Reunited: A long, lost cousin :)

Life passes quickly and growing up we always lived “far away” from our cousins all of which lived in another state. We usually got to see them once or twice a year but it was not anything like what my boys have with cousins close by. We still enjoyed our time with them but as we all grew up and went to college and got married we weren’t able to stay in touch as easily until…FACEBOOK! :) My cousin Crista reached out to my Dad on Facebook and the rest of us found her too! It was fun to see her family and get to know her kids via Facebook but we got to reconnect when she visited this past week!

We had lots of fun hanging out and spent all day Saturday playing at Grandma’s house with her. They went to church with us on Sunday and then my siblings came over to eat Sunday dinner at Grandma and Grandpa’s house and the kids played, and played, and played. All of the cousins had a great time!

We got to extend our fun with them since we still have our Disneyland passes for a few more months! We met them on Tuesday with the Repetti’s and had a blast! And we were crazy and went again on Thursday! We got to go on some of our favorite rides and also see/do a lot of things that were new for us! What a busy and fun week! The boys really enjoyed playing with their kiddos Hannah (8), Emily(6), Nathan (4) and Natalie (9 months). We’ll definitely keep this friendship going!

Thanks Crista and James for taking a chance with the Driggs Family! We loved having you and loved playing with you! :)

Here are a few (ha) pictures (I had fun taking them!) :)

Nathanael James (5) and Nathan James (4)

Natalie (10) and Natalie (9 months)

My nieces/cousins with their spoils (sharing Auntie Allie’s old costume jewelry)  :)

Nathan and Danny reminded me so much of each other! I kept getting them mixed up from behind! They liked the same toys and were the same height.

Two fun sisters Hannah and Emily!

Meeting Donald at California Adventure

More cousins! :)

Thanks to Natalie’s early growth spurt these two look like twins even though they’re 22 months apart! Cameron (12) and Natalie (10)

Cameron, James and baby Natalie

Ashley (6) and Carrie

Toy Story Mania; part of our party of 13? :)

Anyone want to ride a tractor with these beauties?

We even got to see World of Color; it was beautiful although a bit long!

Danny was rarely found not holding onto Hannah’s hand!

The 5-7 range kids!

Cousins! :) Yes, even moms have cousins!

Nathan and his Daddy James

We even got on Soarin’ over California just before closing time! :)

At the end of the day (fourth for them, second for us!) The kids were exhausted! I did giggle as I thought about the age spread in this picture we had one of each 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. :) No wonder they had so much fun!

I’ll have to upload more to smugmug (link coming soon!) :)

LA Zoo with four escapees, I mean kids!

We got lots of nice presents for Christmas but I think that one of the most creative ones was Aunt Becky’s gift: tickets to go to the zoo with her and a special backstage pass to see the gorillas, chimps and orangutans.

We woke up and packed the boys up one brisk morning on our last Friday of Christmas vacation. They were so excited to go! We got there a little early (oops) but it gave us a great parking spot and we were first in line to get tickets! Woo hoo! We got in at 10am and went to the California Condor Discovery Zone; we could have stayed there a long time! There were condor wings to put on, giant eggs and carcasses to climb in, and the boys favorite part, a lab. There they could read and learn about them, perform surgery with all of the tools, feed babies and look at x-rays. You wouldn’t have been able to tell by their faces that they were pretending—it was real to them!

Then we visited the LAIR which they loved which were all of the reptiles, amphibians, insects and lizards! They love all of those types of animals! Ben’s favorites were the fish. Sam loves the snakes and the other boys agreed! We also saw a giraffes, flamingos, alligators and meerkats before heading to our special behind-the-scenes time with Aunt Becky and Leann! We got to see (but not get too close, they are strong with long arms) the chimps, the orangutans and gorillas. They were fun to see up close!

Later we got to see koalas, condors (real ones this time), wallabies, black bears, elephants and much much more. We were exhausted by the time we left and so were the animals…it was almost 5 pm and the sun was going down and they were all heading in as it got cooler and cooler outside.

It was a fun day! Thanks Aunt Becky! And thanks Uncle Eric and Aunt Addie for going the same day! We all loved it! :)

 

 

		LA Zoo January 2013 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Christmas Break Fun 2012

So…don’t you just love the feeling of waking up every morning and feeling like it is Saturday only to realize that it is the middle of the week?! I do! I must have had that feeling at some point each day this week and it was wonderful! I thought (since I’ve been bad at journaling this month) I’d write about a few of our recent activities!

Today it was rainy a lot of the morning so we played with blocks, painted, baked cookies and tried to not destroy the house (ha!) In the evening the boys cleaned up the leaves outside for fun! (Their choice not mine, now if I could get them to clean their room without fits…)

In general we have been outside a lot! We have been jumping on the trampoline, playing hide and go seek, riding bikes and playing in the dirt!

Yesterday we had friends come to town to visit and decided we’d ride our bikes to meet them at the park. Sam wasn’t too happy (he wanted to take the car) and I found out later that his tires were a little flat and it made it hard for him but we fixed it before the ride home! Daddy met us there when the baby woke up, switches spots with me and we rode to McDonald’s for cheeseburgers and ice cream cones before afternoon naps for the little ones!

Here are the boys and I ready for our little ride (I just got Wee Ride Co-Pilot bike for Danny and we still have the trailer for the baby!)

My friends Grace and Becky who were in town!

Sammy enjoying his treat!

Heritage Park 12-28-2012 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL