Pismo Trip with the Rossi's

Last week we took a trip to Pismo Beach with the Rossi's.  They had never been before and we decided to invite them to come along since Tyler would soon be leaving for college.  We drove down on Thursday afternoon and showed them around.

 Calissa and Riley Jo enjoying the rooftop terrace.

Sunset and fog!

We went to dinner that night at Old Juan's Cantina and enjoyed some yummy Mexican food.

We woke up the next morning to a beautiful day!  Trav and I went for a run on the beach and then we met everyone for breakfast.

 After breakfast we went down to explore.

Tyler, Parker, Conner

Calissa, Riley, Kyle

 Jen, Trav, Teri, Chris

 After changing into swimsuits, we went back down to the beach to play.  The younger kids played in the sand and water,

while the older kids played Frisbee.

 Chris sat and watched for a while (and kept an eye on the younger ones in the ocean). He was concerned that Teri (or someone else) might try and hit him with the Frisbee so he guarded himself with the skim board. Teri decided to throw it at him, but a lady and her daughter were walking by so she waited until they had gone past.  Evidently, they didn't walk far enough and Teri let go of the Frisbee too late and hit the lady in the arm (from about 5 feet away).  The boys were rolling on the ground laughing.  Luckily, the lady was nice, but we watched Teri with the Frisbee from then on out! 

 After playing Frisbee for a couple of hours, the boys braved the waves (and the freezing cold water). 

 Tyler trying to not get too wet and cold.

  Parker trying to jump over the wave.

 Conner was the only smart one to come back.

 The boys body surfed for quite a while.  Some of the waves were 8-10 feet high!

While on the beach we saw thousands of these blue jellyfish things.  They were all over the place!

 Evidently they are velella velalla and normally come ashore every 7-8 years in the Spring.  It's been about that long but they were coming ashore all up and down the west coast in the summer instead.  They were very pretty and interesting.

After getting out of the icy ocean, the boys headed up to get in the hot tub.  It took a while for their bodies to adjust to the temperature change!

That afternoon we went to lunch at Mo's BBQ, walked around downtown, Tyler and Parker each ate a chocolate covered cricket, and we had some ice cream.  Dinner that night was at the Melodrama.  We saw "Song of the Canyon Kid."  It was a great and funny show with a hilarious vaudeville after.  Glad the Rossi's could come with us!

While walking around town the day before I noticed a sign advertising a Pismo 5K the next morning.  Travis decided to enter.

They started at the Pier and ran out and back.

 As you can see there were quite a few runners.  Trav ended up finishing 27th overall with a 6:44 pace.  He missed 3rd place in his age group by 9 seconds!  He did great!

After checking out of the hotel we headed down to the pier and took a couple of family pictures.

Tyler, Teri, Riley, Kyle, Chris

Then, we decided to rent the surrey bikes.  Uh oh!  Tyler and Parker together ...

with Riley and Calissa on the back! There was quite a bit of screaming by the girls!

The rest of us were on the bigger bike.  (They don't go very fast we learned).

 We had a fun time riding them to the butterfly grove and then racing them along the path.  We crossed the street (not safe) and headed back to town.

 On the way back we found a little park and stopped to play for a while.  

 Having fun on the teeter totter. 

 Parker climbed in the back and let Tyler drive him around the parking lot.

Then, we went back into town and rode to get cinnamon rolls and then returned our bikes.  We did almost tip over a couple of times, but luckily we didn't.  We laughed a lot and had a fun time! 

 We made one last stop at the sand dunes before the Rossi's headed back home.  It was windy and sand was blowing everywhere, but the kids had fun ... 

 and got covered in sand.  We stayed and watched the 2nd melodrama and then headed back home.  We're glad the Rossi's were able to come with us to discover Pismo beach!

Conner's 15th Birthday

Conner is 15!  Yikes!! How did that happen? His birthday was on a Saturday this year so everyone was home to celebrate.  He wasn't sure what he wanted to do on his birthday, but we did manage to open some presents.

 Smile Conner! 

 Calissa bought him some new ping pong balls and a new wiffle bat with her own money for his birthday. 

 He wasn't quite sure what we got him, but he kept on opening. 

 He got Apple TV and an HDMI cable.  He hooked it up right away!

That night we went to eat at one of his favorite places ... Buckhorn. 

(Actually anywhere there is steak is his favorite place!)

 On Sunday we had everyone over for family dinner and ate outside.  Guess what we had?  Yep, steak!

And brownies and ice cream for dessert! 

Monday night we went to Benihana to celebrate Conner and Grandpa's birthday!

Happy birthday Conner!  We sure love you!

Parker's Wisdom Teeth

 Parker got home from a week at EFY and had a couple of days until he got his wisdom teeth taken out.  We bought a lot of cold, soft things for after the surgery. 

 Here he is getting ready to go in.

(This was the same place (& same doctors) that I had my wisdom teeth taken out many moons ago!)

 He did really well during the surgery.  He only had laughing gas.  He walked out on his own and was himself on the way home.  (The kids were hoping for some funny things to happen, but nope!)  This was our contraption we made with Calissa's scarf to help hold the ice packs.  20 minutes on and 20 minutes off all day!  Feels like all I did was change ice packs, give him medicine, and feed him that day. 

He was such a trooper and did really well taking care of himself.  We were a little worried about him getting liver clots since he had them last time he had teeth pulled, but nothing bad happened! He did get quite swollen on one side.  The other side was swollen too, but not quite as bad.

Here is the lovely bruising about 4-5 days later.

So glad (for all of us) that this is done.  Getting closer to a mission everyday!

EFY Provo 2014

This is Conner.  I had the opportunity to go yo EFY Provo for the first time.  It was an amazing experience.  My cousin was supposed to come with me but he didn't get signed up in time.  I believe that I had a better experience without my cousin because I didn't know any of the people so I was forced to make friends.  We got to stay in the dorms and I stayed in Heritage Halls.  EFY is such a good experience and I can't wait to go again next year.  My company decided to do the Variety Show so you just do something that you think is funny or a cool thing and try out.  My company made it through try outs and performed in the Show.  I actually was a part in it.  We did Slam Poetry to Eye of the Tiger, Baby, Boyfriend, Let It Go, and Say Something.  I did the Let It Go part.  I had lots of fun doing it.  This is our group picture after the Variety Show.

On Thursday it was Sunday dress and I thought that was one of the best days.  You could feel the Spirit a lot  in the classes and at the end of the day it was the Testimony meeting and that was really good. This is my group at Lunch in all our Sunday clothes.

Parker time! This was my third and final year of attending EFY and I already had high expectations about going again. I already knew that it was amazing and I was super excited to be able to go one last time. On Monday when I met the guys in my company I wasn't too sure of how they were going to be and everyone was a little reserved and shy until we started loosening up a bit. When we went and met the girls in our company everyone was being shy and didn't really know how to act around everyone. This changed extremely quickly though. We played some bonding games and had some firesides that first day and just got to know each other and around that point we decided that everyone was cool and we all just clicked. From that day on our company was so united with each other that it didn't matter who you were with in the group. We all got along incredibly well and had an amazing time with each other from that point on.

 On Tuesday we had a bunch of amazing classes from teachers such as Brad Wilcox and Alex Chatelain (I preferred Chatelain to the shock of many people). They were such great teachers and everything that they taught was exactly what I needed to hear in those moments. During free time our company went to get some ice cream at the creamery but the line was so long that I decided to get a snow cone instead. Here is the massive snow cone that completely numbed and painted my mouth.

One fun thing that you get to do at EFY is choose a company name and make a banner for it. Using our scripture we decided to name our company Free Will(y). It was a lot of fun and we had some great artists who made the masterpiece above.

Wednesday night was the cheer off and games night. Our cheer was......... Interesting to say the least and came up at the last moment. Lets just say that we were glad when it was over with. The games were a different story. Even though my company was small (10 guys and 10 girls), we dominated the games. We essentially won every game that we played and had so much fun with all of it. Luckily this year I didn't feel like I had to throw up during it! Afterwards was pizza night which was amazing even though the pizza was cold. Lots of bonding moments with all the guys there and with our counselor. Picture above is my company after the games night with our banner.

 Thursday was church dress day and essentially everyone's favorite day. The Spirit is so strong throughout the day and you have great opportunities to practice sharing the gospel. Me and my partner (Emily) did an awesome job and were so excited with what we did. Overall it was an amazing day (like all of them) and the best one overall. Friday is the day where you have to enjoy it since it is the last day of the week. Although it's sad, you need to make all the moments last and just have a blast with everyone. Our company went bowling during free time and I had my best game of all time (141). Everyone was saying how I'm so good while I tried to tell them that I'm really not! Pictured above are some awesome people from my group. Back from left to right: Sierra and Sabrina. Middle: Abby and Olivia. Front: Me and my funny roommate Josh.

 Here is my awesome counselor Nick enjoying the nap time he had during the Variety show. He was truly an amazing guy and knew just how to deal with us 16-18 year olds.

Finally here is my whole company posing for one last picture before we left. I'd name them all but it'd take up way too much space. Anyways, they were an amazing group of people and I miss them all a lot. Hopefully we can have a reunion or something in the future. Free Willy!!! EFY is amazing.