Family Reunion in Costco

Yup - that is right...tonight we had a Gray family reunion in Costco! Dustin's Aunt Mary invited everyone in town to meet at Costco for pizza dinner. We have Dustin's sister Lisa, her kids and Dustin's dad in town so it was great to have them spend time with everyone that lives around here.

So if you were in Costco tonight and saw the full food court and kids running around....that was probably us! :)

What fish DON'T eat

The fish tank was looking gloomy the past few days...not an abnormal thing, just was a clue it was time for a cleaning. This morning I took a closer look and there were a LOT of dead fish. Everyone ran into Zach's room to look. As Dustin is getting all the dead fish out he turns and looks at Zach and says, "did you put anything in your fish tank?". You want to know his reply?

GOLDFISH

Yes....those little orange, cheesy, crackers. Goldfish crackers. Our almost 3.5 year old thought his fish needed to eat goldfish crackers. I am sure the fish LOVED eating them, but the tank didn't like the PH balance shift and it killed almost all the fish! We tried to remember the last time we gave our kids goldfish crackers and it was been 2-3 days. So our 10 gallon tank of 40 fish had been polluted for a while. The end result? 35 dead fish.

Only five of the fish survived. Of course they 35 dead ones received a proper burial....

No worries - this fish tank started with five fish just two years ago...and they kept breeding and breeding...so I am sure they will multiply yet again and our missing 35 will return.

Z-Diddy and LL Cool Gray

Plasma Cars

You seen these before?

Last summer Zach would ride the one at the babysitters house all the time. it was a fight to get him off it every time we picked him up! We were thrilled to find a red one in Costco a few weeks ago. We debated on if we should get one or two. We settled on one as we thought Logan wouldn't probably be big enough to use it until next year, so we would buy one now and buy a second in a year. Once we got it home Zach had fun riding it all around the neighborhood.

But Logan....he sure had the eagle eye on Zach's new plasma car. When Zach would get distracted and ride his trike Logan would get on the plasma car. Jen taught him how to put his feet up and she would push him down the street. After a few days we decided we might as well buy the second plasma car - but Costco was OUT OF THEM! So what was the next best thing? Amazon.com!!! Jen was able to by a blue plasma car for Logan at the same price Costco had the red one for...and FREE SHIPPING!

Boy was Logan excited when we got home tonight and saw a plasma car box at our front door.....
Now we can take family trips around the neighborhood!

Zach's 2nd dentist visit

It has been 6 months since our last attempt at taking Zach to the dentist. This time he was more than willing to let them clean his teeth! He was Mr. Joe Cool for sure. Check him out...


The dentist gave him two thumbs up for no cavities (total shock to us given the amount of CANDY this kid eats!).


Of course after Zach's cleaning he took pictures of mom and dad getting their teeth cleaned....and then promptly found the toys he could choose from as his reward from the dentist.


All three of us left the dentist today with NO CAVITIES!

U2 360 Tour

Today we FINALLY got to see U2 perform in Salt Lake City. We bought these tickets over a year ago - and then the tour was postponed for 11 months for Bono's unexpected back surgery. I can honestly say the concert was worth waiting for! We bought tickets with two other couples and as luck would have it both couples had a baby in the past year - so the husbands attended. That is right, it was Jen and three men at this concert!

We headed down to SLC a bit early and scored a sweet, FREE parking spot. The concert was at the University of Utah stadium - so we got on Trax and rode it into downtown for dinner at the Blue Iguana. We got back to the stadium in plenty of time...watched the opening act...and then waited about a hour for U2 to begin. Some findings along the way.....

Yeah - you see all those semi trucks in the picture above? This is a picture of about 15 red/white semi trucks parked side by side. What you don't see is there are THREE ROWS of 15 semi trucks parked side by side. Yes - about 45 semi trucks to haul the concert stuff. Seem a little excessive? Check out this stage....

Yup a bit huge. Not sure it still takes 45 semi trucks though. Here are the boys (Dustin, Cliff and Dave) anxiously waiting for U2 to make their appearance.

...and of course the beautiful sunset we were able to watch.

The last time we had been to a concert together was before we were married....a little more than ten years ago....when we were first starting to date - it was a STING concert. This time I think we were in the right age group that were in attendance for U2. Bono rocked it for 2.5 hours straight. The stage was fantastic with all the effects. The cameras they had filming him during is performance help make you feel like you were right near the stage (because we obviously weren't!). It was a GREAT show. Here were some snapshots of the stage - nighttime pictures never turn out perfect :( The screen actually separated and moved towards the ground to make it huge...pretty cool.

It is also the era of not using lighters during concerts....you use your cell phone! Yup, these tiny lights are cell phones.

...and the last bit of entertainment for the evening....watching Cliff and Dave rock out!

Thunderstorm

Tonight we got one heck of a show! We were all outside enjoying the evening when Jen started noticing these clouds moving over our house.....

It just keep getting darker and darker....

We ended up getting some Texas sized rain for a good 30 minutes with a bit of hail.

We miss storms like this. It reminded us of Austin weather.

Cousin Scott

Jen's parents came to town this weekend for the ThunderPig car show reveal. Cousin Scott was able to tag along and spend the weekend with us! Zach and Logan were really excited to have their cousin (Jen's brother's 4 year old son) at their house. We had a busy weekend of hard core playing that wore all the kids out!

The first night Scott was in town we took the kids to "Planet Play". The kids enjoyed eating pizza and playing the arcade games. Zach and Scott played every race car arcade game in the place. They even sweet talked Jen and her dad into driving the go carts with them (sorry no pictures of that....we were DRIVING!). Before we knew it...it was 9pm!

Zach and Scott slept on a blow up mattress in Zach's room. Every night Grandma Twogood would read them all stories before bedtime. Logan liked to hang out with the boys too during this time.....

Logan also tried snaking Scott's scooby-do stuffed animal. Thankfully Scott let him play with it the whole visit.

The second day of Scott's trip was the big car show for ThunderPig's reveal. The boys liked looking at all the cars....of course they wanted to also TOUCH all the cars. Luckily there was a wide open area with lots of room for them to run around in at the spot ThunderPig was at. They had fun playing in the mud, and tickling each other with long pieces of grass.


The rest of the trip the boys had fun hanging out with everyone. Scott LOVES the movie Ironman - so we watched it a few times. I finally decided to video him being Ironman. Every time Ironman was on the screen he would act out the motions of what he was doing! He pretty much had it memorized.



Grandpa was also the popular man during this trip! All three grandsons getting a ride on our recliner.


Zach and Logan are already asking when Scott is coming back for another visit. Thank goodness for Apple Facetime!

Hawaii Trip Day #10 - San Francisco

Today was our "chill day" in San Francisco. Jen's brother and family met up with us for the day (Jen's parents were still with us as well). We made a pit stop at Walmart before crossing over the bay bridge to head into San Francisco. We witnessed a dent removal company doing business right in the parking lot! It was quite entertaining to watch.

Once in San Francisco we headed to Golden Gate Park. We decided to go to the Academy of Sciences. The place was pretty sweet - there was plenty of things to keep all of us busy! There was a butterfly house, planetarium, aquarium....and much much more!

Zach got to attend his first planetarium show! He was super excited to sit next to his cousin Scott, Uncle Garrett and Aunt Renee. Good thing it wasn't super crowded, because he talked through a lot of it....we kept hearing "wow, look at that!".

Zach had a great time with his cousin Scott!

After the Academy of Sciences we decided to hit up pier 49 so the kids could see the sea lions.

Very interesting family shot....it was cold and windy....

To get the cold and wind off the minds of the kids we headed into the pier shopping area. Zach saw the merry go round carousel and wanted to ride it! The operators were smart...the rules were kids 3 and under had to have an adult ride with them...a paying adult! So both Zach and Dustin went for a ride!

Afterwards we hit up Garrett and Renee's favorite place to eat on the pier. We enjoyed fish and clam chowder!

Here is Zach and his cousin London watching movies on their parents iphones while the rest of us ate dinner....

At this point we all are wiped. We head back to the hotel and crash. Our flight back to Utah is tomorrow! We had a great time spending the day with all the Twogood's. Our kids loved hanging out with their cousins!

Hawaii Trip Day #9 - Back to Oakland

This morning we left Hawaii. Our tropical vacation has come to an end. We took some pictures with our lei's and the kids....these turned out pretty good. Don't we all look so tan and sun kissed?

All went well in the 5 hour flight back. Logan started off taking a nap - it only lasted about an hour though (darn!). Then he wanted to get up and roam and make friends with all the passengers.
Zach was entertained by his movies for about half the flight....then he wanted to get up and roam.

We were glad when we touched down in Oakland. It was about 7pm California time when we arrived. By the time we got to the hotel and went to grab dinner and got back to the hotel to get settled it was about 9:30pm. The kids were still on Hawaii time so it took longer than normal to settle them down (they were in bed by 10pm though). Apparently that was "too distributive" to our hotel neighbors....after only 5 MINUTES of us being back they checked out and moved to a different room. I am glad they did...if they couldn't handle 5 minutes of kids talking it would have been a horrible night of them complaining and hitting the walls.

Hawaii Trip Day #8 - Hilton Waikaloa Village

Today Logan was still having his intestinal issues and needed his rest. Dustin, Grandpa and Zach headed to Hilton Waikaloa Village to enjoy the facilities. They have a lagoon that fish from the ocean swim in and out of that we can swim/snorkel/kayak in. Jen, Logan and Grandma hung out at our hotel facilities. This also gave the ladies some time to start packing things up for the return trip tomorrow.

The boys had so much fun. They rented a Kayak and took Zach all over the lagoon. They spotted several sea turtles...Zach finally was able to see a sea turtle up close and personal!

They had fun swimming and eating snacks...

When it came time for lunch they decided to eat at the restaurant by the dolphin experience. The deck of the restaurant overlooks the dolphin pin. Again Zach was in heaven....he could eat lunch and watch the dolphins the whole time!

After lunch it was time to go back to our hotel. Jen, Grandma, Zach and Logan all took one last swim in our hotel pool (we were leaving tomorrow morning) while Grandpa and Dustin took a quick nap. We had plans to spend the rest of the evening back at the Hilton Waikaloa Village for dinner at a Japanese Teppanyaki restaurant. Our kids love teppanyaki for the show they put on. I was impressed both kids seriously tried to eat with chop sticks tonight!

The food was by far the BEST teppanyaki we have ever had. Group shots of us eating dinner:

After dinner there was one last thing we needed to do. Jen's parents stayed at this particular Hilton Waikaloa Village last year for a vacation. Every night they would take the boat and ride it down to get ice cream for dessert. The boats travel all around the resort. The last time we were visiting this place earlier in the week the boats weren't working (they only operate 2pm-10pm)...lucky for us it was 8pm! We hopped on the boat and took the nice relaxing drive down to the ice cream place.

And boy did we ENJOY our ICE CREAM! Hawaiians make some good stuff!