Our Awesome Fall Break

Where to even begin?? Last week during Fall break we had the chance to finally get back to Iowa/Illinois to visit Paul's parents. All three brothers (and their families) came so it was like a mini family reunion. We haven't been since I was pregnant with Carter. Brandon was only 2 at the time and still very difficult to travel with. In fact this is the first time we have gone there (or anywhere far for that matter) since having kids that has been (dare I say) "easy". I definitely miss having babies, but it is SO nice to have my kids getting a bit older. They were really good on all four flights. They behaved in the airport and even withstood the 3 1/2 hour drive from the airport to Paul's parent's house. It is definitely no small feat to get there. But we did it. And aside from a few (major) meltdowns from Brandon over the course of the week, we had a FABULOUS time. 

Now for picture overload (is 100 pictures too many for one post? Probably!)

Here's the kids ready for the flight bright and early Friday morning. Our day started at 5 am and we didn't arrive until almost 10 pm that night. Whew! 

After the flight and on the way to the cabin we HAD to make a pit stop for the yummiest loose meat sandwiches you will EVER have. It's this totally old run down restaurant that is literally inside of a parking garage. The community was in an outrage when it was going to be torn down to build said parking garage, so they build around it. I don't know what they do to make these so good. It must be that the steamer they use is so well seasoned, but I have been craving them for years. I ate two…I have no shame. And I topped it off with a piece of banana cream pie. I was in heaven. 

And it was a good thing we stopped too because they were closing the next day for a week long repair job. I might have cried if I didn't get my loose meat sandwich.

Brandon didn't want to be in the picture so he's trying to duck.

This is the outside. See…totally old. Totally tiny and with a parking garage roof over it.

Paul's parents cabin is about 3 miles outside of the downtown area of Nauvoo, which is where the Temple is. So we had to stop and take a picture. It was freezing cold. At least for us Californians that is. So we jumped out, took a few quick shots and jumped back in the nicely heated car.

And here we are. Finally arrived at the in-laws. The kids were so excited.

This is our view outside of our front bedroom window. That's the Mississippi River right there. 

Saturday we stopped in town for lunch, then headed out to Carthage to take the tour there. 

That night Steve and Chelsea (and Connor) arrived as well at Dan and Alicia, of which I don't think I got a single picture of. That's sad!

This is David's Chamber and is just about a mile from the cabin, so it made an excellent half way point for my run the next morning. 

Steve took the girls on a little kayak ride around the shore.

A friend of Paul's from high school came to visit for the afternoon with his family. So we hung around the house, grilled burgers for lunch and let the kids run around and play. Pop Pop took the kids on multiple rides on his John Deere gator. They thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Skipping rocks was a popular activity.

This is Chelsea's son Connor and the absolute cutest little guy. My boys and him had a great time all week and got along really great. We're so excited to have him in the family. More cousins for my kids is ALWAYS an awesome thing.

Pop Pop hung a big long swing from a tree in the front yard. Unfortunately there was a wet spot of mud underneath it and Leah got to know it a little more than she had wanted to. She definitely was not happy about falling off the swing. Funny thing was that as soon as I helped her get all cleaned up, Paul brings Carter in for having done the same thing. 

That night we ate at a little Mexican restaurant and then went to the movies to see "Earth to Echo". Kind of a weird movie, but the kids liked it and had a fun time. We were the only ones in the tiny little theater and we were a little early. So Connor put on a show for us at the front of the room with all of his songs he's learned at school. It was adorable!

The next morning Paul and I got to go to do a session at the Nauvoo Temple. It's absolutely breaktakingly beautiful inside that Temple. I loved it and just wanted to walk around and look at everything. 

Straight from there we rushed over to meet up with the kids for a wagon ride around Nauvoo. 

Then we all had lunch together with Steve and Chelsea and Paul's parents. They continued on and did some touring around Nauvoo with Paul and the kids. But I headed home because it was quite cold and my dress and heals were not warm. But the kids got to do some fun stuff around town and I got a little R&R with a good book in the sun room.

Grammy has more craft and art supplies than literally anyone I know and the girls were just in love. They did multiple crafts with her and Leah has a stack of drawings she made with Grammy's oil pastels. 

Steve and Chelsea brought the kids back some treats from the fudge shop in town and the girls wasted no time digging in to their chocolate covered marshmallows.

Meanwhile the boys spent a lot of time searching for geodes. They're everywhere in Illinois and Brandon had a blast looking for them. Most of the ones they found were already in Grammy's rock garden, but he did find a couple of cool ones down at Riley Creek.

We went to Hotel Nauvoo for their buffet one night and ate until I literally could not eat even one more bite. Good thing I had a personal yoga instructor and running buddy to exercise with. Because I definitely ate my way through the week quite well.

Every morning I'd wake up and see these cuties huddled together playing games together. It was really sweet to see them. They had a few little issues but for the most part got along really well.

The next day Paul and I got to go to lunch with Steve and Chelsea and Dan and Alicia at a cute little bakery called Ivy's. Meanwhile the grandparents took the kids to the pumpkin patch and we met up with them after lunch. 

This is by far the best Pumpkin Patch I've ever been to and I think I enjoyed it just as much as the kids did. I really think what sold it for me is the corn pool. Every Pumpkin Patch should have a corn pool to play in.

Paul was so great and let Brandon dump corn all over him. Unfortunately, he got a kernel lodged into his ear and I had to extract it with some tweezers the front desk had on hand. Apparently this isn't first time it has happened. Lol.

Connor got dumped on by his mom.

But he retaliated.

All the kids took turns burying each other. Much less messy than sand at the beach that's for sure.

 Then the girls sectioned themselves off and made a little fort.

Steve put his surfing skills to the test and surfed down the pvc slide.

And the boys had a blast jumping on this giant inflatable bouncer. It was huge. Like a big bubble coming out of the ground.

Wagon ride to the corn maze.

Look real corn on the stalks. Still waiting to be harvested. 

Brandon being his silly self.

Chelsea manages a restaurant in Coronado and makes the yummiest pies there. So she was nice enough to make a huge apple and banana cream pie for us and I got to help. 

We had a bonfire that night down at the river. I missed out on this one since someone needed to stay up at the house while the kids were sleeping, but it was okay. Grammy had missed out on a lot so that I could go do stuff, so I wasn't sad or anything. Plus I didn't want to smell like smoke so I was good.

The kids had fun making a Halloween treat one morning. Brandon pretended to be a zombie.

We spent one whole day touring around Iowa and taking a trip down memory lane. We stopped at a lake that Paul use to lifeguard and teach swim lessons at. We saw an amish family riding down the street in their buggy. We went to the Dutchmen store which is an Amish owned shop with all sorts of fun things to buy. I got the yummiest smelling hand lotion and salve. The kids all picked out a toy. We stopped at the house in Douds and had dinner there. And did a tour of the bank that Paul's dad has owned with his sister for just about as long as Paul's been alive. It was a lot of driving but the kids did really well and it was fun to go and do all of that stuff. Even though I've done it before. The kids haven't been there in so long, so it was new to them.

At Paul's house in Douds, his dad has a map where he kept track of all the fun places they went as a family on vacation. I think that's pretty cool and hope to get to go on fun family vacations with our kids like this as they get older too.

Friday morning came really fast and the rest of the family left early that morning for their flights later that afternoon. We still had one more day with the in-laws and we literally crammed as much as we possibly could into that day. Paul and I went kayaking down the Mississippi (no pictures though. I was afraid of getting my camera wet). We took the gator down to Riley's creek and walked around there. It so beautiful and peaceful. Paul skipped rocks (he's really good at it). 

I spy with my little eye…. (do you see it?)

After we got back, Paul took the kids out in the gator and they all took turns driving it around. Then they went down to Riley Creek to hunt for Geodes while I did some laundry and packing. Then we went to see "Alexander and the horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day". It was super cute and we were just cracking up laughing. Great message too about pushing through the bad days and learning to more appreciate the good. Then we did a little shopping at the mall. Brandon's flip flop broke and he threw a major fit about the new ones we bought for him. Pickings were slim this time of year and he's extremely picky. I probably didn't handle it too well, but we figured it all out and he eventually put them on so we could go to dinner. We got back late that night, got the kids to bed and finished packing up. 

 Before heading out we stopped to take a picture of the new little seating area Paul's dad put in with the help of all the sons. Steve having done the most. We all put our hand prints in the wet cement so now we have our entire families hand prints all in one spot. Pretty cool! Oh…there's Alicia at the end there. So yay…I at least got one shot of her. We actually took family pictures one day, so I'll post those after we get them back.

The finished product with the cabin in the background.

It's dirty from all the mud right around there but this is our little family of hand prints. Paul pushed his hand into the cement a bit more than he should have. Lol.

Three hours or so later and we were at the airport waiting to head home. This is on the first leg of the flight. It was a great week and we made some really awesome and fun family memories. So grateful to Paul's parents for helping us get there and helping us have such a wonderful time. It's great being a Schoeni!

A quick trip down to Universal Studios

Carter's been wanting to go down to Universal Studios, so we snuck a trip down for the morning while the other kids were in school. 

There aren't a ton of rides for kids Carter's height, but we still got on a few fun ones and saw the "Waterworld" show. Not bad for a morning outing.

This kid makes the craziest faces when I ask him to smile. I don't know why he looks scared here. He wasn't. Silly boy!

Weekly Highlights

Just a normal week around here. But here are a few photos from some things we have been up to.

Ashlyn is reading….and reading…and reading. Just loves it and is already at almost 200% of her AR goal with a month and a half left in this AR period. 

Carter had a preschool field trip to CPK. They got a cool (literally cool…this is them inside the freezer) tour of the kitchen and back area. They got to make their own pizzas, which Carter chose to not put ANYTHING on his…just the bread for him. Shocking. Afterward they fed the ducks and went to the park to play. Good times!

I got to do to dinner with these adorable twins to celebrate their birthday this past week. I love how cute they are with each other. Seriously two halves of a whole and I'm so lucky to be friends with them. Had a blast and ate yummy food!

In other, non photo'd news, I had Leah's annual IEP for her speech therapy. She's making good progress, but still working on that darn "r" sound. So they're gonna keep having her go to speech every week during school. 

I've been going to storytime at the library on Wednesday mornings and hallelujah, they have the cutest funnest lady doing it now. She is so bubbly and fun with the kids and it makes such a difference. Plus Carter just loves going to the library and picking out books.

Other than that, it's life as normal. Grocery shopping. Laundry. Chores around the house. Did some visiting teaching this week. Hung out with some friends. Got a pedicure. Even took Carter with me to get my pedicure and it wasn't a total disaster. In fact, he was really good and sat right by me the whole time and played with his lego guys. I was really impressed. 

Tonight the kids have a primary activity at the McCoy's. They're watching a movie in the backyard with popcorn and treats. That'll be really fun. Tomorrow is Brandon's first soccer game and we're really excited to go see him play. Photo's to follow. Paul and I are going on a date. Maybe a movie, if we can find a good one to go see. Then there's the General Women's Broadcast with my girls tomorrow night. 

Saturday family fun

Oh my goodness…what a difference a week makes with the weather around here. Last Saturday was like death it was so hot. Today was so beautiful, we couldn't pass up the chance to be outside and enjoy it. We had a nice casual morning at home. Slept in some, cleaned up a little, and then had plans to head out to a carnival the city was having at Newhall Park. Well, the carnival ended up being a total bust. Basically was just booth after booth of advertisements. Some had games for the kids to play and little prizes they could win, but they were advertisment type prizes. Magnets with company names on them, pens with company names on them. Shoot Carter even got a toothbrush and toothpaste from a dental company. So after about 20 minutes, we left. We decided ice cream and some mini golfing sounded much more fun. And it definitely was. 

Brandon and his funny faces. That kid!

Carter basically sweeps his ball into the hole, but he sure has fun doing it. Paul tried to give him some pointers, but he would have NONE of that. He's a big boy and can do it all on his own. Wouldn't even use the smaller club. He had to have the same size one as his siblings, even though it was almost as tall as him.

Ashlyn tried really hard and did quite well. It's fun to see them get older and be able to do more things.

Afterward, I did a little shopping with Ashlyn and Leah, then went over my lesson for tomorrow. The girls ended the night with a birthday party for a girl in their Activity Day group and the boys hung out with Daddy and played some plants vs. zombies.  That meant no time for a date night for me and Paul, but we are already making plans for one next week. 

Why I need a husband

Specifically Paul of course.

 So I get home from church Sunday, make the kids lunch, and then sit down to relax for a bit. A while later I get up to start dishes. 

You know how if the disposal needs to be turned on, the water in the sink just keeps rising. Well, that was my sink. So I took all the dishes out of it, felt around in the water to make sure I didn't miss any silverware and turned on the disposal. Immediately I hear a crunch crunch crunch. I think….dang it…I missed a spoon or something. So I turn off the disposal. The water in the sink has not all gone down, so I feel in the disposal for the silverware. Nothing….so I wait for the water to drain and pull the disposal guard out. There was no silverware in the drain. There was GLASS….lots and lots of tiny pieces of crunched up glass. One of my little glass prep bowls had fallen down into the disposal and I missed it. I stood there thinking how the heck am I going to get all this out without ruining my disposal. So I start trying to pick the pieces out with my hands. I wasn't getting very far and I was afraid I was going to cut myself. Meanwhile, Paul gets home from church. I tell him what happened and how I didn't know how I was going to get it all out. He says, why don't you just get the hose attachment of the handheld vacuum and suck it all out. Uhhhh……...DUH!!! Why didn't I think of that? It worked like a charm and in minutes my disposal was totally clear of all that glass.

Later that day, I was sitting on the couch trying to think of a gift I wanted to get for someone. I was wracking my brain. I just couldn't think of anything good. Paul was sitting by me and offers up a few good options. I looked at him, smiling, and said, "well aren't you just so very helpful today"?! He responds by saying, "You sound like you are actually being sincere in that statement". HAHAHA…..of course I was. But apparently I am usually sarcastic if he didn't know whether to believe me or not. 

So that, my friends, is why I need a husband. To think for me. Because apparently I'm not very good at it on my own.

Back to a schedule

School is back in full swing. Homework, chores, and activities are taking up our afternoons once again. Brandon started soccer (yay), Leah's baton class is continuing on, the girls are still taking piano lessons (with LOTS of whining by Leah about practicing), and band practice should be starting back up in the next few weeks or so. Ashlyn's big "girl" on campus and gets to go on two field trips every 6 weeks. One walking one and one bus one. They just had their first bus field trip and she had so much fun. Nothing's more exciting than getting to leave school campus from time to time. Carter's in preschool twice a week and I'm back to having one morning to myself and the other to go volunteer at school. This past Thursday was my first volunteer day. I went to both Brandon's and Leah's class and really like both of their teachers so far. I'm doing dolch word testing (sight words) for Brandon's class and was really impressed with how many words these freshly new 1st graders know. It is such a huge difference from when I did dolch testing with Ashlyn's first grade class. I'm not sure if it's because kindergarten is full day now, or if there is just a stronger emphasis on reading, but I was really amazed. 

Here's my favorite day time Menchies buddy. He basically only eats the frozen yogurt to get to the M&M's but he still asks me to take him just about every other day. We don't go that often of course. Although I kind of wish I could. Yum yum! 

Another perk to being the only kid home during the day is extra pool time with mom. I love having a neighborhood pool and I love that there is hardly ever anyone there. I just need to plan a little more in advance when we go, so that maybe some friends could come too. I'm a pretty last minute pool person. 

Oh well….Carter and I had lots of fun together. 

And we found this really cool preying mantis. It was a big one and we loved watching it walk across the lounge chair. But seriously those things kind of freak me out. It was totally looking at me while I was taking it's picture. Not many bugs actually look at you when you're looking at them. I don't know, but that makes it weird. haha…

Then this morning we decided we needed to get the kids out for a hike. We stuck close to home and went to Placerita. There are still plenty of trails we haven't gone on with them. We should have gotten off a bit earlier in the morning because it was quite warm today. A lot of the trail was shaded, but the boys still only lasted less than a mile. Paul turned around with them and went to hang out in the nature center, while I made the girls trek on with me for a three mile round trip hike. Suffice it to say that they were NOT too happy with me by mile 2. It was a good opportunity to talk to them about the pioneers and how we can do hard things. I know…they were probably rolling their eyes at me. 

This is the sweetest picture ever! I love that my kids love each other. Even though they sometimes fight or get on each others nerves, they still enjoy being with each other and show affection to each other. 

It makes me happy!

And it helps me get through the times when they spend a great deal whining at me….eh hem…LEAH!!! 

Labor Day

Last Labor Day we were too burnt out from the beach to go, but since we didn't spend tons of time there this summer, we were all really excited to spend the day there. Paul's best friend from High School was out visiting from Iowa, so we got to meet up with him and his family too. So combine them along with some other awesome friends from church and I'd say it was a pretty great day. The weather was perfect for the beach and even though the waves were CRAZY big, the kids still splashed around at the edge and pretended to be surfing. Paul helped the kids build a big ole trench and sand castle. Mostly it was a trench, but that's pretty much what is usually ends up being. I was impressed they actually built any part of the sand castle at all. 

I got brave and went out in the water to swim. I know…shocking, but I do that from time to time. Lol. It was so fun once you got past all the waves. The water was really deep and I couldn't touch after just a few minutes of swimming. It was definitely a work out, but it was kind of relaxing and peaceful in a strange short of way. Getting back to shore was another story. Like I said the waves were huge and there were lots of rocks at the shoreline from all the sand being turned up. So I pretty much got pelted into the rocks trying to get back. It wasn't the greatest way to end my nice swim in the ocean, but oh well. A little trip to the showers to rinse off all the sand and to get my hair back to semi normal looking and I was as good as new!

Don't let the sticking out of her tongue at me fool you. That is a true sign of love from her! 

Paul and Zane. They probably haven't seen each other since their 10 year high school reunion, and since we are only a couple of years from our 20 year reunion (how the heck that happened I DO NOT KNOW), you know it's been a long time. But the great thing about friends like this, is that they picked up right where they left off. Zane isn't LDS, but from what Paul tells me, Zane went with him to all the church sports events, church dances and activities. So he knows all about Mormons. When he sat down, he was like, I'm assuming all these friends of yours are Mormon too. YUP….you got it right Zane. We travel in packs. 

Make shift surfing in the sand! Love these kids. They're the greatest. And nevermind that one random girl in the back. She just wished she was part of such a cool group, so she kept coming over to play. It was pretty cute.

Until next time Zuma Beach. We may not be back for a while. It's been a fun summer. Now to move on to FALL! Yay.