Trip to Madera and Father's Day

we got to go to madera the first weekend of the summer holidays. it was great to see everyone! my mom left early the morning after we arrived because rebecca had her baby Maris! hooray for more cousins! 

the kids had a blast playing in their old stopping grounds =o]

grandma and grandpa hansen came for dinner and for me to get pictures from them and to do a preliminary interview for their books. natalie and grandma made a salad for dinner just chatting away the whole time.  

and then all through dinner she had the cutest conversations with them. i LOVE that they get to know their great grandparents!

they got to play harry potter clue with aunt melissa. good times!

also, another story involving melissa that was NOT good times. jenna got into her box of make-up/toiletries and bit off the top of her concealer, took a huge bite of her deodorant and spit it all over, and glopped the rest of the stuff with vicks vapor rub. WOW. good thing melissa is so patient and forgiving! (sorry again!) 

rediscovering all the art supplies!

my dad had a blast with all the willing gamers! 

and as usual we enjoyed jenae whenever her schedule allowed =o]

we got to go swimming with our friends the hyers and it was fun catching up with them!

these are all great reasons to go to madera, but the reason that started it all was to give a surprise gift to my dad/grandpa jamie for father's day.

in 2010 our the dining room table was used for katrina and phillip's wedding reception out at the vineyard. on the way home it flew out of the back of my dad's truck. it skidded along the highway and the car right behind him dodged it but the next car ran over it and then drove away. luckily no one was hurt... only the table. they put the legs back on and tried to fill it with putty to hold it together, but as you can see this beautiful piece of furniture was in bad shape (my mom sent these to us so we could try to match the stain at home depot).

we wanted to do something for my family since they helped us so much and we thought this was perfect because it was such a huge undertaking of time and means that it might never get done until my dad retires in 20 years ;o) we spent ALL DAY friday sanding it down. 

(jonathan helped with sand paper this one time, but mostly he helped by playing with the kids so we could work! the kids got to help a couple times too, i just didn't get a picture of the action because i was being a helicopter mom lol. i'm working on it, alright? =o] )

it was tricky to keep it in the shade! 

when my dad came around the corner into the back yard that evening and saw us the first time he looked confused and then surprised! it was cool because jenae was really surprised too when she got home. i told my dad he didn't need to help, but instead he should go watch the history channel, which he did lol

we didn't sand off the original writing on the bottom of the table 

eventually my dad helped us to move it on top of this picnic table on the porch because it was just too hard to keep it out of the direct sunlight.  

and voila! here he is with the "new" table on father's day! the only thing i regret is not also doing the chairs! we thought we had matched the color just right but ended up putting to many coats on maybe. anyway, now they have a dark american walnut table and light american walnut chairs...

at least they will have a table they don't have to cover with a table cloth for company if they so choose =o]

happy father's day dad! we love you!

now for kent's father's day experience:
i kept asking him what his expectations were until he finally said not having to choose would be a present to him lol! noted.
we all made him cards and i made him a shutterfly book about trips we went on back east in 2008. and he got to take a nap while i made dinner so that is awesome =o] he also got to go on a little shopping spree for some specifically "non-work" clothes!

here we are at breakfast- cinnamon rolls!

kent helping caleb put gel in his hair =o]

kent humored me and let me take a picture of him with the kids before church. 

our neighbors saw us and offered to take a picture of the whole family. he is the kindest old guy and the kids always excitedly wave to him when they see him outside and they put flowers in their mailbox which is attached to ours. he didn't really know how to take pictures with my phone and we ended up with 31 lol here are some of the cropped versions =o] 

at church the kids sang to him in sacrament meeting and it was way cute. i was teaching in relief society (about the oath and covenant of the priesthood= challenging and awesome lesson!) so kent didn't get to sit peacefully in elders quorum though. 

after church, along with the primary made cards for kent, natalie also made this tie, which he proudly wore the rest of the day =o]

after dinner (which i somehow missed getting a picture of???) kent played the hogwarts game with natalie and caleb while i cleaned up and put the younger two to bed. all and all a pretty successful day. 

we love you kent! thank you for all you do for our family! happy father's day!!

Disneyland with Dad!

Kent surprised us with a stay-cation the day after natalie finished school and we went to disneyland! it was the last day before we were blocked out for the summer and it was such a fun, special way to start "the summer holidays" as the kids call them thanks to harry potter =o]

basically all we did all day was do things with kent that we couldn't do without him, which was cool, but unfortunately that also meant that we had to do every ride twice because the four of them couldn't fit. caleb and natalie had the time of their lives! jenna and seth had a rough time because they weren't used to being there for so long. but overall it was a great day! 

we headed to radiator springs first because kent had never been there and it is the kid's favorite place!   

these three were from kent's phone... cute =o] 

seth picked up his souvenir here- a toy guido and luigi from cars dressed up as C3PO and R2-D2  

(we didn't do THE ride with lightning mcqueen because the fast-passes were gone when we got there and the wait was 90 minutes, but the kids didn't even mention it- whew!) 

then we headed over to a bug's life land to do the bumper cars 

and jenna had a complete meltdown when we were told she was too short to go on the ride. she cried the ENTIRE time they were in line and while both caleb and natalie took turns riding it with kent. ...yeah...

we had been eating our lunch in spurts and decided it was time for a treat to lift the mood so we got ghirardelli ice cream! 

next stop was the little mermaid ride, which we have done before but there was almost no line so why not? =o] disney really does do a great job of trying to make each ride interesting and even keep the que area themed as shown here with the sea shell fragments in the concrete. i love that our family notices and appreciates things like that. why not live a richer life, right?

then we finally got to go on the toy story ride. this was by far our longest wait but the kids had their hearts set on it so it was worth it. we played games and kept positive in line and really it wasn't so bad. 

seth definitely had a few DONE moments though since he hadn't slept yet and had been in the pack for hours at this point. 

check out those eyes though. WOW we make good looking babies if i do say so myself ;o]

natalie picked up her souvenir here- this jessie hat! no idea why, but she loves it and it was within our set price range so go for it i say =o] 

this picture pretty much sums up the next experience. kent convinced the kids to go on tower of terror. natalie said it was scary but fun and caleb said he hated it and would never go on it again. lol

we made a special stop and jenna got her much anticipated Princess Sophia t-shirt (which we probably could have purchased at target for $4, but she stayed within the mackay-bucks-earned range as well so whatever) she literally could not have been happier!

then jenna, seth, and i went over to the redwoods playground to nurse seth and let jenna do her thing for a bit. seth was grateful for the change too, not to mention my poor back!

then we met back up and made the trek into disneyland from CA adventure and got some much needed dinner at pizza planet! 

kent then took jenna and seth while natalie, caleb and i went on star tours! i hadn't been on it since i was a little kid and it was much improved!! 

then caleb finally settled on his souvenir (he had been far above the price range several times previously lol) a darth maul car, since he already had a darth mater car, and "now they can be bad guy friends" =o]

we ended the day on our family favorite "it's a small world" which was finally reopened for the first time since christmas! the last room where all the little people from around the world are dressed in white and singing and dancing together gets me every time! =o]

hooray for disneyland! HOORAY FOR FAMILY! 

i posted this on the way home:
As we spent this wonderful day together I couldn't help but think of our past two years and how truly blessed I am to have all my family with me. My heart is full of gratitude for the atonement of Jesus Christ, that we can repent and forgive and live with our families forever!! We were at one of our happy places today, but for me the happiest place on earth is wherever covenant keepers build their homes. Let's all live our dreams happily ever after together!!

until next time...