Beach Time

The last weekend in July was crazy. Saturday was Evan's birthday party, his cousin James' birthday, and the stake Pioneer Picnic. Ev's actual birthday was Sunday. Monday was my Mom's birthday and Tuesday was Uncle B's birthday. Tuesday evening we dropped off the kids at my parent's house for a couple days so Reed could play in a 6 man beach volleyball tourney. Picked up the kids Thursday evening and then Reed's parents flew in at midnight. Friday we went to Sea World. It was Reed's Mom's birthday on Saturday. Then they flew out Sunday. It was all really fun, but it was a lot! Reed and his Dad were planning on going on a ward ocean fishing trip early Saturday, but it was too much. So we've definitely been having a few recovery days here at our house.

Reed and I had a lot of fun at the volleyball tourney. Reed got to play volleyball with some of his buddies and I got to sit on the beach all day without having to chase a single kid out of the ocean! Reed played on a team made up of guys that either played at BYU or have some kind of connection to someone who did. It was fun to see some of those guys again! The team had a corporate sponsor, so we didn't have to pay for our hotel or any of our meals! It was pretty nice. 

Unfortunately, there were like 20 something guys on the team. The first day was pool play and everyone pretty much got equal playing time. So yeah, Reed split time with 3 other setters. Kind of lame. But it was really cool because they had some current and past pro beach and indoor players on the team, including 2 time Olympian Jake Gibb! It was pretty cool. Gibb and his current beach partner, Casey Patterson (who was also on the team), are currently ranked in the top 3 in the world!
Reed setting

The guy in the white hat is Phil Dalhausser, aka The Beijing Beast! We also saw Sean "Rosie" Rosenthal (who was actually in disguise the whole time) and former USC quarterback Matt Leinart (who knew he played beach volleyball on the side?!)

 Reed saying hi to Jake Gibb (in the black)

The second day was elimination day. The team had a few amazing comebacks to stay in the tourney, but ended up taking 7th. Pretty disappointing, but that just goes to show how much competition was there. They pretty much played the same 10 guys that whole day, excluding Reed. Super lame. They probably would have had a better finish if they would have let him play. Oh well.

 Maybe next year...

Party Time

A couple weeks ago our space loving boy turned the big FOUR! He's been pretty excited for his birthday and for his space birthday party! Since there apparently aren't very many space loving kids left, we had to do most of the party stuff ourselves. But it was fun to work on the decorations and invitations and stuff together. Evan loves helping Mom use the Cricut!
We had hung up the solar system above the table Friday night after Evan went to bed. When he came out Saturday morning, he took a few minutes to look at it and then told me that Uranus was too close...!

We just invited all the kids in his Sunbeam class. Everyone made us pretty nervous, but all the boys ended up coming! I was so glad and so relieved! And it turned out to be a pretty fun party! First we started off with 'Pin the Rocket Boosters on the Spaceship'. I think Evan was the only one who played the first time around, unless of course you count Ryder's mom!

Then we headed out back to have 'Rocket Races'. I found these cool little rocket balloons at Michael's and the kids loved them way more than I thought they would!

Then we drew a big circle on the patio with chalk to make a moon and the boys took turns throwing water balloons at it to make 'craters'. They loved it and I should have known to make more water balloons!
Next we headed back inside to open presents and then have cake and ice cream.

Here's the awesome 4-year-old with his moon cake

 Having some juice a few minutes before a tummy ache set in

 I love these little friends!

He's already excited about turning 5...

Happy Birthday Ev! We sure love you a lot!

Space Jam

About a month ago, Reed and Evan discovered a kids youtube video about the solar system. Evan really liked it and was interested in the planets and the sun. So for the next few days, me and Ev started learning about the planets during Audrey's naps. It was so fun to see him learn and ask questions and remember certain facts about each planet. I love that he brings up that Pluto used to be a planet, but it's not anymore! We learned a few things about each planet and drew them close to scale. He got to practice his writing by writing the name of each planet, he got to practice cutting out the planets, and he got to color them in. So it was an overall really good little project. Here's our solar system we made together.

I love that every time we see the moon we have to specify that it's earth moon. The other day I told Evan that my parents were in the mountains. He asked if they were on Mars' mountains since they are the tallest!

Our solar system didn't quite satisfy his love of space. For the last probably 2 weeks, he gets up every morning to work on his own solar system. He did all the planets and is now working on the moons. I hope he doesn't plan on doing every single moon because there are over 100 of them! But he's well on his way! Here's what his wall looks like now (and he just handed me another one of Saturn's moon to hang up)

We'll see how long it takes for him to finish covering up that wall! Now, off to the space shuttle to play astronauts!

SD Day 2

We did a little more exploring our second day in San Diego. We started out at Balboa Park. It's a pretty cool place with lots of museums and room to run around. We only went in one museum that was free. It was an art museum and the guys there followed our stroller like hawks! So we didn't stay long.

Looking for fish in the koi pond in front of the Botanical Building. Evan was not impressed.

 Cruisin' through the Rose Gardens

After a quick picnic lunch we headed over to Old Town and visited the Mormon Battalion Museum. The Church has put together a neat little tour that was fun to go through. At the end, the kids got to pan for gold and pump water. Evan could have done both all day!

We spent some time at the beach before getting some In N Out on our way home. It was such a fun trip, but we were all ready to get home and get some sleep! 

Sea World!

Reed took a few days off last week and we made our way down to San Diego! And our first stop was Sea World! We were all so excited, but I think Reed may have been the most excited! We saw most of the shows and visited most of the animals and can't wait to go back again!

Checkin' out the sea lions

Dolphin Show! We all really liked it. I was impressed with how much Audrey got into it.

We loved the Shamu Observation Window. We were so close!

 Love Audrey's excited little face! The magic of Shamu!

 Though she does look a little nervous here...

We sat in the splash zone at the Shamu show, but didn't get wet at all. Poor Audrey tried to sleep through most of the show. It was a long day!

Per Reed's request we went to see the dolphins in the morning, around lunch, and right before we left! He loves dolphins. And we even got to touch one! Pretty cool! Evan and Reed played a dolphin carnival game and Evan won Flippy.

Then he went back and won a pink one for his sister!

They were 2 very happy and very tired kids on our way to our hotel that night!

Such a fun day!

Does Audrey look tired or what?!

Johansson Family Reunion

Last weekend we were able to go to the first ever Johansson Family Reunion up at Lake Arrowhead. I couldn't believe how many people were able to come! Our family has grown a lot! There were little kids everywhere-and we were still missing some of our family! It was fun to get to see some of my cousins that I haven't seen in years and their little families. And we loved being up at Lake Arrowhead. We used to go up there and stay in a time share cabin when we were little. I don't remember much about it except that we loved being up there with all our cousins.

We got there Friday night just in time for a yummy enchilada dinner. Most of us stayed in a hotel, but my grandparents got to stay in a condo that was right on the lake. So we ended up down on the beach after dinner. It's so pretty up there!

 Audrey enjoyed some sand

 Evan played a little ball

 Audrey found lots of birds to say hi to-she loves birds!

Saturday morning all the little kids got to wear their reunion shirts! We missed the cousin hike, but still managed to get our shirts dirty anyways!

Audrey looked so cute with her little ponytail!

 There was this fun little courtyard just outside our hotel room. The kids had a blast running around playing Wild Kratts.

 Evan with a couple of his cousins getting ready to choose a creature power!

Then we spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach. It was so nice! The water was a little cold, but it didn't slow Audrey down at all! It was a pretty warm day, so it was a perfect beach day.

 Audrey had a great time getting Grandma all wet and sandy. Grandma is so funny!

We ended the day with a nice family dinner before we headed down the mountain. It was so nice to get home to our own beds-Audrey didn't sleep well in the hotel and missed both of her naps while at the beach. We were all exhausted. 

Memorial Day Weekend

We had such a great Memorial Day Weekend this year. Reed's parents were finally able to come out and see us! We haven't seen them since we moved to California, which was probably the longest we've gone since seeing them in a long time (maybe even as long as we've been married thanks to volleyball!). So we were all pretty anxious and excited to see them. They flew in late Friday night, so the kids had to wait until Saturday morning to see them. Evan was so excited, Audrey was a little shy until she had some time to warm up to them. 

One of the highlights of the weekend was going to the March Air Force Museum. Evan loves airplane museums. We had lots of fun seeing all of the planes and learning how fast they could fly. 

Then we happened to walk by this plane at just the right time.

There was an old guy working on the grounds with a few college student volunteers. They were taking a break and checking out the inside of the plane. Since we were the only ones around, he let us in for a peek! It was pretty cool and he had some good stories to share about when he flew this plane in the Vietnam War.

 Another highlight of Saturday was when Evan was eating his ice cream cone and the ice cream fell off the cone! His poor little face! It was pretty funny. Luckily the guy at Baskin Robbins was nice and gave him a new cone.

Grandma and Grandpa were able to go with us to church on Sunday. Audrey made sure to give Grandma a tour of the entire building inside and out while Mom and Dad were teaching their classes! Pretty soon after we got home from church, Reed's brother, Jay, and his family arrived at our house! We had a pretty full house, but it was so fun! They hadn't met Audrey before this, so it was fun to check that off the list. Our evening was full of Just Dance and playing fun games outside. 

We were sad when everyone had to leave Monday. We loved having everyone here-you're all welcome here anytime!