MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. It was our first time having Kaeryn and Tristan for christmas morning. It was so fun! Of course we celebrated my birthday first. Ron write's and plays a song for me each year on his guitar. I love it! Then we made our way into the tree and had a blast opening and sharing our presents there. Kaeryn was so excited that Santa had brought her a pokemon starter set that she had to run around the house shouting for joy before she could open another gift! Tristan was in heaven with his trains that he had recieved. Jaxen just kind of wandered around not sure what all the fuss was about. He would open a gift half way and then throw it for help. He was more interested in the chocolate( he's just like his mom). It was a wonderful morning and we feel so blessed. We hope that everyone will be as blessed as we have been.

In loving memory!

On December 12th, 2007 our Grandpa Cookie passed away. We love him very much and will miss him very much. We will always remember the joy and happiness he brought into our lives. I hope to honor him by sharing the tradtion of christmas cookies with my own children. I love you Grandpa! Thank you for all you have done for me!

Our Naciamento!

These last couple years Ron and I have decided that we wanted to incorprate some of the Venezuelan traditons into our family traditions. One of which is the naciamento. In venezuela the focus is really on the baby Jesus. Ron tells me that every year they would build the nativity scenes, and some he remembers are pretty big. So we decided that we wanted to build our own naciamento. Last year Ron showed us how, and we built one together. This year I wanted to surprise Ron. I put it together while he was away at work. This is what I came up with. Ron loved it! It makes him happy to see me embrace the traditions that he grew up with! I love sharing them with him!

Setting up the tree!

This year we are so excited that we have enough space to have a bigger tree. We do love live trees, but we decided that to help save a little we would get an artificial one. We found one that was 6 feet tall and pre lit. Yeah! no stringling the lights! It does look pretty and we love it. We are very happy to celebrate the holidays this year in a house.

Our first adventure in California!

We had our first cruz family adventure since our move. We went to old downtown Sacramento where they have a Train museum. It was so amazing! The bottom floor was full of real trains and not replicas. It was neat. they had displays that told you about some of the railroad history. Some of the trains you could walk through(a mail train, dinner train, sleeping train). It was really neat. The size of some of those trains are just emense! Tristan was in heaven. He absolutely loves trains and was so excited to see them. The upper floor was model and toy trains. All the kids loved this area. There was a Thomas the Tank engine display set up and the kids were allowed to play with it. It was so fun. Jaxen was so excited that he just went from one table to the next and looked around. Finally, he found one that he could play with. It was a fun adventure. When we left the train museum we walked to a candy to that was set up like old fashioned and we each got a rock candy sucker. Unfortunatly my camera ran out of space so I didn't get much pictures of the old down town. but i'm sure that wasn't the only time we will go there. We definitly have alot more to see.

Where's Kaeryn?

Great Job Tristan!

Jaxen's first pile of leaves! Oh what to do?

Some fun in the fall!

Now that we're in a house, we have the joys of doing yard work. We're not used to that since we have been in an apartment for so long. Anyway, this weekend we decided that we wanted to see our front lawn instead of the blanket of leaves that was covering it. It all started when Kaeryn was asking for things to do because according to her she has nothing to do. So I while I was throwing out ideas I said rake the leaves. Apparently that was the right thing to say because she had gotten so excited about that. It turned into a family affair and we all went out to help(my job was to take pictures). Kaeryn and Tristan each took turns raking the leaves. Ron showed them how. Jaxen walked long the leaves and I chased after him when he went to far. Ron and the kids created a huge pile of leaves and then we all had fun jumping in the pile before we put them in the yard waste can. It was a fun afternoon!

Best Buds!

Tristan and Lincoln are best buds! They love to play with their Thomas Trains together. They always have so much fun! Tristan cannot wait until we have a family vacation and go back up to washington to visit Lincoln. Don't worry Tristan, we will!

ARRRR! This year's halloween punkin matey's!

Jaxen's first Trick-or-Treating!

This year was Jaxen's first time to go trick-or-treating! He was so cute. Although he wasn't sure what to think about all the people. Our ward had a Halloween dinner/carnival/trunk-treat. I took Jaxen to that. I actually fed him dinner before we left so he really wasn't interested in dinner foods. But dessert, now that was something else. He decided that he needed to have something in each hand. So in one hand he had a brownie and in the other he had a cookie, both of which he chose himself. It was so fun to watch him. He is definitely our little monkey! We had a great Halloween. We hope you had a happy one also!

We're Moving!!!!!

Well, it's come to the time where Ron has felt he needs to go back and earn some more stripes and enter again into the world of consulting. He's been offered a job as a Solution Architect. After much thought and prayer, we decided that it was a move that we needed. So he accepted the job. He started on October 1. So that means another big change. We will be moving to California. Yeah! The sunshine!!! I do love the Seattle area. It is so beautiful and there is always something going on to do or go see. I do admit however that the rain has taken its toll on me. It's just too much. I really am looking forward to having longer summers again. Plus another highlight, we will be in a house instead of an apartment. We're still renting(one day we'll be able to buy), but at least it's a house. And it has a fenced back yard. Which will be so nice. Jaxen loves to go outside, and I can't just let him go outside here. But when we get to the house, he will be able to go outside in the back yard and explore. It also has a fenced dog run in the back so Kati will have her own place to run. I am very sad to leave our home here in Washington, but we are so excited to begin a new chapter in our lives.

Prescious Memories!

It's been so cute. Jaxen has added a new thing to his night time routine. We have bath time, jammy time, story time, song time and good night. Well, the songs that we sing to him to tuck him in are twinkle twinkle little star and I am like a star shining brightly. After we're done singing I lay him down in his bed and he goes to sleep. He's started to get really snuggly with his stuff animals and likes to snuggle with one while we sing to him. This week he has been giving me his stuff animal after I lay him down to hug and kiss. He loves it. He gives me a huge smile and giggle each time. I thought it might only be a one night thing, but he has done it every night all of last week. It's so cute and a memory I will cherish forever!

Jaxen Did it!!!!

So this weekend was an exciting one for us. Jaxen finally took his first steps! Yeah we are so excitied. He still prefers crawling and climbing around, but i'm sure in a few weeks he'll understand more of the joys of walking around without holding on. I'm so pround of my little boy. I love watching him grow and discover new things. It's so fun being a mom! He's such a cute boy!

Beautiful Ocean!

Kati is FREE!!!

Ron and Kaeryn climbing up the hill to dig for fossils!

Kaeryn doing a dance!

Tristan digging in the dirt!

Jaxen crawling in the sand!

Shells in the tide pools

The tide pools!

We were there!

Kati waiting for her chance to run around!

Kaeryn, Tristan and Jaxen had fun on the Rocks!

Jaxen exploring the tent!

Ron and jaxen in the tent!

Kaeryn and Tristan in the tent!

First Cruz family camping trip!

So last weekend we went on a family vacation. It was very spontaneous. Ron came home from work and said "Let's go camping!" So we did. We left on wednesday afternoon and headed up to Deception Pass. Deception Pass is one of our very favorite places to visit. We camped our first night there. It was fun. We walked down to the shoreline to see the sunset on the water. So pretty. Then we got lost on our way back to camp as our brand new flashlights decided that they really did not want to work. But what can we say, they were ony $2.50 each. We thought we were getting a great deal. little did we know. Anyway, So we found our way back to camp and luckily Ron remembered that we had an extra flashlight in the car. He took the batteries out of the new one and put them in the old one and we were able to enjoy the rest of the night. The next morning we struck camp and we were planning on spending some time on the beaches but it ended up being a foggy morning so we decided to just head out because we had a lot of driving ahead of us to reach our next planned location. Which was Cape Flattery, the most northwest point of the U.S. Our plan was to head out that way and swing down to the Forks area and hope we get a camp spot for the night. Those sites didn't have online reservations so we could reserve a spot so we just had to hope. Anyway, on our way to Cape Flattery we thought we would stop in Joyce because someone had mentioned to Ron that there is a place out there where you can find fossils. So we thought we would check it out. we stopped in at the Joyce museum and talked to a lady named Margeret. She gave us perfect instructions. She was so cute about it. She also asked us where we were camping and we told her that we didn't have a place for that night we were going to go find a place and hope we find one. She got all excited again and told us about this place just outside of Joyce called Salt Creek. We took her advice and checked it out. It was great, and it was right there on the ocean. It was so beautiful! She told us that we might get lucky and see a gray whale. There's been gray whales there, even the whale watch tours from victoria had been coming down to see the whales. Of course that was exciting news. Anyway, we got there and there was only one site left. It was a first come first serve basis. You pick your site and then you go to the office and register. We barely made it. When we got there, we were told there was only one site left and that someone else was on their way to it. So we got the site number and started looking for it. It really came down to seconds. We pulled into the site and the other people were right behind us. The Ranger told us how lucky we were. So We started to set up camp. Our site was pretty. Even though it wasn't very private, the fence that overlooked the ocean was in our site. I love to see the ocean. After we got everything set up, we made our way to Cape Flattery which is the most north west point of the U.S. It was pretty cool. It ended up being longer of a drive than we had expected and it was rainy so we didn't make it up the trail, but we did get a picture of the trail head so at least we can say we were there. That is something we will do another time when we can plan a bit better now that we know a time frame to judge from. We came back to camp and had our dinner and campfire. Jaxen was so tired that he ate what he could handle and then went to bed. I have to say that I am very impressed with him. We brought his pack-n-play for him to sleep in and he still slept through the night. I have to say we were wondering if he would still sleep through the night while sleeping in a tent, he definitly did and Ron and I are so happy.
After Jaxen fell asleep I came out to join the family. Ron had started a fire so we sat around the fire for a bit, of course we made smores(it's tradition). We eventually went to bed. We were all exhausted.
The next morning after breakfast we went and walked along some tide pools that were there in the campground. It was exciting for the kids and I because it was our first time to see tide pools from the ocean. It was so fun! There were tiny fish and crabs and lots of shellfish all bunched up together. There were also some anemonies and of course sea weed. The tide pools were along cliffs and at the time we were the only ones there so I decided to let Kati off her leash so she could just run and explore. Also because the rocks were getting more and more mossy and I didn't want her to pull me over. The ironic thing is that I let her off and I go a few steps and slip and fall on the rocks(yah.....I had flip flops on. not the best thing to wear while walking along tide pools). I fell forward and landed on my hands and knees which got cut up pretty good. Luckily i had brought along the diaper bag which had wipes and a small first aid kit(yah....I was proud to be prepared). Which was a good thing because I would have been a big mess if I had to go back up the trail and back to camp which was on the other side of the campground from where we were. I cleaned my knees up and we continued walking along the pools. It was fun and luckily my knees really didn't hurt so it didn't ruin the trip. We just laughed about it later. After awhile there were a few people that started to hike along the same pools as we were so we decided to get Kati back on the leash and go get some lunch. After lunch we drove up a ways to the place where we were told we could hunt for fossils. That was an amazing find. We're so glad we stopped in at the little museum because we would have never found it without margeret's detailed instructions. It's a small trail off the side of the highway and if you didn't know what you were looking for you would never know it was there. It was beautiful! Another deserted beach, we had all to ourselves. Kati was in heaven, she raced around as fast as she could go. Up the side of the mountain and back down to the beach and along the shoreline. It was funny. Ron and Kaeryn walked ahead to the hillside where margret told them to look. Tristan played in the sand, Jaxen played in the sand but mostly wanted to be held. I think he was tired but he loved the sand, so he would play and then cuddle for a minute and then would play again. He's such a cute boy. It was so fun and we did find fossils. That was so neat. We found fossilized shells and Kaeryn found some plant fossils. Ron and Kaeryn also found some bone that looks like it belongs to a whale. Kaeryn was loving it and getting a taste of being a palentologist(or however you spell it). That is what she wants to be when she grows up. It was so fun watching her. After we were done we went back to camp and had dinner. We then went back to where the tide pools are and watched the sun set. That was abosolutely beautiful! Everyone at some point in there life needs to see the sun set over the ocean. It's such a peaceful and self fulfilling feeling. It's hard to describe. There I was with my family, sitting with Ron and watching the kids play along the rocks and then Ron would take Jaxen down to watch the waves with the kids. It's a feeling of happy that everyone should have. The next day just happened to be Joyce days so we went to join in on the festivities. We watched the parade which was so fun. I love small town parades. They are the best and they also throw the most candy and treats for the kids. Kaeryn and Tristan both had handfuls. The horses were gorgeous(of course I always think that). And the family that was sitting next to us started talking to us like we were their neighbors. It was great. Afterwards we went to the fire station for Tristan. He loves Firetrucks and wants to be a fireman. By the time we had gotten there they had stopped giving the tours. Ron took the kids in and told them how much Tristan loves firetrucks and wants to be a fireman and asked if there was any way he could still look at the trucks. Well those fireman gave Tristan his very own personal tour of the station. It was really neat, he got his own little hat and got to sit in the trucks and meet all the fireman. It was really neat that they were able to do that for him. They told him that when he turns 16 that he could come back and learn how to be a fireman. Tristan said he can't wait until he's 16. He was so excited. We then decided that it was time to go home. We were going to stay one more day but we decided that it was time to go. Especially to give Ron a day of rest before he had to go back to work. When we got home we all just crashed. It was a great vacation and so many memories were made. We didn't see any whales but it was still an amazing experience. Hummm.....I wonder what our next adventure will be?

Kaeryn's baptism!

This weekend Kaeryn made the choice and was baptized! Yeah! She was very excited! Her and daddy practiced all week long. It was a beautiful day! She was excited about her new dress and loved her baptism towel from aunt Amy and family. Her baptism was beautiful. She shared the day with three other kids from her primary class. We heard some testimonies and Ron was able to play his guitar. He did an arrangement of "I am a child of God". It was beautiful. His music really filled the room with the spirit. After the baptism we went to Dairy Queen for some ice cream to celebrate. It was yummy. Jaxen got his very own cone and loved every last bite of it. We love our kids. We have so much fun with them.

Babies understand more than you know!

We have a weekend tradition that every saturday morning we go to this expresso and get hot chocolate(or smoothie's for when it's hot outside). This weekend when we were getting ready to go Jaxen was in the family room playing with his toys and doing his own thing. I was racing through the house getting the diaper bag ready and the kids were waiting at the door. Finally I was ready to go and went to the door to find Ron,Kaeryn and Tristan waiting but no Jaxen. I found him still in the family room playing games. I said "Come on Jaxen, let's go and get hot cocoa!" Before I could pick him up he darted for the door, crawled out as fast as he could and crawled up the steps and headed for the car. It was the funniest thing. As soon as we pulled up to the expresso, he startshis grunting which is his way of saying he wants that and hurry up! He sure does love his cocoa. It's amazing to realize that babies really do understand more than you realize. It's fun to watch our little one grow up. He's just so cute!

Great way to cool off!

Last weekend we decided that we wanted to do some sight seeing in Seattle. Ron wanted to stop and look at some cathedrals to help him with the book he is writing. We also wanted to take the kids to the international fountain at the seattle center. It's great. It's a huge fountain that the base is big enough that you can go right up to the fountain. It's a favorite stop every time we go to downtown seattle. Since it's been so hot the kids wore their swimming suits so that they could run and play in the water and cool off. It was alot of fun watching them play. Ron even ran up to the fountain and back. Jaxen wasn't too sure about it. He didn't like the water so much but he had fun looking around at all the people and new sight's and sounds. it was a great day. It just happened to be "the bite of Seattle" festival. All along the seattle center were booths of all the different restrurants that are in seattle. You could go around and get a taste of some of the foods for fairly cheap. It was a fun day.

Surprise date!

So on Tuesday Ron went in to work early and came home a couple hours later with a surprise date for me. He took me to see the new Harry Potter movie! It was so fun. We even got popcorn and a drink. Jaxen had his first babysitter and the report was that he did great! Which was a relief for me. He's been very attached to mommy and not wanting to go to many other people. After the movie we picked up Jaxen and went to our expresso that we go to and got our hot chocolate( it started to sprinkle so cocoa was perfect). He then surprised me by staying home the rest of the day. I thought he was using his lunch break, but he stayed home. It was so nice. He also made me dinner. He made homemade chowmein. Yummy! It was a great day. He made me feel so special. I love you Ron!

Kaeryn's birthday cake

Kaeryn's New bike

Picture's from Kaeryn's birthday

okay let's try this again

Pictures from Rialto beach

here are some pictures of Rialto Beach. It was such a fun day!

My curious george is too curious!

So everyone knows how babies are like little scientists and love to explore and figure things out. They are curious by nature. Well, My little Jaxen is no exception. He is so curious about everything! perhaps a little too curious. Yesterday, we were sitting in the overflow area during sacrement meeting. Jaxen was being really wiggly so I decided to let him crawl around. Well he decided that he wanted to walk along the chairs. You know the church chairs that have holes in the back? Well, Jaxen decided that he was going to pull himself up using the chair this lady was sitting in that was right in front of us. Which when you think about it doesn't sound too bad, every baby does that. Except that this lady's bum was sticking out of the hole a little bit. And Jaxen being the curious boy that he is saw that and wanted to know what it was. So as he was standing himself up, he licked her bum! It was so funny! I don't think the lady noticed because she didn't look back or anything. At least we hope she didn't notice. The things kids do! It was so funny. Ron and I couldn't stop laughing. I love my little boy! It is never a dull day with him!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAERYN!

Kaeryn's 8th birthday was on July 10th. But since she was with her mom on that day we had a birthday party for her on Saturday the 14th. We had a swimming/luau party. It was a great sucess! Her friends each got a beach ball with Hawaian flowers on it, a shell necklace and the girls got silk flowers for their hair. Kaeryn looked so beautiful, she had a high ponytail and different colored flowers all the way around her hair so that her ponytail cam out of the flowers. We also got silk flower lei's for the family, even Jaxen. We got him a headband and it worked perfectly as a lei for him. He looked so cute! Kaeryn wanted Ron's famous oreo cheesecake for her birthday cake so Ron made his cheesecake for her and I decorated like an island beach. I got some blue gel food coloring and dropped it right on the cake and spread it around about half the cake to look like ocean water. Then since Ron crushes up oreo's and put's them in the cake it looked like sand so I put a plastic palm tree and a hula girl in the sandy area. It looked so cool(if I do say so myself). I couldn't find my box of candles(which I know I have some where and which I will probably find now that I don't need them), so I took the 0 candle that we were going to use for Jaxen's half birthday and took a permanent marker and drew an 8 on it. It worked for the moment. We also thought now would be the right time to get Kaeryn a bike. She has been wanting one for a long time now and got really excited when our next door neighbor let her try out his daughter's bike. She was so excited about it that we found her a bike. We had the bike hiding at our friends house that live in the same complex as us. Ron took the kids swimming and while they were swimming, I went and picked up the bike and had it sitting in the living room so when they came back from swimming it would be the first thing she saw. We even had Ron come in first and had Kaeryn wait a second so Ron could get the camcorder ready so we could video tape her when she saw the bike. She was so cute, she started jumping up and down and shouting for joy! Kaeryn was very excited! Her other exciting present was Ron gave her his gameboy advance and her very own pokemon game. She's so excited! All in all, I think her birthday was a great success. It was a fun party for everyone! Happy Birthday Kaeryn!

7 eleven

So how cute is this! Tonight Ron brought home some slurpees from 7 eleven. They were to celebrate for today being 7/11. How cute is he. Just like on saturday we celebrated 7/7/07. We were going to have things with 7 in them. like 7 up and lucky charms because it has 7 charms. We have so much fun! My husband is so cute! I just love him!!

Catching up!

Okay, so I need to catch up on things.

A couple weeks ago we decided to take a trip to the olympic penninsula. We left around 8:00 in the morning, grabbed some breakfast and made it in time for the 9:00 ferry. The ferries are a fun ride for our family. The kids love to go to the upper deck and look around. It's fun because you can have a better view of some of the islands that are around. Sometimes seabirds will come and fly level with the ferry. So we went up to the upper deck. There is an area where you can stand outside. That's the favorite part. It was actually pretty warm that morning. But it was windy on the upper deck. Jaxen wasn't so sure about the wind. He's not a fan of the wind to begin with. So I took him to an area where you could still be outside but were covered by some glass windows. Kaeryn stayed out though. She was all over she was so excited. The ferry docked at Kingston and we made our way to Port Angeles to get some lunch. We stopped at this park to eat and let the kids run around before we got back into the car. We still had a ways to go.

We made our way to Rialto Beach. It was so beautiful! I love the ocean! I love the smell and the sound. The waves had a strong under current so we couldn't swim or play in the water. We did stick our feet in the water. You can't go to the ocean and not stick your feet in the water. We did play in sand and collected 3 bucketfuls of rocks. I know my husband loves me because he carried all 3 buckets to the car for me.

We had to leave after awhile. It was windy and Jaxen was tired and hungry and not liking the wind at all. Also, Tristan had soaked his clothes and didn't bring extras. I could have sworn that as I was packing a bag for Jaxen I said to ron and the kids to get extra clothes. I hope that next time they will remember when mommy says go get extra clothes, they will get extra clothes. So we made our way to the nearest town to get Tristan some sweat pants. We put his shirt and jacket on the heater and defrost vents and made our way to the hot springs in the olympic national forest. That was cool. They've made them like swimming pools. We didn't go swimming though. It was rainy and I just didn't want to swim in the rain. Even though it was warm. Ron also started to be bothered by the sulpher smell. After seeing the hot springs we drove further into the rainforset up to a place called Hurricane Ridge. It was beautiful but we really couldn't see much because we were in a cloud. That was fun! It was cold!! There were still patches of snow on the mountain. The kids were excited to see that. Kaeryn thought it was so cool that we were in a cloud. We went for a little hike and ended up taking Kati back to the car. Poor Kati. We brought her along so she could have fun with the family, and she did at the beach until she tried to jump over me and my chair when another dog came along. She wanted to play but the other dog wasn't so sure. I had to tie her up after that. And then we thought we could take her along on the trail but there was a no dogs sign up. I thought it strange that they would have a no dogs sign for a mountain trail. So we took Kati back to the van. She wasn't happy about that at all. She barked until she could no longer see us. Even though it was very cold on the ridge, it was so peaceful. We sang some camp songs and our voices echoed off the ridge. We litteraly felt like the only ones on earth at that point. It was cool. We did have to leave rather quickly however. I was worried about the cold, we weren't prepared for winter cold. And it was getting late and we still had a long drive home ahead of us. So we headed back down the mountain. Luckily we stopped for dinner before we went up the mountain.

We made our way down the mountain and through Port Angeles and finally reached kingston. We made it in time for the last ferry of the day. The 12:20 am. ferry. We had a little bit of waiting time before the ferry arrived so we all got out to go for a walk. We walked down the pier and looked at the water. There were some jellyfish and other fish and some sea birds. I stayed at the top at first. I was so exhausted that I wasn't sure about walking all the way down the pier. But then Ron and the kids came running up and told me they had seen a seal. So naturally I went down with them to see if I could get a look. It was cool. I got to see a sillouette of the seal. Ron said that it swam right underneath them when they first saw it. It was really exciting for us because we have never seen a seal in the wild before. Hopefully we will have another opportunity and it will be lighter in the day.

We boared the ferry and of course the kids wanted to go to the upper deck. I was very tired and didn't want to go. I'm not a fan of being on the upper deck at night anyway. It's a little unsettling for me because you can't see the water because its dark. So you look down into nothing. it's a little freaky for me. So I stayed in the car and Ron took all 3 kids up. It was nice to have a few minutes to myself of quiet. It didn't last long because the ferry hit a few big waves or something because we started rocking. There wasn't that many cars aboard so the ferry really rocked. I just sat there tense and trying to think wether I should panic or not. Ron knew that my anxiety would get the best of me so he and the kids came back to the car. He said that on the upper decks you could walk from side to side. But for me being down on the bottom and up front it was scary to see one side of the ferry go up and down and the other side go up and down. kind of like the Tidal Wave ride. Yes my mind started playing tricks on me. But I felt alot better once Ron and the kids were back. I must say that was the longest ferry ride so far for me( and i don't mean in legnth). Finally we docked and I was okay and we made our way back home. We made it back home around 2:00 in the morning. It was a fun trip! We were amazed to think that in one day we rode on two ferries, stood at the edge of the contient, saw the ocean, drove through a rain forest and stood in a cloud and saw hot springs and a wild seal! We love this beautiful world we live and can't wait for our next adventure.

Hello to all our friends!

Hi Everyone!

I have a wonderful family and feel so lucky. We love to go on drives and family adventures. I thought it would be fun to share them.