Riverside

Right now we are in Riverside, CA. Patrick had some training here this week so we all came along to enjoy the warm (not HOT) weather. And I get to blog! So here ar some pictures from the last few days:

Kaiya loved playing in the water fountain. She got soaked but didn't care.

The girls loved these birds. They talk a little but they mostly fight and bite each other.

We found a fun little cupcake shop and Kaiya was so excited to pick out and eat her very own giant cupcake.

We also got to visit our friends the Rasmussens in Bakersfield before we came out to Riverside. They took us on this wagon pulled by horses. Kai loved it but Leah screamed the whole time. We still had a lot of fun visiting though!

We've had a great time in Riverside and wish our mini vacation could last longer!

Our Home:)

I took this picture of our house the other day. You can hardly see the house, but here's our front yard at least. We are very fortunate to live in the older neighborhood, so we have trees. The newer houses have no trees for shade. Kaiya loves this yard, especially the stream that runs through the front. She loves to explore and get really, really dirty. I don't love to clean her up every time she goes outside, but I suppose it's worth it to see her having so much fun.

Children's Museum

A few weeks ago we took a trip to the Las Vegas Children's Museum and the girls had so much fun. This was also the first time Leah rode forward facing in the car, and they seemed to think that was pretty great. ...And this is how they looked at the end of the day.

Happy Birthday Baby Girls!!

Kaiya turned 3 in April and Leah turned 1 in May! It's kind of fun to have their birthdays so close together because we were in birthday mode for about 3 weeks. We had seperate celebrations for them, and here are some pictures of each party (although I couldnt' get them into an order I wanted):

Leah stuffing her mouth with her very own banana cupcake. The joy!

Leah was supposed to wear this party hat for cake, but I forgot until the end of the party. She didn't really care for it anyway, as you can tell.

Happy Birthday!

This was Leah's present. It's a big bouncy toy that looks like a kiddy pool. The girls enjoyed the bouncing and it's a good way to burn their energy when it's too hot to go outside.

For Kaiya's birthday we had a little party with just us at home, then we took her to Las Vegas to the zoo and to breakfast at the Rainforest Cafe. Here's her and her daddy walking around at the zoo.

Breakfast

We stayed at the Excalibur. It was Kaiya's "princess hotel".

Kaiya's pink cake with pink frosting and pink candles. She had been requesting this combination since Patrick had his birthday in December.

Leah is Walking!

Leah took her first steps the day before Easter and this video is from a few days after that. She looks so cute walking! She's still a little timid about taking steps... it might have something to do with a certain big sister who pushes her over when she tries....

New Updates!

Today is Kaiya's third birthday! We are in Las Vegas becuase we are taking her to the zoo and out to lunch tomorrow for a celebration. And luckily enough they have internet at the hotel so I get to update the blog!! Here are some of the recent pictures we've taken. I wish we could put up some from the last 5 months, but it would take too long to post all that I would want to share!

The fam at Easter. We took the girls to Furnace Creek Inn for their annual egg hunt.

Kaiya really liked hunting eggs this year. When she would find one she would say, "Where's another egg?" excitedly.

Easter basket fun.

The girls are playing together a lot lately and one of the things they like to do is to look at books. So cute.

This is a funny story. Kaiya has pretty much given up napping, but I still occasionally try to put her down when she seems like she needs it. I have to put her down in my room now that she and Leah are sharing a room, because they won't fall asleep at naptime together. So after a while one day I went to check on her and I found her this way: she was wearing Leah's Easter dress inside out on top of her own clothes and had found my high heels. She was pretty sure that she looked great.

Fun at the park.

Leah's bedhead.

Bathtime!

The girls got a wagon for their birthdays from Grandma. They love to ride in the wagon and I love that it has a sunshade!

We had a great visit with the Lawsons when we took a trip to Carson in March. Here's a picture of Kaiya and Trevor, who were born on the same day.

We took Kaiya and her cousin Miles to the Carson Children's Museum and they had a great time making a mess and having fun.

Leah is tired at breakfast at my Grandma's house.

St. Patrick's day cuteness.

Why I work for the National Park Service

It's certainly not for the pay. But there are a lot of perks. One of them is training. In the ten months since I started working at Death Valley I've started training to be a firefighter, emergency medical responder and perform search and rescues. And those aren't even parts of my actual job description. On top of all that, for in depth training we are sent to some of the most amazing places. For example, for the first two weeks of December, I went to the Grand Canyon for training. And I do mean at the Grand Canyon, not close to it. A short walk and we could be on the rim at any time. As I continue my career, locations such as Yosemite, Hawaii Volcanoes, the Statue of Liberty, Washington DC, Gettysburg are all places that we fully expect to live/work/train at. And those are just some of the reasons we love the NPS!

The photos below show the changing weather I experienced while there (in reverse order). It was great weather for the first few days, then it got cold and started to snow, and kept snowing. Normally 18" of snow and -10 degrees might not be too bad, but coming from Death Valley, I almost died.

(On a side note, Crystal and the girls were unable to come along this time, but instead her sister and 2 kids visited for a week. Also, her brother and 2 boys came to visit. Do I love my family?-Yes I do. Am I glad I was gone when there were 6 kids (4 under the age of 3) & 4 adults trying to go to bed?- Yes I am.)

Some videos

I thought I would put some of our recent videos on the blog while I have a chance, so here goes:

Leah falls asleep in the highchair about ever 3rd or 4th time she's in it.

I meant to put a different video on instead of this one, but now I don't have time to change it. So here's Kaiya singing and then grabbing the camera to see her "Kaiya movie".

Kaiya in her Halloween costume saying her Japanese words.

An Update

I haven't blogged in a while due to the extreme slowness of dial up internet. But since we are here in Idaho with civilized internet, I thought I would take the opportunity to post a bunch of pictures from the last 2 months or so. I don't have all the pictures here that I wanted to post, but here's a pretty good update of what we've been up to in no particular order (mostly because I can't figure out how to drag and drop pictures wherever I want them anymore... what the heck?) So here we go: This is a picture of Kaiya's first time sitting in the regular seat on the airplane (and Leah's first time flying) on our way here
Kaiya loves pushing Leah in the swing at the park

These few pictures are from Kaiya's first time painting. She painted a snake (a new love these days... I don't know where she got that) and really enjoyed it.

Kaiya loves to dress Leah up in her dress up clothes. Unfortunately for poor Leah, this often means that she gets a hat right over her face and can't see anything. Most of the time she likes it though.
Kaiya and Leah in the Ball Pit

Leah loves the ball pit and will sit in it for quite a while playing with all the balls.

Here's Kaiya Trick or Treating for the first time. She caught on rather quickly. Normally she's really shy and won't even look at people she doesn't know, but once she realized she was getting candy she would say "Twick o Tweat" and go right up to people. So funny.

We dressed up in our Japanese garb and went out together. Most people didn't know what we were supposed to be, but we still had fun. Also, in our neighborhood, there's our kids and one other family with kids. Needless to say, not everyone was ready for Halloween. We tried to go only to the houses of people we knew, but sometimes if the porch light was on next door we'd go there too. Kaiya got some interesting things in her candy bag as a result, such as some mixed nuts wrapped in aluminum foil, and a few handfuls of change. She didn't seem to notice though.

Leah sometimes falls asleep in the highchair. So funny.

Leah has been eating solid foods for a few weeks now and always makes this face when she tries something new. She usually ends up liking whatever it is though and so far I haven't come across anything she won't eat. These are the other Halloween costumes the girls had. I thought they were super cute, but Kaiya didn't like to wear the Giraffe very long. So we opted to wear the kimonos instead.

One more of Kaiya playing dress up/toys. Mostly she just likes to empty out all the baskets and make a giant mess.

So that's what we've been up to! I'm hoping we get a chance to put a few videos on before we leave, so check back!