Happy Birthday Mom

My mom had a big birthday this April and we celebrated in a big way. We surprised her with a family dinner at Newport Landing restaurant, in their awesome private room. And my dad had my Aunt Becky fly down from Idaho Falls to surprise her and celebrate with us.


Thanks to Ali for watching Alivia so we could have a date-ish feeling night.

Easter Part II

On the Saturday before Easter Cody and I drove to Temecula, CA to have a pre-Easter Easter with the AZ Orvins who were in town visiting family. It was great to see them, for Alivia to play with her cousins, and to enjoy yummy Easter food.

It was a nice sunny day so the boys decided to go swimming. The pool water was ice cubes, but Alivia still wanted to splash around in the water. Her diaper was soaked and her skin felt fridged, but you would have never known by the smile on her face.

How cute are these girls?

Wish I had taken more pictures!

Easter 2012

Easter was a bit crazy. I had to teach sunday school, perform in two wards in a bell choir, Cody had to make his famous rolls, and I had to make a strawberry salad fit with fresh candied walnuts for the Easter Bendheim family dinner. It was a full day to say the least.

And it was super spiritual. Wonederfully spiritual! In my lesson I read the majority of a talk entitled "Sunday will Come" by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin (2006). Now stop reading this post and go to lds.org and look it up. Read that instead. It will make your day. I promise. SOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOD.

Well, it was brilliant right?

Here are some pictures of our Easter.

Meeting the Easter Bunny at Fashion Island. Classic tears:





At a community Easter party:







Alivia's basket.


Later that day at my parents:










I'll continue the post tomorrow about our Saturday Easter with The Arizona Orvin's.

Wordless Wednesday

Orange County Great Park

We went to the Great Park a couple Saturdays back.

First, let me just say that I think "The Great Park" is a stupid name, an uninventive name, for a park.

But it does have a free carousel, which is pretty great.

It also has a free community art gallery, which is great.

And, weather permitting, it has a free balloon attraction which carries riders 400 feet in the air, offering 360 degree view of up to 40 miles around Orange County. Which is double great.

So, "great," although uninventive for a title, is at least accurate.

We went for the balloon, because I've seen it in the sky before and have wanted to try it, but it was closed because of uncooperative weather.


Ugh.

Instead, we played on the slides and carousel. It was Livy's first time down a slide and I learned that my hips don't quite work well with toddler sized slides. Mama's got hips. Luckily we've been to other parks since this trip which are more forgiving of my width.





Livy was very hesitant and cautious of this carousel.





The Park is built on an old military base. This hanger below was built in the 1940's during WWII.


The park is not completed and there are plans to develop more of the old base. Despite its name, its hard to go wrong with a park offering stuff for FREE. We'll be back for sure, if for no other reason than to ride the Carousel (since rides at some malls are approaching $2.50. Ouch!).

The Knapps

Do you want to blog stalk someone entertaining and hilarious? Well, let me recommend Ms. Kellie Knapp, Cody's friend from his Provo days. I love her personality, and it shines in her writing. Her blog link is on our list. Go ahead and check it out. Trust me.

The thing is, you always want to like your spouse's friends and you want your spouse to like yours, but it doesn't always work out that way. But I have to say, I haven't met a friend of Cody's that I haven't liked.

Lucky us, Ms. Knapp and her family were in California recently to get out of the Montana cold, and we met up for a day of laughs and fun. How weird is it that Cody's college friend lives in Whitefish where I've spent my summer days since 13? I'll answer that for you, way weird, but also way cool.

Well, the weather was wonderful and we went to Little Corona Beach. It was Alivia's first time in a bathing suit, and might I say she was a-dorable! Especially with her sunglasses and juicy leg rolls.







Macy Knapp was also super adorable in her bright neon salmon/pink suit.


What am I supposed to do with this mom? Dad?



I just love the beach in the winter because you don't have to share the beach with all the crazies and tourists and inappropriate (in dress and behavior) riff raff. It is peace and beauty at its best.


We had so much fun at the beach so we went to dinner together too, at Ruby's on the Lake (Irvine). Do you see the deliciousness I had the pleasure of consuming?


Lucky for us, we get to see the Knapps again this summer in Montana.