san fran: chabot space and science center

After the temple visit, we picked Jenny up and we went to the Chabot Space and Science center (yay for reciprocal science center passes!). It was a really great place to explore for a few hours.

We stopped to make a robot.

My favorite part of the museum was looking through the telescope. We got to see Venus and later the moon.




This might have been everyone else's favorite room. It was a pinball machine exhibit. Some of the pinball games dated back to the 1940s. Eric found the pinball game he remembered playing on in the 90s (the Adams Family). The machines were all working so you could play all you wanted.

We got to watch a show in the planetarium. Perry's commentary was cracking me up the entire time! 

A few of us became astronauts.

Kacin

Jenny

Layla

Kyler--I mean Mr. Hand!

Here's Kyler

We met Albert Einstein. He has such a great sense of humor. Man, can he tell a joke!

A little more exploring of the museum...

san fran: oakland temple

We spent many hours in the car and one night at a hotel.

But then we made it to San Francisco! We had an hour before we were picking Jenny up from the bart station so we made a stop at the Oakland temple and I'm so glad we did. It was absolutely beautiful! It is now probably my favorite temple grounds to walk around. Such stunning views of the city!

We tried to take a nice peaceful family picture in front the temple. I guess being in the car so long made someone kinda ornery and instead of smiling and saying cheese when I snapped the picture he went for a big push to his little sister.


Yeah, she didn't take too well to that one.












Just like the pushing picture, I accidentally captured this next picture. But I think these pictures show how amazing Kyler and Kacin are. And they show our real life. It is hard sometimes. But they really are so incredibly patient, loving, kind, and creative. Perry, Kyler, and Kacin are so lucky to have each other as brothers.

Perry's mood hadn't fully subsided yet. And so you first see Perry going in for a bite of Kyler's arm.




We all tried to calmly redirect and pull Perry away again when he went back for a second bite.


Kacin tried humor with a pretend bite back to Perry.


Kacin's second strategy was brilliant and worked like a charm. He offered a piece of his own special red gum. Perry took the bribe and apologized to his brothers and promised not to bite anymore.


Those amazing brothers saved the day. Perry snapped out of it and the rest of our time at the temple went well.

these days

A conversation with Perry-
Me: Are you going to go on a mission?
Perry: Yeah, a Star Wars mission! I want to go on a star wars mission!
When I grow up, I want to be a Star Wars guy.
Me: a Jedi?
Perry: yeah a Jedi!
No, I want to be a doctor.
No, I want to be a mama.
No, I want to still be a Perry.

I love the moments when Perry takes care of his little cousin Grayson. Perry is especially careful that Grayson isn't around Legos or other small toys because he knows he will put them in his mouth.

Eric has spent the last week using all of his spare time to build our mudroom. He put up the shiplap, painted, built the shoe bench (with storage). We just have a few things left to do to finish up this room and I am sooo excited!

Eric and I got to go out on a date with this cute girl. She picked mod pizza.

Kacin finally wore me down and I took him, Kyler, and some of their friends to KTR. They spent the afternoon climbing over the parquor course, playing dodgeball, and jumping on the tramps. When they needed an energy boost we walked over to mcdonalds for a snack.

While the boys ran around, I was sitting down at a table working on some projects. A lady sat near me and asked to borrow a pen. We later figured out that her son had been on a football team with one of Kacin's friends. We ended up talking for a long time and that conversation led to religion and me telling her about our family's study of religions this summer so she invited us to her church. We accepted her invitation and went with her on sunday. I'll have to write another post about it all another day.

Arizona gets hot. We saw the temp in our car read 123 degrees at one point.

Perry's house help of choice this week has been to help clean the bathrooms. He loves having a spray bottle in hand.