You May Rely On It

Natalie got a Magic 8 Ball for Christmas. The girl is in love with it. She doesn't make a lot of decisions without it. She packs it around with her pretty much everywhere she goes. Once I even found it in her bed. The funny thing is, she really believes that it speaks the truth and that it is all knowing.

The other day she was dancing around holding her crotch. I asked her if she had to go the bathroom. Of course she didn't. The dancing didn't stop. I told her to go to the bathroom. She finally left the room for about four seconds and then walked back in and said, "I went and I didn't even have to go."

I told her that there was no way she could have gone that fast. She insisted that, in fact, she had gone. So I pulled out an awesome parenting tool. "Let's ask the Magic 8 Ball", I said. She started to panic a little because the Magic 8 Ball doesn't lie. I held it up while she protested and said, "Magic 8 Ball, is Natalie lying about going to the bathroom?" To her horror, it answered back, "You may rely on it."

She looked up at me and said, "Bekah! I'm not relying to you!"

It is becoming increasingly more apparent that she is the most organized member of our family. She loves to look at planners. She was thrilled to get a calendar for her birthday and a watch for Valentine's Day. Every night we have to do an hourly run down of what we are going to do tomorrow. Every morning we have to review to make sure no plans have changed. One of her favorite things is to fold laundry with me. The girl loves order. A few Saturdays ago she decided to outline steps that would help us streamline our Sunday mornings.


When I woke her up for church the next morning she rubbed her eyes, rolled over, and said "Step one. Wake up."

Our Side of the Ocean

Here is another post with a couple of random pictures from a vacation last summer.

Dave's sister Allison has a sweet hookup with a beach house in Oceanside, California. Last summer we stayed there with Allison's family, Cindy's family, Todd's family, and Scott's family. It was a fabulous week. The ocean was literally a walk out the back door of the beach house.

We went on a lot of bike rides and long walks, played in the sand, read books (well, Steve and I read books), and met Ashley's fiance for the first time. On Sunday we drove to San Diego and went to the Mormon Battalion Historical Site.

The guys spent hours body surfing in the waves.
The kids made sand castles with sand castle expert, Uncle John.
Burying Emily in the sand.

La Vida Lopez

I live in a house with too many cameras and too many cords so here goes another blog post that starts with "Last summer....".


Last summer my whole family came up and spent a week together in a cabin on Lopez Island in the San Juans. We went on bike rides, played on the beach, collected shells, made a raft and a house out of driftwood, played games, and went sailing. It was Max's birthday and Rachel pulled off an elaborate pirate themed birthday party that ended with the kids digging up a real buried treasure box for of booty.

Where the pictures of all of those fun things are, I'm not quite sure. But I did stumble across these gems.



This was named the RTH (The Rue/Tiffany Hill). Can you guess who might have named it that? They rode bikes together from sun up to sun down.

Ben, Owen, and me on the deck of the cabin. We had the most beautiful view of the Sound. Behind us is the lawn where we played hours of "Robot Ball", a baseball derivative invented by dad and Ben that didn't allow players to bend their knees. Robot Ball would turn out to be captivating and one of the highlights of the trip.

Tiffany and me on the sailboat.

And Mista.

Dad giving sailing a go with his first mate.

I love this picture. Every kid looks miserable, starving (One day soon I'm going to remember that kids need to be fed), and freezing; except Luke. That guy couldn't be happier. So funny!