Mt. Hood, part 2

On one day, after I had done my morning trail run to Mirror Lake (2 miles up, 2 miles down!), the boys wanted to come home early so we could go into Portland.  Mitchell wanted to check out the well known Burnside skate park.  I also needed to buy more books since the 2 books I brought I had devoured on the drive there.

When we arrived to Portland, we quickly realized trying to find parking in the middle of downtown was going to be impossible.  Well, free parking that is.  I made Kevin pull into a $7 pay to park lot.  This was really hard for him.  He was raised to be frugal!!  But we made Mitchell pay for it because he was the whole reason we were trying to find parking.

When we walked up to Burnside, we realized this was no normal skate park; it was a scare park.  Some  weirdos threw a rock at us when we walked up.  I just glared at them.  Yeah, It probably scared them.

You should have seen the people that were here.  One homeless looking guy was sitting in a car seat and yelling "BUUUURRNNNSSSIDE!" the entire time.  A group of skaters were passing a joint around.  An eight year old girl (or so) was drinking a beer and trying to make her dog drink it (who wouldn't).  Everyone looked haggard and life-less.  

They were all incredibly good skaters though.  All the boys were completely impressed.  When Kevin saw the park and saw the skaters, he put down his board and very seriously said "I am not skating that."  It made me laugh.  Mitchell skated it and did pretty good.  It was a humbling experience for him though, since he is normally the best skater in any park here.

We then found a Barnes & Noble nearby which was in a mall.  Yes, I got four boys to go into a mall with me.  It was a spectacular scene.  Such good sports. 

The view at Mirror Lake.

I found a mini-pinecone on my run.

On the Burnside Bridge.

This alone scared me.

There goes Mitchell!

The boys watching in awww.

Mt. Hood, part 1

Kevin really wanted to go to Mt. Hood this summer to ski. I'm always up for an adventure so I told him lets do it! We invited Kevin's two younger brothers and Kevin's employee Peter. It was a total Dude trip, but I promised I wouldn't cramp their style and I'd also make them dinner every night.
They happily obliged.
This was how the schedule went every day: Boys would wake up at 8. They would eat cereal, come wake me up and then I would drive them up the canyon. I would drop them off and head back home. I would then go on a trail run up to Mirror Lake, or run around the campground. I would then wipe down with some baby wipes (the joy of camping) and get ready for the day. I would then read outside in the sun, get tired, and usually take a nap before the boys called me again around 2 to come pick them up. We would then eat lunch and then do whatever activity we wanted for the rest of the day. It was bliss for me, and bliss for the boys. We were a good team.
It went so well we decided this will be an annual tradition.
Who wants to come next year?

Right when we drove into Hood River, OR, we had to pull off and watch the kite boarders  for a while.   We were so excited to be in Oregon, it was beautiful.

Our little campsite.  My in-laws let us borrow this for the trip.  It was heaven!  It had a king sized bed, a queen sized bed, and then two other beds.  It also had plenty of storage, a sink and a stove.  It made camping 5 days easy-peasy.  

Our first view of Mt. Hood.

The boys would hang all their ski clothes out to dry every afternoon.

Our campsite was right by this beautiful creek.  The sound of it put us to sleep every night.

Since this creek was run-off from the glacier, it was freezing.  So it was a perfect cooler for our drinks, orange juice and milk.

The shower.  I did take a shower in this bad boy once.  It was cold!  But it felt so good and I even shaved my legs.    This was camping in style my friends.

recipe: tilapia fish tacos

After his first bite, Kevin said:

"You make better food than restaurants.  If you were a restaurant, everyone would say 'You have to try the fish tacos!!'"

I think it's safe to say that Kevin really enjoyed these.

(I just made this up so I don't have any precise measurements)

Tilapia Fish Tacos

tilapia

garlic

butter

lemon

parsley flakes 

corn tortillas

cabbage

homemade tarter sauce

Heat up grill on high.  Make a tin foil plate with three pieces of tin foil.  Rub butter on bottom of foil before you place fish down.  Sprinkle fish with salt and pepper.  Spread garlic on fish, then top with parsley flakes, a few tablespoons of butter and lemon slices.  Reduce heat on grill to medium and cook fish for 15 minutes or until flaky. 

Put a few tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet on medium-high heat.  Fry the corn tortillas in the oil.  Place on a paper towel to soak up extra oil.

On tortilla, place tarter sauce, cabbage then fish.  Put a little lemon juice on top and ENJOY!

Tarter Sauce

2/3 cup mayonaise

4 tb sweet relish

2 tsp minced onion

1 tb and 1 tsp lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

california. last day, sad day: Carlsbad Beach

We started today out by renting me a beyond-huge paddle board for the day.  I have been wanting to try out paddle boarding for a while now, so I was excited.  Trying to lift this board up for this picture made me a little nervous for how I was going to be able to get that thing past the breakers.  It was huge, heavy and huge.  Kevin helped me by going out with it first and testing it out.  So let me just say that Kevin is good at everything (well... I am a much better swimmer than him; I can dominate him in any swim race.  I'm just putting that out there).  So it was surprising to see him struggle with even staying on the paddle board.  Needless to say, I was pretty stoked when I went out on it and was way better at it.  So now I have got 1) cooking 2) swimming and 3) paddle boarding on him.  The list is getting longer!

It was kind of spooky being the only one that far past the breakers.  I just envisioned a great white shark swimming as fast as the speed of light towards me and taking a huge bite out of my board and probably taking my leg with it.  

This didn't really help much with my confidence at the beginning, but I just continued to say little "no sharks please" prayers while I was out there.

Some of the waves were huge and my family loved watching me take them on.  I would first, scream, and then either get down on my knees or just take it like a wo-man.  One big wave I didn't quite take it how I should and the paddle board paddle came right up to my eye.  So now I still have a big bruise there.  Battle wound.

But as scary as it was, I loved it.  It was relaxing and fun to be out there in the deep blue sea.  Im thinking that a real paddle board (we are not so sure that this one was a real paddle board, but for $35 for the whole day, we took it) that is lighter and provides more balance would make a world of difference.

The boys all rented wet suits.  The water was pretty chilly and they said these made all the difference.  They were boarding all day day long.

I don't think there is any better combination than beach and pizza.
If you are ever in Carlsbad, you must get pizza here.  This was the best pizza I have ever had in my life.  No exaggeration.  I still crave it.  Costco pizza does not compare even though I tried to make it on monday.

Afton was not feeling good.  But she was still such a good beach baby.

I love this picture.  Hadley and Grandpa; "Paki" or "Randy" as she likes to call him.

A cute sandy bum.

Here is just a picture from my O'NEILL photo shoot I did with model Kevin Brower.

We ended the day with dinner at Pick Up Stix.  Me and Kevin love to eat here any time were in California.  Its like a fast food PF Changs, but twice as good.  We then watched the last two episodes of Walking Dead.  We did it Ty! We finished before you left!

The next morning me and Kevin woke up at 5:00 am (the insanity!) and trekked back to UT for work.  Work ruins all our fun.

And here are the pictures from my iPhone:

big board hanging out the back.
i was excited!
we love hotel babies and hotel tv.
yummy, yummy.

and he's off!

We got to see Elder Moser off this afternoon. Im pretty sure I still don't realize how long two years is. 

 I hope it goes by fast.

I'm going to miss you Elder Moser.

I don't think any picture gets sweeter than these last two:

california day three: San Diego

Day three we decided to head down south to San Diego.

We first stopped by San Diego Zoo.  My favorite's were the fighting polar bears, elephants and lions.
This zoo was huge!
We probably saw 30% of what it had to offer.

Hi panda!

We then headed down to the harbor and had dinner at our family favorite:  Anthony's Fish Grotto.  Everything here is awesome.  Kevin was excited to get some fresh oysters.

  

We then headed over to the Mormon Battalion center.  I believe they recently redid it, so the program they put on was really neat and entertaining.  I really enjoyed it.

Ghirardelli was next.  I splurged and got a chocolate dipped waffle cone with chocolate and butter pecan ice-cream.  That wasn't enough, so I topped it with warm caramel sauce.  Yum-o.

Tyler became a soldier.

And heres pictures from my iPhone:

Breakfast.
The elephants!
A trophy my husband awarded me.
Ghirardelli.

california day two: Newport Beach

Day two we drove down to Newport to hit the beach. Kevin taught Tyler how to skim board and he picked it up quickly.  

After a fun day at the beach, we drove down to Carlsbad to meet up with our parents and go to dinner at our favorite local spot Harbor Fish.  They had the best shrimp cocktails; key word had.  I don't know why they changed it, but I am not going back until they change it back.  Harbor Fish, you have been warned.

All us kids then finished the night with some Walking Dead episodes.  We needed to finish the season before Tyler left on his mission, so the plan was to watch 2-3 a night.  I watched probably one full episode.  Curse my tiredness on vacations.  At home, I could stay up all night long.  On vacation, 11:00 pm rolls around and there is nothing you can do to keep me awake.  Not even treats.  I tried.

  

Hadley does not like the sand so she does whatever she can to keep her feet away from it.

Yeah, flex those muscles.

Cute boys.

That night, Hadley asked for me to take pictures of her and her "big Dumbo".  She actually looked at the camera and smiled for me.  This never happens.

 Those eyes.

THOSE EYES!