Mammoth and Yosemite July 2010

In July, we did our annual Ricks family trip to Mammoth Lakes, CA. Here is a great shot of a sunrise from our condo.

Next is the other Carter family from Utah: Lisa, Maddie, Lauren, and Paul (Neil's brother). They joined the Ricks clan for this trip.

Next, it's the famous Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. Neil climbed this a few years back.

Elaina is a tree hugger too.

Seth was exhausted after we carried him on a 2 mile hike in 95 degree weather.

Next is the Merced River and Yosemite Falls with the tounguester, Seth, on my shoulders.

Mom and Elaina enjoyed this view point of Half Dome from the back side.

Here are the two brothers, Neil and Paul, hiking down from Mammoth Mountain on the Dragon Back trail. The lake views were stunning.

Yes you can find snow in July at the top of an 11,000 ft mountain. And snow just begs for a snowball fight.

Here is Lake McLeod with Seth, Pam, Paul, and Elaina. This is always a fun little hike.

July 2010

Here we are at Old Town San Diego. It was on these steps that Neil sang to me "I love my Pamela Dean. She can't spell worth beans, but I sure do love my Pamela Dean." He sang this on the night we got engaged.

We got to spend a couple of days in San Diego with Paul, Lisa, Lauren, and Maddie before we went to DC. Here is Maddie with Seth, the hoodlum.

July was a month filled with trips and summer fun. We did a weekend outing to the Oceanside pier. Laina loved watching the waves from the pier.

In the next picture, Seth gives us an angelic grin from his stroller.

My Grandpa Hales passed away this month and we drove to Utah for his funeral. On our way back from this trip, we stopped at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and went swimming in their lazy river. Laina and Seth didn't like the waterfalls where you got really wet, but we loved it.

On our way back, we also stopped at Cedar Breaks and barely missed a huge thunderstorm.

Funerals bring families together. Most of our extended family made it to Grandpa Hales' funeral. My sister Liz sang, just like she did for Grandma's funeral.

As a 99 year old great grandpa dies, his young great-granddaughter Elaina lives on with his legacy.

We stayed at my friend Patti's house the first night of this trip. Patti is my old roommate from DC. She got married to Jed and has a 4 year old named Riley and a 2 year old named Serah.

We also got to see Uncle Paul and cousin Maddie. Seth has a goofy, squinty smile, just like his Uncle Paul, and looks a lot like him when he was a baby.

Here we are dressed up for the 4th of July. We went to Pepper Tree Park to watch the fireworks. Elaina loved doing roll overs in the soft grass there.

June 2010

By June, we had mostly moved into our new house. Here are our first house guests other than family, our good friends, the Thompsons. They came over for their daughter Juliana's 2nd Birthday.

Next is a picture of me and Lainie at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, after a Switchfoot concert.

We made it to the Switchfoot concert just in time to hear my favorite song, "Dare You To Move."

Next is Fathers Day, with Grandpa holding a very smiley Seth. We had our first big family dinner that day. It was a bit stressful, because we originally thought only Mom and Dad were coming, but then the rest of the family decided to come at the last minute, a total of 17 guests! Somehow it all worked out, though.

Next, we see us with the Hermansons, our friends from Blythe, CA, at the Silver Strand in Coronado. Their visits have started to become an annual tradition.

We celebrated our 3 year anniversarry at the Beach House, a nice restaurant in Cardiff by the Sea. It was fun going for a walk on the beach after dinner. All you had to do is jump over the rocks at the restaurant and you were on the beach.

We did a hike at Lake Hodges for family home evening one week. The kids loved it. I have been wanting to walk over that pedestrian bridge for a while.

Next is my niece Becky Mitchell at her mission homecoming. She returned from her 18 month mission to Kirtland, Ohio a very confident young lady.

Five of the seven children in my family were there for Becky's homecoming, so we took this nice picture with Mom and Dad.

Omar, my friend Anna's fiancee, finally went through the San Diego temple for his endowment. Here is the happy couple with me and a couple of Anna's girlfriends. They finally set their wedding day after 2 years of working things out.

May 2010

May was an eventful month. It ended with us giving in and going on a road trip. After all, it had been nearly 4 months since our last trip. That is a record for us. We usually only go 2 months between trips. Neil and I can only go so long without travel.

This is a picture of Seth and me at Harrah's hotel in Laughlin, NV, right along the Colorado River. Seth swims well in this inflatable water taxi, which doubles as a chew toy.

We drove along route 40 which has replaced the old route 66. These are cars at Delgadillo's drive in, Seligman, AZ. Don't they look like the ones in the movie "Cars"?

We finally made it to The Grand Canyon before the sun went down. Maybe that's why Neil and Seth are scowling in this picture, because they are staring into the sun.

After leaving our friends, the Hermansons in Blythe, CA, we visited Lake Havasu and walked across the original London Bridge, carefully transported years ago to the Arizona desert.

In the next picture, you see Pamela, Elaina, and Seth in a phone booth. Then you see Mom and Dad playing "London Bridge is falling down" with Elaina on the London Bridge. I felt like part of the party crowd for a moment, as I watched all the swimsuit-clad boaters going underneath the bridge.

Here we all sit on the couch with the Hermansons in Blythe, California. Elaina warmed up to John after he read her "King Bidgood's in the Bathtub". I got to see a solar oven for the first time. It cooked our chicken enchiladas for dinner that night. Angie helped out with Seth, who still isn't consistantly sleeping through night.

We earned the right to that trip after moving into our new house in rural Fallbrook, CA on Friday May 8, 2010. Moving was overwhelming. We were so exhausted. I missed my view from the old Tierrasanta house at first, but I am learning to like our new view of the "jungle" as I call it.

We kept our tradition of traveling somewhere for Neil's birthday. We had to settle somewhere close (in this case, Newport Beach), as we were still moving into our new house. On Neil's birthday, the present from my brother Kendell and my dad was helping us install our TV over the fireplace.

It was a busy Mother's Day. We had just moved on Friday and Elaina's birthday and Mother's day were both on Sunday. Elaina turned 2 and ate her cake in the same way she ate her cake on her first birthday, with the frosting doubling as face paint. She also got her first tricycle.

Next is Neil with Seth in the backpack. This was our last hike in Mission Trails Park before we moved. It was a fun family home evening activity.

Next is a picture of Seth just being cute. He does that a lot, so it's easy to photograph.

We finally went on the train ride at Balboa park near the San Diego Zoo. We had meant to do it for a long time. It was a nice break from packing and fixing up the house. Neil and Lainie got to ride with an elephant.

April 2010

April was a crazy month for us, packing and getting ready to move to our new house and working hard to get our old house ready to rent. We finally closed escrow on our new house! It's in the lovely rural community of Fallbrook, CA, close to grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. We even live next door to a girl I grew up with, and their family goes to church with us. Life is good!

Elaina has become a real cutie, especially now that her hair is long enough to put in to pigtails, or "puppy ears", as I like to call them.

Lainie is already into doing dress up with Mama's clothes. She loves wearing swim suits, even when we are nowhere near water.

We had the family over to our new house when we got our keys. Here is cousin Thomas holding Seth. It seems that all the cousins now want to hold our cute baby.

Elaina had a great time hunting for Easter eggs at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Of course, she had a little help finding all those eggs.

Seth and his grandpa make a cute pair in matching stripes.

We had to take few pictures of the view at our old house before moving out. I'm really going to miss that panoramic view!