Road Trip! Day 1 - Wyoming and Nebraska

Today starts a very sad road trip. We are driving across the country to help my SIL and BIL move. My fav humans on this side of the family, and they'll be moving. Alas. But we have a few days of spending all day in a car together, so that will help, I think. We drove today, starting in Utah (duh) and we went through Wyoming through Nebraska, stopping for the night in Nebraska. Myself and Chani were in the van with baby Wash, and Husband was in the UHaul with her husband, Texas. We drove separately, since we went at different speeds, and we would have to stop to feed Wash, as he is a 3 month old baby and needs to eat, of course. We also made sure to stop at each state sign. 

 We did some great pics, and then I snagged this with baby Wash when we got to our destination for the evening.

 Look at those wide, wide eyes, I love him.

Gecko Finally Gets Some Stitches

Today, I had a call from my sis, as I was expecting her over. She said that Gecko had cut himself pretty deep and they had to get to the doc. I babysat the other fellas as she brought him in, and then got the pic of the cut.

 Then he got the stitches.

Then, of course, I had to hear the story of what happened. And in classic Gecko fashion, it involved food. He was trying to cut open a jawbreaker (or as he called it, the eye candy) with a pair of scissors and they slipped and cut him wide open. Oh buddy. Heal fast.

Wagon Time

I babysat the fellas today, and we decided to take advantage of the nice early morning weather and go on a walk.

Then we hung out in the backyard in the shade, and my favorite thing was this photo I happened to snap, and Darth's face is the best thing I have ever seen, please enjoy.

Hiking with the Whole Fam

Today we took the whole gang hiking. It was me, my two SIL's, my BIL, and then 5 kids. I had the fellas, and they had the ladies of course, so we were a big group. We decided to hike Stewart Falls, which we had been assured was good for kids. We learned that yes, it technically was, but our kids were just super exhausted by the end. But it was so much fun!

 SIL carried nephew Wash the whole time, he had a great time as you can see.

 Here we are at the top - made it to the waterfall and stopped for a plethora of snacks.

This is definitely the high point for Gecko, as he fell completely apart on the way back.

Here we are at the end! We made it! Please appreciate Gecko's face - he literally had given up at this point.

We made it! Gecko's spirits lifted when he got a lollipop at the end. Then when we got into the car, he kept saying, "I can't believe we made it!" over and over ahah. 

As we were leaving, my niece came over to hug me, and she tripped into my toenail, ripping it off. Alas, RIP toenail.
We had such a fun night, and even though it was long, I felt like everyone had a great time.

Babies in Chairs

Happy Memorial Day! On this holiday, we did our usual family BBQ, with smaller numbers due to good old quarantine. Because it was so nice we just spent the evening outside and made the babies do whatever we wanted them to.

In addition to these cutie pictures, we also used the babies in a life-size version of Foosball, in which we used their bodies to play soccer. It was so cute, but since I was holding baby Wash, I have no pictures of said event. What a bunch of cuties.

Graduation Part 2

Y'all, Gecko has now graduated as well! His was from preschool, and I really don't think he cares too much haha. The first picture we tried to get wasn't great (but was classic Gecko) and then he gave us a normal smile in the second.

Look at this fella, graduating like a regular human. They're getting so big!

Happy Graduation Day!

Y'all, Darth has officially graduated from kindergarten! Of course, with no end of the school year in school, it was all done via pictures and social distancing, but he's still super jazzed to move on. He keeps saying the next time he goes back he'll be in first grade, and hopefully he loves it as much as he loved kindergarten. What a fella.

Bridal Veil Falls Hike

I took the fellas again today, and we had a full day planned. We had lunch, we hiked, we played some video games, it was a riot. The hike was just Bridal Veil Falls, so that can basically be called a walk, but they had so much fun playing in the river for a while.

Sneks!

Y'all, my house has a small infestation of snakes it seems! I have seen garter snakes all over my neighborhood lately, and I have a small one under my house, I've seen it every year since we've moved here, and it just pokes it's little head out of the porch and lays in the sun. I saw him today when I came home from a walk. Here he is, just enjoying some sun.

 Then later I headed out to chat with someone, and I saw a second snake!

 Of course, as soon as the neighbor approached the porch, they slithered under there again.

Then later, I came back out and the one was just chilling again, rolled up in a snake ball.

I know I should be worried about snakes, but since they don't hurt anyone, eat bugs and whatnot, and just disappear, I've just let them be, because they just let us be. We can all get along, y'all.

A Simple Walk

Today I went on a walk with my cousin. We all know how the last walk I tried to do with her went : YEESH
But I had high hopes that this would be better.
So we met up at the Jordan River Parkway and ended up walking about 5 miles, 6 feet apart the whole time. There was a point where they had a little tunnel with some graffiti in it, and I loved it. I should have gotten a view of the whole thing, but I just took this little point:

I just love this kid drawing of Star Wars, which I had just finished a marathon of the entire series, so of course I had to take the pic.

Battle Creek Falls Hike

Today I took the fellas on a hike up to Battle Creek Falls. I haven't really hung out with these jokers since quarantine started, and although we are still doing social distancing, I would like to see my family, so I'm just gonna include them in my social distance circle, so we headed out. Of course today was the only cold morning we've had in weeks, but hey, that's okay. At least we could still get out. It's only about a mile, round trip, which was plenty for Gecko, and Darth had a fun time.

I was so glad to have sun a fun hike! These guys are wild.

Why, Epifanio?

Why is Epifanio so weird? Why?

Irish Scones

Guys, I tried a new thing today! I made Irish scones! Here they are, post-baking.

I have here the link that I got them from !

https://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/traditional-irish-scones/

I am not going to just give the tips and recipe and whatnot myself, because she has a video with her website that was the most helpful thing in the world for me.
And these were delicious! Go ahead and make them!

Wasp Sting!

All right y'all. I told you about how I got stung by a bee, and now here I share the progress of that.

So this doesn't look normal, for a bee sting. I googled these symptoms and what popped up was that it was a wasp sting, not a bee sting. And it seems likely that I had a mild allergic reaction to this wasp sting. Now, do I know that for sure? No, of course I didn't go to a doctor for this, I'm just going with what I saw on the internet and what pictures matched what my leg looked like. But hey, I'm alive and that devil wasp didn't kill me, so I'm just going to keep on going!

The Kindergarten Graduate

Today, Darth's kindergarten teacher brought over a graduation cap and a sign and took a pic of them wearing it. He was so psyched, he wore the hat for the rest of the afternoon.

And now he's officially graduated from kindergarten! It was a weird year for students, and it must have been super weird for kindergartners, having to figure out their lives all online. 

But then this evening, he showed off some trampoline skills. 

I'm excited for him to go to first grade, and I'm hoping he'll be able to go to actual school for it!

Epifanio's First Birthday!

Guys, Epifanio has turned one! He's turning into a real life person. We tried a smash cake and of course it went as well as you'd think - he straight up just wouldn't eat it haha. But we still had a good time. This video is after we decided to just leave him alone and let him do what he wanted to.

He had a great time and it was nice to hang out with family members!

Yeesh!

Y'all. Today has been a day!
Let's talk about it.
This morning at 12:45 I woke up and looked at the clock and went, oh sheesh, gotta get up! So I got up and went down into the kitchen, took a drink of water and then went, oh wait. The time is actually 12:45. So I headed back up to bed, stopping for a bathroom break. And then the toilet lid straight up BROKE OFF! And slammed down with a huge noise and it scared the crap out of me.
So then I go about my day and there was a point when I was reaching for something near a cupboard, and I didn't realize how close I was to it and I smashed my head into the cabinet! Dang it!
Then, I went on a hike with my cousin. We had only just met up, we hadn't even started the hike and I got stung by a bee! Come on!

Needless to say, that ended the hike and home I came. Then of course I had to try and cheer myself up, so I bought myself some Crumbl cookies and had them come with a nice note.

After eating my delicious cookies, I was touching my head because it still hurt so much, and found that I had actually cut it open! Holy cow what a crazy day, y'all. 

Epifanio over the weeks

Guys, Epifanio is just best baby.

I am obsessed with this baby haha I want to snuggle and kiss him!

Jack-Jack Num Nums

Guys, if you have never been to the Incredicoaster at Disneyland, y'all gotta go. ASAP. I know that's hard with the parks being closed, but hey, give it a go.
Jokes, just wait.
But outside of the Incredicoaster, they sell these cookies, Jack-Jack's Num Nums. I found a recipe on Pinterest and of course had to give it a go!
Here's how they go:

• 2 sticks salted butter softened or browned
• 1 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/4 cups milk chocolate chunks
• 1/4 cup chocolate chunks for tops of cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and place 8 cookie liner cups onto large baking sheet.Place butter and sugars into a large mixing bowl, beat until well combined.  Note: For another variation, try browning the butter first. Let butter cool for 15 minutes then continue with this recipe. Add eggs and vanilla stirring until well combined.  Add flour, salt and baking soda, stir slowly until dough forms.  Stir in 1 1/4 cups chocolate chunks. Scoop about 3 heaping scoops of cookie dough into each cookie liner cup. 

Press each cookie so dough is even then top with more chocolate chunks, pressing slightly into tops of dough.  Bake for 22-24 minutes, until baked through, starting to turn golden on top.  Remove and let cool for 5 minutes.  Serve warm.

 These are ... pretty good. They taste more like a pumpkin muffin than anything else and that was a bit disappointing. I mean, they're fine and all but they taste absolutely nothing like a Jack-Jack cookie, which was too bad, but hey , they're still a dang good time. 

Trauma Minnie

I went to visit some family today and played with all the kiddos (We are still social distancing, but I had to drop something off for them and justified the visit since we've all been social distancing). We put the new baby Wash in with Minnie, and he didn't seem to enjoy it.

 And then my niece put her small Minnie on the big Minnie and she thought this was just about the funniest thing that has ever happened, I was dying laughing.