San Diego Slideshow

For those that want way more pictures...

San Diego Vacation

We just completed our Watson family vacation in San Diego and it was a blast. We rented a house with four bedrooms and four bathrooms that fits all ten of us so well and we had a great time of relaxing and having fun.


We started the week off at Sea World and took Kiefer on the big roller coaster, he wasn't really ready for that much fun :)


We then went and watched Shamu and a few of us sat down real close and got wet in the soak zone.



The kids loved the Sesame Street themed water park area and had a great time splashing in the fountains. My favorite pics are this Cooper action sequence...



The second day we hit the beach for some sand castle building and playing in the water. That night we all went to a Padres game and sat in the benches behind the fence that had a play area for kids. They got some more sand time and also enjoyed playing on the kids baseball field and rolling down the hills, basically not much actual baseball was watched.

Here's Lexi and Kiefer sporting their new Padres tattoos.


Grandma put together lots of fun activities and crafts for the kids including a treasure hunt that the grandkids loved.


On Wednesday we went to the Hotel Del Coronado for brunch and met up with Elisa's parents for their anniversary.

The food was fantastic and we had a great time celebrating.


The guys then golfed the Coronado course and the women and children proceeded somewhere else to shop. The rest of the week included more beach time and some antique shopping (not pictured for fear of really boring you to death). We made sure to hit the lions for the traditional shot, the boys are getting bigger!


For the drive home we packed all the kids into the van and they loved being together for the drive, such a great time!

Albert Forbes Cameron

On Friday morning June 12th, my grandfather passed away at age 85. It came pretty unexpectedly and we were sad to see him go, but he was ready and is in a better place now. He was a steadfast and honorable man who survived the great depression, fought in World War II and went on to father six amazing children, my mom among them. We love you grandpa, you will be missed.

Rockin

Aaron and Brett came to town for a Showit coding week and I found the Rock Band stage kit on sale and couldn't pass it up, so we tried it out on the last night to get the full rock experience. It's a fog machine, strobe light and color spots and it plugs into the XBox and syncs to the music, pretty crazy. We took some fun pictures of us rockin out while choking in the fog :)





And what would an awesome coding week be without some fancy delicious brownies from Elisa.

The New Coop

Well, we decided to give Cooper a fresh summer look and cut his long straight hair. He looks so different now but still so cute, Elisa cried a little to see him look so different. I don't think he notices or even cares but it's going to take a bit to get used to the new look.

Cooper Babblings

I've used the recorder on my phone to catch Cooper saying the different things he says right now and his funny laughs and figured I would edit it into a little audio montage for the family to hear. Enjoy.

Wisconsin Slideshow

Here is a slideshow from our trip!

First Fish

We drove out to Birchwood to Anders' parents' house on the lake and did some fishing on a pontoon boat. Here is Kiefer and me on the drive getting excited to catch some fish.

Caught this pic while driving, I love the green grass and trees and red barns.


We pulled up to the dock in front of Anders' house and Anders' dad got a pole setup and Kiefer reeled in his first fish off the dock! He was so excited and it was so much fun!






The fish were biting like crazy so it was really quick and easy catching and tossing the small ones back. We ended up keeping a dozen and we're planning to cook them up later in the week.


I caught a few fish and here I am with my first one, notice I'm a little hesitant with the holding of the fish, Anders gave me a hard time and I'm going to need to work on that. What can I say, I'm an "Avid Indoorsman" so this is foreign territory for me.

Cooper really liked the fish and even gave them kisses!

The sisters had a great time on the boat relaxing and enjoying a perfect sunny day.

Cooper really loved being in the driver's seat.

We finished the day with an awesome fish fry at the Pine Ridge, so good!

Leinie Lodge

We made a trip out to Chippewa Falls to the Leinenkugel Brewery which is a fantastic beer made in Wisconsin since 1867. We toured the factory and had a great time learning about how it's made.




Kiefer got to try his hand at being a bar tender.

After that we went to Olson's Ice Cream that makes their own ice cream that is amazing!


Later in the evening we had a picnic in the grass with Sammy's pizza. Kiefer decided to put dirt on his face and be a warrior, pretty scary!

First Flight

We are heading out to Wisconsin for a week to visit Elisa's sister Emily and Anders. This was Cooper's first flight and he's at that age where you don't know what's going to happen. We gave him some "allergy medicine" in case he was allergic to planes (and to sedate him) and sure enough it knocked him out good but not before he screeched a little on takeoff.


Kiefer was great on the plane and had a great time, he just seems like such a big boy.

Cooper slept about 2 out of the 3 hour flight and was happy when he woke up, but then we had to circle an extra hour in the air because we couldn't land due to wind, so then it was pushing Cooper over the edge and he got a little cranky toward the end. For a little bit we watched movies on the iPhone with Snoopy holding it :)

He was happy to land and on the drive home Kiefer finally fell asleep, he sure can sleep at a funny angle.

We were greeted at the Helquist's with a fantastic raspberry pie!

Flight of the Conchords

Before our trip out to the Midwest, we went down to Tempe and had a nice double date with Aaron and Kiley to Flight of the Conchords. It started with Sushi and then we rode the new light rail into downtown Phoenix for the show. It was a great time and exciting to use Phoenix public transportation for the first time.

We looked like tourists taking pictures of our train experience :)

I'd never been to the Dodge Theater and it was pretty big.

Bike and Planes

Today Elisa went garage sale hunting and scored this awesome bike for Kiefer! He is just starting to get the hang of pedaling and it's amazing to see him riding on a bike!

Later in the day Kiefer and I went to "Aviation Day" at the airport and got to see all kinds of planes and helicopters. I think he liked the "helicopter ambulance" the best.




While we were there, we ran into Sam and Evan so Kiefer had a great time looking at the planes with them.

The airport fire truck was pretty huge!



The airport snow plow was also massive, they said it goes 60 mph while it's plowing and the blade was easy for Kiefer to walk under!

This plane is more Kiefer's size.

Lava Tubes

We made a trip out to the lava river cave outside Flagstaff with JT and he took some family photos of us after we hiked around the cave. Here are some of the fun ones or if you are a grandparent you can check out the whole gallery.

Awesome Mom!

A Happy Mother's Day to Elisa, a wonderful mom to our two cute little boys. We let her sleep in a little and the picture below is when the boys woke her up. We went to church in the morning and lunch downtown at the Mountain Oasis. We all took great naps in the afternoon and then let Elisa relax while I took the boys out for some shopping and to pick up pizza to bring home for dinner.

Notice Kiefer's nice band aid, he fell in the backyard last night and his head landed on a rock. I ran out to get him and brought him in while he was curled up and crying and said, "OK, let me see what happened". He pulled his hands away and his face was covered in blood like a horror movie. It turned out to be a pretty tiny cut that was just gushing and we cleaned it out and it stopped bleeding and he hasn't complained about it since.

JT joined us in the evening and will be visiting for a few days, the boys were so excited to see him and loved having him read them a story.

Toddler Fashion

Cooper is definitely making his own fashion statements, he's going to be a trend setter. Enjoy!



They sure are cute boys