The BIG THREE-O!

I decided to hi jack the blog for this post since Justin has been the only author. This post just had to be from me. -Camille On August 28th Justin entered a new decade! That's right, he is now 30 years old!!! I wanted this year to be special. Unique. One to remember. I can't tell you how many Big ideas and activities I came up with for this guy. But in the end, his birthday wish was to SLEEP!. Yes, we are parents of 4 young, very active boys. Sleep is never something we get enough of. This is what we ended up doing for his birthday. Justin's parents came for a week (They are wonderful guests! So helpful and fun) Justin's meals of choice were- Breakfast: french toast and bacon, Lunch: a work buddy took him out, and for dinner he requested homemade Cafe Rio salad. YUM! Throughout the day Justin called telling me how touched he was with all the texts and e-mails from so many people. Words of affirmation is a BIG DEAL to him. To have so many people remember and send messages of love and happy birthday meant so much to him! You should have seen him at the end of the day. He was on Cloud 9!! Presents were a success! WHEW! We printed his blog (this blog) into 2 books! I am so grateful Justin has taken the time to keep this precious family record over the past 4 years. His parents got him a GUITAR! He has wanted one for as long as I can remember. It has been so fun to hear him practice, and the kids all grab some kind of instrument and jam out with him. We sang happy birthday, had him blow out a few less than 30 candles and called it good. TIL THURSDAY.

Thursday He got home at about 3pm and he and I took off. THAT'S RIGHT! Grandma and Grandad watched ALL FOUR BOYS, (that is quite a job! They are SUPERSTARS! ) so we could have a little get-a-way. We headed down to Pacific Beach for the next 24+ hours. We stopped at buffalo ex-change, Because we could! (no kids = stress free shopping) Justin got some Sweet shoes! Then off to the hotel. This Hotel was AMAZING! (and we vowed then and there that we would return) AS you can see in the pictures Justin is sprawled out on the floor.... the BATHROOM floor! There was a Jacuzzi in the bathroom. The room was massive as was the balcony overlooking the beach. We then went to dinner.

Thai anyone? For Dinner we found this great Thai place, Narraya, near the hotel. They had us remove our shoes and sit traditional Thai style, on the floor. Justin was not to sure about the idea, and after watching him try to get in a comfortable position I understand why. :) Then I let him in on the secret, there was a hole under the table so you could sit as if you were in a chair. We had a good laugh about that! Because we were right on the floor our waitress, who was dressed in her traditional gold and red attire, had to kneel down to wait on us. We pretty much felt like royalty. We returned to the hotel for a relaxing evening, watched the republican convention and went to bed at 9PM!! And slept in til 7am. 10 whole hours! Amazing!! In the morning we enjoyed the beach. Just relaxing to the sound of waves. LOVELY! Hope you had as much fun as I did birthday boy! LOVE YOU!- Camille

Connor and the Blocks

One of Connor's recent obsessions has been building towers with our blocks. Actually this has been an obsession of us since he was old enough to stack. When he was a baby he would stack watermelon squares as high as they would go. So this is just a continuation of that. It is fun to watch how excited he gets with his new creations he builds. He has built several different temples, castles, and towers right in our living room. Pretty impressive :) One of the funny things about this activity is that Connor is so meticulous about carefully putting each piece on and doesn't want anyone to touch it or knock it over until it is complete. Then once it is complete the destruction is on but Connor wants to be the one to do it. For some reason he LOVES building and then LOVES destroying. Here are some pictures of Connor and his treasured creations.

Curtis Reunion 2012

We started a tradition a couple years ago in the Curtis side of the family that each year we will have a week long reunion. Last year everyone came to our home in San Diego and it made for quite the week. I believe there were a total of 22 people under our roof during that week. We all became a lot closer than we ever had before. This year we all decided to change it up a bit. Since we have some family members living in Oregon, some in Arizona, Oklahoma, New York, and us in San Diego, we decided to meet in the middle, which coincidentally was Midway, Utah. Camille's uncle has a house up there that he allows people to use. So we all met up in Midway for the first week of August. Since our last reunion we have had a few babies born and a few people join the family so we had around 27 people hanging out in Midway this time. My growing suspicion is that it will continue to grow each year, especially considering the number of Curtis children (10), so I figured I would start keeping track of the number. We had some milestones that we celebrated for the week. Mike and Michelle got engaged and are set to get married in December!! Lynette and Jeff are having their first baby and it is a boy! So we threw Lynette a surprise baby shower there. We also had this reunion the first part of August so we could spend one more week with Jared, Camille's brother, before he left on his mission to Bolivia. We enjoyed the Alpine Slides in Park City, which is a personal favorite of mine.

We enjoyed the creek in beautiful Sundance, just off from Provo Canyon.

We enjoyed Wake Surfing, Wake Boarding, and playing on the tube at Deer Creek Lake.

We had fun blasting off bottle rockets at a close by park.

We took some extended family pictures. Not sure what my face is all about in there. I think my inner child came out to say hello.

We had a talent show where all the kids and adults could showcase their skills.

And lastly, we just had fun!!

Back to School

Brayden and Logan went back to school this week! Brayden is in 1st grade and Logan in PEP (Prep Kindergarten).

Legoland Waterpark

We have been to Legoland a few times with our kids, but we have never been to Legoland Waterpark. So when we knew my Mom and Dad were coming out in the summer we planned it. We had a blast enjoying all the water slides, the lazy river, the water playground, and all the other fun areas they had. Thank you Grandma and Granddad for joining us.