The Last Day

Our last full day in town was on a Monday and we had originally planned to spend the whole day with Nick's mom.  Unfortunately, she was unexpectedly scheduled to work that day so we had to figure out something to do to occupy our time until she got off work. Daddy was nice enough to take us to Funderland!  Since I am pregnant, Nick was a trooper and took Sienna on the rides.  They rode the merry go round, the train and the tea cups!

 After Mama Hudson got off work we raced over and hang out, met her new friend Gary and ate a delicious dinner.  Sienna loves Grandma time!

We were so happy that we were able to spend some time with Nick's Mom and Grandma even though it wasn't as much time as we would have liked.  We are currently in the process of trying to convince her to come up to Idaho and see us soon!

The Wedding

Aunt Katie got Married!  Saturday morning I got the opportunity to go and help Katie get ready for the wedding.  It was so fun spending that time together eating donuts and sharing in the excitement of the day.  We love Uncle Josh and we were so happy that we could share in their special day.  Sienna was taken immediately by Josh and his kids, especially his son Jackson.  We are so excited to have them as a part of our family now!  Here are a few pictures we took and proof that Nick was actually with us on this trip.

The ceremony was at the World Peace Rose Garden in Capitol Park and it was beautiful!  Katie of course look beautiful and both families seemed really happy.

 

After the ceremony we took pictures and then had lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory.  An added bonus for me was that my good friend was Katie's photographer so I was able to hang out with her a little bit during lunch.  The reception is also where Sienna decided that she would try out holding her new cousin Wade.

Sienna also, unsurprisingly, spent the entire reception hanging with Aunt Rachel.  I love the special bond those two have.  It was a perfect day.

Random Family Fun

Baby Wade was blessed by his Daddy on the Thursday night that we were in California.  It was a really amazing experience to not only have both families there to support this sweet boy and his family but to have it done in there home.  I didn't take any pictures but trust me it was a really special night.

The next morning we all met up at the park by Aunt Sam's house to let the cousins play together and I got the chance to hold Wade for the first time!  Sam and Jake have such a handsome, sweet baby.  Sienna was a little unsure at first but eventually she did warm up to him the next day and even wanted to hold him.

Uncle Bubba is the best!  Sienna was too scared to go through this tunnel because she was sure she was going to fall through but it was the only way to get to a certain slide.  Uncle Bubba to the rescue!  He really did lay across the tunnel and let the kids climb over him so they could get to the slide.  He takes being an Uncle very seriously. :)

 

This is actually a different day, at a different park but here is a picture of us with Mama and Papa.  Sienna had fallen asleep in the car hence her shyness is this particular picture.  We miss them already!

 

One of my favorite parts of this trip was getting to see Sienna play with all of her cousins.  I'm so glad that we were able to find downtime to all just hang out together as a family.

California Revisited

I've been procrastinating on blogging, because I'm super tired from being knocked up (which I should probably blog about) but also because we had a fun little excursion I wanted to blog about but the pictures are still on Nick's phone.  I am now at the point were I'm getting too far behind so I need to do something before I give up forever.  On that note, in April we made a trip to California AND Nick got to come with us this time.

This trip was very centered on my family with a wedding, a baby blessing, and my parents visiting from their mission, but we did find time to spend with our good friends, the Volp Family and Nick's family as well.  We spent our first night with the Volps as kind of a calm before the storm of family goodness.  We spent our first day by going to the temple and then having the daddies meet us after their driving range date for a picnic on the grounds.  The kids of course loved the fountain and Sienna died over all the flowers.  The only bummer was that we didn't see a single turkey!

 We spent time just hanging out at the house as well.  Most of the time it looked like this:

Sienna seriously adores that cat!  We also found time the next day to hit the Nimbus Fish Hatchery before we headed down to Elk Grove for baby Wade's blessing.  Nick's watch was still on Idaho time so we spent the first half of our visit freaking out that it was going to close soon only to realize that we still had a whole other hour before that happened!  We got to feed the fish, watch them go crazy and see the visitor's center.  We had a pretty good time for 75 cents (the amount we spent on food for the fish).

We love getting to spend time with Ashley, Brandon and Vance!  We are so excited to see them when they come visit us this summer. 

My Best Friend's Wedding

A couple of weeks ago I got to take a Mommy trip to Virginia to see my best friend D get married!  Disclaimer:  Her real name is Jessica, but we had another roommate with the same name so she got dubbed D, due to her maiden name.  She and I were roommates back in college and to this day she is still one of my favorite people in the whole world.  She has been kind enough to come out to California three times to visit (fun, wedding, Sienna blessing) and this was my first time out to Virginia...I'm such a slacker.  

We had such a good time reconnecting and mostly hanging out.  We did get a chance to get our nails done which was kind of a highlight for me!  She got married on Friday so we had to wake up super early to get ready and get to the Washington DC temple on time.  This was us late Thursday night staying up way too late for our own good.

The Washington DC temple is BEAUTIFUL and huge!  Seriously, it has seven floors.  

 

 

I didn't actually meet her husband until the day of the wedding but he seemed incredibly nice and I am so happy for the two of them.  She looked beautiful, the sealing was amazing and they both seemed very in love and happy.  I was so glad that I was able to be there!

 

 

It was fun to get to see her family and meet some of them that I had heard so much about but hadn't yet met.  I was also able to connect to one of her other friends, who was so amazing that whole weekend.

This trip was really important to me and definitely happened due to the sacrifices of others.  I am so thankful to my husband, sister and some good friends who made it so that I never worried about Sienna (who had entirely too much fun without me).  I'm also thankful to my parents who helped with the expenses that come with traveling across the country.  Also, I'm forever in debt to D and her family for taking care of me and dealing with my crazy travel schedule.  I'm just really grateful that I was able to be there and share in her joy that weekend.

February

So....February was overall kind of a bust for us.  My sent most of it taking turns being sick.  Nick was recovering from having his gallbladder removed and I started off the sickness with strep throat that felt like it took a ridiculously long time to go away.  Almost immediately after I started feeling better Sienna got a wicked cold that she passed to me and then eventually to Nick.  No joke we sent a lot of last month as one big hot mess!  A few good things did get sprinkled in there though, one being the Valentine's Ball ward activity.

Our ward planned a great dance for the whole family.  I was a little skeptical on how fun it would actually be.  I had visions of bad youth dances running through my head but was pleasantly surprised by how awesome it was.  There is something special about seeing older couples slow dancing, daddys with their little girls on their shoes, little boys break dancing and girls of all ages screaming with excitement when the DJ played Roar by Katy Perry.  They even had a photo booth!  My one complaint was that they sent the pictures to us in black and white which was a bummer because all the props were so colorful. 

Sienna and her pal Jace

Sienna and I

We had so much fun, but were bummed that Daddy had to work that night.  We danced for him though and had lots of delicious treats.  When we got home we both crashed which is of course a sign of  a good night. :)

Sunbeams!

We haven't done a whole lot around here lately due to a few things:  the cold weather, sickness and Nick's gallbladder surgery.  Mostly it's been boardgames, cartoons and healing around our house the last few weeks.  However, something big did happen and before I forget I want to make sure it makes it's way to the blog!

Sienna became a Sunbeam in January!  We missed her first week because we were driving home from California but she was very excited about the idea.  Here is a picture of her last day in Nursery with Brother May.  She LOVED her nursery teachers!

This is Sienna's first day of Sunbeams...before church, very excited.

 

The idea was appealing but actually going turned out to be a different story.   She cried...ALOT and her teacher literally had to peel her off me and then still ended up bringing her to me like five minutes later.  I took her back and let her borrow my necklace and she did fine after that.  Not surprisingly, she loves her class and her teacher now.  She even said the second article faith a week ago in " Big Primary."  My favorite parts were when she said women instead of men and pronounced transgressions as trans-gresh-ums.  It was beautiful!  She is getting so big ...but she still wishes that she were four... :)