Valentine's Day

We had a typical Valentine's Day. I made dinner, we had dessert, and then watched a chick flick (tradition :) ). Charity came over and was able to have dinner with us. Simple and relaxing.

Dinner: Strawberry Spinach Salad and Chicken Palliard with a Lemon-Butter Sauce

Weston took this picture. It shows the cute cake pops Casey got me for Valentine's Day that a co-worker's wife was selling. We ate them for dessert and they were delicious. The 3 loves of my life

11 Months

I love this little boy of mine. He is such an easy going kid. We really can't imagine our family without him. At 11 months Benson was:

-WALKING - Yeah! He started the day we got back from our cruise (isn't that nice of him :) ) and has been motoring around like crazy since.
-Loves to play outside and eats sand, dirt, rocks, Weston's chalk, sticks. Whatever. He's not picky :)
-Always has something in his mouth.
-Is still a really good eater.
-Can get off the couch by himself.
-Getting to be quite the climber.
-Throws the cutest little temper tantrums

All smiles playing at the park

Loves to play with Weston and Casey. They are all just so dang cute.For some reason we have more videos than pictures, so here are a few of my favorites:
Rocking in his chair


Spitting

Rolling around his ladybug car


Walking!

Almost Home

We did a lot of relaxing our last day. We slept in late, took a nap, and enjoyed our last day of vacation. There was a dessert extravaganza that reminded me of Food Network Challenge. They had sculptures made out of bread, ice, and chocolate. It was pretty neat. Casey and I both sang karaoke and did pretty horrible. In our defense, you couldn't hear the music very well and the host picked our songs for us. The next day when we docked in San Diego, we had to wait until all the foreigners had checked in with immigration on the boat, so we got off 2 hours late. It took forever and we found out how grumpy some old people could be. It was a great trip though and I always love the alone time with Casey. Thanks for an amazing trip Baby!

The dessert extravaganza

Karaoke

My favorite towel animal

Our boat: The Oosterdam. Back to real life.

Cabo San Lucas

Cabo was very touristy. So much so that there was a Subway right on the dock and a Ruth's Chris about 1/4 mile away from it. Casey went on a cruise to Mexico with his family before his mission and he couldn't believe how much it had changed. We didn't have any planned activities in Cabo, so we kind of winged it. We were going to go snorkeling, but the water was colder than expected. Instead we did a little 4-Wheeling on the beach, rode a scooter around town, ate more tacos (they were actually the only thing we ever ate at port), walked around the dock then headed back to the ship to get ready for our last formal night. It was a nice relaxing day.

4-Wheeling

Leaving our mark on the beach
Having some fun with the cactus (it was everywhere)

Our scooter

Riding around town. I was excited I got a pink helmet.

All dressed up for formal night.

Mazatlan

We decided to do a kayaking trip out at sea while we were in Mazatlan. We took a boat to an island, kayaked out to sea, around a big rock, then back again. It was alright, but we made it fun. Afterwards we were just relaxing on the beach and reading and we heard we could ride horses on the beach. We thought that would be fun. It turned out to be more comical than anything. Lets just say, the horses were well-trained. They followed one path, didn't go any other way, were going slower than molasses, and didn't like to stop either. I didn't get to ride next to Casey the whole time because his horse was a little bit faster and mine wanted to stay behind this other horse the whole time. We relaxed on the beach some more before we headed back to the dock. From there we took a taxi to the city, had tacos at 2 different taco stands, then walked around. The city wasn't very cool, so we headed back to the boat early.

Posing with our kayak The horse ride was right next to a coconut grove
Happily posing with my horse. This was before we got started.

This picture just makes me smile

Relaxing on the beach. We asked a guy to take our picture. He agreed, but asked Casey to hold his beer while he took it. Casey tried to keep it out of the picture, but obviously that didn't happen.

Stealing a kiss on the beach. Casey always takes me on the best vacations.

Puerta Vallarta

Our first stop on our cruise was Puerta Vallarta. We decided to do the zipline excursion because we had heard good things. It was fun and and our surroundings (the trees) were beautiful. We got going pretty fast, but we would have liked to go a lot faster. We also got to climb up ladders, walk across rope bridges, and ropel. After our adventure, we stopped and had our first (of many) tacos at a roadside stand, then hopped on a bus and headed to the boardwalk to walk around. We bought some souvenirs and bought some more tacos. They have a Wal-mart near the dock, so before we got back on the boat we went to see if things were cheaper in Mexico (possibly score some cheap toys for the boys), but to our dismay, everything was the same :( Made me miss Brazil and how cheap everything was.

Riding the zipline

Stylin' in our gear

Our walk along the boardwalk

Walking like an Egyptian

They had all these really weird/alienesque broze statues all over

I just thought it was pretty

Casey always convinces me to have someone braid something into my hair. I took it out that night though because it was formal night. Luckily we had haggled her down to $1 to do it.

Cruisin'

At the end of January, Casey took me on a cruise to the Mexican Riviera. I have always wanted to go on a cruise, so I was super excited. It was a 7 day cruise and we left the boys with my sister and her family. They were in such good hands and had so many people to meet their every need that they had a few withdrawls when we finally got home. We got to see a little of the fun they were about to have before we left:

Our first two days were out at sea. We sailed with Holland America and they had so many onboard activities, it was impossible not have something to do. We took advantage of everything that we could and volunteered for a lot of the activities. We even went on stage during the Welcome performance and participated in a game. Some of the things we did was watch movies, pool games (our team won too), scavenger hunt, trivia challenge, name that tune challenge, wii challenge, culinary classes, swing dance class, etc. Like I said, tons of stuff to do. Did I mention the food? A-MA-ZING. We got to try a lot of new things: mussels, escargot (a little squishy, but not bad), scallops (for Casey), lamb chop (for me), fruit soups. It was so much fun for me ordering whatever I wanted and be able to try some new things. Here are a few pictures from our first few days:

Waiting to leave.

The beautiful San Diego Harbor We tried hitting the a ping pong ball into the lifesavers. I got really close. Casey entered a ping pong tournament. He made it to the semi-finals.

Enjoying one of our many delicious meals.

Monster Jam + Friends = Twice as Fun

Towards the end of January, we got to go to Monster Jam again with the boys and our friends the Nartkers. It was even more fun going with friends this time.

Grave Digger doing his thing. The kids playing with Weston's little Monster Trucks.

All of us. Dang those bright lights.

The most exciting part. Grave Digger crashed.

Malcolm and Lark's Visit

In January, Casey's cousins from Pennsylvania (but attending BYU) came for a visit. We took them to San Francisco, played a lot of games, took them to the Forresthill Bridge, they went on a hike with Charity, and really enjoyed their visit. These are a few pictures from our trip to San Francisco. Jason and Ashley watched the boys for us, so it was a much quicker trip.

We drove through China Town

After Pier 39 and clam chowder in a bread bowl, we made the usual stop at Ghiradelli Square. This was Lark's first visit to California and the Pacific Ocean.

Casey and I tried to take a picture in front of the bridge, but it was bright and Casey had a hard time keeping his eyes open...

...so we tried with sunglasses.

We were finally able to get a good one after about 10 tries though.

10 Months

A look into the life of Benson at 10 months:

-Took 4 steps

-Pushes off the ground and stands up

-Eats a ton. Stopped eating babyfood. Loves, loves, loves cheese.

-Started crawling to Casey more and isn't as attached to me anymore.

-Likes reading books.

-Finally started sleeping through the night. 8pm-8am. It's been nice.

-Is a very happy little guy. He even wakes up happy.

On the big day. Not the greatest picture, but he wouldn't stay still and it shows how happy he is to be with his Dad. He just pulls books off the shelf and starts reading. Loves climbing into things.

"Shake it off"

One night Weston came out to me while I was on the computer and we were talking abut something or other, then I say to him, "Weston, you love me, don't you?" He says, "No," so I proceed to fake cry and say, "What? You don't love me?" playfully. Weston looks at me and says, "What's wrong?" I say, "You said you don't love me." (as I'm still fake crying) He ends with, "It's funny. It's okay. Shake it off. Shake it off." (as he shakes my shoulders)