Happy Birthday, Drew!

I can't believe my baby is 2! I know it's so cliche, but the time has gone by way too fast! Since we celebrated Drew's half birthday in June, yesterday we just did cake and ice cream. Drew's favorite things in the world are balls, specifically basketballs. I made him a basketball cupcake cake. It kind of looks like a flower, but he's 2 so he didn't mind. :)

We're so grateful for Drew's amazing birthparents! Without them, we wouldn't be so blessed to have our sweet Drew. We love them so much!

Happy Birthday, Drew! We love you!!

A Move and A Vacation

We've had a busy couple of months! After 4 1/2 wonderful years in Eugene, we decided to move our family back to Utah! Dan was able to transfer with work so he's now working in the Salt Lake valley. We're currently staying with my parents in Eagle Mountain until we buy a home. Although first we have to decide where we want to live. We're having so much fun being so close to family again!

We do miss Eugene like crazy though. Especially our friends. We've made the BEST friends there and hopefully we'll be able to stay friends with them forever. Luckily, with Drew's birthparents in Oregon, we'll be visiting so we'll get to see all of them!

Our good friends, the Checketts, moved from Eugene to Santa Barbara, California a few months ago and we've been so anxious to visit! We finally got the chance last week! We had SO much fun!! (Beware, there are a lot of pictures :)

We flew on JetBlue, which was awesome because they have tv's so that kept Drew occupied pretty much the whole time.

Michelle and I were so excited for Drew and Amelia to get back together and they didn't disappoint! Amelia screamed and screamed in delight and Drew just watched her (like always) with a big smile. They ran right into the house to play and picked up right where they left off! I really wish we had recorded that... :)

Our first night in Santa Barbara, we went downtown, had dinner, and walked around. Drew and Amelia still love ice cream!
Cute best friends!

We were able to be there for Michelle's birthday - Happy Birthday Michelle!! Drew loved the candles and ice cream. :)

Their park is literally on the beach. How cool is that??!! Yeah, I think I could hang out there a few times a week.

I miss you, Michelle!!

I love how much Drew and Amelia love each other!

Handsome Dan :)

Drew loves throwing things. And he throws everything. So he especially loved throwing rocks and sticks in the water. I love his little wind-up. :)

My cute boys!

Beautiful! I think I could live there....

By the way, William is the sweetest baby ever! He is so good and calm and happy! Love him!!

We went to the Santa Barbara zoo and loved it! The weather was beautiful and it wasn't crowded or too big.

Hanging out with the penguins.

Trying to swim with the penguins.

They had this really cool hill for the kids (and Dan) to slide down on cardboard. They had a blast!

So cute!

We were so sad to say good-bye to the Checketts! We hope we get to see them again soon. Thanks again, Checketts family, for letting us visit!!

We decided to take a day to go to Disneyland before we came home and I'm so glad we did! I wasn't sure how much Drew would like it, but he loved it!He loved the carousel! He wanted to go on it over and over. :)

He wanted to go on Dumbo and loved watching the water and playing with the lever that made them go up and down.

We went on the Winnie the Pooh ride and happened to see these characters at the exit. Drew said he wanted to go see them so we got in the short line. I wasn't sure what he'd do, but he totally surprised us and ran right up to Tigger and gave him a huge hug! It was so sweet. He gave him a high five and even jumped for him! It was such a great moment and the highlight of the day. :)

He also loved Pooh. I loved all the festive decor around Disneyland.

Meeting Mickey didn't go quite as well. It was during his nap time (which we skipped that day..) and we had to wait about 15 minutes so he actually got pretty mad but we were able to get this decent picture.

Drew loved the train that goes around Disneyland. He was especially excited about the bell. :)

Love all the lights!

We had so much fun on our trip! It's always nice to get home and back to normal. Except that Drew got a fever the day after we got home (I'm sure it has nothing to do with being out in the cold our last night there and not getting much sleep those last two days.....), and now that he's feeling better, he slipped and fell in the kitchen this morning. Now poor Drew has a fat lip and he must have hit his nose because he keeps pointing to it, whining, and saying "nose." Poor kid!

Sweet Moment

I had a sweet moment at church today.

It was the primary program - which I love. The last song that was sung was Families Can Be Together Forever - the congregation sang with the primary. I was sitting by Dan and Drew was playing around on the bench on the other side of me. Right when the song started, Drew snuggled right up to me as we started singing. It was such a perfect moment. My eyes filled with tears and I could barely make it through the rest of the verse.

It was so wonderful to think again about how blessed I am to have my forever family. I love reflecting on the day Dan and I took Drew to the temple to be sealed to us for eternity.

I'm so grateful for sweet moments like these!

Hiking Mount Pisgah

A week ago, Dan, Drew, and I hiked Mount Pisgah. We'd been told it's an easy hike. Well, let me just say that I'm not an avid hiker. The hiking I do is basically just walking, sometimes uphill a little. :) Mount Pisgah is definitely not just walking. It's all uphill. And hard. (For me, anyway.)

Poor Dan. I'm such a whiner. At one point, I said, "Can I please lay down and die?" :)

But, the view at the top was beautiful! Drew was a perfect angel. He was happy as can be in the carrier and had so much fun running around at the top.

On the way down, we took our time and ate the most delicious blackberries. They were so good! Totally made the hike worth it.

Day of Service

Our stake did a day of service a week and a half ago. Our ward split up and went to three different parks to do some sprucing up. We were assigned to clean up and paint the outside of some restrooms. Drew was totally into it. He really wanted to help! The first thing we did was clean off the outside walls. Once the painting started, we took turns playing with him on the playground, far away from the painting going on. :)

It was really a neat experience and a lot of fun! Ever since that day, whenever Drew finds the brush and dustpan, he "cleans" off our walls, just like that day at the park. What a helpful boy!

Our Little Vacation

(I had this post all written a couple of weeks ago. I clicked publish, nothing happened. I clicked save, nothing happened. I lost the whole post. I've been mad at Blogger ever since, which is why it's taken me a while to post this.)

A few weeks ago, Dan, Drew and I took a little vacation out to the coast and to see the Redwoods. It was so much fun! And the best part is that while it was in the high 80's at home (with no a/c, mind you), we were in 65 degree weather.

Since Dan goes out to Coos Bay (which is on the coast) overnight every other week for work, we figured we'd take advantage of the hotel room and start our vacation then. We were in Coos Bay on Wednesday night, then on Thursday we drove to Bandon and went to the West Coast Game Park. The have free roaming animals, as well as caged animals. We thought Drew would love it.

He got to pet a baby leopard, which was seriously so cute!

Here, he's petting a baby goat.

Then he noticed that all the monkeys had fun things in their cages, like balls and playsets with slides. He was not happy about not being allowed to play with them.

Here, he's sad that we wouldn't let him in the cage with the emu. We lasted 30 minutes. :)

Thursday evening, we drove down to Gold Beach. I love Gold Beach. The beaches there are beautiful. Our hotel was right on the beach and we got some fun play time in.

Friday was spent exploring the Redwoods. Drew absolutely loved this tree that he got to play in. He was covered in dirt by the time he was done. :)

We went to the Trees of Mystery. Paul Bunyon and Babe were huge! There was a man in Paul that was talking to everyone, and he was so funny!

The Redwoods are gorgeous! So tall and majestic! I'm so glad we hiked around the Trees of Mystery.

This tree is called the Family Tree because of all the little trees growing off the big, main tree. This tree was my favorite. Every time I see a family tree, I think of an adoption family tree, where the birth family are the roots of the tree, and I feel so unbelievably grateful and humbled. (See, adoption is always on my mind. :)

Dan loves this picture because Drew is "high-fiving" the tree.

We got to take a sky ride thing up to the top of a mountain and Drew loved it.

My boys. :)

Coming home to an 80 degree house is no fun and definitely called for sprinkler time at 9:00 at night! Drew was sopping wet, but had oh so much fun!