Welcome Home Elder Brown!

We were all pretty excited to welcome Hunter home from his mission. Hunter is Nate's step brother and has been in the Florida Jacksonville Mission for 2 years.

The welcoming party who were all anxiously awaiting his arrival on Tuesday afternoon.

Finally here.
We all headed up to Steve and Gail's home after to talk and hang out. It was so nice to be able to sit in the long awaited new addition for the first time. It really does look amazing, although Steve will tell you otherwise.

On the way up to Park City, I saw my first Jelly Belly truck and I was excited enough to take some pics.

I loved to see Hunter talk about his mission and his experiences. We're glad he is home, not so sure if he is, but some good things must come to an end. I'm just so happy he had such a great mission and was a wonderful missionary. Those people there were really blessed to have him for a short time.

California Trip: Disneyland

While we were at Disneyland for our 5 day stay, we stayed at the Fairfield Inn. It was across the street and down. It was so nice that we could walk and not have to wait for shuttles. I'm doing the pictures according to places in Disneyland and not in order of when we visited them. Our 5 days gave us plenty of time to see everything and do everything we wanted. At the end we were even able to ride some we wanted to do again.

Fantasyland
Sleeping Beauty's Castle

Dumbo the Flying Elephant

The Carousel is probably Sadie's favorite ride. After each ride we would ask her if she liked it and she would always say "No, that ride scary." The carousel was one of them she would ask to do again.

Katelyn was very excited to meet the princesses. She got to meet Belle and Tiana.

Small World

Teacups

Sadie being a little bee while we waited in Pixie Hollow to meet Tinker Bell.

Tinker Bell taught Katelyn how to pose just like her.

Mickey's Toontown

Goofy

Mickey

Goofy's garden

Minnie

Having tea and cookies at Minnie's house.

Tommorowland

Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters

This was probably every ones favorite ride. You had your own guns and you shot targets throughout the ride. It kept your score and Nate was super into it. The second time we rode, Nate got over 300,000 points. I got 40,000 and was trying really hard to do good. That's my man, video game enthusiast.

Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage

This is Asimo the first ever Humanoid robot produced by Honda. It was really cool to see. I especially liked seeing it walk up and down stairs. It took over 20 years to produce this.

Adventureland

Jungle Cruise

Aladdin

Having a snack.

They were waiting for mommy to be done riding Indiana Jones. Then daddy got to go and they got to wait even more. Disneyland has a great idea for single riders. They give you a pass at the entrance and you get to go right into it without having to wait in lines. Really nice. Even though Nate and I didn't encounter very many lines, it was nice when we did so that we could ride almost right away. Indiana Jones was such a good ride. My advice, a must to sit in the front of the jeep and then ride again and sit on a different side anywhere. The experience is so different depending on where you are sitting.

New Orleans

Tom Sawyer Island

Critter Country

Splash Mountain. I got a bit wet. I also had to go alone, because whenever Sadie couldn't go, Katelyn always picked to go with Dad.

Got honey?

Winnie the Pooh.

Sadie wouldn't meet any of the characters if we weren't holding her. She like to see them, just not too close.

If you ask Katelyn what her favorite part of Disneyland was, she will say the roller coasters. She even went on the Matterhorn twice and on every single one that she was tall enough for. I'm not exactly sure if it was her favorite part or if that will make Daddy proud of her, which he is. He loved that she would go on them with him.

Next stop, Disney's California Adventure.

California Trip: Santa Clara, Santa Cruz

Nathan served his mission near where we were, so he wanted to attend church in one of his wards in Santa Clara.

This is the Olsen Family who Nate worked with while he was there. It was nice to meet them after hearing so much about them from Nate.

This is Sister McFarland. Her son is serving in the same mission as Hunter right now. She did a lot to help the missionaries when Nate was there.

Katelyn wanted me to take a picture of this leaf so that she could always remember it. It was left in the parking lot.

After much talking and catching up, we left and drove to Santa Cruz.

It was rather windy if you couldn't tell from Katelyn's hair. We enjoyed the view and the sea breeze.

Nate was excited to go on the sand. It is something missionaries don't get to do in Santa Cruz.

The kids were excited too. It was their first time playing at the beach. They enjoyed covering Nate's sandals with sand and feeling the sand on their toes.

We stopped for lunch at Pizza My Heart. We got new shirts and Sadie did a great job taking bites from her ginormous piece of pizza. Pacific Avenue, where the pizza shop is located, is a lot like Pearl Street in Boulder. Most of Santa Cruz has a Boulder feel to it with ocean and surfers added. I really enjoyed our time there.

We continued our drive down to Anaheim and passed these oil pumps. We couldn't believe how many there were. Both sides of the road were covered and Nate really wanted a picture. I guess he cares about his job more than he thinks he does. After a few stops and a long drive we made it to our hotel at Disneyland in time to see the fireworks. It was a nice end to the day. We were all pretty excited to be there.

Happenings

There definitely will be more posts to come of our trip, but first, somethings about what have been happening since we got back. My sweet Katelyn started her second year of preschool today. She was so excited to see what her new preschool was going to be like and I don't think she was disappointed. I think it helped that she had a friend that she knew and she loved that they sang songs that had actions and movements. I hope she continues to like it, which I know she will because she loves anything that involves learning and new things.

Katelyn wanted me to take the picture this way so that you could see her Hello Kitty hanging from her backpack. I love this girl so much. She is super creative and eager to learn. She has been really emotional lately and extremely clumsy. Her favorite things to say have been "Jesus wouldn't want us to do that," and " Guess what? Chicken butt." She is super silly and super sensitive. I'm really proud to be her mom.

Another thing that has been going on is issues with birds. Last year we had the same problem, once. This past month, three times. Birds keep going in our dryer vent and get stuck so Nate has to get them out. This wouldn't be so bad, if the dryer weren't in a tight spot and the birds didn't have to fly through our house to find the exit. On Monday I heard the same noises that I've come to know as a bird stuck in the vent. Nate pull the dryer out and we found one dead and one alive. I felt so bad about the dead bird, but it is really loud when they are in there so I think it happened when we were out of town.

Ashton is the one ducking in this photo. Sadie was also unfortunate to witness this. We kept telling her to stay in the kitchen, but she wanted to see what Dad was doing. She saw it as it swooped through the wash room and down the hall. I knew she saw it from the blood curdling scream she gave. By the way, she did the same scream in the middle of the night as she ran to my bedroom because she was so frightened of the bird getting her.

Up close picture.

So we've had enough of these birds, so I called the HOA and they said that the dryer vent belongs to us, so we have to deal with it. Nate borrowed a ladder and was on the roof last night. The problem is a little bigger than just covering it with wire. We think the birds are getting in from an opening of the pipe into our attic/crawl space. I really hope my wonderful husband can think of a solution to our problem. I did know there was an opening that birds have been living in. I just didn't realize how far in they live. I wonder if the opening is covered by our HOA. I think I might need to call them again.

California Trip: San Mateo, San Fransisco

On Friday, August 27 we drove to San Mateo California to visit my brother Travis and Tara. We loved seeing them and our short time we spent there.

Katelyn loved Max. She thought he really wanted to play with her toys. So where ever he went toys followed.

Katelyn really wants a cat now. She loved feeling his soft fur and having him smell her face.

Our first night we dined at Jack's Prime. Poblano chilies on a hamburger, such a good idea and super yummy.

Travis and Tara showed us around San Fransisco on Saturday.

In down town the cast of Glee's costumes were on display in Macy's windows. Here's Sue Sylvester's track suit.

China Town

View from the top of Lombard Street.

View from bottom.

On the Fisherman's Wharf we saw this huge ship out in the bay. It was really cool to see.

Sea Lions

Alcatraz in the background.

Sadie had to get every last bit off the plate from our dessert. She was really focused.

We had some great seafood at Scoma's. We also loved the free valet parking. Nate loved his ginormous bowl of Lazy Man's Cioppino. I really wish I had got a picture of it, but I was too busy eating.

Katelyn was positive this sail boat was going to tip over.

On the San Fransisco bridge

City in the background.

Thank you Travis and Tara for showing us around SF and letting us stay with you. We loved seeing you and miss you guys.