The Week Before School Starts

Summer is over and School has started!

But that's not what this post is about.

This is summarizing a few highlights of the last week of summer.

Since we start so late I've already seen enough first day of school pictures to last a lifetime, but ours are still coming. 

Back to summer. This was the key to my (partial) sanity of grocery shopping:

 Samples and heelies.

I give full credit to Amy who found Macey a pair 

and told me the way to learn is at the grocery store.

Not only did it keep my naughty bored kids from running cause they would fall,

but it entertained them and was great balance/heelie practice.

Genius!!

 Mackayla has been riding her new bike all over town. She loves it!

 We hit up our favorite waterpark once more.

 This is random, but I sometimes crack up at the things Mackayla wants to wear (princess crowns and lots of jewelry). Sometimes I feel kinda like she's fancy nancy and we're the plain lame family she was given.

 The girls had a little ballet/tap showcase:

 Banana!

 After dance we snuck in one last ward beach day.

We collected water bottles this summer and with the money they earned they got a treat at the snack bar at the beach.

 Kayla loves taking random pictures on my phone. Here's 1 of 50: 

 We went on a hike along the dirt paths in the area one day. There were tons of crazy spider webs. This time of year is so creepy with gigantic spiders everywhere! Just in time for Halloween I guess.

 

LA: The Getty, Temple and Diddy Riese

Before school started, we took a day trip to LA:

The Getty Museum

The LA Temple

Diddy Riese.

They are all really close by each other, and for that amount of driving in that amount of traffic, it was perfect to hit all three in one day!

The Getty is one of the most visited museums in the US.

It's free...so that is a bonus. It has quite an impressive collection!

I'm not an art history major, so I felt like a lot of the importance was lost on me. Still, I was impressed.

Loved the outdoor gardens.

Kids are very welcome there. They even have a kids section with a bunch of cute activities.

They created a still life

Created a sculpture

Slept on a royal french bed

and jumped on it

Here's the real one, they didn't actually touch-

Speaking of touching things. When we first got there Macey touched one of the paintings. I didn't even realize it and she had no idea how serious it was. One of the security guards saw her and ran over, calling in a code red on his walkie talkie. He very seriously inspected the painting and then gave me the lecture of a lifetime. I was sure he was going to make me pay $10,000 for microscopic fingerprint repairs.

Anyway, after that the kids were so well behaved, whispered, walked, never touched anything. It made my job easy. In one of the other rooms we saw a kid hanging from a sculpture and you could hear audible gasps from all three of the kids.

I get it though. This painting, Van Gogh's Irises, was last sold for $53 million (it is unknown how much The Getty paid for it).

I let the kids just stand by random favorite things they chose in a room and get their picture taken:)

(Someone was unhappy about someone touching them-)

 A famous still life. I should know who/what. and I forgot.  

Was this the kids favorite thing we did this summer?

No.

(We did this on a weekday so Ben wouldn't have to come, he would never want to go!)

But they got a little culture all the same.

They liked it a little, and got to ride a tram to get here, and no one complained! Win!

 Diddy Riese on UCLA campus is well known for having delicious homemade ice cream sandwiches for really cheap so we stopped to check out all the hype.

 After all the chaos of those it was so great to come here:

 I told the kids to go touch the temple. 

 Our prophet said "Touch the temple and the temple will touch you."

So we took it literally.

 The temple was closed so we were the only ones there.

It was so peaceful and quiet compared to the rest of the chaos we had been to before.
The kids could feel the difference, too.

The temple really is a peaceful place.

Not sure what the theme is in the next pictures, but the kids were into it 

 We made it over to the visitors center for just a few minutes before it was time to go to beat rush hour. 

A perfect day trip before school started!

Just Another Day

It's Ben's birthday!

Shh, he doesn't like showy celebrations or too much attention!

Today was the hottest day of 2015...so we went swimming to celebrate.
We thought Cody looked like an owl in this pic with his goggle eyes.

Mackayla adores Ben.

The other day at the waterpark (labor day) she looked over at him in the pool and said:

"Dad looks like a minecraft giant!"

Which was apparently a compliment because she added:

"He's so big and strong."

More than one person has asked if these are decorations:
haha

#workboots

 A favorite meal of Ben's we had for his bday
(even though it doesn't look amazing, it is...my food/picture taking skills haha)

Crock Pot Chicken and Artichokes

1/2 lb. fresh mushrooms, sliced

2 Tsp butter

1 (14 oz.) can chicken broth

4 chicken breasts (3 lb.)

1 (14 oz.) can artichoke hearts, drained

1/4 c. butter

1/4 c flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

3/4 c milk or half & half

1/2 c parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp rosemary or fresh rosemary

Put chicken breasts and chicken broth, s&p, and rosemary in crock pot on low 6-8 hours

An hour before:

Saute mushrooms in 2 T butter, set aside.

Top chicken with artichoke hearts.

Melt 1/4 c butter in pan, add flour s&p until smooth.

Stir in milk/cream. Cook and stir and mixture boils and thickens. Add some broth from chicken. Blend in parmesan cheese.

Pour over artichokes and chicken. Sprinkle mushrooms down center.

Add fresh parmesan on top before serving.

Barbie Party - Macey

Macey went to one of our good friends' parties this summer.

Such a darling party - Barbie visited them :)

Her dad is a professional photographer and took some pictures there - they turned out so cute. That worked out well!