Mothers, Memorial and more in May

Now that I'm posting pictures I realize how busy of a month May was... 

May 1st was our 21st anniversary. 

Since I was at women's conference that day Jeff and I celebrated it the next weekend. 

We had a nice dinner spending time with each other and eating at Marios. It is a nice Italian place in downtown Riverside. We didn't even look at prices until we got the bill. 

Ha ha, even though we spent as much on appetizers as we normally spend on two dinners it wasn't too horrible.  

Just for fun we went next door to the antique mall that is actually hundreds of booths and vendors selling all kinds of stuff from vintage to handmade and everything in between. Crazy and quirky and interesting enough that I would love to go back with Ashley to just look at everything. 

The next week we had our annual Relief Society President's dinner. We put on a dinner for all the Relief Society Presidents in the Riverside Stake and this time we had it at a historic Riverside house. Since we are a citrus city we decorated with orange and the menu featured oranges (orange chicken, orange rolls, orange/lemon meringue pie) 

Boyd Jensen was featured in the local paper after he bought and renovated this historic house in downtown Riverside and then used it for his law office. He was nice enough to give us a tour and let us use his "house/office" to host our dinner. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and it was a nice way to thank the women who serve everyone else so much. 

A few days later we had another Relief Society event. Chef Brad is a chef that is featured on a KBYU and had come before to do cooking classes. 

This night he spoke with us and then we got to knead homemade bread dough which was cooked into scones. 

A fun hands on class and very yummy scones. I'll have to try it at home sometime. 

This last month I got to go the PTA district luncheon since I was voted Volunteer of the Year this year.  Our lunch was a good salad. 

I have to say that this would've been only the first course at a New York Life function. Not to say that this lunch was bad but just demonstrating that we are often overfed at New York Life :)

I had the opportunity to present the Sheri Power quilt to her children. I was glad after all the work everyone did that we had something tangible to show our appreciation and affection for their mother. Her children seemed to like it.

The father and son campout was this month. The boys got to go out with Jeff and fish and canoe and play cards and hang out just the guys. 

Taylor even caught a fish but they had to throw them back.

They didn't stay too long at the camp out the next day because Taylor had prom to go to. 

While Kelzie's family was posting pictures of her getting ready at the hairdresser hours before I was thinking how much easier guys have it. Getting ready was pretty painless. 

Taylor has a blue tie and vest ....from midwinter because he decided to ask Kelzie less than a week before prom. Long story short they broke up, they started talking again, they decided it would be fun to go together instead of stag like they were both planning. 

Taylor leading her to his car to get ready to go to his friends house for dinner...

Before she could get in I had to tell Taylor to at least throw his math book, rock climbing shoes and empty water bottles in the back seat. (The inside of his car looks like his room at home )

Here is them getting ready to leave on the party bus. Well worth the money to let someone else drive them there and back!

Kelzie's mom gave her what we all assumed would be plenty of money for the kids to take pictures and when they got there it still wasn't enough. Over $80 for one picture!!!  

Thinking that was too much the kids decided to do the free black and white one instead. (I'm imagining Kelzie's mom still wanted the professional pictures)

They had a lot of fun at prom.  

As far as relationship status I have been told they are "talking". I guess talking includes some hanging out together too. 

The next day was Mother's Day. I woke up nostalgic for Mother's Days past...

When the kids were young and hugs, kisses and spontaneous expressions of happiness were common. It might not be the same now but I can't complain.

I got a nice breakfast and a necklace to wear that said mom.

I missed out on getting a family picture for mother's day. Ashley was willing to pose for a selfie though. Thanks Ashley.

After church we raced up to Palmdale and got to visit with Jeff's mom and Rueben. He is recovering from a stroke and was much improved from the time we saw him in the hospital though he still can't swallow or talk. It was nice to see him happy to see all of us and want to listen in on all or our conversations. 

Kenny and Sharon were nice enough to host the family gathering at their house. It was the last time that we talked to Justin before he comes home from his mission. 

Hard to believe 2 years is already gone.

School is almost done (especially for Taylor who has already finished the finals for 1/2 his classes 3 weeks ago) but there are still some follow up projects. This is a boat that Taylor had to make that had to propel across water. Luckily we bought the propeller weeks before because it came to be hard to come by when everyone else needed them. 

We have a friend that helped with a couple extra parts and sanding it down to make it look better. Taylor's boat did what it was supposed to do and worked just fine. 

Now Jacob is frantically reading a book to finish his last book report before Friday. Guess what he spent all weekend doing.

Oh we have a new addition...since we gave up on trying to move awhile ago and our backyard is too small for a pool we decided to buy a hot tub. Of course Jeff waited until he could get a deal on a used one but its new for us. 

We can't put water in it until we get the electricity ran to it so for now it's empty. Ashley has found that its a favorite hang out spot to eat snacks and watch videos on her kindle. 

Then the other day I was looking for Jacob and sure enough guess where he was (you can see his head barely poking up)

The Friday of Memorial Day weekend we had a fun night out with Steve and Tahna. We signed up for some kind of rewards program for being a newpaper subscriber and we got free tickets to go to a Neil Diamond cover band concert. 

The only down side was we had to wait an hour and 1/2 after we were in our seats for the concert to start. But once they started we really enjoyed it. They did a great job. Thanks for inviting us Steve and Tahna!!

Memorial Day weekend we decided to do a southern california get away since we had a free voucher to stay at a Hilton.  The first day was cool and cloudy...the day we planned to go use our Knotts Soak City passes. Not a good day for it. The air wasn't bad and laying in the chairs wasn't bad but the water was freezing, no thank you. None of us wanted to get more than our feet wet other than Ashley who went in the wave pool. 

We stayed a couple of hours and then decided to head out. At least we have passes so we can try again when its hotter. 

Our Hilton was in Anaheim right across from Disneyland. You can see the back of Cars Land and Tower of Terror in the background separated from us by 100 per person. Disney just raised their prices again so who knows when we'll be back.

We decided to try our hotel pool. Jeff and I just sat in the hot tub and right before we went back up to the room Ashley tried the waterslide a couple of times. Cold water and no lifeguard made for a screaming pile up of kids at the bottom of the slide but Ashley survived.

We offered to take the kids to the Pirates dinner show but they opted for a more simple dinner and watching Xmen at the movie theater. 

We ate on the patio of the tiki bar at the Disneyland hotel serenaded by Hawaiian singers. 

Everyone liked the movie. I liked it too but it was late and the seats were comfortable so I found myself dozing off. My family laughs at me for falling asleep in an action packed movie its not the first time. Ha ha. 

Over the weekend we met up with Angela and Robert. We decided to drive to each other and met at Venice Beach. This was the crowds there watching street performers. This picture should give an idea how hard it was to find parking. 

The finale of this show was a guy jumping over these six people. You can see him upside down above the fourth person. This was performed after 20 minutes of hitting people up for money. The most high pressure sales pitch I've heard in awhile. 

We watched graffiti artists paint the designated walls. Some of them were covering nicer pictures with inferior pictures but I guess thats the name of the game there.  

Ashley wanted a picture in front of the wall.

                       

And on the beach...She lets me take pictures a little bit more because she wants to put them on instagram.

When we met up with Angela and Robert we checked out some of the muscle beach show offs and met this balloon clown guy. 

Walking back to the car so we could go to dinner together. I love how Ian likes Ashley.

That night we checked into our next hotel. The Ayres in Manhattan beach. We've gone there before and loved the free breakfast. No more free breakfast. That's OK we were off in the morning and at the beach anyway.

On a tip from a local we headed to San Clemente beach. We originally thought it would be cold like our Soak City trip but it was a nice warm day.

The kids playing paddle ball on the hot sand. 

What was nice was there was a pier right next to us with every kind of food and goodie to buy. We tried some gelato...

and stopped at the pearl place. You buy and oyster for $11.00 and there is a guaranteed pearl in it. We did more than one and Ashley picked them every time. The one she picked for me was a perfect matched set of grey pearls. I like them and had them set in earrings.

She also picked another one that had a big white/peach one that was rare and worth more than my matched set together. Good job Ashley.

We left the beach about lunch time when it was getting more and more crowded. Luckily traffic home wasn't too bad. We got home in time for kids to finish up homework and me to start some laundry. 

This last week I got to go to the Volunteer of the Year award ceremony. 

It was fun to see that I knew 3 or 4 of the Volunteer of the Year recipients from the other schools in the district. 3 of them were members of the church too. 

I was awarded a certificate, a name badge and a license plate cover. It was a nice program and then some great desserts after. 

The principal of Ashley's school was there with me at the event and gave met these flowers. I thought that was very nice of her.

I have been taught all my life to serve without thought of reward and so it's nice on those occasions when you feel that your efforts are recognized. While I was there I was thinking of all the other people that gave of there time throughout the year and wished that they all could be there too.

  

Ashley's up close pictures of the flowers. 

I also got to go to the volunteer tea the next morning. A couple of classes performed for us and we got to have our students meet us in the gym they presented us with volunteer certificates. 

I think Ashley liked the excuse to sit with her friends too. They only allowed the adults to come up and get the food so Ashley gave me her requests of what to bring back for her. I noticed pretty much every mom was loading their plates to feed their kids too. Thats what moms do! Ha ha!

So now we are into June and I'm preparing for Taylor's graduation, Ashley's 6th grade promotion and a visit from family! Exciting times.