Happy 2nd birthday James!

James is 2 years old!

He is a wild child. We think his spirit animal is Taz from Looney Tunes. Another good option is Stitch, because I'm always chasing him around saying "No, no, no, no! You're going to break that! Be careful! Don't touch that!" I want so badly to keep positive with him, but it's hard when he never stops!

James getting his ear tubes is the best thing that could have happened. His speech has taken off. He is actually trying to say words now! He loves dinosaurs ("DINE!"), trucks ("TUCK!"), and all sorts of animals. He loves the "dath" (giraffe) and the "Nyin" (Lion) at the zoo.

He climbs on EVERYTHING (see first picture). I'm trying to figure out how to keep him from falling off things and hurting himself (which does happen) so I don't have to keep my eyes on him every second of the day.

We are the luckiest to have this feisty ginger in our lives! We love you James Murphy!

Last day of '18-19 preschool.

Cora had her last day of preschool today.

Look at how big she is compared to the first year of school!

(I wish she would let me cut her bangs again!)

She has absolutely thrived this year. With her being my first kid, I worried about how she would fit in. Would she have friends? Would she miss me?

I didn't have to worry at all! Her teacher acted like Cora was her favorite (maybe she was? wink wink), and Cora ran headlong into her arms every day when I came to pick her up.

Cora was such a sweetheart at school. Multiple times her teachers told me that she was a helper with a new student. One time she brought a child who was crying tissues and wiped his tears. That filled me with so much pride. She was always sweet with James when he came to tear apart her classroom as I signed her out.

Cora is also so smart! She knew her numbers. letters and colors at the beginning of the year. I have no doubt she is exceeding expectations and will continue to thrive next year.

I am sad that she won't have Mrs. G and Mrs. DuPuy next year. They teach the Pre-K class on MWF, and Cora is just a little bit too young for that class. But all the teachers at her preschool are wonderful so I'm sure she will love it!

(And where is the cute picture of her with her teachers? Oh, she cried and said she was too tired to take a picture. Which made me sad, but nothing I could do right then.)

Roadtrip with the Richards family.

We were SO happy to have some of our friends from Miami come visit us! Jaran did summer sales in Visalia, so they are somewhat familiar with it. It was so fun to plan our roadtrip and show them a lot of the sights of our new home.

We started in San Francisco, because Jaran and Aubry's flight landed there. Since Cora begged to go on the carousel at Disneyland and we never got to do it, we made a beeline for the Pier 39 carousel! After stopping for lunch at a gourmet macaroni and cheese restaurant.

Obviously James got a dragon, and Cora took a while to pick her ride before settling on a rabbit.

  

  

    

 We then took the kids over to see the seals at the pier.

We also got to see the Musee Mecanique, which is a museum that has early 20th century arcade games. Some of those games were horrific. There was one that had a man being hung, and at the last second he dropped from the gallows. This is what people paid for way back when?? There was also an opium den, more executions, etc. But it was also pretty entertaining.

The biggest problem with San Francisco is the TRAFFIC. It took us 4 hours to do the hour drive home. We were going to do the Oakland temple open house the next morning, but decided that the traffic did not sound fun again. So we decided to instead go straight to Yosemite.

 We have never taken the road through Sonora to get to Yosemite, and it was very interesting! It took us through old historic mining towns. One was called "Chinese Camp", and had a bar that had been open since 1849. (I'm pretty sure it has been a lot of different types of buildings since, but still.)

The drive into Yosemite wasn't quite as spectacular as when we came from Fresno last year, because you just can't beat that view of El Capitan and Half Dome.

Also, it was COLD! We stopped at the closest gas station ($5 a gallon in the park, ugh) and it was in the 30's! So we were all underdressed.

  

 The bad news was it was foggy and rainy for our entire day there. We kept quoting Frodo from Lord of the Rings when he said "We've been here before!" Because we just kept circling around Yosemite Valley waiting for the clouds to dissipate.

 We almost got out of the car to picnic for lunch, but it started pouring. So instead we stayed in the car and let the kids go nuts.

 We got out at the visitor's center because Cora needed to go to the bathroom. It is SO fun to watch the kids running around!

 After a while Cora was not interested in being in the cold and rain.

We tried to hike up to Bridal Veil falls, but not only was the sidewalk flooded (trust me, trying to jump over calf deep water while carrying Cora was HARD) but with the rain the waterfall was so intense that we couldn't get close because it was whipping us in the face.

 But we got the cutest picture of our tiny John Muir hiking! He has his little leashed backpack on because otherwise he will run away and off into the waterfall.

After a while we decided to just go to our Airbnb in Bass Lake. It was a good way to unwind, playing games and letting the kids sleep.

We also go to hit up the zoo! Always a must when we have visitors.

Two different reactions to snakes.

 James and his animal twin.

 Tiny angel.

 All the kids were wary of the other dad, but India eventually warmed up to Brandon. 

 Our final stop was Kings Canyon. Another must when we have someone come from out of town!

 

  Playing hide and seek. 

This is why I'm always sweating when out in public with James... he doesn't make it easy for me!

Playing in the stream (with James on a short leash again).  

 

 There was also a lot of games, playing with the kids, running around, and we laughed our heads off.

We LOVE having people come visit! Come back soon Richards family!