Happy 4th!

When Elliott heard the 4th of July was coming up, all he could do was talk about fireworks. Brent's idea of watching fireworks is to turn on the tv and watch the national shows. I'm glad Elliott shares my love of fireworks. Growing up we always went to Tustin High to watch the awesome fireworks display. I loved doing that. It was fun to go as a family and to see the fireworks along with hearing the patriotic music. A friend from our ward sent me a link to all the fireworks displays around the valley. Then another friend invited me to go with her family and another from the ward. Brent stayed home while Derek slept, and I took Elliott to enjoy the festivities. We met at the Norton's house so we could carpool. While there, Elliott and Spencer got to play with sparklers, thanks to a kind neighbor. They had fun doing that. Once we got to the park for the fireworks, all the kids had fun running around and trying to catch fireflies. The only thing missing from the display was the music. It's just not the same when you don't get to hear the patriotic music. We were a little bit away from the stadium where the actual show took place. It was fun to spend time with new friends. Thanks, Tracie, for inviting us to come along.

this is my pathetic attempt to capture the fireworks (my camera even has a fireworks setting - I guess it's still not that good)

Brent asked what I would like to do for the 4th. I said have a BBQ. Of course we don't own a BBQ, so it wasn't an option. We spent a lot of the 5th in the pool. Brent had the day off work, so he was able to go to the pool with us in the morning. That afternoon we were invited to a friend's house for swimming and a BBQ. It ended up being a fun day and I got my BBQ afterall. :)

Since I didn't get my fix of patriotic music on the 4th, I finally broke out the one patriotic CD I own - MoTab - a couple days ago. I had been singing "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and Derek would say "Glory, glory, hallelujah." It was adorable. So, I found the CD and let them hear the song. The next day I turned on the CD again, and Derek asked for "Glory, glory, hallelujah." So, I put that song on again. As soon as it was done, he said, "Again." Elliott said, "No way." We kept on going instead. I love patriotic music. We're still making our way through the CD. The boys really enjoy it. Today as I was listening it reminded me of the summer when my parents sang patriotic songs at Knott's Berry Farm with their caroling group. I remember having so much fun that summer. I would follow them around while they sang. I loved it. It makes me happy to hear great songs about our country. I always get that warm fuzzy feeling. When we sang the National Anthem at church on the 4th, I was emotional. It was difficult to sing all the words. I'm glad I have such a love for this country and the things that make it great. I hope that we will continue to enjoy our freedoms that so many have fought and died to preserve. God bless the USA.

DaVinci Science Center

Here are some pics at the DaVinci Science Center. We've been 3 times and enjoyed it every time. The last time we went with my friend, Emily, and her son, Alex (bottom right of the collage). The first two pictures are of Derek touching a snake. He was brave. Elliott stayed clear of it. Derek wasn't interested in touching the creatures in the aquarium though. The last time we went Elliott got up the nerve to touch one a star fish. That was cool. There is lots to explore. There is even a station that shows you step by step how to make paper airplanes. Elliott made a really cool one and got to throw it down over the balcony (with permission from a worker). It was fun. Hopefully we'll be able to enjoy other science centers as well - whenever we go somewhere, since our membership is good at many different centers.

Check out Elliott's eyes through these goggles. Pretty crazy.

If you can't tell, they are distorted. The goggles are supposed to help you understand what it's like to drive drunk or something like that - impaired vision.

Summer Happenings

Here is a glimpse of what we have been up to this summer:

Swimming - There is a pool that is free from 9-11 most days of the week. We try to go 1-2 days each week. There are some friends from the ward who also go. They teach swim lessons there as well. Elliott said he thought he should take lessons, so I got him signed up. He started on Monday. He's a lot more comfortable in the water than he used to be. He's trying his best to learn some things and do what the coaches ask him to. He's having fun. Derek is a little fish. He has so much fun jumping and splashing all over the pool. It's great because the pool starts at 2 feet, so Derek can actually stand up in it. He absolutely loves swimming.

it's kinda hard to get any shots of the boys having fun in the water, since then I wouldn't be watching them very closely, so this one will have to do :)

Dorney Park - I decided to get season passes to the local amusement park/water park. It's very similar to Great America (in Northern CA). It's owned by the same company as Great America and Knott's Berry Farm. It even has Camp Snoopy. It's less than 15 minutes away. So far we've visited the water park twice. We try to go once a week. They have a few fun little kid areas. Last week I took the boys on the lazy river, thinking it would be a nice ride on the tubes. Little did I know that there are big waterfalls you pass under. I wasn't prepared for that. Elliott was a trooper. He held on tight to his tube and did great. Derek was crying most of the way. It was really difficult to hold him on the tube as well. Lesson learned, we'll probably wait a while before trying that one again. Every day since then, Derek talks about going on the boat through the waterfall. It's kinda funny.

DaVinci Science Center - We also got annual passes for the science center. We've been 3 times now. The boys really enjoy it. I'll do a separate post for this one.


Library - We have made it back to the library a couple times. The boys are both participating in the summer reading program. They get little prizes for every couple hours that they read.

Playground Program - The school district provides this awesome program for kids from grades 1 thru 6, M-F from 9-1. The best part is, it is completely FREE! He goes to a rec center and they play indoor and outdoor games. The first day Elliott spent most of his time inside and even got a leader to play Yahtzee with him. Another day he spent most of his time outside. It was pretty obvious when he got home. He really enjoys it. It's good for him to get out of the house and have people to interact with. It's good for his social skills. He has said he wants to go everyday. So far that hasn't worked out, but hopefully when swimming lessons are done he'll go at least 3 or 4 times a week.



Elliott spends lots of time reading. I've got to find some good books for him. He's read all the Magic Tree House books tons of times. He's read a few other things, but it's hard to know which books have good content for a 6 year old while still being challenging enough for him to read and not be bored. He spends time playing the Wii and playing Club Penguin on the computer. He also loves playing board games. I taught him how to play Monopoly and he loves it. He also likes Yahtzee, Sorry Card Revenge, LIFE, Sorry, and UNO. We have also worked on his erector set. It's fun to make things that move.

just a random shot in his "ninja" costume

Derek is still obsessed with trains and wants a new track pretty much daily. Elliott is nice to help with that a lot. Derek also loves the Little Touch Leap Pad. We had it for Elliott, who played with it a ton when he was little. We hadn't gotten it out for Derek until a couple weeks ago and now it's all he plays with besides the trains. I think it's actually taken the first choice spot. He caught on to it quickly so he needs minimal help with it now.

Derek's hair was really gross after a super hot day - lots of sweat and pool water will make your hair stand up

I have made time to read. A friend in the ward invited me to a book club. I went last week and it was fun. We didn't spend a whole lot of time talking about the book, but there was lots of other talking. I stayed for almost 4 hours! It was nice to be out with the girls. I've missed that.


It has been fun having so many things to do. I got to the point where there were too many things to choose from, but that was a nice problem to have. We're having fun.

More Random Observations

Cheddar cheese - It is almost impossible to find medium cheddar cheese. I guess they really like sharp and extra sharp cheese here. Weird. Maybe it's time to adjust my tastebuds.

Church bells - It's not uncommon to hear church bells ringing. We often hear them at our house since there is a church just up the street behind our house. I've also heard them at random parks and even when we got to church on Sunday (I don't know where those ones were coming from - obviously not our church building).

Cemetaries - They are everywhere! I don't think you can drive anywhere without passing at least one.

Riding lawn mowers - Everyone has to have their riding lawn mower. I think I've seen 3 regular lawn mowers now. Even people with not very big yards have riding ones. It's a little bizarre.

Wildlife - There are so many creatures here. It's really cool. We always see squirrels, pretty much anytime we're out (unfortunately they make good road kill too). I've even seen a chipmunk. There are also rabbits and geese. We saw a rabbit in our bushes the other day. Too bad we think they're guilty of making a mess of the bark/ground covering stuff in our yard. There is a gaggle of geese that we see almost everyday on the way to take Brent to work. As we drive past the spot, Derek is always on the lookout for them. Brent and the boys actually saw some geese in the field behind our house this morning. There are also raccoons and probably opossums - those I just see as roadkill. That's another thing that's not lacking in this area.

Rules of the road -
No turns from shoulder. That one is really obnoxious. There is an enormous shoulder that serves no purpose. We're getting used to it though.
Left lane must turn left - Isn't that pretty obvious? These signs are all over the place.
Tiny street signs at some major intersections. When you don't know where you're going, it can be a real problem when the streets aren't well marked.

All in all, we are enjoying life here. We are so lucky to have moved just in time for the hottest June on record. It was HOT. But now we've had lots of rain the past few days. It's nice to live somewhere that gets a good amount of rain. We don't think anyone has sprinklers here - at least we haven't noticed any.

One Terriffic 2 Year Old!

We finally celebrated Derek's birthday 2 weeks after the fact. Since we were driving across Ohio on Derek's birthday, we didn't have a chance to celebrate. After a couple weeks, I felt really bad that we didn't even have cake or presents for his birthday. I was having a hard time trying to figure out what to get for him, he has plenty of toys. So, I bought him some pajamas and called it his birthday present. It works. He loved his cake. Ever since, if anything is cooked in a similar pan, he calls it cake (even though it's really enchiladas or something else).

Derek is such a fun, adorable boy. He's growing up so fast. He is learning to form sentences, even if half of the words are unintelligible to anyone but his parents (even we have a hard time with it sometimes). He knows his ABC's. He can count to 11. He's starting to sing songs, which is so cute. He recently started saying "Yes" or more commonly "Ya" in his cute little Derek voice. Before he would mumble a resemblance of yes. He is obsessed with trains. He plays with his train tracks everyday. He loves watching shows with trains. We can hear the trains blow their whistles from our house. Fortunately the tracks aren't close enough to hear the trains going by. We do see trains anytime we drive anywhere. He asks to ride the train all the time. He also started putting his hands on his hips and huffing. That's a funny one. I really don't think I do that, so I'm not sure where he got that one. Derek has really starting picking up on everything we say. He copies a lot of things we say. He loves to copy his big brother. Elliott isn't so fond of the idea. One bad word Elliott often says is "stinky bum." Derek will call Elliott that when he's upset with him or sometimes just for fun. He also will copy us when we tell Elliott what his punishment will be for not doing something. If we tell him he'll go to his room, Derek will say "Ei-yi go room." It's hard not to laugh when he does it. He has so many cute mannerisms that make him who he is. He is such a sweetheart, even though he going through those "wonderful" 2's.

Random Notes about PA

Some random observations about the Allentown area:

• the local library is TINY. It's a one room library, which doesn't work very well with a 2 year old. The first time there the librarians even whispered at the front desk. The second time was actually really loud, so maybe we'll be okay. I guess it depends on the day. I might try braving downtown to check out the library there.
• there's at least one section of town - where the mall and lots of other shopping is - where you can't make left hand turns. You have to turn right in order to turn left. It's really frustrating, especially when you don't know exactly where you're going.
• Reading (as in Reading Railroad) is pronounced Red-ing. There is a town called Reading, we are in the Reading Stake, and in Philadelphia there is the Reading Terminal Market. Who would have thought I (along with most normal people) have been pronouncing it wrong all my life. I looked it up and we can blame in on the Brits. Apparently there's a town in England spelled Reading, pronounced Red-ing.
• there is no sales tax on clothing. Brent figured out that all "necessities" are not taxed - food, clothing, diapers, etc. It's quite nice. I guess that might mean we get slammed with income taxes, that's yet to be seen.
• the "DMV" is bizarre. They don't really have one. You go to the Driver's License Center to get your driver's license, fair enough. But to register your car you have to go to these random agencies, who do everything from insurance to car registration. I guess the nice thing is there is no long line to wait in, but it's still weird. It's also really hard and more expensive to register your car if you have a loan on it. Again, that's weird.

Our New Home

Now that we've been here for exactly one month, here are some pictures of our new home. We're at the end of our row of townhouses, which is nice. We never hear our neighbors. The neighborhood is pretty quiet. There are a few kids, but we don't see them very often. Behind our house is a huge open field of grass. When we first moved here it was a huge field of clover, but then they started mowing it every week, so all we see is a small patch of clover here and there. Brent was really bummed when they mowed it. He loved the clover. I'm kinda happy it's gone because there were tons of bees out there. On Monday night I realized there are fireflies out there. It was the first time I had ever seen them. I felt like a kid, mesmerized by all the flashing lights. It was so fun.

The house is 3 stories. The bottom level has the door to the garage, a storage closet under the stairs, and then a big room with the laundry room and another storage closet attached. Originally we were going to use the big room as a play room, but we changed our minds and made it the living room instead. It has worked out really nice. My biggest problem about having the playroom down there was that it feels so far away and both doors to the outside are down there, which made me uncomfortable. So, we changed the typical living room on the second floor into the playroom and the formal dining room into the office. It's all a little atypical, but it works nicely. The playroom is very well used. It is covered in toys daily, usually with trains. Derek is obsessed! We decided it was finally time to get a new dining room table, since we actually have somewhere to put it. It's so nice to have a table that fits all of us and the food, with plenty of room for more people. I LOVE the kitchen. It is so nice to have counter space and cupboards!! There are even cupboards that hardly have anything in them. It's great. It's nice having the pot rack as well. The owner left that here for us. The third floor has the bedrooms. The boys have their own rooms. It has worked out well. The master bedroom is spacious with a wonderfully large bathroom with separate shower and bath. I also LOVE having more than one bathroom again with counters, cupboards, and drawers. We love our house. It's so nice to have space again.

The owner, a guy in his mid-twenties or so, left several things for us that makes it even nicer. He left the bookshelves in the playroom, as well as some decorative shelves in the playroom and entryway, shelves in the storage room and garage, and an extra freezer in the garage. He also left handsoap and toilet paper in the bathrooms, which was really handy when we first got here without our stuff, plus a broom and mop, which I didn't think I'd use at first, but it's nice to have a broom upstairs. Plus, there's a security system included. I love all the colors of the walls in the house. The paint makes it even more homey. The only downside is that the owner had a dog, so we still find dog hair all the time, on all the floors. Oh well. It'll disappear eventually I hope.

We can get almost anywhere in 15 minutes or less. Brent works 10 minutes away. Target and grocery stores are also about 10 minutes. It takes 12 minutes to get to church. The mall is maybe 15. The furthest thing is Sam's Club, which is still less than 20. It's taken some getting used to figuring out where things are. I still sometimes get confused as to where I am when I go different places. Our ward is really spread out. It's nice being in a "normal" ward again. There are 40-50 kids in primary, less than 10 in nursery. The youth program is pretty small, which is unfortunate for babysitters. There are a lot of young families as well as a lot of older people. We were surprised to find that our ward is fairly transient. There are a lot of families here doing medical residencies, so they are just here for 3 years or so. We have met a lot of wonderful people.

Brent started work last week. He didn't have much to do last week, but he's started in on some projects this week, even though he doesn't know what he's doing yet. He'll figure it out with some time. The company is great, he really likes all the people he has met so far. This Friday they are having a BBQ for everyone in the Career Development Program. On Tuesday we get to go to an Iron Pigs game (the local Minor League baseball team), with box seats and everything. That will be fun. Plus, he found out about a group picnic sometime later in the summer - for the specific group he's working in. So far so good. It's nice for Brent to be working again. The boys and I are still trying to figure out how to spend our days, but we're getting there.