Orchestra Trip to San Francisco

For Advanced orchestra Baylee got to go to San Francisco. We left the middle school at 4:30 Thursday morning. No one was happy enough to take pictures that early!

This was Baylee and her friends all "spiffied up" for the San Francisco Symphony Thursday night

Because it had been such a long bus ride, the driver's couldn't take us to the symphony. So we got to ride the subway.

This was Bay on a trolley car. We only had about 2 1/2 hours in downtown S.F. so we didn't have time to ride one. But she sure looked cute standing on it :)

Of course we had the famous sour dough bread!

Her orchestra went to competition on Friday night. They were unbelievably good!

And, of course, Baylee was gorgeous!

On Saturday before we came home we went to Great America Theme Park. They had a 156 foot free fall. For some reason I decided it would be a good idea to show my daughter that it's good to do things that scare the pants of you!!! Pretty much the scariest thing I have ever done! But, after I got off Bay asked if she could do it too because she couldn't let me be more brave that her. So I guess it was worth it :)

At the awards ceremony our orchestra won 1st place in their division, but also won Best Overall Orchestra out of all the orchestras in every division! So proud of these kids!

Travis turns 40 :)

I wanted to have a surprise party for Travis for his 40th birthday but couldn't figure out what to do. But my friend Jill said we should have it at Tacos El Gordo (she loves it as much as we do hehe). So I thought what would be even better than that would be for Tacos El Gordo to come to us. Bob talked to the manager there, and sure enough, they would do ANYTHING for Bob! (everyone loves him :) When I had originally planned to do it the weather was supposed to be super bad so I decided to wait until the 30th of April thinking that the weather is always nice in Vegas by then right? Well, not so much! It wasn't horrible, just kinda windy and too cold to really be outside the entire night. Mark suggested we have the party at his house because there was no way I would be able to get rid of Trav all afternoon to do it at our house. Baylee and my mom did all the decorating. Wade did pretty much all the running around and organizing. And LaNae and her kids cleaned so we could have a party there. A lot of our friends came and it was a ton of fun! Travis said he was really surprised, I hope he was! The one funny thing though was that day I asked him where he wanted to go to dinner. (we were going on a date he thought) He had got a "bug" in Mexico over Spring Break and had been sick since we got home. He said, "I don't care where we go, just as long as it's not Tacos El Gordo." Well.... surprise honey, that's whatcha got lol

We rented a margarita machine. The guy couldn't understand why we weren't having kids there, but we didn't want alcohol in it!

I

Bay and mom hung up giant pictures of Trav.

mmmm.... Tacos!

After dinner we played Minute To Win It games in Mark and LaNae's garage. (thanks for sweeping it out for us Charlee :)

And of course Bundt Cakes for dessert!

Easter

We didn't get home from Playa Del Carmen until 1 in the morning on Easter Sunday. But the Easter Bunny still managed to come through for the kids at Grandma Connie's house. :)

Spring Break in Playa Del Carmen

For Spring Break we were lucky enough to get to go to Playa Del Carmen with Mark, Lanae and their family and my mom and dad. We can't wait to go back!

This is the resort we stayed at.

Tori should seriously always be on vacation. She does the look so well :)

We rented a van for a day and went "touristing". This was the coolest restaurant I have ever been to. It was on the beach in Akumel where Mark took us to snorkel and eat.

This was the girls in their ziplining gear. I wish I would have taken a picture of Cole's shoes. He had on crocs so the guy taped his shoes on so they wouldn't fall off while he was zip lining. I don't think that would happen here lol. The zip lining was so awesome and definitely one of everyone's favorites of the trip.

Travis was taking a little nap in between touring the caves and zip lining in Akuchen. Apparently this region of Mexico is known for their hammocks. There were hammocks everywhere we went.

This is our tour of the caves. They are not very protective of their stalagmites and stalagtites in Mexico.

The resort had awesome pools. It also had a couple whirlpools that Cole and Uncle Mark would get in every afternoon and be "sharks". I didn't get a picture of those though :(

Can you believe how beautiful that water is!!!

(And those girls are incredibly beautiful as well)

LaNae, Charlee, Baylee, and I decided we would try out scuba diving in the pool to see if we wanted to learn how. It was pretty cool, but I'm still not sure I want to be under the ocean!

We spent lots of time eating of course.

This was Cole bartering with the Mexican salesman. I think he actually got a good deal just because he was cute!

This is where we spent the majority of our time. Sitting under the palapas on the beach!