Where is Papa?

This is Ayda's newest obsession while Travis is taking a nap. Can you see him?

happy birthday to "lou"

You may be thinking, "who is Lou" well in Ayda speak lou means you. Travis turned 29 on Sunday, after church Travis and Ayda took a birthday nap (he is old now and needs his sleep). Later we did a little birthday dinner and ate Travis' favorite pink lemonade pie(no cake for us). Ayda sang happy birthday to lou, Papa all day long. Here are some cute pictures of Ayda with her Papa.
(disclaimer: Ayda does wear clothes...just not very often!)

"I want to make you pretty Papa"

The last couple of days Ayda is has been wanting to brush Travis' hair, she tells me she wants to make Papa pretty. I think she likes it because she gets to sit on the arm of the couch to reach his hair. She can't just brush his hair she also has to get a hair bow (which can be anything used in one's hair, not just a bow) today it was a star. So...does he look pretty? Does Ayda have a future in hair?

I wish my buns looked like that

I mean come on, what woman wouldn't want those cute springy buns? I got out of the shower yesterday and this is what I saw standing at the foot of my bed. Ayda came into the bathroom while I was in the shower and needed help getting her unders back on but I told her to just wait one minute. She apparently forgot about the unders and went for the cute pink heels instead.

I LOVE MY NEW FLOORS!

So, before Travis and I left on our cruise we bought some new flooring for the main level of our house. We didn't really like having carpet in the eating area and I was pretty convinced that I would never get all the dog hair out of the carpet (not my dog....the previous owners gross dog!) Well we were trying to match the wood laminate in the entry way and my uncle (who has been installing flooring for MANY years) came and looked at what they had down and told us that he thought it was cheap looking and that it wasn't laid correctly...so he suggested a flooring to buy and we got it. My mom talked with him about helping Travis and I install it but he happened to have time while we were on our cruise. So...he and my mom installed our new flooring while we were being spoiled on a cruise (kind of rude of us huh!!) I guess the installation went fairly smoothly minus the replacing of the sub-floor near the sliding glass door, I guess the dog peed there all the time and the floor was disintegrated. But, when we got home it was like extreme home makeover. I can't believe how great it looks, I LOVE it. I need to get a nice area rug but other than that all the painting is done downstairs, we put in a new light and now we have beautiful wood floors. A HUGE thanks to my mom and uncle. The best part is Ayda, when we lived with my mom she would slide all over my mom's wood floors. I am surprised her arms aren't so strong with how much she pulled herself around. My mom said once the floor was done Ayda dropped to her belly and started sliding. For the first few mornings we would come down stairs and Ayda would say, "oh I love this floor, oh it is lovely!" Here is Ayda doing her first slide and a couple others to show off how great it looks.

Ayda's fun while we were on our cruise

My mom was nice enough to take Ayda while Travis and I were on our cruise (thanks again mom). Gaco wanted Ayda to have lots of things to do, you know to keep her busy. One day they went to build a bear. For those of you who haven't been there, you are lucky! I am glad my mom went with her, Ayda picked a bunny and she says "I love you." She also picked a really cute outfit, a little pink shirt that says, fabulous and a little denim skirt. She had a blast. They also took a trip to the apple farm, Keely and Beck went on this outing with them. Ayda and Beck had a blast jumping in the giant apple bounce house. Ayda played a lot with her cousins and spent a lot of time being my mom's shadow. Now that we are back, she always tells me she wants to go home to Gaco's house and asked often when we are going back on the boat so she can go to Gaco's to sleep. It was nice to have a break but it was also really nice to come home to our sweet baby girl.

We're back--vaca pics!

We're back!

We got back from our cruise to Mexico on Sunday. It was so much fun, I loved the cruising experience and can't wait for my next one. So I am going to give the highlights of our trip and add a few pictures (I think we took over 500). I will try not to bore anyone with ALL the details. We met Lindsey and Jason at the Long Beach airport, took a cab over to the pier and waited in a really long line to get into the boat. Once we finally got on, we had lunch and then got settled in our rooms and did a little exploring. We sailed all day Monday and Tuesday, those days were spent in the sun, reading, playing cards, and just relaxing.
On the cruise the staff represented 57 countries and would you believe, our waiters for dinner were from the PI (Philippines)! We were so excited and we were able to use a little Tagalog with them.
We got into Puerto Vallarta on Wednesday morning, got off the boat and had to try to figure out what we wanted to do. We decided on an ATV tour through the city, but mostly, the country. I was a chicken so I rode with Travis. Our tour guide Pancho was good to show us so much, we went out into the country and we drove by an elementary school and all the little kids ran up to the fence and smiled and waived at us. We only almost got hit once and Jason only bumped the tour guide once. The tour ended at the Tequila factory! Maybe they were a little disappointed when we said we didn't drink. When that was all said and done we were all so dirty so we got back on the boat showered and got back off to go into the city. While walking around one shop employee said to us as we walked by, "Are you Mormons?" we said, "yes" and he said, "I knew it, you have on too much clothes and you aren't drunk and it is already 5:30." He was baptized when he was 12 and said he can pick out all the Mormons.
On Thursday we went to Mazatlan and did a city tour, we went to the old area and the new area and then Travis and Jason took a stab at parasailing. They both seemed to enjoy themselves. We did a little more shopping and exploring before heading the to boat.
On Friday we went to Cabo San Lucas, took a water taxi on a tour and out to a couple different beaches. The boat had glass bottom panels and the water was so clear. We could see to the bottom of the ocean, it was amazing. We went snorkeling and I LOVED it. I really want to learn to scuba dive now. Travis, on the other hand, confirmed his phobia of fish and too much water.
Then on Saturday we sailed all day and we went home Sunday. It was nice to see Ayda again, when we walked out from the gate she saw us and took off running to us. I thought she would be glued to my mom's side. But she hugged us and kissed us and then wanted her Gaco. We can't thank my mom enough for taking her for the week, she is A LOT of work and it was nice to have a break. Now it is back to reality. I will do another post of what Ayda and my mom did the week we were gone. I also will post on an exciting change to our house!!

Happy Halloween!

I thought I better get these pictures up before we leave for Mexico. Ayda LOVED Halloween, the idea that all she had to do was knock on a door and say, "trick or treat" and the person at the door gave her candy, well let's be honest it made her day! We all went over to my Mom's, we had dinner and a birthday celebration for Hurley. Then then kids got dressed up and headed out. The kids costumes ranged from Star Wars characters, High School Musical, a Hippie, a UPS man (yep--a man after my mom's heart.) Tinker Bell, Ayda was Cinderella and Maisy was a skunk. The kids looked cute and came back with WAY TOO MUCH candy.