San Francisco Peaks

In our last few weeks we are trying to visit all our favorite places in northern Arizona. Our mountains, called the San Francisco Peaks are quite beautiful.

The meadow was covered in wild flowers.

These beautiful orange butterflies (I actually think they are some kind of moth) were all over.

While passing through the meadow, Charlotte was talking about wanting to see a dear. I told her that we often see deer on the mountain road, but I've never seen one up this high. Then Olivia says "there's one" and points to the side. Sure enough a young buck was trotting though the meadow-he was too fast for a picture. It was funny.  

View from the top. Actually we are only about half way up the mountain, where the ski lodge parking lot is. The full mountain reaches 14,000 feet.  I've hiked it several times, once while pregnant. Good old Charlie even made it to the summit once with me. It is a lovely hike. I will miss seeing this mountain in the backdrop each day.

Happy Independence Day!

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The girls were pretty cute decked out in their red, white and blue!

Livy sure thinks she is funny. 

For the first time in 12 years we had a cloudy rainy 4th of July. It was great. Usually,  the 90 minute parade is a bit miserable because of the heat. We really enjoyed it this year. 

Hopi kids in their native costumes. I loved the black and white  striped kid. 

One of the few real floats-it was so cute. 

Miniature militants-isn't that cute! (The crowed really cheered these guys. I'm not sure I agree with little boys with toy riffles-but you had to admit the mini-jeep was super cool.)

What's a parade without some cotton candy-boy was she sticky. 

Even Finn was feeling patriotic. 

Ahh, isn't he sweet. 

This picture is downright freaky! Scott was tossing him a chunk of bread.  It was a fun day. After the parade we went and saw Brave. We fired up the grill for dinner and then took the girls to the park.
Happy 4th. 

Naughty Dog

Finn is smiling because he won the couch battle. He's not supposed to be up there, but I figure he's already got the couch all hairy so he might as well stay. Naughty Dog.

Birthday Girl

Olivia turned 3 on the 9th of June. We had a party at home and went swimming after. I made her cute cupcake outfit especially for her Birthday.

Here's the Birthday girl peeking at her presents. 

This is her excitement as her cake arrives at the table.

Big Jet Cake! Olivia requested a big jet cake. He is the "bad" character from her favorite cartoon The Little Einsteins.  She loved it!

She was very pleased with this mermaid Lalaloopsey.; she's had her eye on her for months. 

I thought it was time the girls learn to roller skate. This was Charlotte's consolation prize.  The learning is going very slowly, but doesn't she look cute! 

Olivia hopped in her skates and took right off.  

Our big three year old. Olivia is such a ray of sunshine. She's always ready for a smile and a laugh.  

The Minnie love continues.  She saw this "Minnie headband" and had to have it. 

Disneyland Day 2

 On our second day in Disneyland we spent a lot of time meeting characters.  

I love this picture of Olivia, this was her face right before it was her turn to finally meet Minnie. 

Minnie was simply too cute!

Then we headed off to Pixie Hollow to meet some favorite faeries. 

This is Vidia, she is the bratty, bad attitude fairy that Charlotte loves. 

The girls were very excited to meet Tinker Bell. 

In Toon Town we met Pluto. 

This is Minnie's house, everything was so cute. 

How does Minnie stay so slim while eating so much cheese?

I took a rare opportunity to rest my feet. 

We had to ride on the Horse trolley. This is Sulley. According to the driver he is a rather cheeky guy. She told us that one day someone walk under his head and he grabbed a bite of their churro. 

Olivia and Daddy had a blast playing in Tarzan's tree house. 

Waiting for the parade. 

The parade was fabulous, with lots of dazzling sites, great dancers and fun music. 

This princess float was a big hit. There were 5 princesses aboard. All the little girls in the audience were squealing, including ours. 

The tea cups ended up being one of their favorite rides. They are hugging thier dinosaurs they got in Adventure land. Thanks Grandma Sherrie for the spending money!

Dumbo was another popular choice. I think he is the cutest ride in the whole park. We rode on Dumbo about 5 times.  

Goodbye Disneyland, hopefully we can come visit again in a year or two.  

Fun in the sun

While in California we spent a day at Huntington Beach.

Olivia got busy shoveling sand right away. 

Charlotte ran in the ocean for the first time. 

She ran and ran and got all wet. 

She was feeling happy as a clam!

Olivia was not so excited about the ocean. As soon as she got wet she went running. 

She got right back to shoveling and shoveled for hours. Eventually she got completely fatigued  and threw an impressive fit-there were arms and legs and sand flying all around. It was kind of hilarious. 

Charlotte and I spent a good part of the day hunting for seashells. Right before Olivia's epic fit, we found a n awesome spot where beautiful shells were washing up with every wave-it was too bad we had to leave. But, not before collecting a couple dozen treasures. 

Aren't they pretty! She has since been taking them out of the bucket daily and lining them up in rows and selling them at a "seashell store". 

It was a gorgeous day-it felt so good considering we had snow in Flagstaff just a few weeks ago. 

While taking this photo Charlotte said "why would anyone want a picture of feet?" I'm not sure why I did. But, I think Olivia's little piggies look so cute all covered in sand. 

After our day at the beach, Charlotte asked if next time we can spend one day in Disneyland and two days at the beach. I thought that was a great idea. They loved Disneyland, but there is nothing like a no schedule day just for playing with  Mom and Dad.