Happy Birthday to me!!

I had SUCH a nice birthday this year!!!  Jared was so nice to share his Father's Day with my birthday.  He even did all the dishes.  I got so many calls and birthday wishes--I feel so loved and blessed.  I AM so blessed to have so many kind friends and a loving family.  THANK YOU EVERYONE who called or talked to me at church or text-ed or facebook-ed or came over.  I am one lucky girl!!!

Our first family bike ride of the season!

We biked out to "Remember the Main Park" last Saturday with some friends from our neighborhood.  It's about a 14 mile round trip ride.  We all had such a great time!!  We LOVE our bike trailer!  Sam and Quinn like to hold and look at their helmets, but they don't like wearing them.  The park had a fun play structure and a nearby river...what more could two little boys want?  AND me and Jared weren't too sore the next day--I guess that means we're in shape!  Yeah...we're pretty awesome!

Swim lessons for Sammy

 Here he is waiting patiently (honestly...I was as surprised as you are) for his teachers to arrive so he could get in the water.  Before he can get in the water he has to get showered.  He hates this part but it is a little fun for me.

 Sammy really likes both his teachers.  I was impressed with them too, and the whole program.  There are 2 teachers for his class of 6 and there are about 5 other classes going on at the same time.  And there are lifeguards sitting on chairs everywhere, even one on the edge of the water where the kids in Sammy's class wait their turn to practice with the teacher.  I felt that Sammy was so safe being in the water without me!

 Here he is learning to float on his back.  When I try to get him to do it with me he always struggles off of being on his back.  That teacher must be whispering something extra special in his little ear!

 I LOVE how looks so HAPPY in all these pictures, and it is so fun for me to sit poolside and watch him enjoying himself so much!  He has this smile on his face the entire 40 min. class!

my first quilt

I've only been working on this quilt for 10 months...on Monday I finally finished it!!!  I LOVE it and Jared said it really "lightens up the room.  I agree.

Happy St Patrick's Day

I have been feverishly working to finishing sewing these St. Patrick's Day decorations befor the actual day. I DID get them done in time, but just barely.
I really liked how they turned out. And even though I didn't get a lot of use out of them this year, at least I'll be able to get them out for next year.
Jared and I had a fun St. Patrick's Day. We like to celebrate this holiday because it was the day we got engaged. So, 8 years ago, on a gorgeous, fog-less day, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, Jared got on one knee and proposed to me. It was definitely a day to be remembered. This year we just went out to dinner, without the kids--our first date in...a long time.

Colorado Springs--what a beauty!

All the kids having a kiddy picnic--they got along so well!
Us kissing with 'kissing camels' in the back ground.

The perfect family picture spot. This one is frame-worthy, I think.
The whole gang in Pres. Charsley's home.
We just had the FUNNEST weekend in Colorado visiting the Ororio family. Cesar is one of Jared's old mission companions. They were companions for only 3 weeks in the MTC, yet Cesar is the only companion that Jared has kept in touch with. So, the Osorio family and the Bigler family have a lot in common--we were both married in the same year and our children were born within months of each other.
On this fun-filled, long weekend we went to the Colorado Springs Zoo. It has surpassed Santa Barbara as my favorite zoo. All the animals were so active and they had an amazing variety. Then we went to this fun little arcade in the old downtown are of Springs--it's what the natives call Colorado Springs. On Sunday, after church we went to Garden of the Gods. It's a beautiful state park with really neat rock formations all around. And it is HUGE--it seems everything in Springs is huge. We finished the visit off by visiting Jared and Cesar's old mission president and his family. He is from South Africa, but after the mission he moved back to Colorado Springs. So we looked him up and arranged a visit. And what a neat family! It was fun to sit around and hear all the reminiscing!
The drive out to Colorado was beautiful! But the drive home was dangerous!! We drove through a bad storm--we did a couple of 360's, on the freeway, no big deal. I am so glad we went, but I was even more glad that we were home safely!

San Luis Obispo county visit

One of the days that we were in California visiting Jared's family, we took off to visit our old stomping grounds. We went by our old trailer, visited our former landlords, had lunch with some friends from our old ward at an old San Luis favorite (Firestone) and then drove out to Morro Bay--I needed some salt water taffy! Morro Bay is my 2nd favorite place on this earth! We went to The Rock and watched the tide go out along with some sea otters. We saw some hermit crabs, that Samuel was scared of. We even saw a sea gull catch an octopus!
Then in the evening we went to an Eagle Court of Honor. Two brothers who Jared had as scouts while he was Scoutmaster, were getting their Eagle and wanted Jared to be there. They asked Jared to be a part of the program and they even BOTH gave Jared their Mentor Pins. It was a very neat program and I'm so glad I got to see it. Jared got a little emotional when he was giving the Mentor Pins--I'm glad I got to see that too. It was obvious that he felt all those years of hard work and time spent on being a Scoutmaster had paid off in that one night. And he felt good about seeing the whole scouting experience through with these boys, from start to finish. While living in San Luis we became close with this family too, so, of course, it was so good to see them again. We really miss our friends from SLO and we miss the beauties there too.