Valentine's Day & The Girl's Pink Bedroom!

Hopefully all of you had a great Valentine's Day! For family night the Monday before Valentine's we made "heart mailboxes", which hung on our fridge all week. It was so fun to look in there and see that someone had sneakily written you a sweet letter. Megan writes the kindest things, and nothing beats a nice note from your husband! :) Brad got a babysitter on Wednesday and took me out to dinner and got me flowers. This was the first year he bought me a potted mini rose plant instead of cut flowers, and he was excited to tell me that it can be planted outside eventually. So I am currently doing my best to see that it survives indoors till the first of June! :) Sunday (Valentine's Day) the kids woke up to find some small gifts from Brad and I, along with a card which Brad filled one side, and I filled out the other. Some day I think they'll treasure something like that (so we even wrote one for Ashlie). We made super yummy heart cinnamon rolls for breakfast and then went on our first family walk since fall. After church we made a delicious dinner along with homemade ice cream sandwiches.

Megan and Paige making their heart envelopes (mailboxes) during FHE.



So, Paige stuck stickers all over her heart and then said that it looked ugly. To make her happy Brad switched with her and she continued to add paint to the one he had done. Hers ended up being the black one on the top right. Brad added paint to Paige's heart that was now his. His one ended up being the bottom left. Now I know how to get him to write me love notes: I tack a valentine mailbox on the fridge! It worked. It was super fun.


These are our cinnamon rolls we made on Valentine's Day. I told Brad that I was wondering if I could shape cinnamon rolls into hearts and he suggested just putting them in my glass dishes. Way easier than what I was thinking, and it worked perfectly!




Yummy Dinner!


Megan helping to make the cookies for our homemade ice cream sandwiches. Yes, we pigged out on Sunday!


Finished product:


This is how Paige came dressed for dinner. Both her shirt and her pants were on backwards! Once we told her about her clothes, she stripped down then and there in the kitchen to fix them both, and lo and behold - her underwear was on backwards too! I remember Megan going through this same stage, and it's so funny - their shoes are always on the wrong feet!


Megan and Paige have been wanting a pink room for a long time. In fact, Megan's been wanting one since we bought our house over 3 years ago. Well, pink she got! Foxy Pink!! Just last night we got everything hung on the walls, and it just makes me smile every time I go in there. I just love it. I still need to hang a curtain, and maybe a mirror or something on the opposite wall, but for now, this is what it looks like. My living room is now in need of a makeover because I gave the girls my shelves that were previously hanging in there. I already had these pictures of Jesus in their room, and I thought my living room shelves matched perfectly. Now they also have a little place for their knick-knacks.

Rappelling In Costa Rica

This was one of the craziest things on the canopy tour! We were lowered from a high bridge down to a lower one. This happened after the first 4 zip lines and before the rock climbing.

Our Trip To Costa Rica

Brad and I just spent a week in Costa Rica with others from Brad's work. We had such a great time!! We've been so lucky to have been included on these group trips. We've gotten the opportunity to go to places we'd probably otherwise never see.
We flew in late at night to the Liberia airport, walked off the plane and waited outside in this large shed (kind of like an airport hanger) to show our passports. While in line we were standing right next to this grasshopper that was 6 inches long!! I was instantly worried that huge bugs were going to be everywhere during our trip (because the grasshoppers were in the airport bathrooms too). Thankfully other than lots and lots of mosquito bites, I came away without seeing many insects. Yeah!



The resort was awesome! It was so beautiful. It had parts of the swimming pools that had no edge (the pool ran off into a waterfall on the other side) and so it looks like it goes right into the ocean.





We had a 45 minute minimum bus ride to get to anywhere from the resort hotel - much of it on a dirt road. We went into Tamarindo quite a few times, and these are some photos I took from the window of the bus.



One day I went shopping in Tamarindo while Brad stayed at the resort & surfed. Those of us that went shopping ate at this outdoor restaurant. My friend Rachelle was feeling adventurous and she ordered the seafood soup. I'm so glad she did, because I got a great photo out of it!!! She was literally going to gag!

Yes, that is an entire squid (head and all) and an entire crab floating on top!

My friend Tiffany asked the waiter what was good at the restaurant, and he suggested she get the tenderloin. Well, she went ahead and ordered it and it came out looking like 3 pounds of meat (and happened to be rare inside). The fact that she's 8 weeks pregnant, and that nearly 30 flies immediately swarmed it kind of turned her stomach!


We had a fantastic day with the entire group rappelling & doing a series of 9 zip lines over canopy trees and a canyon with a river below, white water rafting in individual tubes, horseback riding, and hiking to a waterfall where most of the guys (including Brad) jumped in. I was scared to death of the first zip line, and of getting lowered by rope down this canyon, and I turn to look at Brad as he gets lowered just after me, and he chose to get lowered down head first. He's so funny, and I'm definitely a wus! I really enjoyed the horseback riding and the tubing was absolutely my favorite part of the day. For me the zip line course felt like my own personal "Biggest Loser" challenge. It was really frightening to me, although it did get easier as I went along. As for Brad, he was totally in his element & probably never wanted it to end.






Brad went scuba diving with his friend, Terry. It was his second dive since getting certified two years ago. He saw about 8 reef sharks, 20 spotted eagle rays, 5 eels, starfish, and thousands of tropical fish. (Yes, he's standing right by me telling me what to say right now!) He had a great dive, but he's paying for it still. He's got a terrible ear infection called "swimmer's ear", and it has been super painful for him. Last night I went to put his presciption ear drops in, and his ear was practically swollen shut. His ear never fully cleared (popped) after his dive, and then we went straight out with the entire group and went sailing on a catamaran and went snorkeling, then he played pool volleyball later that night. We're now pretty sure all that water in one day wasn't very good for his ear. That was my first time to snorkel, and it was a blast! Brad and I saw hundreds and hundreds of fish.


Brad and I had a blast gathering shells for our girls. There were shells everywhere you looked. It was so fun to look into these little pools of water and see all of these pretty shells, and then notice them move around because they all had hermit crabs inside of them.


You know that Seinfeld episode where the man says "No soup for you!!" Well, on our way home at the Liberia, Costa Rica airport the luggage screener had me open my suitcase and he grabbed my bag of shells and pretty much said, "No shells for you!!" He took our shells and I was so bummed. However, we had a FANTASTIC trip, and got to enjoy the company of good friends all week. Love you all! - Camille

Our Fabulous Thanksgiving

I've had a crazy week, so I'm just now getting a chance to post about our awesome Thanksgiving trip to Arizona. We visited my sister Julianne, her husband Paul & their three adorable kids. We had a blast together all week - we even had to extend our vacation a day because we didn't want to go home. Here are some of the highlights:
Driving passed Hoover Dam:

Visiting Scottsdale, Arizona:

Whoa Brooklynn!! (this was hilarious!!)

More of Scottsdale, Arizona: (Paul & Julianne said that Stephenie Meyer was from here but I never saw her. Bummer.)


Phoenix Zoo: The kids loved brushing the goats, milking the fake cow (water really came out!), & the monkeys (you walk right by the little monkeys & there's no glass)





Thanksgiving dinner: We didn't burn anything! Everything turned out super yummy - even Paul & Brad's ham that they cooked beneath the ground in their homemade pit!! That's one bonus to having gravel / dirt in your backyard - you just dig it up whenever you want!

Seeing New Moon & doing day after Thanksgiving shopping with Julianne: I learned something new about myself - I not only have restaurant menu ordering anxiety, but I also have Black Friday anxiety! I thought I was going to pass out at Kohl's after impulse buying! Sorry I'm such a nerd Julianne!

Picking pecans, oranges & grapefruit: This was so fun, & they are yummier oranges & grapefruit than in the store!

The electric parade:


The Mesa, Arizona Temple: Because we stayed one extra day we got to see the temple with Christmas lights. It was so beautiful.

These trees look like the Tree of Life, huh! Paul called them "The forbidden fruit" because he's always tempted to pick the oranges on the temple grounds.


My new favorite picture of Julianne & Paxton:

I've got to add a photo I took of Ashlie while on the trip, because all of these photos hide her face because of the baby backpack. She's cute enough to put on the blog I think! :)

This is how Paige managed to fall asleep on the long drive home:

We had such a fun trip. Thanks Paul & Julianne!