Mountain Ranch

Sorry that I have written only a couple of posts this entire summer! It's been a bit crazy, and any spare minute I get, I'm trying to play catch-up in cleaning my house.

Anyways, I'm finally getting around to posting about our trip out to Mt. Shasta last month!

Bryant's sister Chantel is home from her mission in the Phillipines! We decided to go out to California to be there at the airport when she arrived. We decided to make an entire vacation out of it as one last hurrah of the summer.

I had never been to Bryant's Grandma's house out in Mountain Ranch, between Lake Tahoe and San Andreas, and every year we talk about going to visit, but we never can make it happen. This year, we decided to devote the first few days of our vacation to visiting her!

 

 The kids were in absolute heaven! Mostly because of Grandma's dog Penny, and her cat Q-tip. They also liked playing in the dog kennel!

 

Bryant's grandpa had a plane and this was the hangar/garage/workshop. We took a 4-wheeler ride around the property and up the runway. I'm so bummed that I don't have photos from that drive! I had left my phone at the house and Bryant's had died. But those manzanita bushes! Beautiful!

 

We spent a lot of time outside, fishing, walking, playing with the animals, and riding in the go-cart!

 

And grilling! We ate a lot of food from grandma's garden.

 

Deagan is my animal lover. He was giving Penny kisses on her nose, and then carrying Q-tip everywhere. Anytime I looked over at him, he was marching around with a none-too-happy kitty in his arms. Savannah also loved the animals. One day, she spent almost the entire afternoon in the office playing and watching movies on the ipad with the cat. She came out for lunch, and took her sandwich back into the room. She also loved playing with the toys for the cat. It ALMOST made me want to get a cat for her. Almost.

 

There were TONS of hummingbirds! I loved doing the dishes after dinner because I was able to watch them all drink out of the feeder out the kitchen window.

A lot of my photos from grandma's are on Bryant's phone, so those will be included in the next post. I didn't take a ton of photos because I didn't have very good cell service and zero internet so my phone spent most of the weekend turned off. It was actually really nice. When we got to Sacramento and got cell and internet back, I was surprised by how much I actually didn't miss it. 

It was a very relaxing few days. I spent a lot of time reading, playing with my kids, and we helped Donna out with a few projects around the house. On our 2nd to last day, Deagan woke up sick and had thrown up all over his Pack and Play, then again all over the decorative couch in our room. He was fine by that afternoon, but it's always sad to see your kids sick. Bryant Savannah and I all had the exact same thing at different times throughout the week too. I got it while driving to Sacramento. I thought it was just car sickness, but it was a whole lot worse than what I normally get. I even had to make Bryant pull over a couple of times.

I regret that we haven't been out to visit Donna sooner. It really is so beautiful out there, and it's nice to unplug from technology for a while. I think we will have to make trips out to see her a whole lot more frequent!

Disneyland 2014, Part 2!

Alright, here we go with Part 2!

So our first morning at Disneyland, we had an early morning entry ticket, so we went an hour before the parks "officially" open to ride everything in Fantasyland. 

I thought Savannah would love all the little kid rides like Snow White and Pinocchio. Turns out, those rides are kind of terrifying to a 3 year old...

She got really scared on a few of them (she liked Dumbo though!) and actually didn't want to ride anything else. I thought I had pretty much ruined the whole trip for her in the 1st hour of our 1st day by making her go on the scary kids rides. We headed over to meet my family in Tomorrowland and I thought that if we went on the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, that she would be fine, since she loves Toy Story and would better recognize Buzz (I don't think I've ever had her watch Snow white or Pinocchio...) but she was crying and telling us she didn't want to go on any more rides. My dad finally talked her into going on it with him, and once we got inside the line and saw Buzz, she got really excited and started talking to her wrist (like Buzz talks into his communicator) and was saying "Mission control, this is Savannah, I'm on my way!"

We were back in business!

The rest of the day went pretty smoothly. Savannah's favorites were Buzz Lightyear, Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, Toy Story Midway Mania, and the Gadget Go Coaster in Toon Town.

 

^^Don't let this face fool you, DJ LOVED Dumbo!^^

 

^^Bryant and Savy Waaay back there^^

 

^^Took a selfi on Mr. Toads Wild Ride with Dad^^

 

^^We went into the hat shop and she tried on just about every hat in there, and chose this one all by herself!^^

 

^^A little nervous about going on Buzz Lightyear, but it ended up being one of her favorite rides!^^

 

^^In line for Star Tours^^

 

^^Bryant in line for Star Tours. Fun fact: I'm so short, that my feet are just barely too short to touch the floor on this ride, so my legs kept swinging all over the place and my feet would get caught in the mesh basket under the seat.^^

 

^^Meeting Eyore! We couldn't get Deagan to look at the camera.^^

^^Pooh was extra sweet!^^

^^A few shots from one of the parades^^

Ok, that's all for right now! More later (as soon as I find some time!)

Disneyland 2014! Part 1!

Yay for Disneyland! 

So as you all know, we went on a Disneyland trip at the end of March with both kids, My parents, siblings, and my sister-in-law, and my in-laws all surprised us by coming and spending the last day there with us! If you missed the exciting post about that (and the earthquakes!) then click HERE.

I was really excited for this trip. It was Savanna's 3rd trip to Disneyland, but this time, she was finally old enough to ride a lot of the attractions, and she was able to recognize almost all of the characters (Disney channel is pretty much all we watch at this house!)

Savannah has the Disneyland app on the ipad, and we talked a LOT about Disneyland for months before we went so I think she had a pretty good idea what it was. The night before we left, she wouldn't go to bed and I told her that when she woke up, we would go to Disneyland. The next morning, we drove to California and had dinner with my Dad's cousins and that night, I told Savannah we had to get ready to go to bed, and that when she woke up, we would go to Disneyland, and she said "But I already woke up today! You said when I woke up today we would be going to Disneyland!" She wasn't very happy that she had to wait one more night!

Both kids did AMAZING on the drive there. I've said it before and I'll say it again, my kids are traveling rockstars! They were made for road tripping!  My kids eat 10 hour drives for breakfast!

^^Stopping for gas outside of Las Vegas^^

Back to dinner. So our first day we got to California, we checked in and and unloaded our stuff at a house we rented about a half hour away from the parks. I tell you what, if you have more people than will fit into 1 hotel room, renting a house is definitely the way to go! It cost us about the same as getting 2 hotel rooms, which we would have all been really cramped in, and Bryant and I got our own room with the kids, we brought DJ's pack and play, and we made a bed on the floor of spare blankets for Savannah, and my parents, and Sawyer and Kenna both had their own rooms too. Colter and Sage slept on the couches downstairs.

^^The cute house we stayed at!^^

It was nice having a full kitchen, and laundry room too. I didn't have to worry about packing "extra" sets of cloths for the kids (I usually pack enough for 2 outfits a day plus jammies when traveling) because if I got down to the last day or 2 worth of clothes, I could toss more in the wash. We stayed a bit further out from the park, like I said it was probably a half hour drive, but it really wasn't bad at all.

After we unpacked, we drove to an Asian buffet restaurant to meet my dad's cousins Lisa and Cory. It was really great to see them and catch up! I wasn't there when everyone was in Arizona together last year, so it had been a long time since I had seen either of them! Thank you Lisa and Cory for coming out to see us!

Sorry, that's all for tonight! I have a TON of photos from our trip, so I'll probably split up our days at the parks up a bit, and I'll write a separate post about our trip to the beach. 

Goodnight everyone!

 

One Disneyland Ride I Didn't Pay For.

We got home really late last Sunday night from our Disneyland vacation!

I will be writing a separate post with photos and all the happy, fun memories, but right now, I'm going to talk about the scariest part of our trip!

I'm going to give you a little bit of a background story here, so you fully understand the extent of my fear here...

I had the WORST 5th grade teacher on the planet. And her favorite hobby was making my life a living nightmare. My mom tried so hard to get me transferred out of her class, and we ended up in a meeting with the principal who told us I couldn't leave her class because too many students had already requested to be taken out. 

Now, this teacher LOVED to scare the pants off of her students. She constantly talked about earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and all other types of natural disasters. She would show us videos, read us news articles, and go on and on about how devastating nature could be. And this wasn't just a unit we were studying for a couple of weeks, this was almost DAILY for the entire school year! I went home several times crying because I was so scared that there was going to be an earthquake. Earthquakes have been my biggest fear since the 5th grade. Only taking 2nd place after I had my kids (something happening to them is now my #1 fear).

Throughout the last 15 years of my life, anytime a big truck passes my house and my windows shake a bit, I freeze in fear and my heart races. Any time Bryant rolls over in bed, I wake up panicked that the ground is shaking. It's constantly on my mind.When my family took a vacation to Universal Studios, I couldn't even go on the "earthquake" ride.

Because I worry so much about earthquakes, anytime I'm in Southern California, I'm especially anxious. The morning of our 2nd day at the parks, I fell asleep with my phone under my pillow, and when my alarm went off, my phone vibrated and I woke up shaking, thinking there had been an earthquake. Little did I know I'd be experiencing one in just a few hours...

That evening, Bryant, my brother Colter and I had some fastpasses to ride the Radiator Springs Racers over in California Adventure. We left the kids with my family at Disneyland and ran over. While waiting in line, Bryant was teasing me about my fear of roller coasters (fear #3 on my list...) and was trying to convince me that I should ride Screamin' with him. When I protested, he said "Why are you so scared of rollercoasters? Nothing can happen while you are on it!" and I said "Well, what if there is an earthquake while I'm on it!"

We hopped onto Radiator Springs Racers and when we got off, they closed it down. 

When we got back to Disneyland and met up with my family, we walked over to Space Mountain and saw that it was closed. My Mom said "Did you guys feel the earthquake? They closed down Space Mountain because there was a 3.4 earthquake." 

I immediately started to panic. I sat down on a bench and asked Bryant if he felt anything. He said he didn't, but as soon as we got off the Racers, he heard people talking about it. But he said he didn't want to say anything to me so I wouldn't worry. Which means the earthquake happened while we were on the ride! Just like I had said might happen!

Bryant told me to sit and take a minute to calm down while he ran and got some pizza for dinner. The kids were asleep in the stroller, so I just hung out with them, while the rest of my family went to ride Buzz Lightyear. Bryant came back with dinner and we sat and ate for a few minutes. I asked him if he thought there would be an aftershock, or if maybe that was a forshock to a bigger quake. He said "I don't think so, at least not large enough that we would feel it."

Right that second, while I was mid-bite in a pizza, my legs went one direction, and my body went the other, then both went the other way and the ground started rolling, like it was made of large noodles floating on water. I looked at Bryant, who calmly said "You're alright, lets get up and move".

I don't know what happened to my pizza, I don't know if I dropped it, set it down or threw it, but I grabbed the stroller, and Bryant held onto it and steered us out from where we were sitting. We had been sitting under the roof of the exit of Space Mountain, which has large glass windows in front of us. My instinct kicked in and all I could think was "I need to move the kids out into the open". Bryant steered us out and to the side, away from anything tall and away from people. I was trying to run, but he kept saying "You're alright, lets just move here and stay put, don't move, lets just ride it out."

He was so amazingly calm! I was not. As we were walking out from under the roof, we could hear what sounded like something was crashing, and like plastic was cracking and snapping. Then everyone was screaming and running out and pointing up. It looked like a godzilla movie. Lots of shaking, people running and screaming and pointing. The rocket at the entrance of Space Mountain was swaying. 

Once it was all over, we headed out to find my family. We found them after a couple of minutes and we all moved to a corner where there weren't a lot of people. There was a "cast member" who was working at an information podium thing, standing next to us. He told us that he was watching the "people mover" track when it happened and that it was moving side to side. He had an ipad with the news pulled up, and informed us that the quake registered as a 5.1 at the epicenter in La Habra, and a 5.4 where we were. (Fun fact, earthquakes ripple like a pebble in water, they get bigger the further out, then start to diminish. I think I saw somewhere that we were 15 miles from the epicenter)

He was really awesome, he kept us updated on everything for the next 2 hours, while everything was closed down. He even handed us 2 fastpasses that would allow up to 6 people each onto any ride. When things started to open back up, everyone went to ride Space Mountain (I refused. I was still shaken up pretty badly, and I didn't want to leave my kids, who had slept through everything peacefully in the stroller.) And he gave me a free voucher for 2 ice creams (which I actually forgot to use, dang it!)

It took me a while to calm completely down. At one point, I had to use the bathroom, and I was too scared to go by myself, so I made Bryant wait out by the door for me. As soon as I walked in, I felt like the ground was shaking and ran as fast as I could back out. He assured me that nothing had happened and that I was ok. Needless to say, I don't think anyone in the history of the world used the bathroom as quickly as I did that day. 

At one point, another lady came out and told all of us that we had to leave Tomorrowland and head towards Main Street because it was the safest place to be. When we started packing up and walking away, the guy we had been talking to asked where we were going. When we told him we were told to leave, he said "I'm going to tell you to stay here. There are on average 50,000 people in the park at a time, not including about 30-40,000 in California Adventure, and they are all on Main Street right now. You're probably safer right here." We were relieved that we were ok to stay, away from the large crowds. The last thing I wanted was another earthquake to cause a stampede of 50,000 people, and little old me trying to wrangle a double stroller through them all. Not to mention our phones weren't working very well. I could finally text after about an hour and a half.

The best part of this whole situation was that while we were waiting around, Bryant's parents came and surprised us!!! We had absolutely NO IDEA that they were coming! It was such an awesome surprise! I was sitting on the wall texting my brother-in-law, when Robyn jumped in front of me. I saw her shoes and was confused as to what random person would jump that close to me, and when I looked up, it was Robyn! I started screaming so loud in excitement that I woke up Deagan! They had come to the park after the earthquake to buy their tickets for the next day and asked if there was anyway they could come into the park to look for us. They gave them free complimentary tickets for that evening! They were able to find us because my brother-in-law had texted me asking how everything was going and what we were doing, and I had told him everyone had gone to ride Space Mountain. I had no idea they were there! It was awesome that they had all flown down to spend Saturday and part of Sunday with us!

I was grateful that I was so exhausted by the end of the night that I fell right to sleep when we got back to the house we were staying at. If I wasn't so tired, I probably would have been up all night worrying about more earthquakes.

The next day, My parents, sister, Ed, Robyn and I took the kids to watch "Micky and the Magical Map" which is a cute, short musical show. Right as the show started, it felt like someone started to jump on the bench we were sitting on, and the show immediately shut down. It was another earthquake! This time, it was a 4.1 (just some earthquake FYI: each number that the earthquake registers at is x100. So a 5.1 is 100x stronger than a 4.1.) I called Bryant, who was with everyone else waiting to go on another ride. He said he didn't even feel it and that none of the rides were shut down.

We didn't feel anything else the rest of the trip, but according to the news, there were over 100 aftershocks ranging up to 3.4's.

I guess I can now say that I've lived through one of my biggest fears, and I handled it a bit better than I imagined I would. I always thought that I would be so scared that I would just pass out. So not passing out is considered a win in my opinion! And I was proud that my instincts kicked in to get somewhere safe, and I didn't just stand there panicking. And I'm even more proud that my first thoughts were making sure my kids were safe, and my seconds thoughts were making sure the rest of my family was safe.

Let's hope I never have to deal with that again though, ok?

Mt. Shasta Part 5

Mount Shasta trip part 5: The exciting conclusion to our trip in which we bless Deagan, return to the lake, get stuck in traffic because of brush fires, and I get homesick 5 miles outside of Mt. Shasta.  

Well, It took me forever, but I'm finally finishing up writing about our last day in California. 

On Sunday, we were able to bless Deagan. I was sad that my dad and brothers couldn't be there to be in the circle, but I was grateful for my Brother-in -laws Tyler and Jacob, my father-in-law Ed, and Bryant's old bishop Dan Taylor were there. I hope that Deagan will always look up to these men, and the men in my family as good examples throughout his life. He is very blessed to have such great and amazing people in his life. 

 ^My handsome boy in his blessing outfit!^

I can't say enough good things about Bryant's home ward. Really, I love everyone there, and I could feel the spirit there so strongly. Everyone is so welcoming and loving and accepting of you. I feel as if I know more people in that ward than I do in my own ward that I've been in for 18 years. Bryant and I sat outside for a bit between classes and we talked about how amazing this ward is, and how badly we wished we could go there every Sunday. Not to mention the building itself is beautiful. I hope we are back to visit again soon!

That afternoon, Jacob, Sally, their kids and Tyler went back to Sacramento, but not before we got some family photos.

^Grandma and Grandpa with all their grandkids! Sorry these are so dark.^

 We enjoyed one last night in Mt. Shasta by going back to Lake Siskyou for a walk to the new bridge. 

The next day, we took our time packing up and headed out mid-morning. It's always sad when we leave. As soon as we were out of town, I was ready to turn back and stay the rest of the summer (or forever...) Is it normal to feel homesick for a place you've never even lived? Because I was. The first few hours of our drive was spent talking about future plans and we made goals to someday move to Mt. Shasta. It's where we both feel we want to be. We know it may be a long time, and we will go wherever the jobs are (and I wouldn't mind doing a stint in San Diego or something if the opportunity arises) but Mt. Shasta is the ultimate goal.

Our drive home went about as smoothly as our drive to California. Both kids were great the whole way, except for a brief moment when they both decided to scream at the top of their lungs, just as the highway was shut down because of several brush fires. Deagan was hungry, and Savannah was throwing a fit because the sun was in her eyes, and she didn't want her sunglasses, she wanted Bryant's, but then his didn't fit so... you know... terrible twos and all...

Just as I had just about had it with screaming kids, the gas light came on. Of all things the gas light comes on while we are stuck at a dead stop in the middle of nowhere Nevada, while it's 100+ degrees out and I have a hungry newborn, and a pissed-off 2 year old. That's when we realized that people were driving up the shoulder and turning onto a cut-off that went to the opposite side of the highway. We knew there was a gas station about a mile back, so we followed suit. We asked a highway patrolman how long they thought the highway would be shut down, and he told us 45 minutes to an hour. So we headed on back to the gas station, fed Deagan, and let Savannah stretch her legs. After about 45 minutes, we got back on the highway. It was still stopped, but after about 10 minutes, it opened back up!

We had a few more set-backs thanks to several construction zones. Want to know what's worse than going 55 MPH on a one-lane construction zone? Getting stuck behind about a bazillion semis going 5 MPH through a one-lane construction zone... Those areas alone set us back about 3 hours. So needless to say, we ended up driving through the night again. We did pretty well, we both took turns napping or driving. The only time we both started to get drowsy was about the time we hit Tooele, which is too close to be worth stopping for the night. We were listening to a book on tape, and I started to zone. I didn't want to sleep, because I wanted to be awake to keep Bryant awake. So I shut the radio off, and made him answer about a million questions. And we began to plan our next trip to Disneyland (want to keep me talking? Ask me about all my favorite things at Disneyland, I'll chat your ear off AND keep you awake!) We both got a 2nd wind and made it home! Unfortunately, both our kids woke up at 5am... 

 We eventually all crashed in our bed a few hours later...

Well, Mt. Shasta you were good to us, and you are beautiful as always. I will miss you and I will miss you Ed and Robyn! Thank you for letting us take up your week!