thanksgiving in california

We took off on Friday night and stopped in St George.  While it was quite cold the kids still decided it was time for a jump in the hotub.  

Arriving in San Pedro we went straight to my friends Allison and Greg home for dinner.  It was a perfect welcome back home.  I don't keep in contact with a lot of high school friends but it was great to know that some people make me feel like twenty years isn't a very long time.

We stated at Aimee's lovely home and had street tacos at Andrew's house.

We spent a day at the LA zoo, with Dani and Wally, where I hadn't been since I was a teenager.  The kids especially loved the komodo dragon and the koala bears.

 San Pedro parks, what a beautiful place to grow up....

 We took the kids to the La Brea Tar Pits.  I don't think the museum has been updated since I was a kid, but the kids didn't seem to mind.  Their favorite part was trying to pull these polls out of the tar.

While Lonnie waited at home with Trent to pick up Dani at the airport Andrew and Tom took Max, Maya, Stella and Sam to the Petersen Auto Museum while Aimee, Laura and I went to the LA County Art Museum, which was a wonderful treat.  We took the kids back later after the Tarpits just to take photos in this awesome installation.  Maya also wanted to see a Degas pastel drawing of ballet dancers and after seeing the painting made me promise I would buy her oil pastels.  

 Trent practiced his dance moves on the Tar Pit grounds.

 We drove out to Bakerfield on Tuesday, spent a lovely evening with Bob, Leslie, Gina and her family.  Gina's son Grant agreed to come with us the next day on a long drive out to Sequoia National Park.

 We got to hug trees, which was the main mission for the trip.

 We had Allred Thanksgiving.  I can't remember the last time I had been with my grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins for Thanksgiving.  It was great to be with all our family.

 Piles of cousins watching the kids put on a show in Bob and Leslie's bathroom.

 The performers....I loved having my kids get to know my side of the family.

 We left Bakersfield on Friday afternoon, stopping at Manzanar for a sober glimpse at what fear and prejudice can do.  We then spent the night in Bishop before heading to Mammoth Lakes.   The weather was perfect.  These small lakes were frozen over and people where sliding all over the lakes. The kids had a great time.

 We managed to get s squinting family photo.

 Two of my handsome boys.

 Another attempt at a family photo.

 Lonnie rarely lets out his inter geology geek, but thankfully he let us in on the secret of the Obsidian Dome near Mammoth.

 I'm proud to say we all collected rocks.

 Not far away we stopped at Mono Lake and saw the Tufas.  There is no one better to travel with than a geologist.

We then drove through the night to get home at 2am.  It was a wonderful trip.  Have I mentioned how cool it is to travel with my geologist hubby?

antelope island with leah

Our friend Leah, from New Zealand, came to visit and we took a drive out to Antelope Island.  We can see the island from the windows in our living room and sometimes we like to pretend we are looking out at the ocean with Rangitoto in the distance. 

It was a beautiful day.  We saw bison and the kids discovered their own rock playground.  It made me again remember how much I love the desert and especially The Great Salt Lake.

halloween

The kids were thrilled with Halloween.  We had dressed up for Halloween before in New Zealand, but it doesn't get anywhere near the hype that it does in the US.  The kids had a ward Halloween party, a school Halloween party and then actual Halloween.

Max dressed up as a snake, using a costume his cousins Kelly and Stella have both worn many times.

Trent dressed up as a dog.

Maya was a sheep.

They insisted that we decorate the front porch and the kids helped carve pumpkins for the first time.

Three months later we are still eating the Halloween candy.

pumpkins and fall leaves

Maya collecting sunflowers for our Vincent Van Gogh art lesson.

Exploring the corn maze and collecting pumpkins.

Jumping into the fall leaves....

It is not often that all three kids sit still for photos so I had a hard time choosing just one...

kindergarten

I can't believe it has taken me this long to post this, but Max and Maya started kindergarten this year. They are loving it.  Their teacher is wonderful and promotes kindness and learning in the classroom.  We chose to keep them together, which is working out wonderfully.  They both have their individual talents and interests so while they still watch out for each other they also don't stick together all the time.  

Max and Maya attend Kindergarten in New Zealand, which actually lasted longer than Kindergarten does here in our area (they are only half day).  But maybe because it is much more academic or because it is located at the elementary school it feels much more grown up.  I can imagine them growing up and no longer being my babies.  I'm finally understanding why people say that kids grow up too quickly.  (Too be honest those first few years were some of the longest of my life).  

sloth

Continuing Trent's adventures...

While we were still living in New Zealand, we discovered after Trent was twice swarmed by hornets that flying/stinging insects are attracted to my sweet baby.  

Back in the US, we went on a ward camping trip to East Canyon.  Lonnie and Trent were out for a walk and a biker passed.  Lonnie stepped aside on the trail and a few seconds later Trent started screaming.  Lonnie looked down and saw Trent swarmed again.  He grabbed him and ran back to camp.  When I saw him I stripped him down and another bee (wasp) flew out.  Lonnie was bitten at least 5 times and Trent the same.  Thankfully some other ward members had an antihistime and also suggested we put toothpaste on the bites.  Trent was screaming until the toothpaste (non gel) took away the string.   Unfortunately one of the stings was on his eye lid and by morning his eye was swollen shut.  It didn't seem to bother him too much, but he looked terrible so we spent the next couple of days trying to get him to say "Baby Ruth".  

mesquite (in august) with the mercers

The Mercers like to have family time.  There is always a dinner, trip of party coming up.  In August Lonnie's parents scheduled some timeshare condos in Mesquite, Nevada and invited all the kids and grandkids to come all.  Lonnie, and it appears his brothers too, have an amazing ability to tolerate heat.  I love the desert but Mesquite, NV has an average temperature of  High 102 degrees F- Low 70 degrees (38 C- 20C) it too hot for me.   Still it was a nice trip.  The kids loved spending time with their cousins and hours at the pool.

The cost of playing golf and expensive golf courses goes down considerably when the temperature is over 100 degrees.  

Max and Maya brought along their favorite Littlest Petshop toys.  This set up made me laugh because it looked the Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Super.

summer solstice in the desert

There is some that I find deeply purifying about the desert, something clean about the dry dirt.  

“The fire. The odor of burning juniper is the sweetest fragrance on the face of the earth, in my honest judgment; I doubt if all the smoking censers of Dante's paradise could equal it. One breath of juniper smoke, like the perfume of sagebrush after rain, evokes in magical catalysis, like certain music, the space and light and clarity and piercing strangeness of the American West. Long may it burn.” 
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

back in the USA

We arrived back in Utah in April.  There was still occasional snowfall, while the kids were excited about it.  They missed the beach.

 We got to spend time with Nana and Papa again.  We lived in their basement, which Lonnie promised he never wanted to do.  But it was actually fun to have 11 people all living in the same big house.

 We received a bit of New Zealand in Utah when Alyssa Stinson spent a day with us before going into the MTC for her mission in Florida.  Just talking with her made me start driving on the wrong side of the road, which I quickly corrected.

 Max and Maya turned 5!  We had a small party at home.

We bought a beautiful home in Bountiful.  My favorite part is watching the sunsetting over The Great Salt Lake with Antelope Island in the distance.  We are now true Mercers.  

We were able to spend a wonderful weekend with our family at my parent's mission farewell.  Spending time with family and longtime friends has been the best part of being back in Utah!

Trent in Rehab:

Trent made my parent's mission farewell party even more exciting by getting into the medicine cupboard in the upstairs bathroom.  Lonnie found him with pills all over the floor.  We called poison control.   They said to keep and eye on him and bring him in if he started acting funny.  About 20 min later he started to wobble while he was walking.  We took him over to Primary Children's hospital.  We were't sure what he had taken so the doctors put in an IV and heart monitors.  He was quite groggy but we kept him awake.  I breastfeed him and shortly after he threw up....licorice and cookies (making me feel like an even better mother).  The doctors did a toxin screen and it came back showing something different than we had assumed so they decided to keep him overnight.  At 10:30 we were finally in a room and I was able to get him to sleep. He was over tired and agitated.   I slept next to him on the bed.  I don't remember ever seeing him look so helpless, even as a newborn.  By the morning he was feeling better and wanted to pull out all his cords.  We convinced the staff that he was annoyed not from the drugs but because we were trying to keep him still.  We took him for a walk in a wagon around the hospital and near noon we were finally able to take him home.  Lessons learned: lock up your meds, nothing is safe around this kid.  Welcome back to US medical system (we were still getting bills six months later),  I love my sweet little Trent.