...And Some More...

Here are the highlights of another fab day on the island:

Seashells, delightful!  I may or may not have been a bit....what's the word....casual maybe...with doing the girls' hair while we were there.

The water was beautiful, and all along the shore you can spot these native garabaldi gold colored fish:

This particular morning we all walked down to the Casino.  But we had quite a few little ones in the crew and decided it best to not venture in.  So we headed back into town to have some lunch at Pete's, a local little outside eatery.  So fun!  Notice Lexi in the stroller.  She's out cold!

The girls had their eye on Lloyd's, the candy store.  After lunch we headed over to see what Lloyd's had to offer. 

Love it!  They each picked out a treat and were happy as could be.  We steered clear of the cantaloupe-sized caramel apples.  But oh my they looked amazing...


Later on we had (yes, HAD- it was a necessity) to venture out to grab an ice cream cone.  And of course get a reach-your-arm-out-and-shoot picture with each of the ice cream lovers!

If this one had a caption from Lexi it would say, "Seriously, a picture?  More ice cream, NOW!"  She couldn't get it fast enough!

And of course the day wouldn't be complete without more swimming, laughing, and all that other great vacation stuff.

Catalina Continues....

Despite Lexi having some Oscar-the-teething-grouch issues before we left, something about Catalina sent her into awesome mode and she slept like.....well....a baby!  So after having a restful sleep, we were ready to get out and play!

Here are some pics of the main drag.  Looking up the street (At least according to me it was up.  Perhaps it was down.  Perhaps it really doesn't even matter.  Getting lost in Catalina isn't necessarily really possible.)

A look down the street.  The streets are pretty much lined with quaint little shops and restaurants on the one side, and the other side goes directly to the shore looking out at the harbor.  Beyond the shops on the left in this picture (or to the right of the picture before this one) are streets filled with quaint little houses and condos.

And a look at the harbor:

The most prominent feature of the island is The Casino, which actually has never been used for gambling.  Rather, "casino" simply means a gathering place.  So it's basically a large gathering place with a ballroom and is home to the local movie theater.  We never made it inside (probably not conducive to little kiddos) but rumor has it the theater is beautiful with an old pipe organ.  See I did listen to the mini history lessons from the locals on some of our excursions!

This first morning we took a little boat for a ride out on the deep blue sea!  Well, okay, the Pacific Ocean to be precise.  Big thanks to Wendy and Bob for taking Lexi on her own little island stroller tour  ;)  Heading out of the harbor- aye aye Cap'n!

The trusty shipmates getting a good look of the island:

Shipmate Kenna didn't necessarily appreciate the boat ride.  It seems she likes to keep her feet safely on land:

The rest of the mateys had a good time!  Ty and Allie took turns helping to steer the ship:

We made it back on land and headed back to the condo.  Here is Ty man out loving life with Bridgy, one of the twins.  He is rather fond of this blonde little bombshell!

When we stepped out of our condo, we looked directly at this:

The POOL!


The girls actually finished up their summer swim lessons a few days before we headed over and were ready to try out their new skills.  Let's just sum it up by saying we need a LOT more swim lessons.  However, Allie is now able to put her whole head under water which is an accomplishment years in the making!  We had actually gotten in the pool the night before, but Ty got a little too friendly with the hot tub and decided he preferred to keep his airways open.  Needless to say he too kept his feet safely on the side of the pool the rest of the trip.  The girls were sure to visit the pool daily!  They had so much fun playing in the pool with all the other kiddos too.  Lexi took a turn in the pool too, but I was with her while Jacob and the boys took a golf cart expedition around the island.  Sorry Lou, no pool pic with you.  It was at this point, however, I wanted to take a picture and couldn't find my camera-  I was pretty certain it got left in our boat earlier that day.  Yikes!  I hurried back down to the pier and fortunately the nice man on the loading dock had it in his pocket.  WHAT A RELIEF!

*insert my little tidbit here:  I try not to put up pics of other people's kids (at least not too many of them) seeing as though this is a public blog.  So even though we were with other people and loved every minute of them, I just hesitate posting other people and their kids over the WWW*

Kenna and her mad floating skills:

Allie and her fully wet head, a huge breakthrough!

Beach babes:

Each family took a turn for dinner every night.  It turned out perfect and was so fun to all sit and eat and laugh each night in the different condos.  Then of course each night the kids would usually head out to the pool again before calling it a night.

Santa Catalina

Up until now, my only experience with anything Catalina has been this:

And well, I don't really like Catalina dressing.



But now, NOW I can say I've upgraded my Catalina experience a bit to something a little more like this:

And well, I LOVE it.

That there my friends is a pic of the city of Avalon in Catalina Island off the coast of California.  I'm ready to go back.  Now!  But it may be a while before I again grace the shore of Catalina Island, so for now I will relish in the memories and pictures of our AMAZING week!

Perhaps the biggest hurdle of the vacation was the drive to California.  However, I can happily say that for the most part, our 7+ hour drive went fairly smooth.  We left our humble abode approximately 9:30 a.m. on Saturday the 15th.  One stop in Vegas for lunch and then we worked our way into Huntington Beach, CA sometime late afternoon.  It was about this part of the trip I decided to let time go for a while- I was on vacation! 

This little Missy had been cutting some molars the week or so before and wasn't necessarily enjoying it so I was a little anxious about how she would do:

We only had a moment or two on the ride- for the most part she was a trooper.  I have to give a huge shout out here to the older three, they traveled SO WELL!  That's a long drive and they did awesome.

Our official start in Catalina wasn't until Sunday, so we stayed Saturday night in Huntington Beach.  Here we are at the hotel- the kids are looking down at the pool, lamenting that there wasn't time for them to have some swim time that night:

Oh, if they only knew what pool time awaited them!

What do you say kiddos, you ready for Catalina?

Oh yeah.  Oh. YEAH! 

So, Sunday morning we met up with Bob and Wendy for Sacrament Meeting.  We then went back to the hotel, packed up all our goods and started our caravan over to Long Beach to catch the ferry to take us over to the island. 

Here we are in the terminal snacking on some sandwiches as we wait to board the Catalina Express:

Okay, back up a bit.  Our entire crew over on the island consisted of our dear friends Bob and Wendy, and their children and grandchildren.....give or take a few because of work schedules.  We came over to the island in shifts, but our total crew included 7 adults and 10 kids.

We finally got our okay to board the catamaran, found us a seat, and were on our way!  Adios Long Beach!

Keep in mind this was Father's Day.  I told Jacob I was taking him to Catalina Island for Father's Day.  Pretty much awesome wife status right there.  Ha!  A very unorthodox Father's Day, but one for the record book for sure!  I love love love my boys:

This is the point where I got a bit lost in a sweet island-induced coma and forgot to take any more pics for the night.  But stay tuned, day two...and three...and four....and five are soon to come!  

More Teeth!

Allie is proud to announce she has finally lost her first tooth!  She had been wiggling that little sucker for quite a while.  Since Kenna lost her fifth tooth just a few days ago, Allie has been extra motivated to receive her own cash stash under the pillow from the toothfairy.  We were trying to wiggle it loose the other night when Kenna decided we needed to try out the old string-on-a-doorknob trick.  Why not?  Allie was a willing participant!  We got her all hooked up to some floss:

As I was tying the floss to the doorknob I thought to myself, "Hmm.  I've never actually done this before."  I decided not to let the girls in on that little tidbit of information.  But sure enough, after two or three slams of the door, her tooth came a-flying!  And off the floss......we had to do a little detective work to find that tiny little sucker that had flung onto the kitchen floor.  Fortunately we found the tooth and Allie was delighted to send her first text to the toothfairy.  That wonderful little fairy left Allie 4 quarters under her pillow.  What a nice fairy.

Way to go Allie Rae!  And thank you Kenna for the inscription on the bag:

And Summer Begins...

Seeing as though it's summer, we are soaking up the nice weather doing all sorts of stuff.

Bubbles:

Some good old-fashined cuteness:

Planting.  Or rather observing if you are Ty:

Now that school is out we are getting used to being together all day long again.  Needless to say we have had a time-out or two.  Time out for Kenna simply means getting creative with the pretzels:

We've had a trip down to the St. George splash pad.  Lexi found the perfect rocks to crawl all over.  She was completely enthralled and refused to look up for a picture:

Stay tuned for more summer fun!

Celebrate!

One year.  ONE YEAR.  How is it possible my baby is one year old?  Our little Lexi has completed her first year of life.  She has certainly made the last year incredibly enjoyable.  Okay, okay.  Fine.  I am not forgetting frequent newborn feedings, massive sleep deprivation, teething, snotty baby noses, and a dump truck load of diapers and laundry.  We have enjoyed Miss Lexi in spite of all the...er...side effects of having a new little one in the fam.  Her toothy little smile and sweet personality more than make up for it all.  I mean really, how do you not love this little blue marker-smeared face?

Lexi's birthday was a celebration indeed, seeing as though it fell on the last day of school as well as the day family came into town.  We somehow managed to convince Uncle Ross, Aunt Maria, and Aunt Marlene to come down and visit us!  Truth be told Ross just needed to come pick  up his horse and new colt down here, but I just like to think they missed us too much and had absolutely nothing else to do with their time so drove south for 5 hours.  Not to mention it was the first time I was FINALLY able to see Aunt Maria since she came home from her mission!!  Hoo double ray!

So, let's start off with the girls heading off for the last day of school.  (We won't discuss how wicked mean I am for making them walk.  Sheesh.)  Last day of Kindergarten and First Grade, respectively.

 

We had some dinner then started off the birthday celebrations, which of course included opening presents.  Needless to say Lexi had plenty of extra hands to help her dig in.  I personally am digging Uncle Ross in the background looking most debonaire. 

After the kids played with Lexi's gifts for a while (good thing a one-year-old could care less) and the adults visited for a while, Lexi decided she was all birthday-ed out and went to bed.  But oh no, the party didn't end there!  We then moved on to our party games.  What party would be complete without "pin the bow on the baby?"  None I tell you!  Ty giving it a go:

Aunt Maria may or may not have cheated:

Next up was musical chairs.  Now allow me to let you in on a little Israelsen secret.  There is a gene somewhere along the DNA strand of an Israelsen that happens to be slightly competitive.  Musical chairs is no exception.  Perhaps it was a good thing Jacob was out doing Bishopric duties.  Here we are starting off the game:

Looks innocent, yes.  Don't be deceived.  Uncle Ross is just getting started.  The kids quickly made their way out of the game and then the real game began!  We were down to 3 players, with only 2 chairs remaining.  It's getting heated now!  Run for your life, Ty!

Another casualty!  Poor Maria!  The final two:  Ross and Marlene.  The music stops and......

...Ross body slams poor Marlene out for the win! 

I told you.  Competitive.  Perhaps it's because there were candy bars on the line....in case you can't tell, we all had a darn good laugh!

And to top off the evening, we dug into Lexi's birthday cake while she was snoozing away in her crib.  We had two little girls who were more than happy to blow out her candle for her:

Truth be told, the weekend got away from us and Lexi technically didn't get to enjoy her cake until 2 days later!  At least she finally got to have a go at it:

And here we are having to say goodbye to our party goers.  We had such a good time with them.  Despite our best efforts to keep them around, they had to head home.  

Ty was especially sad to see his buddy go:

Come back again soon!  Jacob wants in on the rematch of musical chairs.....watch out Rossi, watch out.