Backyard Bondfire

One day Devin was cleaning out the garage and decided that the leftover bundle of campfire wood was taking up too much space. So he thought it was a good idea to build a fire right in our own backyard. We gathered some chairs around, hung out, and watched it burn all night! At first, Kayla didn't like it because it was too smokey. But once it got going, the smoke died down and we cooked hot dogs for dinner.

Then we busted out the marshmallow sticks and made S'mores! I like to make them with Ghirardelli chocolate squares with caramel filling.

And they were ooey, gooey, good!

Whitewater Picnic

We've lived in the desert for a long time, but neither one of us had ever been to Whitewater. So about a month ago, we decided to pack up a picnic and drive up there to spend a nice Sunday afternoon at the park. It was awesome and we had so much fun!

After we ate lunch, we played catch.

And picked pretty flowers.

Smell the flower Daddy!

Then she liked to replant the flowers in a dirt pile.

We also blew and chased bubbles.

And pet the friendly doggie walking by.

Here we are checking out the fish in the pond.

We followed a trail through the desert.

It led us right to the Whitewater River!

The Date Festival

You can't live in Indio and not go to the Date Festival!
It's our once-a-year excuse to pig out on carnival food: corn dogs, french fries, churros, date shakes etc. Hmmm, where should we start?

After we took Kayla to the petting zoo, we went to the arena to check out the demolition derby show.

It was so much fun! Kayla squealed in delight and kept yelling at the cars "look out!"

Here we are waiting in line for the ferris wheel. We were all excited to ride it, only to find out once we got up there that Kayla wasn't tall enough and they wouldn't let us on.

So we found a small area that had little kid rides so we could use up the tickets we bought. Luckily, they let Kayla stand on her tippy toes in order to reach the 36 inch mark.

Here we are waiting in the freezing cold for the concert to start.

And who the heck is Switchfoot anyway? I had no idea, until they started singing and I recognize this song.

Arizona Trip

My sister-in-law Trisha had a baby on Valentine's Day, so a few weekends ago we drove to Arizona to visit. We even got to see Devin's cousins Shawn and Joey and their families while we were there. It was raining that Saturday, so we ended up meeting at a Chick-Fil-A that had an indoor playground. We had a great time just hanging out and the kids had so much fun playing together.


We spent the next day hanging out at Trisha's house. Kayla loves playing with Kendis and Mason. And now she has a new cousin Elin Noelle!

What a treat, Grandma Evi was there too!

After playing a friendly game of Ticket To Ride, it was time to head back to Grandpa Jayson's house for dinner.

Thank you Grandpa Jayson for letting us stay with you. We had a great time!

Valentine's Day

We enjoy celebrating Valentine's Day at home. It was a nice day to hang out in the comforts of our own backyard.

Kayla played while Daddy grilled salmon and asparagus for dinner. And for dessert, I bought a box of Sees candy!

Another Fun Day!

We went to the Living Desert with our friends Mike and Christian one beautiful Sunday morning. First, we saw the giraffes eating.

Playing in WaTuTu Village...

We stopped by the Gecko Gulch playground. Kayla liked the cactus slide.

My favorite animals at the Living Desert: butterflies and the Mexican wolf. (He just looks like a big cuddly dog!)

I took a picture of this tree because Mike said he saw the face of Jesus. I think he's full of crap. What do you see?

After the Living Desert, we all went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch!

My Silly Girl!

We created a monster! In an effort to get Kayla to pee-pee on the potty chair, we bribed her with lollypops. It didn't take long before she was going 5 times a day all by herself, just to get a lollypop! So now she can't earn a lollypop until she goes poo-poo on the potty. So far, no luck.

Kayla loves to ride her big wheel everywhere! Her legs are long enough so she can pedal now.

Kayla LOVES to raid my closet and wear Mommy's shoes all over the house. Each time, she tries on a different pair. On this day, she was fascinated with my navy Manolo Blahniks. Gotta love her, girl's got good taste!

My little diva doing the catwalk!

February 8th

Every year, Devin and I celebrate the anniversary of our first date and this was first date number 9! Instead of getting a babysitter, we decided to go someplace kid-friendly for dinner. So here we are leaving to go to the Olive Garden where we finally got to use the gift card my sister-in-law gave us for our birthdays last year. (Thank you Shannon!) We definitely need to go out to dinner more often!

As always, we loaded up on soup and breadsticks so we could take home leftovers! Yummy! I ordered the grilled chicken, spaghetti, and broccoli kids meal for Kayla. Guess what was her favorite? We were so full, we didn't even stop for yogurt on the way home.

Gung Hay Fat Choy

This was the first year in a long time that I didn't go up to Sacramento to celebrate Chinese New Year with my family. And since I can't cook, we ordered take-out from Mulan Restaurant. We were pleasantly surprised (didn't expect to get such good Chinese food in Indio)! We had Wor Won Ton soup, Kung Pao chicken, Coconut Curry shrimp, and Bok Choy. Yummy! Kayla liked the won tons the best. Happy Year of the Rabbit everyone!

Full of Bull

That's the name of my Merrill Lynch softball team. WHAT? I know, pretty crazy right? Last time I played softball was in P.E. class in high school and I sucked at it. So what made me think I'd be any better now at 35 years old? Well, I do have some athletic capability. Plus, I couldn't let my friend Courtney down. They needed a minimum of 3 girls on the team in order to even qualify to enter the tournament. And after a couple of practices, I discovered that I'm actually not that bad and I even liked it! So our big day was last Saturday and we were all excited! Our first game was at 9 a.m. at Big League Dreams in Chino Hills. The weather was really nice too.

There I am in the center chasing after the ball way out in the outfield!

My first time up to bat, I hit it pretty good and made it to first base!

Thanks to Courtney's awesome hit, Sanford and I made it home!

It was a long day for Kayla. Luckily they had a cool playground.

Kayla even made a new friend.

As hard as we tried, we lost all three games. But we improved with each game and we all had so much fun! Apparantly, Bank of America has these tournaments every quarter. So Full of Bull is planning to come back in April to kick some softball butt!

Some of us got hotel rooms and planned on staying the night. (Just in case we made it to the championship game at 8:30 p.m. LOL!) It sure was nice to be able to relax after a long day of softball instead of deal with traffic going home. After we checked in and cleaned up, we headed over to BJ's for dinner.