Rancho Sahuarita

There have been a lot of happenings in our town this spring! Fiesta Sahuarita, our annual town celebration, gets bigger every year. This year we embraced parking at the clubhouse and riding the school bus shuttle to the event. The school bus ride might have been the highlight of the whole thing for Felix. We suspect that he now thinks that his older siblings go to Fiesta Sahuarita every day since that is the only place he has experienced a bus going. 

We somehow missed the memo that the rides were mostly waterslides this year and were not properly prepared with swimsuits or any towels. Luckily it is hot enough that you dry off quick! You can see the two giant slides in this picture that were the size of our house. Aaron, Elliot, and Isaac braved the big slides while Annie wanted extra time with my "too pregnant for fun" self at the booths. Her goal is always to spin ALL the "free stuff" wheels, and we both bought some cute earrings. 

It's hard to say which of them has a better facial expression here. 

There was also a zipline!

Elliot Blood, master of earth and air. And also tape. 

On the day before Mother's Day, Annie and I went to a "Moms and Mermaids" event at the clubhouse. It was adorable! They had aquatic tattoos, hairclips, and bracelets for us and this cute photo backdrop set up. Then we got in the pool for some mermaid-themed water zumba that fortunately did not induce labor. 

After that, the "real" mermaid showed up! She read a book to the kids and had bubbles to give to everyone. Then she scooted to the pool where she swam about dropping "mermaid gold" for the kids to dive for. As expected, Annie and Ellie got thoroughly distracted doing flips in the water. A good time was had by all. 

Another thing worth noting is that a woman in our ward opened a business called Mindforge at our local shopping center. It's awesome! You can drop in and check out board games, puzzles, STEM activities, and lego sets to play with there. The tables have intricate lego scenes covered in resin. It's a really cool place and our kids keep asking to go back!

They even have a toddler play area to keep the littles entertained while the older ones play. A local art teacher painted the giant mural. It's really cool to see this one woman's dream come to life!

Easter & Rattlesnake Battle

We had another good Easter season this year! I really liked pulling out our Easter decorations and candles, and doing activities at home during Holy Week from the packet we had from last year. 

Our ward did an excellent job of supporting Easter celebrations. They started things off with a Potluck and Egg Hunt at the church. We did some prep with our crochet eggs at home, so Felix was properly prepared and delighted to be collecting eggs. 

Examining the loot

Naturally, Annie finds every way possible to be upside down

At the potluck, they announced that they a couple of people in the ward with laser cutters had made a beautiful wood cut Easter Nativity for each family in the ward. Each day during Holy week, there was a table in a ward member's front yard with a piece to add to the scene, and a page with some activity ideas and suggested reading for all ages. Our ward boundary is small enough that we were able to go on daily walks to collect our pieces and put it together. We loved it. 

On Palm Sunday, a woman in our ward organized a prank on the men where all the guys would show up with the same tie. The plan was that each family would tell their husbands and sons that since General Conference was on Easter, we were going to take a cute Easter family picture in coordinated colors at church on Palm Sunday. Aaron immediately suspected something because I would never actually think of a plan like that, but he played along with it. Elliot figured it out in the parking lot walking into church, and Isaac didn't realize that he matched everyone else until we pointed it out. 

I actually do like the cute color coordinated family picture we ended up with!

I decided that I wanted to snag some live palms from Casa Johnson on our way home from church. We were walking to the backyard... and I almost stepped on a rattlesnake right outside of the door! Grumpa jumped into action to dispatch the rattler while we watched through the window. He couldn't find the flat tipped shovel, so he went at it with what turned out to be a very blunt hoe. He couldn't get the head off. He had it pinned and very mad. I went to see if I could find the flat shovel and also failed, so I came out with a pick ax and finished him off with that. 

Elliot requested the rattle as a keepsake of our unanticipated encounter.

I told this story on a group chat with some friends, and Hannah plugged it into AI to make this glorious picture of me fighting a rattlesnake with a pickaxe. 

My other friend chimed in that it would be more accurate with an easter dress and pregnant belly. 

Needless to say, this was one of the highlights of my year. 

After that, we went back to some more traditional Easter activities. We tried using a marker and tinfoil method to color eggs, but didn't like that some of the marker got to the egg beneath. We all survived the contaminated devils eggs, but will skip out on it next year. 

Easter Dinner was a lovely event at Casa Johnson with Stephen's family and Papa. I love celebrating this holiday and having an extra dose of the Savior in our lives!

Spring Break in LA

The highlight of our Spring Break was visiting Max and Morgan in LA! This was an overwhelmingly delightful trip. These guys are great planners and very gifted at knowing people well enough to suggest what activities to do. They planned a visit that was tailor made for our family, complete with a slide deck  to get us hyped before we came. 

We made great time on our drive and got to their house earlier than expected, which meant we had time to go to a nearby park after dinner. 

 

Felix loooooves Morgan!

Somi Somi ice cream in Koreatown was so creamy and good, especially the Ube flavor! They are famous for their fish waffle cones. 

Isaac refused to hold anyone's hand except for Max's for 90% of this trip. 

Annie requested that we pop into this ultra pink store. I didn't think much of it, but she asked if we had time to go back to Koreatown to "look at more cool stores... also can you show me what anime is?" several times. 

The next morning, Max took people to his rock climbing gym while I failed to get Felix to take a nap. The gym is built in an old brewery with cool old brick everywhere. 

Isaac had qualms, but ended up having a good time!

Annie had no qualms, but ended up bruising her butt!

Elliot did ok regarding both qualms and butts. 

Lunch was at a Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown. This was one of my favorite meals -although everywhere they took us to eat was delicious! They also did a great job of picking casual hole in the wall type places where we wouldn't have to be too worried about our kids being the heathens that they occasionally are.

Zoom in on Aaron for some comic relief, because we couldn't snap a picture of me mispronouncing "pho" a bajillion times.

Oh, Isaac. 

The next stop was some cool tidepools. Getting there was a bit of an adventure- we were on the highway when I noticed that one of our tires had pressure down to 14psi. We took the next exit and put some air in at the first gas station we came to, then looked for a tire shop. There was a super well reviewed one only 3 minutes away. The guy pulled the nail out and patched it in 20 minutes for $20 and sent us on our way! It could have been a far bigger disaster than it was- luck was on our side this trip!

Rocks and water will always be my happy place. It was a perfect day to check out the tidepools. 

Aaron gets a shout out for carrying a squirmy Felix the whole time without busting an ankle on the loose rocks. 

Check out the colors of that anemone!

We hiked all the way to the far distant rocky outcropping. We had very disparate paces but all made it there and back in one piece. It was probably good for my 6 month pregnant self to have to go at a slow Isaac pace. 

Annie happily joined Max and Morgan's family picture

Look closely! Literally every crack in the rocks had a wee little crab hiding in it. They were so cute!

It turns out we couldn't get the wee crabs and Annie in focus at the same time, but I do love her face here, so it gets to be immortalized. 

Dinner that night was Aunty Mailie's Hawaiian food. We slept well that night!

Friday morning was spent at Griffith Park, which is HUGE! First we checked out what used to be the Griffith Zoo. It was a small zoo in operation from the late 1800's through the 1960's, when they built a bigger and better zoo nearby. They moved all the animals over, but decided to turn the nicely landscaped zoo exhibits into a park accessible by the public. They took down the fences so that you can walk straight into the old exhibits. Some even have picnic tables in them! 

"Rar, mom is making us take pictures in an abandoned zoo"

Here we are channeling the energy of the ancient polar bear that used to live here.

I think I win the monkey contest

My wild ones <3

Elliot was delighted to point out that I lied to them. I had promised there would be no animals there anymore, but there was a big, black stick bug living there (much to Felix's delight). I'll never live it down. 

Max took the big kids climbing up behind the exhibits to check out the zookeeper access staircases. Some police came up to talk to me and Morgan right after they started climbing, and we thought we were going to get in trouble. It turned out that the police were using the park for some bike training. They very politely asked us to move so that we wouldn't be hit by the very fresh recruits. Next time we will seek to be rebellious enough to have a more exciting police encounter. 

This is a good time to highlight some of the slides that Max made before the trip. They crack me up.

PS- the sandwiches were yummy.

After our abandoned zoo picnic, we drove to another corner of Griffiths park to see the observatory. There was a great view of the Hollywood sign and all of LA spread before us from this awesome vantage point!

I feel like we don't build pretty buildings like this anymore.

The entrance to the observatory had an elaborate mural painted on the dome ceiling. It features characters from celestial mythology. Aaron looked up at Saturn, the Titan who eats his lil' god children in Roman mythology, and decided it is a pretty accurate representation of Isaac at dinnertime grimacing at whatever torture we put into his bowl. 

The planetarium was refreshingly cool on a hot day! Felix wouldn't stay still though, and he fell while climbing lap to lap. I had to take him out partway through. I hear the rest of the show was inspirational. 

We headed home for some rest and naps, featuring the movie "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" to fill Annie's anime desires. It was actually super good. 

Note the taco related fun fact. Tacos Al Cabron had the most delicious potato-based Mexican food I have ever tasted, and I am bitterly disappointed that I can't find any recipes for what I ate there on the internet. 

Saturday morning featured the La Brea Tar Pits. This place is an active paleontology site with Ice Age fossils still being pulled from natural asphalt pits. There were multiple pits that we could stroll through, and the active excavation pit had a tally board with how many specimens they had excavated, broken down by species. 

Tar pits: the perfect mix of icky and fascinating. 

Snuggling up with the flat faced bear

This might look like a display you would see in a Foot Locker store, but it is actually a wall of dire wolf skulls from the pits!

This exhibit was a highlight of the museum. We all love a good feat of strength. 

I'm glad I don't live in the Ice Age with all the megafauna. The dioramas make mammoth hunting look quite daunting. 

Elliot is pretty sure he could hang with the saber toothed cats. 

Sorting some micro-fossils

There's an impressive greenhouse in the middle of the museum that is meant to be a Pleistocene Garden, representing plants some of the plants that have been found in the pits. The kids soon gathered up some unusual seed pods and flowers that had fallen on the path. 

Elliot with his Pleistocene plant collection

After a rest back at the house, we headed to Isaac's favorite part of the whole trip- Galcos! This is an old grocery store that was converted to be filled entirely with sodas and old fashioned candy. Max treated us to a soda each. 

Aaron was sad about Leninade, and about the sugar content consumed.

After our fizzy delights, we headed over to the Bob Baker Marionette Theater to watch a production called "Hooray LA." This ended up being a highlight of the trip! It was cool having it at the end and seeing many of the sites we had visited highlighted in the marionette show. It was a high quality show that both the adults and kids got a kick out of. 

These oil rig puppets were literally kicking. I was quite amused. Felix was obsessed with the birthday dog puppets and the bears that drove the little cars and kept asking for them to come back. 

Annie got her cheek stroked by the tail of the black cat

There were ghost puppets playing on bone xylophones as a shout-out to the La Brea Tar Pits.

There was an awesome playground with a snake slide right across the street from the theater that we had time to play at before heading over to our novel-flavored pizza dinner. 

Max is known for his love of ranking things, so he collected some data on our last night there. It was interesting seeing how split we were on lots of the activities! The La Brea Tar Pits was the most divisive stop- it was very highly ranked by me, Elliot, and Aaron, but at the very bottom of Max, Annie, and Isaac's rankings. The Marionette show was the the highest overall rated, followed by the Observatory and Tide Pools. 

We will surely be back again!