Ivan turns 2

Ivan likes to work with daddy when he builds.

 For Ivan's second birthday we spent the day at Discovery Gateway museum and had a combined birthday party (dinner and cake/ice cream) with Amber.

Halloween 2012

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. Ivan reminds a lot of Bam-Bam from the Flintstone's so his costume was a no-brainer. Reese wanted to be a princess, Sleeping Beauty in particular. Not sure why since I don't know that she has ever watched the entire movie - it is kind of scary! Eric had a Halloween work party at the Capitol this year so we decided to go all out and dress up as well. Eric was Fred, I was Wilma, Ivan was Bam-Bam, and we talked Reese into being Pebbles (by telling her we would spray paint her hair a color). At the Capitol we had a fun lunch and then Mrs.Clause took all the kids around to all the offices to go Trick-or-Treating. Reese was very good at saying "trick or treat" and "thank you". Ivan was very particular and would spend quite a bit of time at each bowl picking and re-picking out the perfect treat, usually something in a blue wrapper.

We had our traditional Ellis/Christensen pumpkin carving night, except without pumpkin soup or David and Nicole :( I was too busy with school, and David and Nicole are living in DC right now. Still a good night though! Reese was OBSESSED with digging the pumpkin guts out and then 'massaging' them for the next hour.

We went to Cornbelly's with Jared, Sarah, and Parker Swanson. They had the AWESOMEST slide with some pretty wicked bumps. I didn't go on it but got a kick out of watching everyone else go. Jared landed on his back after the last bump. The kids loved it!

The day of Halloween I took the kids up to Foothill Village, a shopping center. All the stores were participating in a trick-or-treating party. Reese said she really wanted to be Sleeping Beauty, so she got to do a little costume change and wore tons of sparkles in her hair. The kids totally loved it!! That night we went to Chipotle for dinner, because if you showed up in costume you got burritos for $2 each. It was packed with costumed people - SO fun! Ivan went caveman style, with no shirt under his little Bam-Bam outfit; he was the talk of the restaurant, seriously, his little bare chest was to die for cute! We then went to a party at a friend's house. I love that my kids are so comfortable with our adult friends and that our friends treat them so special, it's no wonder that once we get to a party they leave mom and dad to go hang out with the other adults :)

Trip up North - August 2012

At the end of August Eric and I traveled with Emily and her kids while they made the move from Orem to Vancouver Island, B.C. We were mostly there just to be a support and to have extra drivers to rotate driving during the long drive. Eric and I didn't go through the border, we only had 3 days to make the trip in and besides that, I forgot our passports. The trip was bittersweet. We are so happy for Emily's family and all the neat adventures ahead but we miss them like CRAZY already!

 On the way back to Utah we stopped in Seattle to say hi to Eric's long time friend, Alicia. Then we headed west and made our way south along the Oregon coast. It was GORGEOUS!

 Saturday was our "fun day". We toured around and did some fun stuff. We went to Astoria, OR to some of the locations where Goonies was filmed.

 This was Data's house, which was right next door to Mikey's house - if you even know who or what I'm talking about.

 We stopped at a bay down the road from the Goonies' houses and there were tons of sea lions. I have never seen any wild ones up close before so it was seriously intriguing. They are big! And so funny to watch interact with each other!

 We stopped at Cannon Beach, it was beautiful!

 Then we went and did a little shopping to find me a full body wet suit so I could enjoy boogie boarding in the cold water. We were successful. We found some fun looking waves at Hug Point and went out boogie boarding for a while. It was invigorating and SO incredibly enjoyable!

 Food! Probably my favorite food on this trip was eaten on a pier. We had fresh oyster stew, the oysters weren't even chewy at all, unlike every other oyster experience I've ever had, and clam chowder. Both were divine and warmed our chilled bodies right up. We of course followed those soups up with way too many fish and chips - I don't know why we thought we could eat as much as we ordered.

 In our extremely full-bellied states we headed to Tillamook, OR to hit up the Tillamook factory. I am a cheese fanatic, and although we were stuffed to the brim, we couldn't pass up the cheese sampling table. SO fun!

 Down the road from the Tillamook factory is another cheese factory. We didn't go inside but did enjoy the old farm equipment and the interesting farm animals.

 Someone said their was a large Air Museum nearby. We never did spot it...

 We went on a really cool hike. It is called the Trail of 10 Falls. There are 10 waterfalls you can potentially hike to. We took the slightly shorter route, which was still plenty long, and saw 7 of the 10 falls. It was nice to get the blood moving and exercise off the excess fish and chips, not to mention the GORGEOUS foliage and waterfalls.

 Both nights we found really cool camping spots to sleep at. Camping, at least the way we do it, is so heavenly! We slept completely soundly, perfect temperature, wonderful smells, ah, I wish I could sleep that good every night! The view in the early morning before we had to make the long trip to Provo was breathtaking!

 The road stretched on and on and on! Seriously, although every day we drove a ton, the last day was not near as enjoyable. It really did seem like we were driving forever! I was so grateful my mom demanded she keep the kids, knowing full well they wouldn't enjoy the constant driving.

We were both super tired from having woken up really early the last couple mornings to start our excursions, we had no extra time left to take detours, we finished our Clive Cussler book, which was entertaining us, and we needed to get home to the kids and get things in order for Eric to go back to work the next day. It was a loooooong last day.

 We took one longer-than-5-minutes stop. In the middle of nowhere there were a few old buildings and a couple plaques that told about the place. The buildings housed a bunch of men who worked to build the roadway. There was a picture of their weekly menu, which was pretty awesome, it consisted of maybe 20 items that were mixed up in different ways to make different dishes.

Fishing and Camping

First of all, I found this picture from a time when Reese was asking me to take her picture so she could see her beautiful long hair. This girl knows how to give herself botoxed lips. She does it often when she feels awkward.

 We went fishing at Lost Creek Reservoir a while back. We enjoyed snacking on the beach and the slightly cooler weather.

 Oh, this boy! I am so in love!

 A few weeks back we went to East Canyon Reservoir to camp. The camp host sent us two different times to three different campsites that were supposed to be vacant, but they weren't. Thanks to their "inconveniencing" us, a.k.a. Eric's charm, she set us up with a cabin. It was a fun change!!

 Ivan woke EARLY!!!

 And then woke Reese up. Thanks little man. So me and the kids headed down to the beach to play in the CHILLY sand!

 When Reese was about a year old I decided I wanted to have another baby fairly soon so that she could have a playmate. Thankfully, little Ivan man came along, and now that he is 1 1/2 they typically have SO much fun together. They definitely know how to push each others' buttons, but most the time they play happily and keep each other entertained. There are SO many moments that I think "now this is what I was hoping for", the times they hold hands, hug, giggle together, or Reese asks him to marry her :)

 Ivan got a little too cold and decided he was done having fun.

 Until daddy let him come over and fish with him.

 Then it was Reese's turn. What a good daddy these two have!