Train Ride

San Juan Capistrano Station
San Diego Station
ticket to ride...

breakfast on the train in the dining car

our shopping destination

Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia (cherry chocolate ice cream)

Heidi and I have talked about taking this train ride from San Juan Capistrano to San Diego, for a couple of years, and now she was really ready and old enough to have some fun with this. Her favorite part? Eating in the dining car! Her favorite part of visiting San Diego? eating the ice cream cone!!! I could have saved a whole lot of money just taking her out to eat!!! :-)

Shopping with girls

after a long day of shopping with just me and the grandbabies, we had a nice treat out!

Karen's wedding

after a few months of preparation...the event of our year arrived...hot and sunny! It turned out to be a perfect day, with the bride looking fabulous, the groom at his handsomest, family happy and calm, and with great friends to help us celebrate this momentous and sacred occassion.

Just wish we had taken more pictures ourselves, since we are STILL waiting for the photographer to release the pictures and CD! *** Buyer beware*** they can take pictures but they're not always skilled in customer service! So for now this is all we have (thanks to bff Ashley) Come back in the coming months to check for additions!

America

I love the summer! and the best day to celebrate summer? 4th of JULY!!! We got the special treat of having

Easter 2009

What a beautiful day to celebrate the Resurrection! We had Ken's family, as well as our kids for a wonderful Easter dinner which we combined with Melba's (Ken's mom) 90th birthday! We were especially lucky to get a good friend of ours to take a family portrait for us--BIG shout out to Jared Cicon.

St Patricks fun 2009

There is always lots of fun celebrating our Irish Heritage! Linda's great grandmother is from County Clare Ireland, a town known as Ennistymon. This year I bought all of my children the tartan colors of Ireland. The girls got scraves and the the boys got ties. I don't have any pictures of the kids wearing them, because they are all up in Utah. I'm hoping for the next year that they'll take a picture and post it to me.

In the meantime, our annual feast consisted of Corn Beef and Cabbage, green mashed potatoes, green pistachio pudding, and green 7-UP. Nora and Heidi joined in the fun with adorable shamrock skirts, and headbands. Heidi even slept over and helped bake green frosted cupcakes--YUMMY-

Christmas 2008

Here we are after church on Sunday the 21st. We celebrated "Christmas" with the grandbabies that day since they will be taking their turn with Grandma Sue this year. It was so fun!

"Christmas Morning"

Here we are enjoying our pre-Christmas celebration with the granddaughter's!

Thanksgiving 2008

So you'll have to see other years for the great Turkey spread we put out every year...things just seemed so much busier than other years for some reason, and I didn't get out my camera often enough! But we had a small gathering, of our family, The Johnson's, The Steve Boyer's and our good friend Megan Duffy (from Minnesota via Provo). Lot's to be thankful for! Brian, Karen, Granma Melba (89), Laura and Amy

Those darling granddaughter's of mine...

And me and Heidi in our matching aprons!

Happy Birthday me!

A marvelous day at Disneyland with my two special granddaughter's, my beautiful daughter Amy, and my marvelous and generous husband...Isn't it nice how Disneyland decorated the park so wonderfully for my special day?!

I even got a pin announcing my birthday, and all the people in shops and on rides greeted me with, "Happy Birthday Princess"! Now that is special!

new Disney thrill...

Lucky day for us!!! Laura won a contest for Disney passholders to preview the new ride at California Adventure. So on Thursday the 12th we trooped over to Disneyland and got in line for what turned out to be a GrEaT time! If you haven't read the press about it, take it from us this is one of Disney's finest moments!
Guests wear 3-D glasses aboard spinning vehicles that travel through virtual environments based on classic carnival midway games, The attraction features mini-games after a practice round, each of which includes at least one "Easter egg" that can trigger additional targets or game play changes.

Pie Throw Practice Booth (pie toss target practice game, no points awarded)

Bo Peep's Baaa-loon Pop (dart throw game)

Green Army Men Shoot Camp (baseball throw / plate breaking game)

Buzz Lightyear's Flying Tossers (ring toss game)

Woody's Rootin' Tootin' Shootin' Gallery (suction cup shooting game)

*Plus a bonus round where you rack up as many points as possible at the "old mine". The nice thing to that was well thought out...when the ride has to pause or gets back-logged, they put up targets without points so you can hone your skill while waiting. You almost hope for delays!!!
Each guest's score is recorded by an onboard display screen as points are acquired with individual toy cannons firing simulated projectiles at virtual targets. Easy enough that even a four year old could enjoy it, and challenging enough for those considerably older to get competitive with it!!!So since we had until 3:00 PM to try it out as many times as we liked, I called Ken to get off of work and join us, because no kidding they have a winner on their hands! We were on it for the last time before they closed out our group, and wouldn't you know it...the spring-action shooter stopped working only minutes into the ride! When we got out and reported the error to the cast member, he then allowed us to go back into the ride. NOT just that, we were the ONLY ones on the whole ride, because they were shutting it down...it became a "Disney is all our's" moment!

Guarantee: the lines will be 5 hours or more long for this over the summer! THIS IS A HIT! and we got to enjoy it ahead of time! THANKS DISNEY!!!

Happy Birthday Heidi

Nora enjoying the dinner out after party...
Heidi enjoying the birthday dessert with Papi's help
Heidi and Natalie playing with the "take"
Nora helping keep the party "popping" The birthday spread...cake courtesy of mama Amy.

Heidi is four!!! How can that be? she is such a big girl now! And of course we just had to celebrate... (40 people Ames??? now you sound like your mother!) But it was nice getting together with all the old Claremont friends, and the new Dana Point ones! GOOD TIMES. Heidi's "tinkerbell" b-day went really well I think. Great party games..and good food. Nice combination.

Spending the day with family

Natalie and Heidi exploring in the fields
Annie, Nora and Amy
Nora and Aunt Lolly
Natalie and her nature finds!

Wednesday the 9th, I'm able to drive down to Orange County because we are on spring break (no seminary!) I get to go with my sister Annie, my niece Natalie, the Johnson girl's, and Laura to our favorite restaurant Natraj which specializes in North Indian Cuisine. We spend a good part of the afternoon sitting, eating and chatting. Later we decided to "walk it off" by taking a hike up in the foothills above South Laguna. It was a beautifully warm day, and we enjoyed being all together. Nothing like California in the springtime...