Week with Jaden

Jaden flew out to spend a week with us the first week of August - Nathan's last free week before his mission.  We had a lot of fun - beach days, eating out at our favorite Mexican restaurant, camping in Sequoia National Park, kayaking and fish 'n chips in Morro Bay, smoothies downtown, board games, and Jared's birthday party.  

Monday was a partial beach day, with the boys trying out surfing.  I wasn't there more than 10 minutes, so I didn't get any pictures from that day.  (I was mostly there to help cart people around and get free parking, which made for an interesting afternoon.  I ended up dropping one bunch off with surfboards in the vehicle with the parking pass, waiting for the 2nd car and driving that one down to the free parking, jogging the 3/4 mile or so back to the beach, then leaving early with Jared and Savannah so Jared could get to cross country).  It was a little crazy for me, but the boys had a good time at the beach.

On Tuesday (2nd), we headed to Sequoia National Park.  We camped 2 nights at Lodgepole Campground in the Sequoias.  We didn't end up with 2 sites next to each other, but we used one for eating and gathering and then just separate for sleeping.  The boys were at one site, in a tent big enough to set up a game table.  Alex, Savannah, and I slept in another tent.  We hiked around on Wednesday in the giant trees, which are always so impressive.  We even saw a bear in the wild on our hike to see a waterfall.  Because of rain (and some lightning), we decided not to go all the way to the waterfall, but we did see the bear just off the path.  The last time we went to the Sequoias was in 2012, just before Savannah was born.  I took a picture by a tree that had a bump like my "baby bump".  This year, we took a picture of Savannah and me by a similar tree.  I'm glad she wasn't in my belly this time around!     

On Thursday, we headed to Morro Bay to do some kayaking.  I loved doing that - the water was so calm and peaceful.  We saw some otters, sea lions, and lots of birds.  Owen wore his "Be Kind to Otters" shirt and wanted a picture with an otter.  We did get one, although not very close.  We had fish 'n chips and calamari 'n chips for dinner.  The kids surprisingly liked the calamari.  We picked up Kai on the way home that night.  What's funny is that we were going to have her squeeze in the front seat with me, but as soon as we opened the door, she jumped up over the seat in the back with the kids.  She pretty much sat on Jaden and Jared, as if to say, "Make room for me!"   

We did another beach day with all of us on Friday (the one on Monday was just for a couple hours).  It was fun to play volleyball.  I did get in the water this time, although it still was so cold and took a while to get used to.  I don't usually get in the water, but I did a boogie board for the first time.  The boys dug a pretty deep trench while out there.  We were better about re-applying sunscreen (lesson learned from the last time).  We wandered around downtown on Friday evening for a little bit.

On Saturday, I spent most of the day baking for Jared's birthday party that night.  The kids enjoyed playing several board games that day.  After dinner, we had our "sweet sixteen" party, with several different kinds of sweets - brownies, ice cream sundaes, mint chocolate cake, snickerdoodle and M&M cookies, lemon bars, Twix cheesecake bars, blueberry crumble bars, cherry pie, and soda. Sugar overload!  We played a couple of games, re-using a target game from a Survivor party and a card game.  They worked to hit certain colors on the target with a nerf gun and pulled a coordinating color stick, which eventually released a candy from a slot.  We also played a card game, where we dealt out all the cards in a deck.  Using a second deck, I randomly drew and called out a card.  The person with the matching card got to pick a candy from the center of the table.  Once all the candy was taken, it could be stolen from anyone.  You wanted to end up with the most matching cards towards the end of the game.  Those were the two games I planned.  After that, they played whatever they wanted to.  I think they played "What Do You Meme" game and "Herd Mentality".  A couple other guys came late - I never took a group photo, but about 6 friends came, along with Jaden and siblings, so I think we had about 12 people total.  We invited 15 friends, but I guess it wasn't a great night for the rest of them.  This was our 3rd try with the party and the last chance while Nathan could attend, so we weren't moving it.  We were happy Jaden could be one of the party guests!

Jaden went to church with us on Sunday morning but then had to head out right after the sacrament.  It was sad to see him go, knowing that Nathan and Jaden wouldn't see each other for 3 years (after Jaden's mission).  I'm glad they got this week full of fun memories though. We packed in a lot of fun in one week!