wild waters

A friend of mine told me that if you are "visibly" pregnant you only have to pay $8.50 to get into the wild island water park and Brielle is free. It sounded like great cheap fun for Brielle and I to do. So of course I wanted to try to go as many times as I could before I had the baby.
My nephew Dallin was in town so I decided to take Dallin, Tiffany and Brielle to the water park. I was a little nervous being in charge of so many kids. I figured Dallin was old enough he and Tiffany would be ok.
I had a crazy morning and ended up forgetting Brielle's swimsuit. Luckily my friend who doesn't live very far from the water park allowed me to barrow her daughters. I was ever so grateful because I was already running late.
The water park has a section for toddlers and Brielle loved it. Her favorite thing to do is go down the water slides with mom. The toddler part has two tube like water slides and a large open slide. The tube like slides are super hard to go down if you are an adult, I had to pull ourselves down. However, the large open slide we are both able to slide down. She had a blast as long as I went with her.
I took her to the wave pool and the lazy river but they were not as big of a hit as the toddler part. Another hit was the little kid water area that has a bucket that fills up with water and then dumps out. She wanted to sit on a lawn chair and watch it-she would have sat there all day if I let her.
Brielle had a keen sense of where the food area was. She kept running over and asking to eat. After telling her no several times because I wanted to wait for Dallin and Tiffany she was finally able to eat. We had pizza and fries.
About mid-visit Brielle discovered the coin operated horses. She couldn't get enough of them and it took everything I had to get her to play in the water at that point.
Dallin and Tiffany did a great job checking in with me. They even took Brielle down a couple of the water slides (in the toddler area). We didn't leave until closing and everyone was very tired.

I had to drop Dallin and Tiffany off out at Julies. Shortly after crossing over Mt Rose Hwy a bird flew right into my windshield. I thought it was going to break or at least crack it-luckily it didn't. The noise was so loud and when I looked in the rear view mirror I saw feathers flying everywhere. Dallin's facial expression was classic-he couldn't believe I hit a bird.

She ran right into the water to test it out.

Our coin operated horse that she couldn't get enough of.

It was interesing taking picutes becuase I would try to slide slightly ahead and take the picture before we hit the bottom. I think I did ok.

Tiffand and Dallin walking Brielle up to the water slide.

The big open water slide.

I loved that they were all holding hands.

Camp Richardson

One of my "things to do before the baby comes" is to go camping. I was running out of weekends so I told Matt that this weekend we had to go or it wasn't going to happen. We planned on going by ourselves but found out the Nash family went camping over the weekend too. So we called them to see if we could join them Sunday night. One night of camping is good enough for me right now-it fixes my "itch" to go. We originally planned on staying closer to town but the Nash family was already up at Camp Richardson. We debated because last time we weren't too impressed and we were a little nervous about going that far. But we figured they were already there and the company would be fun.
We packed the night before and Matt pre-cooked the tin foil dinners. I went to Walmart to buy cheap "camping" clothes for Brielle because I really didn't have any and a few miscellaneous items. We had to stay for all of church because I had to teach a lesson in young womens. Needless to say we didn't get up there until around 6:30ish.
The camp site was a huge improvement over the last place we stayed. I also love Sunday night camping because no one is there. It was very quite. I was happy we went.
It took Brielle two seconds before she wanted to play in the dirt and boy did she play. By the time she was done she had dirt EVERYWHERE but she sure did have fun. I knew she would be filthy so I wasn't too worried about it. While she played Matt set up our new tent that his parents gave us for Christmas, and threw on dinner. We had NO idea how fancy our tent was until we set it up. You don't have to zip up the door-it automatically shuts, it has a light that comes with a remote, the windows have some cool roll up thing, and a doggy door.
After dinner we played baseball, roasted marshmallows, popped some popcorn, and got the kiddos ready for bed. My original thought was to have Brielle sleep with us, but then I decided to see how she would do sleeping on the floor by herself. I bundled her up with clothes, blankets and her own sleeping bag. Matt and I layed down with her until she fell asleep.
Once the kids were down, we just hung around the camp fire. We were going to play games but never made it that far. I kept eating smores since they kept calling my name. At one point in time I asked Matt when he planned on moving the food from the truck into the bear box but he didn't seem too interested in doing anything and said he was going to keep it in the truck. I wasn't too thrilled with that answer but didn't do anything about it.
The night grew late, and we had talked about going to bed but no one did. It was about midnight when we had a visitor. We were still sitting around the camp fire when Both Julie and Zac pointed their flashlights toward the bear box and the truck. Much to our surprise we saw a BEAR! At first we all froze because I think we went into shock, we were looking at the bear and he was looking at us and kept walking forward. Then our adrenaline kicked in and realized we needed to make noise and scare it off. Matt, Julie and Zac started to make noise and more closer to it, Matt hit the car alarm as well. I kept quite and headed straight for the tent. I was afraid all the noise would wake Brielle up and she would freak out. Much to my surprise none of the kids woke up, however us parents were WIDE awake at this point. once the bear ran away we searched the area to make sure it was really gone and then there was a mass clean up effort. The truck was cleaned out both the cab and the trunk. The campsite was cleaned up even more. We were shocked how brave the bear was walking right up to our site and how quite it was. We didn't hear a thing. We were a little afraid it was going to come back, Zac put up a parameter of chairs and bikes and toys so if it did come back we would hear it knock something over and wake us up. We weren't really wanting to go to bed at this point but figured it was late enough and we needed to try to go to bed. No one slept very well that night. At first I was afraid the bear would get us but I had Matt say a prayer and I put my trust in the Lord knowing we would be ok. Therefore my lack of sleep was because I got too cold and I always sleep crummy the first night of camping. However Brielle slept great! She is a little wiggle worm so I would check on her and would keep covering her with blankets. Then probably around 5ish she woke up because she wouldn't find her pacifier and I put her in bed with us. At that point I took the blankets we gave her and put them on our bed, finally I was warm and fell asleep for a little while.
Matt got up and made us Breakfast-which was so yummy. We packed up and headed up to Fallen Leaf falls with Julie and the kids while Zac headed back to Reno for work. Julie said the falls were amazing and I was excited to check them out. Last year when we drove up the falls were pretty much dry and there was just a trickle. However this year they were so full, it was amazing. We played around for alittle while and then headed back down to Camp Richardson for some ice cream.
We decided to go to North Tahoe Beach and play for the afternoon. We had lunch and played in the water. It was a really hot day so it was nice to dip in the water and cool off. When we got home we heard on the news that it was the first day it hit 100 degrees. No wonder we were so hot up at Tahoe.

DIRT:

Our home away from home. We loved the remote and door feature. Thanks Norma and Merlin.

The first time we are using our air mattress bed, we learned we need to blow it up more.

Brook tracing Brielle's hand.

Brielle wasn't too excited to sit on Daddy's lap

Yummy sticky marshmallows!

Hanging out.

LETS PLAY BALL:

Matt being silly

Zac cooking the popcorn

Brielles sleeping arrangement

She loved Tyler's lego flashlight

Being with her cousins makes her very happy

This is a reenactment of where the bear was and where Matt was sitting. It was about 10 feet.

Fallen Leaf Falls.

Top of the Falls

You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream!

Brielle was loving the ice cream shop

And really enjoyed this giant "pooh bear" (all bears are called pooh bears)


Seriously my favorite beach.

Brielle loves the water.

She is telling Tyler "NO!" and always points her finger and shakes it.

Eva Crystal Hicks

Today my beautiful little niece was born. I got a phone call about 7:20 from my mom saying "We are going to have a baby today! Crystal is pushing" They were going to take Erin and Grandpa Hicks and head down to say hello. I had told Brian and Crystal from the beginning that I will not be able to come down to see the baby because I couldn't travel. I was super surprised how sad I was that I wasn't able to go. When Brielle got up she wanted to go over to Oma's so I decided we would drop Matt off at work and see the family off.
By the time we made it to my parents none of us had heard back from Brian. My folks and everyone were trying to get ready to go and there was still no news. So finally at 9:45 I texted him to make sure everything was ok. He responded back saying the baby was born at 8:47 weighing 7.5lbs and 20 inches long and Crystal delivered NATURAL! As my parents were heading out the door I broke down in tears. I was so sad I wasn't going and everyone else was. I knew I shouldn't go but really wanted to go. My mom suggested I just go with them but I really didn't want to go without Matt (just in case something did happen). Matt needed to be at work so I stayed home.
Shortly after they left Erin texted me and said Dad wanted Matt and I to come down. I hesitated for a little while and Matt needed to finish what he was working on.
By noon we decided to head down. We hit terrible traffic due to road construction and very slow drivers. It took us 3 hours to get down there. Brian and Crystal had NO idea we were coming and it was a wonderful surprise. When I walked in I was shocked to see how good Crystal looked. I seriously wished I looked that good after having a baby. There is nothing like a natural glow that radiates from a new parent. It was fun to see this glow radiating from both Brian and Crystal. Just to see it was worth the whole trip.I loved being down there with all the family celebrating this long awaited birth.
We spent a few hours holding the baby and taking pictures and then headed back home. Coming home was faster than going down. We stopped and ate dinner with my folks, Grandpa and Erin and then went our separate ways.

Here is Eva Crystal Hicks:


This is a great picture of three generations. Looking at it reminds me of what the circle of life is all about. The elderly who are fading away and looking as their legacy lives on, the present who has the responsibility to nurture and teach their heritage to their children, and the future who has their whole lives ahead of them and make their ancestors proud.


It's always amazing to me that in an instant you become a Mother and a Father. The instant love and pride that comes.

When we arrived Brielle became SO shy-not what I was expecting at all. She held on tight to either Matt or I and sometimes would go with Oma.

We kept trying to show her the baby and she would hide her face. After some time she warmed up and would look at the baby. I had her point to Eva's mouth, nose and chin.

At one point Brielle wanted me to hold her. I was already holding Eva but thought I would take both of them. Besides, it wont be long before this is an everyday occurrence.

Since we were all there we had to get a "girl" picture. Our little family sure is growing.

Mona was super nice and took a family picture for us.

This is the first time I get to be an Aunt on my side of the family. I have always loved being an Aunt and look forward to being one on my side of the family.

Brielle wasn't too sure when the baby starting crying. She would look at it like "why you cryin?"

The grandparents with their grandkids!

Grandpa Hicks looking at every detail of Eva

My parents are so thrilled to be grandparents again.

By the time we left, Brielle was loving on Eva and having a good time in the hospital.

We are so happy Eva has joined our family and Brain and Crystal get to experience parenthood. Congrats!

This picture was taken when they were heading home. I think Eva is wondering what the heck is about to happen to her and she gets to go home.