Old friends at Disneyland

The kids and I went to Disneyland last night along with my friend Kym's daughter Meg. She is 12 and was so much fun and help! Thanks Meg! It was an exciting day at Disneyland. It rained on and off most of the day, and while Meg and the girls were in line for the roller coaster, it stopped working. They were disappointed, but quickly realized it could be worse when we saw that there were people stuck in the middle of the ride in the pouring rain. In the evening we met up with my old friend Rodney Jay, who I haven't seen in probably 10 years. It was so much fun to see him and meet his beautiful wife and kids. We had a great time catching up, and hopefully we'll be able to get together again soon. On our way out of the park the kids got to say hi to an old friend as well.

I was excited that they all wanted to say hi and be in the picture. It is blurry because it was dark and I have no flash on my phone. So despite the rain it was another great day at the park.

A fun day at the beach

We've decided we really like Oceanside Harbor. They have free parking right next to the beach, a shower for cleaning the sand off your feet, pavilions, and firepits. We went there last Saturday when the weather was warm and beautiful. I finally saw Blake catch some good waves on his surfboard. There are rocks that go way out in the water so we were closer to where Blake was surfing. I took some pictures with my phone. I couldn't zoom in though, so you might have to squint to see him.

That's him paddling out. He looked a lot closer in real life.

Hopefully you can click on the picture to enlarge it. If not than take my word for it, this is Blake surfing.

And here he is finishing his ride in. Way to go Blake!

We also had a fun time building things in the sand. Blake and Kaleb built a drip sand castle, and Bex and Emily each had fun making sand animals. I liked this shadow picture of us.

A very fun day at the beach.

New photos and a visit revisited

I've uploaded all the pictures that were on my phone, which were quite a lot since I have forgotten to take the camera the last few times we've gone somewhere. That doesn't really matter though anymore since my phone takes pictures almost as well as our camera does. (Sigh) The pictures date back to before Thanksgiving, up to last night at Disneyland, so enjoy.

I had to put some of my favorite pictures on here though. The first few are from Tom and Di's trip here with their kids last month. We had so much fun being with them. Here is Lily playing peek-a-boo with me at Legoland. Too cute:

We also had a great time hanging out with them at their resort. Here's Emily going down the big slide. She loved this slide and went on it over and over again.

And here are Kaleb, Sam and Lily enjoying the water playground, although it was pretty cold. They all enjoyed hanging out in the hot tub with Tom to warm up.

Bad word

Yesterday I heard Becky and Kaleb having an argument. He walked into the room upset. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, "Becky said a bad word at me." I asked what the word was, concerned that she might be picking up on some bad language at school. He replied very seriously, "Whatever!" I had a very hard time trying not to laugh, but I am glad that he considers 'whatever' a bad word. Lets hope that sticks.

Santa Anas

We have now lived in California for a year. It's hard to believe but true. I'm still not used to a lot of things, like flowers blooming in January, and trees that never lose their leaves and stay green year-round, although those things are nice. But this week we are experiencing Santa Ana "winds". It hasn't really been windy, but it has been incredibly warm. In fact today it's supposed to get up to 84 degrees, and it's the middle of January! Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining one bit, although mowing the lawn is getting old. It's just taking some getting used to. Kaleb and I took advantage of the nice weather to go to the beach yesterday.

He had tons of fun chasing the birds and playing in the sand. Just last week our temperatures got down to the 30s, and I'm sure they'll get back there again soon, but for now I say bring on the Santa Anas!

How Many of Me

My friend had name stats on her blog with the website (thanks Kristy). I found it very interesting, and wanted to share.

Blake

-There are 56,529 people in the U.S. with the first name Blake
-Statistically the 736th most popular first name

There is only 1 person in the US with the name Blake Torgersen

Jenae

-There are 1,528 people in the U.S. with the first name Jenae (2 in my ward!)
-Statistically the 4019th most popular first name

There is only 1 person in the US with the name Jenae Torgersen

Becky

-There are 100,836 people in the U.S. with the first name Becky
-Statistically the 526th most popular first name

There is only 1 person in the US with the name Becky Torgersen

Emily

-There are 317,785 people in the U.S. with the first name Emily
-Statistically the 196th most popular first name

There are only 2 people in the US with the name Emily Torgersen (the other one is Blake's cousin)

Kaleb

-There are fewer than 1,528 people in the U.S. with the first name Kaleb
-Kaleb's name is so rare, they don't have a statistic for it's popularity

There is only 1 person in the US with the name Kaleb Torgersen

So we are all very unique, which we already knew, especially since this website shows only 1,558 people in the US with the last name of Torgersen.

If you are interested in finding your own name stats the website is http://www.howmanyofme.com/

Fun with a box gone wrong

Last Friday we went to the Wild Animal Park. When Shaunalei's family came to visit last April, we all got passes and went to the zoo. The passes also included the Wild Animal Park, but we never took the time to go, until Friday. It was a little cold, but it was great! We were there for hours, and still only saw maybe half of the park.

The funniest thing happened when we went to see the gorillas. As we were walking toward them, I saw a gorilla walking with an open box around it's middle. We started laughing and Blake tried to get our camera out, but before he could, the box broke. The gorilla was not at all happy with the box breaking. At first it threw the remains down, then it started ripping the box apart. After a bit of ripping, it put what remained of the box on its back, walked until it fell off, then continued to rip it apart. It was very entertaining. Since our "good" camera died, we're using our underwater camera now, which only works if the lighting is perfect, but you can still spot the gorilla if you look hard.


We also wanted to go on the safari tour before it got too dark. We headed over there and saw a huge herd of wild beasts! Luckily, we just had to put up with them for about an hour before the tour began.


It was a very fun, and tiring day.

Feeling loved

I loved this holiday season. Blake took the last two Fridays off, plus had Christmas and New Year's off, so we had a lot of family time, which was great. We cleaned up all the Christmas stuff, including the tree the Saturday after Christmas. I got a cheap tree, and there was a HUGE pile of pine needles underneath it. I swept up what I could, but that still left a lo! I had quite the time trying to vacuum them up. They kept clogging our cheap vacuum, so I had to vacuum some up, then bang the hose against the floor to help the pine needles make it into the vacuum. It took forever, but I was glad to get it done. After cleaning everything up, I walked into the kitchen to take down our Christmas cards, but decided I wanted to leave them up for a while. I love them! It's so fun to hear from everyone and see how families have grown and changed. Here is where we put our Christmas cards this year:

That's the door to our pantry, if you couldn't tell. They are still up. Thanks to all for making us feel so loved. We love you all and miss you!