Happy Anniversary!

Keith and I celebrated our 15th. anniversary on July 22nd. I thought that I would share some of our wedding pictures....boy didn't we all look young....and thin!!

This is one of my favorite pictures from our wedding. And it is probably my favorite picture of my Dad and I.

We were married at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Grinnell.

** My family is in the top picture. (Keith, my brother Kevin, me, Mom, Dad, my sister-in-law Barb, my niece Abby, and my brother, Todd)

**Keith's family is in the bottom picture. (Keith, me, his Mom, his Grandma, his Dad, his sister-in-law Teri and his brother, Kurt)

My niece, Abby is in the picture on the left and our good friends Alyson and Kelsey Jones are in the picture on the right.

The girls: Alyson Jones, Jodi Glasgow (my high school friend), Kelli Parker (my cousin), Barb Honold (my sister-in-law), Teri Jensen (Keith's sister-in-law) and Kelsey Jones.

The guys: Dave Taylor (Keith's high school friend), Kevin Honold (my brother), Kurt Jensen (Keith's brother), Mark Emery (Keith's cousin), Keith, Paul Emery (Keith's cousin), and Todd Honold (my brother)

Another favorite picture from our wedding. Keith and his red car, which is still in our garage.

Where has the time gone???

Happy Anniversary, Keith!!

It's Here!

The much anticipated basketball hoop has arrived! They put the anchor in on Wednesday and put the hoop in on Thursday. They were shooting within a few minutes after the workers left. Jared broke it in with the first shot....and swished it! After about 10 minutes, Trevor came in and sighed and said "Boy, I sure love that hoop!"

I think this is going to be a good thing!!

Happy (Belated!) Birthday, Maddie!

We were on vacation when our very sweet niece, Madeline Ruth Jensen turned 11 on July 2nd. We took her out to eat before we left, and called her from Disneyland, but it just wasn't the same as being here. We know that she had a great day with family and friends--even without us!

Happy Birthday, Maddie! We Love You!

Day #9--The End

WEDNESDAY JULY 7, 2010

Time to go home. Back to reality. All good things must come to an end. We had a great time in California. Jodi was very gracious to let us invade her house and to let us use her car. We really appreciated everything!

Our flight left at 8:10 AM, which means that we had to get the kids up at 4:45 AM to get to the airport and through security on time. Ouch! After the week we've lived, it was hard for anyone to get up in the dark!

Jared sat with me between LAX and Dallas. He was getting a little restless, so the best way to entertain him was by giving him my camera. This is some of what he came up with!

We took the Sky Link system through Dallas. The boys wanted to see how it was to stand up and ride. We convinced Trevor just to sit with us, although he put serious thought into standing up to be like the big guys!

This is how Trevor spent the entire 1 hour and 45 minute flight to Des Moines. He just couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. In fact, he was sleeping before we even took off! Vacations are hard when you are only 6!

It's all so bittersweet....we hated to see it end, but we were ALL looking forward to sleeping in our own beds again!

Day #8

TUESDAY JULY 6, 2010

This was our last day in California and I knew we had to get going in the morning so we could get home so we could get our things packed up.

Although we didn't leave "early", it was an earlier start then we usually got! We took Jodi's car and headed off to Universal Studios. We looked all the way there to see if we could find the famous "Hollywood" sign, but we never did see it. I'm sure it was there some place, but we had no idea where.

When we got there, we walked through Universal's City Walk. There are a lot of places to shop and eat. We were there at lunch time so we ate at The Hard Rock Cafe. It took longer then we had planned, but we knew the boys would enjoy it. And we were right. I took some pictures, but Cale too A LOT of pictures. (And at this point, I was not ambitious enough to pull pictures off of his camera, so you'll just have to deal with the ones I took.)

We were ready for Universal Studios! They thought it was pretty cool to be on the red carpet!


There were lots of characters around the park to have your pictures taken with....Scooby-Doo, Daphne and Shaggy and Sponge Bob. Oh, and that's Keith and I as Fred and Wilma Flintstone!

We are HUGE fans of Shrek around here, so it was pretty neat to see Shrek AND Donkey. Donkey had a conversation with the boys that just cracked me up! His voice was the same as in the movie and it was on a microphone so everyone around could hear him. He proceeded to embarrass Jared and we were all laughing so hard. Jared was a good sport about it all! And frankly, Donkey was the highlight of my day!

The boys always wanted to ride the water rides and well....their parents aren't very fond of getting wet. They found a place to watch the water ride come down the big hill into a fountain of water. THAT was enough to get them soaked, so I didn't see a need to stand in a long line to get even wetter, so there was no water ride for them! (Does that make me a mean Mom?!)

"Is that REAL, Mom?!" Yep!

The last thing we did was a studio tour. We took a tram and were able to see all sorts of scenes that were used in movies...like a subway during an earthquake, a western town, a flash flood and a shark like the one from the movie Jaws......

...The Bates Motel from the movie Psycho.....

scenes from the War of the Worlds.....

....Desperate Housewives.....

...a cut-out at the end...(they were tired of having their picture taken with the others!)

We were on our way to the gate. It's been another LONG day!

Poor Trevor! Him and his new Puss 'N Boots needed a little rest during the car ride home.

Next Stop?! More Del Taco and more Frugo's Yogurt!

Happy Birthday, Luke!

Today (July 20) is the birthday of our nephew Lucas Todd Honold. He turns 14. Whoa. He's going to get his driver's permit! He's spending his birthday week at basketball camp in Waverly. I remember when he was 13 months old, he came to the hospital to meet his new cousin Cale and got kicked out! :) He started crawling down the hall knocking on doors and apparently irritated the wrong person! Too funny! I'm not going to embarrass him with all the mushy stuff that his Aunt could shower on him....I'm only going to say that he's a pretty neat kid!

Happy Birthday, Luke! We Love You!

(Is that too embarrassing for you?!)

Day #7

MONDAY JULY 5, 2010

Our days kept starting later and later because everyone was tired and would sleep later. Monday morning was cool and cloudy. Jodi told us that every morning it will look like rain, but it won't rain and eventually the sun will come out. It's called "June Gloom." She said that it rolled into May this year and they called it "May Gray." This was July, but there was no cute name for it.

Jodi let us use her car and we headed out for lunch at Subway and then onto Huntington Beach. Keith is NOT a fan of sand, but the kids and I were excited to go. We got to the beach and the boys couldn't get close to the water fast enough. The tide was pretty strong that day with fairly large waves. They ran in and out of water trying not to get caught at first. Eventually, they'd stand still HOPING the waves would get them. They each got knocked down by the force of the waves.

I'm not sure when it happened, but all of a sudden Trevor became very concerned about his brothers in the water. He was certain they would be swept out to sea! He begged and he pleaded for them not to go out too far, and not to get too far down the shore. He'd stand there and shake his little hands and holler at them to come back. Keith and I kept laughing at him and he'd tell us that he wanted them back because "he cared!" We'd try and distract him with the sand toys and that would only last for a moment or two. It didn't help when he took his bucket to the water to fill it and the tide swept his bucket away. He was near hysterics about the bucket. Trevor loves turtles, so I told him that maybe a turtle found it and was using it to live in. That seemed to be the right answer because he didn't care about the bucket after that. (You can see him begging his brothers to stay out of the water in the bottom, right picture. Although, he is laughing in the middle picture!)

The boys finally agreed to spend some sand time with him. Their hearts were in the water, though......


This is my absolutely favorite picture of Keith at the beach! I told you that he didn't enjoy the sand and you can see by the scowl on his face. He sat on that towel and didn't venture off of it. Trevor was fascinated by the small shells, so Keith helped him collect quite a few that we brought home. Keith was in charge of the ones that he could reach from that towel!

The sun never did come out until we were on our way back to Jodi's. We couldn't stay really late because we had big plans for the night.....MEDIEVAL TIMES!!

Medieval Times is a dinner and show involving knights, horses and jousting. It's held in a "castle" and you are told when you get there which knight you are cheering for. We were cheering for the blue knight, as you can see by our blue crowns and flags. While we waited, we checked out the horses and all of the other neat things they had.

We sat down in the blue section and our 5 coarse meal started....tomato bisque with garlic bread, chicken, BBQ rib, a potato wedge, and an apple turnover. The kids did pretty good with all they had to eat. Trevor ate everything they brought him! He NEVER eats that good! We decided that it was because he couldn't see what he was eating. Keith thinks we should start eating in the dark at home!

Did I mention that you don't use any silverware? Keith wasn't sure this was going to be a good idea........

So much to watch.....

The kids loved it!! There was so much to see and they didn't miss a thing!! They just took it all in. I had just as much fun watching them, as I did watching the show.

After it was all over, we were on our way out and the knights came out for pictures. You could meet them in the "Knight-Club" (Real funny, huh?!) The boys were excited to get up close and personal with the (as the guy behind us kept yelling all night) "BLUE KNIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!!"

The boys had no idea what to expect, and they weren't disappointed!! Our knight did not win, but it was another great day in California!!

Day #6

SUNDAY JULY 4, 2010

Today was a much needed day with not much planned. We slept late, went to Del Taco for lunch, and then went to Jodi's friend's house. Teri and her family were out of town, but we had their permission to come and swim in their pool. The kids had a blast! Trevor FINALLY convinced Keith into coming in so he could jump off of the diving board like his big brothers. First time he jumped he had a death grip on Keith and nearly pulled him under. He came up with big eyes and said to Keith: "Dad! I almost drowned!" Keith corrected him and said "No....I did!" With each jump he became more comfortable and was able to jump in, and actually use his crawl stroke to get to Keith. Those lessons are paying off! Thank you Yox Family! We really appreciated the relaxing afternoon!

Jodi is a self proclaimed "delicate flower." While the Jensen's were spending time in the sun, she sat under the pergola. :)

Jodi got new tires shortly before we got there and Jared was always complimenting her on the new wheels. Although, he was certain that she should have upgraded to the Monster Truck tires!

Our 4th. of July meal came from in the form of pizza. We went to "That's Amore Pizzeria." Pizza really hit the spot! We ate and watched some of the World Cup Soccer on one TV and some Angels baseball on the other TV. Can you tell which 2 pictures I took and which 2 Jared took? Remember when I talked about things that were important to me, and things that were important to them?!

After we were done with our pizza, we made our second stop of the trip at Frugo's for some yogurt. This time we took it with us, and then went to find a place to watch fireworks. We found a place along side of the road and set up our chairs. They were being shot off at the local Country Club, so we set up on the next block and could see them really well. It was a little chilly that night. We certainly weren't complaining!

HAPPY 4TH. OF JULY!!!

Day #5

SATURDAY JULY 3, 2010

Today, Jodi turned us loose with her car. We wanted to head into LA to the Staples Center to watch a WNBA game between the LA Sparks and the Seattle Storm. One of Seattle's new players this year is Alison Lacey. Alison just finished up her career this year with Iowa State and she was one of our favorite players for the Cyclones.

We didn't have any Storm gear to wear, so we all wore our Iowa State Women's Basketball shirts. We sat away from the court and frankly, we were at the opposite end of the court from the Storm's bench. But we could see Alison (#40!)!

She doesn't get a lot of playing time yet, in fact she only played the final 40 seconds. But we sure cheered for her those 40 seconds. When she got into the game, they even announced which college she came from! The boys were impressed that she was actually the last one to touch the ball.

Even if we didn't see much of our favorite Cyclone (Trevor swears he's going to marry her!), it was an experience to see a WNBA game and actually get into the Staples Center and see all of the Lakers things since they had just won the NBA Championship there this year.

We called Jodi on the way home and she started cooking dinner for us. We at outside and enjoyed some "Beer Butt Chicken", corn on the cob (although it wasn't IOWA sweet corn, it was pretty good!), potatoes and carrots, and garlic bread. All on the grill. I only wish I had taken a picture of the chicken after we had completely picked it apart! Yum! Good Stuff!

For dessert we made our first visit to Frugos Yogurt. It's pretty unique...and really good! It's a self serve place with about 10 different kinds of frozen yogurt, and more toppings then I can name. You loaded your cup up with whatever sounded good and then they charged you by how much it weighed. 39 cents an ounce. The boys really loaded theirs up with some interesting things! Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Fruity Pebbles, Gummy Worms and Bears just to name a few.

We ended up coming here a total of 3 times during our visit. After the first time, we thought we had worked out a better plan. My favorite was a little chocolate yogurt, some peanut butter topping, hot fudge and some crushed Reece's Peanut Butter Cups. They I put more yogurt in my bowl and repeated. Yum! Keith thinks that we need to open one around here!