One Great California Trip

My brother Robby is leaving on his mission this week, so for his last big hurray, he wanted to go to Northern Cali with the fam. It was a great trip. I celebrated my 30th birthday while we were there. Let's just say I am still not that happy about being 30! Even though it was hard to be in charge of the 3 kids by myself {Regan was only there for 3 days}, it was fun to just be with my family for a whole week! I LOVE going to the beach, so that was probably my favorite thing to do! My kids---HORSES! My Grandparents and Aunt have some horses and my kids were SO excited to ride them! Even Elle was excited to get on and ride!

Authentic chinese food

The 1st time we brought Regan to San Francisco, we were just walking around China Town and he suggested we go to this Chinese place to eat dinner. That was not in the San Fran Routine, so it took some coaxting on his part. Ever since then, we have integrated it into our tradition, even though some people in the family are scared of the place! Sometimes when we go, there are dead ducks and chickens hanging from the ceiling. When we ordered our food this time, our chowmein came with a lot of "EXTRAS" lets just say. I don't want to know what the extras were, I just sifted through them and ate the noodles. I did have a taste of Regan's salt and pepper squid which is very daring for me! I am just glad that the family is a good sport about going here. We don't even know what the place is called, all we know is that it is a green place, so we drove around forever trying to find the green chinese place!

San Francisco

Whenever we go to San Francisco, we ALWAYS do the SAME thing! I LOVE this routine of ours, I think we have perfected it to a science! Here is our San Fran Schedule:
*Go up and down in the St. Francis Hotel Elevator {When you get to the top floor, you can see the whole city, then when you go down, it's kind of freaky because you see the city disapear and enter the darkness of the hotel floor}
*Go to Pier 39 to see the seals, eat some bread at Boudins {best sourdough bread!}
*Go to Ghiradeli Square to get the famous Hot Fudge Sunday! {Regan ordered 5 extra cups of hot fudge and just drank it!!!}
*Go to China Town and eat crazy authentic Chinese food {the chow mein was great-my mom was a little scared of the food lets just say}
*Go to Barbara's Fish Trap at Half moon bay to get Fish and chips---drench the fish in Malted Vinegar and it is SO good!
{don't you love how this whole day has revolved around food so far?}
*See the 'Bush Man' Scare people as they are walking by the warf {it's this guy who hides behind some bushes and jumps out at people as they are walking by--there is always a crowd on the other side of the street to see the reaction and screams from his victims! I know...I was once one of those victims!

Suzuki Violin Institute

Well, Riley stole the show again this year. At the end concert, people started to laugh, and I looked over at Riley, and he was moving his body to the beat of the music while he was playing his violin! He can't help it...his body has to dance while he plays! It was the cutest thing to see him enjoy playing his violin, and watching Sunny play her twinkles on open strings on the front row at the last concert! It made me think that all of the hard practice times, and begging the kids to practice everyday is worth it!!!

Violin Camp

We have had a crazy few weeks in June!! It started out with my race on June 12th, then I took the 3 kids to Suzuki Violin Institute the next Monday and stayed at my parents house since Violin Camp was 5 minutes away from their house {at Juan Diego High School in Draper}.

Elle was in the half day day care which was so nice since I was running around the whole school trying to get the kids to all of their classes. It allowed me to take notes and focus on what the teacher was saying. Elle didn't know what to think about the daycare at first, and it was so hard to leave her, but whenever we would pick her up, she would be SO happy and the kids would be SO glad to see her!!!

During the Violin Play in the first day, Elle took Sunny's case and wanted to play the violin so bad since she saw Riley and Sunny both on stage playing! It was the cutest thing...her future is looking bright as a violinist!

Riley took a Violin Repertoir Class {review Suzuki Pieces}, Violin Technique Class {Help with violin posture, finger position and bow hold}, a Violin Master Class {a one on one lesson with a great teacher!}, an ear training class {to train the ear to listen for correct notes and pitches-he did amazing in this class} and a dance class which of course he LOVED!

Sunny took a Music & Movement Class where she learned to feel the beat in music and about musical elements, and a Master Class {her one on one teacher was So great!] and of course the Dance class with Riley!!!

It was a very hard week since we would get to institute at 8:45 and be there until 5:30 every day! By the end of the day, Sunny was SO exhausted and it showed!!! I was exhausted as well, but when the kids would tell me everyday after institute how much fun they were having, it made it all worth it!!

Riley's FAVORITE thing about institute was eating 'school lunch' in the cafeteria! He loved giving his lunch ticket to the lunch workers and eating his school lunch! The little things that make us happy!

People would recognize Riley & Sunny in the hall and say hi to them...they were quite the little celebrities!