jumping out of the water to splash the audience.

Actually, what got us soaked was not Shamu doing a belly flop, but what you see at the end of this video. (I found this on YouTube, and it is exactly what we saw!)

Aren't we cute in our Sea World ponchos.

Eventually the sun did come out and we were able to put away our ponchos. Here we are taking a ride on the Sky Tower overlooking the park. Jenna was so happy to be able to go on a ride with everyone.

Boy would she have been excited if their new Sesame Street exhibit had been open. As you can tell she was happy just looking at the Elmo picture.

It was fun seeing a few creatures I have never seen in real life like this beluga whale...

and this walrus. Boy was he huge!

Okay, so you might guess from the fact that we are wearing long sleeves and light jackets that the outdoor tempurature that day was not extremely warm. (Robby was only in short sleeves because he doesn't like his jacket. Not to mention the fact that jackets aren't something you worry about too much in the Arizona desert.) And when it is chilly is definitely not a time that you really want to be getting wet, but Little Robby just had to ride Sea World's one roller coaster, Journey to Atlantis (seen here). Luckily those ponchos came in handy again!

After the roller coaster was done our Sea World Adventure was over. We saw four shows (Shamu, dolphins, sea lions, and pets), saw sharks in a tunnel through their tank, viewed penguins, and several other interesting creatures. All in all, it was very fun!

Thanks Mom and Dad for helping us make this trip possible! We really enjoyed going with you!

Legoland California

We just got back yesterday from a fun vacation to San Diego. One of Little Robby's favorite places to go is Legoland, and we just had to go back since we had such a great time on our first visit. On this trip, we had fun taking my parents. My dad wanted to go back to San Diego because he served there while in the Navy a long time ago (I won't tell you how many decades it's been since then! ;)

This was our second ride of the day... the traditional "Teacup Ride." I wish I had pictures from the first ride that the boys took, because it was interactive, and I got to splash them with "water bombs" by pressing a button provided to spectators. It was great fun trying to time my sprays to get them wet!

One of the highlights of the day was for Robby to get a chance to play with the Lego Mindstorms. The last time we went to Legoland we didn't know that you had to sign up to play with them so we missed our opportunity because all the sessions had ended by the time we got there. This time we made sure not to miss out!

Lego Mindstorms are programmable Lego robots. You create programs on a computer to tell the robot what to do then you download it to the onboard computer and run your program. Very cool, I must say! As other participants left our session, the instructor even let me play with one for a while. It was great!

Here you can take a look at Mindstorms in action.

During the first half of the day, poor Jenna was feeling very left out watching Grandma, Grandpa, Dad, Mom, and Chap go on the rides when she didn't get to. She would watch from the side very forlornly and plead, "My turn?! Jenna's turn! Ride!" Eventually Daddy had pity on her and took her over to where there were rides that she was big enough for. She was so happy! The picture above was of her in the helicopter ride sitting next to Daddy with the camera.

Here she is checking out Lego Miniland USA (an area of impressive Lego made buildings).

Little Robby and Grandma and Grandpa stand in front of Legoland New York City. It was fun seeing the Lego version of buildings we had seen last summer on our trip to see Aunt Donnette (August 2006).

And to end a good day at Legoland we had to have pictures with everyone. First the kids with Grandma and Grandpa.

Then the four of us.

And lastly all six of us.

And finally our little Lego maniac in front of his favorite place -- Legoland California! Maybe some day we will have to go to Legoland UK or Denmark or Germany!

One last bonus pic... Jenna discovered that standing in the bathroom drawer in the hotel was lots of fun! What a silly girl!

A Budding Artist

Jenna has just started to draw things and tell us what they are. It's fun when kids get to this age and you can see their little minds at work.

Here we have Jenna's flowers. Jenna drew this while I was gone in North Carolina visiting my Aunt Carla Jean. Robby said that he liked the fact that she added stems to all of the flowers.

And this is Jenna's snake. Also drawn while I was gone.

Just Like Brother

With school in full swing, Jenna's desire to be just like brother and go to school has not diminished. Each morning he gets ready for school, loads up his backpack, and puts on his helmet to ride over to another boy's house for carpool rides. And many mornings Jenna has to do the same...

So here you go... Robby's ready for school,

And so is Jenna!

"Amulick"

So here's our funny moment of the week... When we have family scriptures, Jenna is usually bouncing off the walls. We do our best to keep her corralled, but we usually read right before bedtime and she is quite often loopy. I have decided that children her age have the uncanny ability to pay attention even when they don't appear to the paying attention. So we were reading about Alma and Amuleck in the Book of Mormon, and when Robby mentioned Amuleck for the first time a light bulb went off in Jenna's head. She started saying, "Amulick! Amulick!"

"Yes, Amuleck!" we replied and kept on reading.

Jenna ran to the toy cabinet in search of something, and returned a moment later exclaiming again "Amulick! Amulick!" and carrying... Mr. Potatohead's tongue! (Get it, "Amu-lick!")

Of course we all cracked up! Now, I will never be able to read that part again with out smiling a little.

This is our tribute picture to "Amu-lick!"

My First Karate Test (and Little Robby's 6th)

Well, we had another big day for karate testing. Little Robby is moving up the ranks to purple belt white stripe, and I am finally moving on to something other than white (in this case yellow). Jenna has been watching class on the side lines for a little while now, and I think she really wants her pink belt! Below you can watch and see how we did:

Little Robby performing his forms, as well as a little bonus footage.

And now, look out world, it's Karate Mama in action! Hi-ya!

Packed and ready for school

Monday was Little Robby's first day at his new school. Despite the fact that we had gotten to bed the night before a little later than planned, both Jenna and Little Robby got up early! Much earlier than I had hoped. Jenna came to arouse us at 5:40am (so much for my rest) and then we heard Little Robby up and about around 6am. The excitement of the beginning of school was too much for him! I almost think that he anticipates the first day of school with the same level of excitement as Christmas. I am certain that Little Robby's excitement rubbed off on Jenna because she was following Little Robby around wanting to do everything that Brother did, including wear a backpack (which they both paraded around with for the last half an hour before we left for school!)

Here they are ready for school!

Backpacks are loaded and ready to go!

Jenna didn't want to put down her backpack, and she insisted that she have it with her in the car on the way to the school. When we arrived at the school, we all went in to get Robby's schedule and see him off to his first class (since the school is brand new this year then we were still finding out information the first day.) Jenna was so happy marching around the school with her backpack just like all of the big kids. When we walked into Little Robby's classroom she went and sat down in one of the chairs just like she belonged. We had to coax her to leave the classroom, and then as we were about to walk out of the building, she threw a fit! She wasn't about to leave the school. As far as she was concerned, she was going to school, too! Dad managed to convince her to leave by telling her she was going to go to "Mommy School."

I think she thought that we were going to go to a special place, somewhere other than home. Boy, was she disappointed! Then things got worse when Daddy left for school also. After he was gone she questioned, "Where's Daddy?"

"He's at school, sweetie." I replied.

"Where's Robby?" she then asked.

"He's at school, too, sweetheart."

"Noooooooooo! Waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Yes, she wailed... and wailed... and wailed! She wanted to go to school, too! Poor kid.

Luckily, she has come to accept the situation over the last few days and we are past the wailing, although I am sure she still wants to go to the magical land of school just like everyone else!

Summer Vacation 2007: Petrified Forest National Park

Now let me catch you up on the end of our vacation. On our drive home, our last stop was to see the Petrified National Forest and Painted Desert in northeastern Arizona. I must say that I thought this was going to be a little more spectacular. It was one of those places that you can see once and be satisfied that you have "been there, done that." Unfortunately, the petrified rocks at the park have been plundered over the years, and most of the original petrified wood has been removed. I think things would have been more impressive if we had seen it decades ago before people had walked off with so many samples. One interesting thing I learned there was that petrified wood found in every state. Let me get on to the pics...

Here we have Little Robby and Jenna posing in front of the painted desert. It was really neat seeing the variety of colors in the landscape here. These pictures don't do it justice.

While there we got to see some pictographs from the people that dwelt in the area hundreds years before. We liked this one... A large bird carrying a baby (or is it a man.) We wondered was this a stork bringing a baby, or did someone lose a baby to a large bird. Or, did some big brother wish that his baby sister was snatched by a big bird and taken away. Okay, maybe not the third idea.

Robby liked the colors at this particular lookout called the Blue Mesa. Although things look grey in this picture they really weren't that grey. They did have some bluish tones.

Here we are sitting in front of "Old Faithful," the largest petrified tree in the park.

And lastly, Jenna is standing in front of a large polished piece of petrified wood. It is neat seeing all of the colors that come out in the the rocks.

Summer Vacation 2007: A trip to the Fort Worth Science Museum

On our last day in Texas Robby found out about an exhibit at the science museum in Fort Worth that was all about the making of the Star Wars movies. Since Little Robby is a huge Star Wars Lego fan we knew he would think that it was totally awesome. And we were right! We also had the fun of going to the museum with Logan, Wendy, Molly, and baby Will.

Robby and Uncle Logan are standing by their mag-lev Lego cars. Some parts of the exhibit were about how some of the technology ideas used in Star Wars are actually used today. This one was all about using legos and magnets to create a car that levitated and moved by magnetism.
Aunt Wendy had to help Jenna remove her thumb so we could see her smile.

Jenna enjoyed listening to the voice talking in the audible exhibit reader. (They were for the visually impaired so that they could have a voice read the exhibit explanations.)

Many of models that we saw in the exhibit were actually used in making the films. This X-wing was one of Little Robby's favorites, especially since he has his own Legos X-wing at home.

We are standing in front of the Millenium Falcon. It was really cool seeing the details the creators put into the models. (This lego set would be the ulitmate for Little Robby, but he'll have to save up his money till he's an adult for it since a Millenium Falcon set cost $500!)

One thing I didn't realize about wookies was that they were 2 meters tall! And here's our favorite wookie, Chewbacca!

One of the later parts of the exhibit let the kids build their own robot and then give it a simple program to tell it where to go. Little Robby thought this was cool because the concept was exactly like his Lego Mindstorms set.

Jenna wanted part in the building fun too!

And lastly, we have a trip to the pretend grocery store. When we first arrived Jenna was determined to stuff her basket full of produce.

She worked hard place each produce item she found into her basket.

She was so thorough that she almost cleaned the produce shelves off single-handedly.

But, what I liked best was the item she balanced carefully on the top of all of her healthy produce! It's okay to eat some, but only after you have your vegetables!