Have you ever wondered about your anbrothers?

This was our dinner conversation tonight, trying to explain to the kids what "ancestors" are.....

McKinley: "Like great grandpa Oink is our ancestor?" (He's Grandpa Henry Bradford who just recently passed away.)

Me: "Yes, he's your ancestor."

Gavin pipes up: "You mean our anbrother?"

Oh my! That's hilarious! I hurried and grabbed some paper and a pen and wrote it down. Poor, sweet, Gavin didn't even realize why we thought it was so funny. Sweet innocent little guy! Guess he thought we were saying ansister. Kids are funny.

Since I'm here, I'll give my side of San Diego. I was completely lazy. Completely, completely lazy. I did try to go running the first night we were there. Got about a mile into my 3 mile run and my right calf cramped up. It still hurts. Did manage to exercise the next day with my Turbo Fire. Successfully rented a car and drove to the San Diego Temple by myself. That was a little nerve wracking. Then, because my name was on the papers, I drove the remaining days of our trip with Matthew serving as navigator. We did pretty good, I think.
Matthew failed to mention our trip to the Mormon Battalion place. It was pretty cool! They completely rebuilt the structure, leaving the original foundation, and created an interactive tour. It was interesting....never knew too much about them.

I have to say, chilling at the beach was probably the best part. It was a nice day. I, too, wish we could have tried surfing. It would have been fun. Otherwise, I think that San Diego is just too big for my taste. Everything is squished in, no grass, no yards. Where would your kids play? Just not for me. And the bathroom thing in Gaslamp.....I was a little surprised. Not even the Subway sandwich place had a bathroom! What? Just seems a little strange. Of course, there were a lot more homeless people on the streets. Our friends pointed out that maybe the businesses just didn't want those people cleaning up in their bathrooms. It makes sense, but still.....No bathrooms anywhere? Just struck me as odd. And slightly un hospitable.

Anyhoo... back to real life. Kids did good at Grandma Susie and Grandpa Bradford's house. They love hanging with the cousins and don't see grandma and grandpa often enough. So glad that my parents are willing to take on the challenge of 4 extra kids so we can have a break. Thanks, mom and dad! It is awfully nice to get away.

Night!

Homeward Bound

Here we sit in the San Diego airport waiting for our flight. I'm a little paranoid when it comes to flying and missing a flight. We were at the terminal 1 1/2 hours before our flight leaves. Erica keeps giving me the evil eye because I made her get out of bed so early to make it here. But we had to find the highway from our weird hotel, find the park and ride, drop of the rental car, and ride the shuttle to the airport, and get through security. You can just never be sure how long all of that will take. I'd rather be early than late. It's not like going to church where we are late every week.

I had a business conference that I came to. My flight and hotel was paid for so we just had to pay for Erica's flight so she came along. It was fun to have her along. Otherwise, sitting in your hotel room all night is not that exciting. We stayed an extra day and ran around to see a few things. We went to Coronado Island which was pretty cool. We hung out at the beach for a while and really enjoyed it. The sand washing up on the beach had a bunch of gold glittery stuff in it, like pyrite or something. Anyways, when the waves would come in, the water was all sandy and then as it went out, the water would turn gold from the pyrite. It was cool to watch and Erica really wanted to take a picture but we didn't bring our camera so all we had was my phone, which quite frankly is a phone, not a camera. We did our best. Pretend you can see all of the gold and tell Erica how cool it looks.

We were going to try to take a picture of our feet and the ocean with waves coming in, but we didn't want to sit in the wet sand and all I had was my phone camera which I was afraid of dropping, so it was like '6 strikes you're out'. Here's the result.

 

It kind of looks like Erica's foot is bigger than mine. Mine is just sooooo much further away. My foot is attached to the hairy leg on the right in case you were wondering.

We were going to try surfing, but the rental shop was out of boards and the shop that did lessons never returned our phone call. We were a little bummed. I've always wanted to try it. One day it will happen.

We walked around Gaslamp Quarters which was OK. It's mostly a bunch of restaurants and no bathrooms. Erica had to go so bad but everywhere we went didn't have bathrooms or public bathrooms. It was a little ridiculous. Ask Erica about it. Ha ha ha. A sushi restaurant finally let us use the bathroom, the bathroom doors had cool pictures on them. Again you can thank my awesome phone for the crappy picture (no flash).

We walked around Little Italy last night and had dinner which was tasty. They were having an art walk so they had a bunch of the streets closed down with booths everywhere. It was pretty cool. We went to Balboa Park and walked around the gardens. There was a rose garden, a desert garden, and a Japanese garden. They were pretty neat and most importantly, FREE! Erica liked this tree in the desert garden. It looked like a cactus transplanted on a tree trunk.

There is a whole bunch of museums but they are all $15-20 to go in. There was one free exhibit that we went into. It was a bonsai exhibit. We now officially like bonsai. When we have a house of some sort and a place to have some, we will find some bonsai trees. There were big ones, medium ones and tiny ones (3-4" tall). It was pretty cool. This was one of our favorites. It was growing over a rock.

Sophie, this smile's for you

This post is for you Sophie. We know what a cute funny little munchkin Reagan is around the house but she doesn't like to share smiles with everybody for some reason. Here are some smiles for you. She just finished eating so she has food all over her face but if  you can look past that...
 

 

 

Morgan, that last one is for you!

Another muddy child!

Reagan has decided to follow in the footsteps of her older brothers in their love of mud.

 Gavin loves mud

 Jamison loves mud

Reagan loves mud too!

Reagan has only been going outside for a month or so, but she has already discovered mud. For some reason she has to put it in her mouth. What a silly kid!

The kids had spring break last week so I took an afternoon off and we went for a hike. I let the kids choose which trail they wanted to go up (they had no idea what Gibson Jack or Slate Mountain was). Without knowing, they chose Slate Mountain. As we slogged up the switchbacks through the mud, water running down the trail, snow, and ice I could see the Gibson Jack trail on the south facing slope looking nice and dry. But we persevered and made it up over the top and down the other side. It was pretty good for a while and then started to get muddy again. The kids had a grand time and it felt good to get outside. It will be a few more weeks before the trails are cleared off. Let us know if you want to go for a hike, we'd be glad to take you! Enjoy a few pictures!

Here we go up the switchbacks. Notice Reagan in the backpack and Jamison under my arm.

I'm like a machine!

 

 Reagan loves to go for hikes. She's good in the backpack for a while.

 

Morgan and Sophie got the kids a little camelback. They always fight over who gets to wear it. McKinley won this time.  

 

Gavin's muddy shoes and legs. This photo was taken prematurely. They got a lot worse! 

 

Reagan got out and walked for a little ways where the trail was dry. 

 

Jamison loves his mama. 

 

Go Reagan Go!

 

Quick take a picture, they're not fighting. It was 60 degrees so they all wanted to wear shorts not expecting to be walking through the snow. None of them complained about being cold. 

 

Everybody slipped on the ice at least once. Erica turfed it just before I did right close to the van on the way back. 

 

 I would have taken another picture of muddy legs and shoes but these two beat us down the trail and jumped in the creek to wash off.

 

We had a grand time and can't wait for summer to be here to enjoy some more hikes.