Aunts and Uncles and Pez, OH MY!

Last weekend, my youngest siblings came to hang out with us for a couple of days! It was pretty awesome. We ate a lot of good food and played games every night and watched movies!! AND I woke them up at a reasonable hour every day and made them clean my house and entertain Daisy for me! Because that's what Aunts and Uncles are for! I think they'll be back soon. I know I would come back if I got to scrub the floors and bathtub in my house for free! [oh wait, I already do! that's why I come home every day! hahaha.]

Chris had so much fun teaching Rebekah and Joseph his favorite game from his childhood. It's called Extinction, and it's some sort of deck [herd] building game that takes you through the Cretacious, Triassic, and Jurassic periods...or something [is it obvious that I didn't actually play?]. They loved it and requested to play it two nights in a row.

On Friday, we headed up to Burlingame to take a gander at the Pez Memorabilia Museum [slash toy museum slash banned toy museum], and the World's Largest Pez Dispenser! It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but it was pretty cool nonetheless. I have never seen so many Pez dispensers in one place in my entire life. And did you know they make SOUR Pez?! They actually taste good!

Spiderman PEZ dispenser signed by Stan Lee [isn't his autograph legit?!]

TWO autographed Princess Leia PEZ! One by Carrie Fischer and one by George Lucas.

PEZ vending machine!

PEZ sets for Ratatouille and Meet The Robinsons! Obscure-ish and awesome.

The Guinness Book of World Records Certified "World's Largest PEZ Dispenser"! It's 7ft tall, and will dispense a rectangular box containing a PEZ dispenser and pack of candy. If it was for use, that is. They don't use it since it won the world record, because they don't want it to break. The owner of this museum and two other guys built it themselves.

Bekah and Joseph each picked out a souvenir, and they promised to do chores and earn an "allowance" from me in order to get them. Hence the aforementioned scrubbing and mopping and why I think they actually *will* be back sometime ;) Rebekah picked out these bobblehead figurines of Jack Skellington and Oogie Boogie, and Joseph snagged a replica of the original PEZ dispenser + peppermint candy [the first and only flavor of PEZ for quite some time]. I grabbed sour PEZ candy and a little dispenser of Squishy from Monsters University. And some postcards. Because, why not??

Anyway. We had a picnic in the park after the PEZ excursion, and then came home to do some chores, and then I made stuffed zucchini for dinner, and then we went to a ward movie night to watch Wreck-It Ralph! It was a great day indeed.

feast your eyes on the funky tomato that became part of our stuffed zucchini. also pictured: the strip of concrete that is our "yard".

On Saturday we woke up bright and early to scarf some coconut waffles before heading out to the Dreamworks pre-screening of their new movie, Turbo!!

this is an old promo picture...it actually came out today, July 17

We all really, really liked it. And it's out in theatres today! GO SEE IT! It really grew on us throughout the day and we found ourselves quoting it [quotability is definitely the mark of a good movie in my book]. I loved their representation of garden snail life. And it was farfetched juuuust enough to still be believable! It made me smile and chuckle.

The rest of Saturday was a smidge lame, we were sleepy and Daisy was keen on nursing every hour or so. But we grabbed In-N-Out on our way back across the bay [delish, as always], and enjoyed a nice leisurely evening with the rest of my family!

Please come back soon, Aunt Rebekah and Uncle Joe. You guys are awesome.

HAPPY FOURTH!

Happy Independence Day, and happy fourth month of life to our little 'zee!! I can't believe she was born 1/3 of a year ago. Holy moly. More about that later, but she lucked out and had a pretty awesome four-month-birthday.

The Fourth of July is my favorite holiday. Last year, it was kind of a bummer. "Morning sickness" (AKA all-day-every-day sickness) inhibited all of our usual festivities. We were reduced to running out to buy toilet paper (and some food for Chris), when most people were standing in the street to watch fireworks from the top of the hill we lived on. Which made driving and street parking an adventure. The day wasn't all bad though, we did get to watch Where Eagles Dare, which is awesome and makes you feel all American and stuff! 

But I digress...

This year it was much more fun having Daisy out of the womb. Our life and hearts are so much fuller now that she is here to accompany us on all of our adventures :)

We started off with a lunchtime barbecue with our dear friends in Redwood City! It was beautiful, the food was delicious, and the company top-notch.

Sophia and Annabella - Daisy's new favorite friends (and chew toys)

thanks for this shot, Shari!

And then we shuttled ourselves across the Bay for tacos with my fam (not pictured but it was the most patriotic Mexican food you've ever seen, I assure you). We also watched the first half of Independence Day before heading out to Pleasant Hill for fireworks. Because that is the one day a year when it's pretty much guaranteed that movie will be on TV somewhere. And aliens + America = quite the winning combination.

We love 'merica.

We also love dressing patriotically (my shirt is actually an American flag made up of the names of all 50 states. and Chris calls Daisy's outfit her "picnic table dress". holla!)

And of course, the only photo where Daisy graces us with her gaze and Chris and I have AWESOME facial expressions is also the only one that turned out super blurry...

On to the fireworks! Daisy LOVED them. Totally transfixed. I guess our little adrenaline junkie adores explosions and loud noises too. Should we be concerned about this? 

Props to Chris for how well this one turned out!

my heart was kind of a puddle by the time this was all over.

After this show was finished, there was another one about three miles away and just slightly to the left of the one we had just watched. So while we waited for the crowds to clear out of our general vicinity, we chilled and watched a second set of fireworks! Daisy was so stoked. She couldn't stop talking. It was precious. 

After fireworks we went back to my family's house, ate some pie and ice cream and finished watching Independence Day, then ended up staying the night because we were pooped. 

All in all, I believe it was a successful celebration of our American freedoms :) I am so grateful to live in this beautiful country. 

SARAH'S WEDDING!

So, on May 11th, my sister got hitched!!!

First, we took a plane to Salt Lake City. DAISY'S FIRST PLANE RIDE. She was a champ.

 snoozin' in the airport while Mom horked down some Burger King and a large amount of Dr. Pepper [don't judge, that bacon cheeseburger was delicious]

 after ten minutes of hollering for no discernible reason just before takeoff, she chilled out and didn't make a peep the rest of the flight

 I was trying to be artistic, and I was drinking an additional complimentary Dr. Pepper [I may have consumed entirely too much DP on this trip and gone through caffeine withdrawals the other day...]

the sling is probably the most adorable thing ever. she loves looking out at everything, and just the top of her head peeks over while she's looking around...yeah, it's precious.

And the next morning, it was off to the temple!

 cuties. sealed in the Mt. Timpanogos temple.

my brothas are snazzy.

Anyway, that was a completely gorgeous and lovely and wonderful day, and we all love Adam so much and are stoked to have him as part of our family! And it was a blast to see old-friends-that-are-practically-family at the reception. I'm sure I'll have more photos to share soon :)

As luck would have it, some funky schedule-shifting occurred at Dreamworks, and Chris was able to take some time off of work, and we spent an entire additional week in Utah and Idaho with family [and a couple friends!] it. was. awesome. here are a few random snippets to prove the awesomeness to you:

 kind of blurry....but Daisy ADORES Aunt Michelle :)

Oh, and Grandpappy too ;)

We went up to Idaho Falls for a day to see Grandma Annie [and quite a few of the Rydalch cousins/aunts/uncles! Forgot to take pictures though, boo!]

And the day before we left we met up with the Utah Rydalches for some delicious burgers and shakes! This is Chris' youngest cousin, Dylan. Chris and Tori had to help him figure out how to hold Daisy, but it was adorable.

And no trip to my husbands' childhood home is complete without cleaning out some boxes and finding gems like these...

there are so many drawings akin to this one in all of his childhood notebooks and journals...I am so excited to have sons someday.

 

he worked at a Scout camp when he was 16

yep...he met Elder Holland while on his mission. Some local church member stood by and took pictures, even though you weren't really supposed to...hahaha :)

and someday, eventually, I will be better about remembering to take photos while we are on trips. there was so much we did this week that I didn't document, that filled my soul with joy!! and I just can't find the words to paint a mental picture for you at the moment. Maybe after I eat some lunch or something. I'm pretty hungry. We'll see how I feel after that ;)