4/20 - National Pot Smokers Day

Yes today is National Pot Smokers Day. Living in the sheltered pockets that I have in the past, Provo, UT and Mesa, AZ, 4/20 has never been a big deal. But here is a picture of what we are dealing with today.

This is the meadow right next door to our apartment packed with thousands of people, that haze is the start of the pot smoke and they are all gathered to smoke it. When searching on the internet I found this picture. After our RAs came around and warned us that the secondhand smoke is so bad that they usually get a hotel because they worry about their kids, I looked online to see where this ridiculous holiday came from and found this picture on Wikipedia of our lovely home. Needless to say, we are staying at a ward member's home tonight.

Playing at the Beach

Late winter is rainy season for Santa Cruz. This winter was unseasonably dry but there were a few week long stretches of nearly constant rain. One Saturday that was the only time that sun was expected in the middle of a week and a half stretch of rain we decided to take advantage of the sun and head to the beach. I sent a text out to some friends to join us and we a WONDERFUL afternoon

Lydia and me making a sand castle, or more rather me trying to make one as quickly as possible before Lydia destroys it. See completed castle in Flat Stanley post.

Happy Mary hanging out.

Daddy and Lydia coming back from the water. Lydia LOVES the water. She would live in it if we'd let her. Robert was such a great sport to stay out there with her for most of the outing.

Lydia and her friend Jayden made quick work of the sand castle.

The only picture I took of any of the adults was this unflattering one.

This picture kind of sealed the deal that I need to do A LOT better about taking pictures of my friends. How easy would it have been for me to say, "Hey guys, say cheese!"? I will do better.

It was a GREAT day with GREAT friends!

Fun with Flat Stanley

Flat Stanley is a children's book that was written back in the 60s. It is about a boy, Stanley, who has a bulletin board fall on him while he is sleeping which makes him flat. Since he is flat he is able to fold himself up and mail himself in an envelope to anywhere in the world which leads to all sorts of adventures. It's a tradition that the 2nd graders at my old elementary school in Arizona that my niece is currently attending read the book and then send their own Flat Stanley to someone who then takes pictures of Stanley doing stuff specific to the area and sends him back. My niece sent one of hers to me. Here's what I wrote back and our pictures from our adventure.

"We had such a great time with Flat Stanley here in Santa Cruz, California! First we put some Santa Cruz clothes on him. He is wearing a University of California at Santa Cruz Banana Slugs t-shirt. Your Uncle Robert is going to school at the University of California at Sana Cruz, UCSC for short. Their mascot is the banana slug. That is a big slug that lives in the redwood forest. They are called banana slugs because they look like bananas. They are yellow, sometimes have brown spots, and can be just as big as a banana. It’s a funny mascot for a school to have, but we like it. He’s also wearing board shorts and flip-flops. You would think that he would be too cold since it’s winter, but not in Santa Cruz. We have great weather all year round. It’s usually always about 70 degrees.

The first place we went with Stanley was the beach. You’ll see pictures of him in the sand castle we built and attempting to play in the water of Monterey Bay. Monterey Bay is part of the Pacific Ocean. We couldn’t spend too much time in the water because although the weather is always nice, the water on the coast of central and northern California is always cold. You need a special swimsuit called a wetsuit to swim in this water and stay warm. Stanley didn’t have one, but he enjoyed playing in the sand and looking at the beautiful ocean. Next we took Stanley to the surfing monument. Santa Cruz is one of several places that claims the invention of surfing. People from all over come here to compete in surfing competitions. Our next stop was the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. The Boardwalk has won several awards for being one of the best beach boardwalks in the world. It has all sorts of rollercoasters, arcades, and other fun things. It opened over 100 years ago and has been very busy ever since. Then we headed to Downtown for dinner at a very popular restaurant in Bay Area California, Pizza My Heart. Their pizza is delicious and it comes with a t-shirt. The shirt was way too big for Stanley so he let Uncle Robert have it. The last thing we did was show Stanley the Redwood Forest. Santa Cruz not only is right on the beach, but it is surrounded by a coastal Redwood Forest. Redwood trees are some of the tallest in the world. 

There you have it. We hope Stanley enjoyed his time here in Santa Cruz and comes to visit again soon! 

Sincerely, Aunt Heidi"

It was fun taking Stanley around. Hopefully real people, not paper people, as in family or friends come to visit someday so we can show them around. That would be even more fun ;)

Happy 3rd Anniversary To Us!

Again, I'm way late on this, but February 21st we had our 3rd anniversary. I can't believe it's already been another year. I still feel like we just got married, and then I remember we have 2 kids :-P We counted the cruise as our big anniversary celebration so the actual day we kept pretty low key. We invited several of our friends over to a nearby park for pizza and cake to celebrate the 3rd birthday of us. Complete with birthday candles :)

We were supposed to blow them out together, but Robert cheated and blew them out quick so I couldn't. RUDE!!

Looking back on this year, it's been a rough year. The hardest in my life actually. We were hit hard with unexpected challenges on top of a new baby and a big move, but we endured. We did the best we could to stay positive, and above all else we never stopped loving each other. Now we have been made closer and stronger in our relationships with each other and our Heavenly Father in a way that only trials can make us. I love Robert Alan Richardson! He is my perfect-for-me husband. I could not ask for a better father for our kids, priesthood leader in our home, and best friend and companion. In the grand scheme of things, 3 years is no time at all, but so much has happened in the last 3 years. I can't wait to see what adventures are waiting for us in the rest of eternity!

Valentine's 2012

We had lots of fun this Valentine's Day. Friday morning this was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. Robert asked me to the stake Valentine's Day dance.  

It says "Will You Be My STAR For The Valentine's Day Dance?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!! Put together the letters and solve the puzzle to find out who wants to be your star!" And then there are the letters QQNSAD. The puzzle is that you move one letter from each letter on the star, getting RROTBE. Unscramble and you get ROBERT :) He's so clever. To answer I did this that afternoon:

Fair Warning... It's cheesy :) It says:

My Darling "Nerd",

"Reese's" too old and has an attitude.

"Baby Ruth" is too young and is very rude.

"Heath" asked, but he's not the one for me.

"Mike and Ike" are "Goobers" as you can plainly see.

They can't "Twix" me into going with any of those "Duds", it's true.

They could pay me "100 Grand", and I'd still rather go with you.

So put on your "Tuxedo" and lets go to the ball. 

And remember your "SweetTart" LOVES YOU "Jelly Belly" and all. 

The night of the dance we left the girls with some great young women in the ward and stopped off at MexItalian for dinner before heading to the dance.

The Seegmillers, us, and the Slacks partying it up at the dance.

Robert busting a move shortly after already busting his pants. Robert's antics at the dance were mentioned from the pulpit the next day. When the limbo stick got too low Robert chose to run and slide under it on his knees, thereby ripping the knees in his dress pants, so the bishopric member that was conducting the meeting jokingly announced at the beginning of sacrament meeting that there would be a collection fund starting to get him a new pair of pants. We showed everyone what a dance party is all about. Classic!

I busted a move or two as well :)

Are we not the cutest you've ever seen?? ;)

My usual Valentine's tulips. My husband loves me!

We had way too much candy sitting around from my answer to Robert, so we decided to do like we did in elementary school and handout Valentine's to some of our friends for Family Home Evening.

It was a great Valentine's celebration!

We caught a TV & it was >---THIS---< big!

An amazing lady/family in our ward was giving away a TV. She sent out an email with the measurements and I guesstimated how big it was in my head and thought it would be a little bigger than the one we had but would still fit in the entertainment center we had so I figured I'd take it. Might as well when it's free right? It ended up being LOTS bigger. It's a good thing they were giving away the armoire with it because it wasn't even close to fitting in what we had.

Before

After

It's double the size. Dora the Explorer has never been so cool! She's like life-size now! Anyway, we feel all grown up now because we have a big TV and moved the other TV to our bedroom. ;)

Does that imply something about society's dependency on TVs?

Mary Moments - 4-6 months

Mary at 4 (and a half) months - 1/13/2012

At her doctor's appointment the day of these pictures she weighed 14lbs 5.5oz, 51st percentile, and was 2' 2" tall, 90th percentile. We have her 6 month appointment next week so we'll get more current stats then.

She is such a happy, easy baby nearly all of the time! Just content to watch everybody, or even to be left alone. We could not be luckier!

We've entered the world of solid foods. She loves them and can't get enough, and she's started to chunk up quite a bit because of it. Robert and I decided that Lydia was born knowing how to move, Mary was born knowing how to eat :)

She falls asleep where and when she wants to which can be anywhere at any time. Finally she started sleeping through the night when she was a little less than 5 months old which makes for a much happier and well rested Mommy and Daddy.

Most recent pics of her, taken 3/4/2012

She can roll over front to back and back to front and is starting to sit on her own if we put her in the position. She's not scooting at all yet. but she's starting to show interest in it (stretching and reaching for things out of reach) so I don't think it will be much longer before she's going all over the place.

She's our little Sweet Pea and brings a smile to our faces daily. We love her!!

Lydia Lately

It's been a while since I've posted about either child, so here goes.

Ready for her first day of nursery November 20th 2011. She loves it!!

"Make a funny face!" Her classic look.

This is the day she had her "18" month doctor appointment,1/13/2011. We were a couple months behind because things got thrown off with the move and then the holidays. At that appointment she weighed 24 pounds 13 ounces and was 2 feet and 8.5 inches tall. Technically that means she shrunk one inch since November, but it was her first time being measured standing up so it was a more accurate measurement than before when they would measure her lying down when she was all squirmy. That puts her in the 44th percentile for weight and the 51st percentile for height.

She's developed an attachment to several stuffed animals. Bo Bo (The monkey, she still calls all monkeys "Bo Bo" after the Bo Bo Brothers on Go Diego Go) Bunny, Bear, and Doll are her friends right now. She has to sleep with ALL of them and sometimes they tend to take over, as witnessed in this photo.

Her hair is FINALLY starting to grow out a little and get quite a bit thicker. This causes some great bedhead hair to happen. It looks like this almost every morning :)

How can you not love that face! ;)

This girl LOVES to dance! Every time Robert plays the piano she gets her groove on. Her favorite is Billy Joel, just like her daddy :)

I am amazed at how many words Lydia is learning and using. Her vocabulary increases every day. Here is a list I made for Robert's Mom/family to reference while we were on the cruise 2 months ago.

“See Yo” = Cereal     “Ba” or “Baff” = Bath     “Noll” = Milk, sounds a lot like “No”, but she’ll usually sign with it     “Bee fa ohls” or “Wee a wee wohls” or something similar = Pizza rolls, says this high pitched     “Dah” = Her doll     “Buhr” = Book, sounds like bird     “Hab eh”/“Hab um” = Have it/have some     “Bo bo” = Her monkey     “Ooo Ah Aaah” = She’ll say this and point to the TV. It means she wants Diego, sometimes it also means Dora     “Poopy” = She usually says this before she poops. Or she’ll say it because we just changed Mary’s diaper and she wants hers changed too, whether she really needs it or not. Sometimes she gets really insistent about it so we’ll lay her down, open her diaper, and close it right back up. That usually satisfies her     “Han” = Hands, she wants her hands washed or wiped, or she wants you to put whatever you have in her hand     “Beh” or “Breh” or “Bed” = Bread     “Wee” = Swing or slide     “Wah” = Walk     “Wa Wah” = Water     “Joosh” = Juice     “Bay” or “Bay uh” = Blanket     “Sna” or “Nack” or “Snack” = Fruit snacks

Other words that you can probably guess what they mean: “Happy” “Nigh nigh” “Baby” “More/Moh” “No Mine”

Like I said, this is a list from 2 months ago, and I'm amazed at how much she's learned and improved since then already. I'd say she has at least double the vocabulary, and her pronunciation of most of the words that were in this list is much better. Like she says "Pizza rolls" instead of "Bee fa ohls" etc. She's also to the point that she will repeat almost anything we say as long as we say one word at a time, so she's been saying our blessings on the food and her bedtime prayers. It's so much fun! She's also recognizing her shapes and some colors, numbers, and letters. It's so fun to watch her learn so much!

She's growing up way too fast! She's a full out toddler, complete with a usual bump or two and a little food or something on her face, despite my best efforts to keep her face clean :) She's starting to develop all sorts of sass and mischievousness which keep me on my toes and sometimes make me want to yank my own hair out, but at the end of the day I thank Heavenly Father for every day that I'm blessed to be her mother. There is no greater calling!

THE CRUISE!!!

After over a year and a half of planning and anticipating "The Cruise" finally happened! I still can't believe it's already come and gone, and it happened over a month ago.

We started out in L.A. We rode over from Mesa with Scott and Becky. We had some time to kill before meeting up with some of the group so we went bowling cuz we're cool ;)

L.A. Temple

DEPARTURE DAY!!!! 

My Grandpa was on his way over to Europe on this ship, Queen Mary, for WWII when they declared peace. We like to say it's because they heard he was coming. ;)

Mike rocked the game show.

He was doing so well they gave him a handicap. He had to run across the stage to do his buzzer.

Fun towel creature #1

Just chillin.

Formal night

Danjee and his THREE main dishes. He also ate most of mine, 3 starters, and 4 desserts.

Robert thought it would be cool to dip me. I thought it was terrifying!

Fun towel creature #2

Ready to spend the day in Cabo

So you're eating lunch at a for reals Mexican restaurant in for reals Mexico, and for reals mariachis come to serenade you, and what's the first song they play... "Sweet Home Alabama" Definitely not what I expected, but still fun.

 

 Someone thought it would be a great idea to sing a song for them in return. Our go-to song is "Sentimental Journey." I'm the lead voice on it, but I'm usually on it with my mom, so I was so nervous to do it on my own and kept botching the words. Luckily the mariachis chimed in with us so it sounded hokey anyway. How many people can say they sang "Sentimental Journey" with a mariachi band in Mexico?? My guess is not many!

Real Mexican food. It was FANTASTIC!!!

You've got to love the vendors :)

Ready to snorkel. Ain't we purdy???

Our awesome waiter Manuel bustin' a move!

Hangin in the comedy lounge. "I was in line at the grocery store and the lady at the cash register said 'I can take you.' I dropped her with one punch!"

Fun towel creature #3

Cabo Day 2

A private resort beach? Don't mind if I do!

The Gals (minus Katie, Christi, and Sadie)

The Dudes (minus Mike, Ryan, and Eddie)

Tackle 3-Flies-Up. It was hilarious!!

Robert MISSING the ball :)

A "short walk" to Lover's Beach turned into a 5 mile round trip hike that included hiking up these rocks in our bare feet. At least it's a fun story to tell.

Fun Towel Creature #4

Puerto Vallarta

Most of the group went on a zip line excursion here, but to save money, among other reasons, Robert and I and Mike and Katie didn't go. It's a good thing too! Turns out I'm allergic to Puerto Vallarta. No joke! As soon as I got off the boat my eyes got all puffed up and would not stop watering, my nose was completely stuffed, I was a MESS! We stopped in a local "Pharmacia" and got some Benedryl. I took 3 and got my allergies in control. Later I had to take another Benedryl, Zyrtec, and an Allegra to keep it under control. In the mean time, Katie, Mike, Robert, and I had an awesome day. We toured the city and then found a tucked away beach where we relaxed most of the day. It was HEAVENLY!!

I decided to be a full blown tourist and get my hair braided by one of the Mexican vendor ladies.

I'm too cool!!

I mean really!! How picturesque is this?? We hope to go back someday. Now that we know it wreaks havoc on my allergies we'd come prepared and would love to spend a few days there.

Fun Towel Creature #5

Katie and Melissa rocking the karaoke

The very creepy but very talented card trickster Emir. He blew us all away!

Fun Towel Creature #6

Our good friend and karaoke legend - Frenchie!

To quote Danjee, "I would never have thought that the thing we would do the most of on the cruise was DANCING!" We really rocked the red carpet room almost every night until 1 sometimes 2 in the morning. We were awesome!!

It was Katie's birthday the last night of the cruise, so she got the privilege of Emir being extra creepy to her, and Manuel making her feel extra special!

 Final Fun Towel Creature

And one last video of something that became a catch phrase, or should I say word, of the cruise. The head waiter guy or Matruh Dee?? however you spell it, would always say this at the beginning of the dinner show.

So people kept asking, "How was it?" "What was your favorite part?" And I would answer, "Amazing!" and "All of it!" Honestly, there is nothing that really stuck out as my favorite part. It was all just amazing!! The whole experience. I will say though that I loved getting to know the cousins that came. They've always been the cool older cousins, almost as if they were on a whole other level in my mind. Turns out I'm just as cool! They actually like me!! ;) I also enjoyed reconnecting with my married siblings. Since we've lived away our whole marriage, Robert hadn't gotten a chance to spend a ton of time with the married siblings especially without the kids around. It was so great to have that chance. We're so glad everything worked out that we were able to go. There's already talk of another cruise in 2 years. We won't be going if there is. You can justify taking out extra student loans for one cruise but not 2. I'm hoping the tradition continues and we'll rejoin in 4 years. Fingers crossed for Cousins Cruise 2016!!

I still have to comb through all of the pictures that others took. Once I do that I'm sure I'll have another post with a ton more pictures!

P.S. In case you're wondering, our girls were with Robert's family. They had a great time and we missed them terribly!