Living large Flandro style

About three week ago we went camping in the Uintas in Utah with my family.

It was awesome. I hadn't done that kind of real (tent) camping for a LONG time.

The best thing by far was being able to spend time with my family (and to finally find an 

appropriate place to exude my body odor in). 

Gramps, Granny and most of the Grands

A pyramid of cuteness

A friendly jog in mountains

 Ha Jyn hitching a ride on Granny to our home for the week.

My dad in his natural habitat

 Me floating on my dad's fishing inter tube.

Moose sighting! 

Spreading germs the old fashioned way

Running! 

Butterfly lake and my Madre with a geo cache she found. 

Hiking

Throwing rocks with Annika

A stop in Reno to check in on our leaky tire.

Lucky we did. They found a nail lodged in it. That could have

made for one ugly night on the I-80.

 We had a great time and hope to be able to make it a yearly 

tradition. Now I miss my family all over again.

A family that smells together stays together. 

4th of July and other shenanigans

A few updates from before our big camping trip:

I recently found out that Ha Jyn gets in free to the local theater and that Monday is free popcorn day.

We don't have a TV so it is a special treat to go and watch a movie. (and the popcorn makes the two movies we have seen so far bearable for me. )

An impromptu temple trip.

Berry picking with the boyfriend...

And the best friend!

Ha Jyn's first go at homemade lemonade. 

Ha Jyn with her prizes from finishing her summer reading program. 

My alter ego at the 4th of July parade. 

One happy American

An awesome flag cake to ring in the 4th. 

 The music was great at the Monterey Laser show, 

but if Boo and I had brought our own laser pointers the amount of lasers would have

doubled. Fireworks are just a 4th of July must. 

That's right, winter coats on the 4th of July.

Only in Monterey.

Mitt Romney is ruining my life!

Ever since we got back from our trip Boo has been swamped with translating Mitt Romney's 

autobiography into Korean. (He's one of several people who are doing the project together) He comes home from work, has a bite to eat and then translates Romney until the wee

hours. So basically Mitt Romney is RUINING my life!! 

I keep begging Boo to add just a few of his own words into the biography. 

Example: "My FOUR wives and I...."

But he won't do it!

I like Romney better than other republicans GOPs in the past,

but I have major bones to pick about his views on Health Care 

and Immigration laws among other things.

In the end for me its all about who has the better impersonator on 

Saturday Night Live. Whoever makes me laugh harder gets my vote...

Unless I am laughing at them, than the other one gets my vote. 

So sans Boo, Ha Jyn and I have managed to survive by:

Berry picking in Watsonville.

Chances are if you are in the mainland united states your berries come

from Watsonville, California. 

                                          

Ha Jyn's doing her five finger discount.

Living it up at the beach,

We watched a gigantic cruise ship dock in the bay.

                             

Making our garden deer-unfriendly.

A deer got to all our strawberries and most of our lettuce. 

I was always mad at my Dad when he would go hunting and shoot a deer.

I however would not be mad if he came over and took care of the one that is attacking our garden! 

 Ha Jyn got supper attached to our one carrot that grew.

Time to bust out the canning gear for our enormous carrot yeild!

We randomly found this tiny beach that is tucked away.

It has become our new hideout spot. Other people go there, but mostly we have it 

to ourselves. 

Getting some precious Papa time, doing what we do best. 

Running on the beach.

 Making her a princess skirt so she can be the octopus-princess she 

was always meant to be. 

Summer begins!! Long post-lots of pictures

After complaining over and over to my parents about how 

summer less and horrible Monterey can be,  how I had no sun to look forward to my mom 

said she would come to visit. 

Even better she brought reinforcements! 

I have been wanting Alex and Emma to come and visit since day 

one of living in Monterey.  

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Mom and

Dad for making it happen!!

In the few days they were here we were able to see a lot of Monterey's

highlights:

Our favorite fishing spot.

San Francisco

The Monterey Bay Aquarium

Sunset at Asilomar

 Whale Watching

At one point the boat was in the middle of a pod of whales that were surrounding

the boat.

Surprisingly there are a lot of un-popped helium balloons just off the bay of 

Monterey. On our whale watching trip we saw at least 8 bunches of balloons just wading in the deep blue. So make sure you POP your balloons people! 

However the best quote of the trip came from Alex after seeing a stray green star-shaped balloon.

(Mimicking the captain's voice) "Oh and off to the left you can see the elusive green star balloon. It's an endangered species, we are very lucky to see it today folks!" 

I was dying I was laughing so hard. That kid cracks me up!

And after the whale watching was over we packed our bags and headed 

to St. George Utah.

Beach babe turned pool diva.

Next we headed up north to Salt Lake City. 

Ha Jyn experienced a Zoo for the first time.

"Mama remember when I rode the Cheetah and Moosh rode the Elephant on the round

and round? Remember?!" Ha Jyn says this to me at least twice a day. 

It made me realize two things: 1. We need to find a nearby Zoo to take her to.

2. We need to find a nearby carousel to take her to. 

The main reason for the trip to Utah was to see my cousin

Allison get married. I lived with her and her parents when I was single in Hawaii.

She was one of the few family members (understandably because it was in Hawaii) who helped 

celebrate after our temple wedding in Laie. It was great to be there for her wedding. 

The Huff family with a gaping hole for Heather's family to be photo shopped in.

(My cousin Heather is about to have twins! )

Allison's Niece and Nephews were adorable!

The Bride and Groom.

Ha Jyn loved the reception. She loved all the fresh fruit, swings, decorations

and cousins galore.. As did I!

One of the last days we went up to Mid vale Utah to visit my mom's friend.

My Niece Moosh and Ha Jyn are hilarious together. Their main topics

of conversation are: Farting, burping, underpants, peeing and pooping.

One can only imagine the joy of sitting between the car seats of two potty-training toddlers all the 

way to mid vale. 

We had a great time! 

So many thanks to my Mom and Dad for making it happen 

and for my sister Crissy and her family for putting up with Ha Jyn and I!