"4th of July" with Owen & Kylee

With the 4th being on a Tuesday this year, Owen & Kylee decided it wouldn't be convenient to come down to Utah for celebrations, they also wanted to try out a 4th on their own in Pocatello.  Gator and I wanted to celebrate a little with them so we drove up tonight for dinner.  I bought a few fireworks and we spent the evening in Pocatello.  I am grateful they live close enough to be able to have a quick evening together.  Football is getting ready to ramp up, however, so it is Owens really busy time of year vs just his busy time.  This may be his last season playing though, which is so strange that he is in his 4th season of college football and a semester away from his degree.  He is looking into the Masters program for OT and Kylee has been given the opportunity to get her MA certification at work and they will pay for it, hopefully she can start that soon and we just keep rolling with the changes in life.  

West Haven Days Booth

 Gator had a booth at West Haven Days over the weekend.  She has been making things around her orders for about a year to get ready and she had quite a good little supply to display and sale at her booth.  Friday we went to set up and the wind was terrible.  Our canopy broke, but we got some duct tape and set up anyway.  After a couple hours of holding everything down and watching the wind destroy other booths, the storm blew over and we had a couple hours of calm weather.  Between Friday evening and Saturday all day, Gator sold $1,100 worth of her stuff.  She was just about all sold out by the time we cleaned up on Saturday night.  She did awesome.  Even though it was a long 2 days, and she still isn't feeling good (going on 3 months now with these problems) she kept her refils of pink lemonade handy and she did great.  

Thank you Afton for coming out and being Gators first customer!

Willow joined us at the park all morning yesterday, but she eventually wore herself out and I took her home to sleep.  Plus she hates fireworks.  

I dropped off Willow and we gained Brady and Zoie.  They had fun hanging out with Gator, eating dinner and watching the fireworks with us.  

Still love The Pie

 Some photos are just so memorable that they have to be recreated like this photo taken 9 years ago.  The first photo was taken after a long day at Lagoon, and the other one was taken at Josh & Rachelle's  last night when we went over to dinner and a game night.  We don't go real often, but we sure do enjoy The Pie pizza.  It has to be a rare treat with all that cheese.  

Zoo & Swimming

 So far this summer has been awesome weather wise.  I would never plan to go to the zoo in the middle of June usually, but today was a great day to walk around.  After the San Diego zoo, the Hogle zoo seemed so small, but we had to go say bye to the elephants who will be leaving for another zoo in a couple of months.  That will be weird to not have elephants at the zoo.  We picked up Brady and Zoie to have a hangout day with us.  After the zoo, we went to get ice cream, and then to Davis's to go swimming.  I think we completely wore them out, it was pretty quiet on the way home, except for Zoie saying she wanted McDonald's over and over again, so McDonald's it was.  

Saratoga Springs Temple Open House

 Finally another temple open house.  There are so many temples in Utah under construction, and (no offense Davis), but gosh the construction seems so slow.  I say that because Davis's company is hard at work on the Smithfield temple.  But finally they are having the open house and announced the dedication date for the Saratoga Springs Temple.  And it is absolutely amazing and beautiful inside.  I love the colors, it was a lot of blues, purples, and browns so not as common for a temple, but gosh it was so pretty.  Driving up to this temple reminds me of the Pocatello temple, because you're just driving up a neighborhood road then bam the temple is there huge right in front of you.  The traffic was a nightmare last night, but I am still glad we went to the open house.  

Glad Lucy and Ivy joined us.  

Gator had a little wardrobe malfunction and had to finish the tour lopsided.  

Another weekend away

 We got home from San Diego last Wednesday and I took Gator up to Pocatello to spend the weekend with Owen & Kylee.  She likes to go up there for a few days in the summer.  They went to a rodeo, watched scary movies, went to pizza & ice cream, tried a craft fair, but ended up at the potato museum (only in Idaho), and played Mario.  Gator did a lot of crocheting while Kylee was at work and Owen was at football, and she hung out with Steele.  

Our Last Outing

 Tuesday was our last full day in San Diego.  We were exhausted and opted for a Trolley Tour of some key points of the city.  It felt good to relax and let someone else do the driving and navigating.  On the tour we saw a pirate ship that had been used in the movie The Pirates of the Caribbean.  I haven't seen the movies, but Lucy especially thought this was awesome.  The ship was pretty dang cool though.  We drove past a bar that was used in the movie Top Gun.  Again, I am not into that movie, but for the movie loving kids of Krissy's and PJ's this was a cool thing to see.  We drove over the Coronado Bay Bridge, which is a 2 mile bridge.  And when you cross the bridge you are in a different world.  One where the tiny homes are over 5 million dollars.  Definitely a ritzy place, but it was a cute town to see.   We drove by Petco stadium where the Padres play, Balboa Park, which I thought was just the zoo, but it was so much more, the Gaslamp Quarter (I was especially grateful to not be driving through this area), Little Italy, and some of Old Town where we saw beautiful Victorian houses, and went on a tour through the Mormon Battalion museum. We had dinner at the yummy Mexican restaurant again, and the guacamole was absolutely yummy!  

Coronado Bay Bridge

Top Gun bar

Petco Stadium

A few of the 5 million dollar homes in Coronado.  

The famous Coronado Hotel.  The tour guide rambled off a list of famous people who have stayed at the huge hotel, but I don't remember.  

Balboa Park.  It was a beautiful park, with lots of history, but the tour guide rambles through it so quickly that you really can't remember anything.  but it had some pretty buildings and statues.  

These were a few of the homes in the Victorian Village. 

After eating Mexican food for dinner, we had to walk around Old Town for a bit to help digest our food.  We went into a soda shop for root beer floats (I know not a great digestion tactic).  

On the trolley enjoying the ride instead of walking.  

Sea World

Another park we opened and closed.   I was especially excited for Sea World.  I love dolphins and whales.  They are so pretty and it's amazing to watch them swim and jump out of the water, especially the huge whales.  Sea World was different when I was a kid, the trainers could get in the water with the whales and swim with them, but it is still awesome to go and see the animals.  Gator and the kids were all about the rides like all the other places we went, but they did enjoy the shows with us.