We went to St. George, Utah this weekend, just to get away.  We stayed on the third floor with a view.  Our weekend was filled with enjoying the pools and the playgrounds and visiting a family fun center over and over again.  Ruth was so excited about earning tickets for playing games and Joel just liked pushing buttons.


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We took Joel for a his 18 month well check yesterday.

He came in at 35 1/4 inches tall!  He's off the charts!  To put it in perspective, if he was that height at his second birthday, we'd expect him to be about 6' tall when he finishes growing.  It looks like he's inherited the TALL genes.

He's about 90th percentile for weight and only 6-7 pounds lighter than his bigger (but not for long) sister.

Andrew, Ruth, Abby, and Joel spent the past few days together at the Grano resort.  Grandma Katie joined in the fun.  Having 4, 3, 2, and 1 year olds all together is a bit hectic, but lots of fun.

When everyone first arrived, we went to see the mermaid at the Silverton.  We also tried the shooting gallery, checked out the boats, rode the escalator up and the elevator down, and tried talking to the stuffed bears (they were shy and didn't reply).

On Monday, we had a picnic at the park.  The high was over 100, so we went early.  We fed the ducks and other wildlife around the picnic area.  When we got hot, we rested on the picnic blanket.  And when the bubble machine wasn't blowing bubbles, we all worked together to get it figured out (the more hands, the better!). 
After all the fun, we had a pool party and then a bath party.  So many parties!

On Tuesday, we went to Gilcrease Orchard.  4-1 got bumble bee hats that were perfect for finding the right fruits and vegetables.  They also each decorated their own fruit bags, complete with their names.  Grandpa Mike was on our minds and we chose LOTS of hard pears just for him.
After a morning filled with searching for ripe fruit, we spent much of the rest of the day reading books and checking out fun Grano toys.  And, of course, we had more pool and another bath together.
The day ended with Ruth, Abby, and Aunt Bethany having a slumber party.  I don't know how much fun it was with the girls being so exhausted from their days together, but it was cute.

All in all, it was a great time.  The kids had a great time being together and the adults had a nice time relaxing in between taking care of the kids.


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We went to California for Father's Day to celebrate daddy and 2 grandpas: Grandpa Mike and Grandpa Bob. 

Grandpa Mike and Grandma Katie took us to the Santa Monica pier.  We went on the old time carousel first, then touched lots of star fish and other sea creatures at the aquarium.  After all that, we went to the beach where Ruth buried Grandma Katie's legs.

The next day we visited Grandpa Bob and Grandma Ann for lunch.  We got to see Aunt Lorie and Uncle David and Aunt Leah.  Ruth decorated the cake with lots of sprinkles and shared with with everyone.

It was fun to be with so many grandparents AND it was nice to get out of the heat (70 degrees in CA versus 100 degrees at home).


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I'm a little delinquent in posting these, but I did want to be sure to post some pictures of our May trip to Texas and Florida.

We were in Texas (Austin/New Braunfels/San Antonio) 6 days for a family reunion and aunt Jessica's graduation from UT Austin.  We stayed with the whole family and had a great time with all our cousins on mommy's side.  We had a birthday party for the kids, went toobin (sorry, no photos as that would have been hazardous to the camera), and spent a lot of time in the river.

Next, we spent a few days in Orlando with aunt Traci and uncle Cy.  They took us to the Brevard Zoo where we fed giraffes and birds, touched a bumpy baby alligator, and rode a train.  All fun things!  BTW, we'd highly recommend the Brevard Zoo to anyone.

Our last stop was Sarasota to visit daddy's family and be reunited with Grandma.  We spent 4 days in a condo right on the beach (we stayed on the third floor on the left, as seen in the photo below looking from the water).  The views were beautiful, the sand was fun, and the water was WARM.  Daddy and mommy even got to go parasailing, which was awesome.

Grandma Thompson in Florida has a little boom box with a button you can press to hear great music.  Joel discovered it the first day we were there and took the opportunity to show off his dance moves.



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Ruth's birthday was this past week.  She's had a blast receiving presents and talking about how amazing it is that she will have a birthday party with Cousin Abby. 

Last Saturday we had a pool party with Matthew and his family.  We made a fun flower cake, which Ruth decorated and then eat the sprinkles off of.

The next day, we had lunch at a place where the owner really enjoys having the kids.  He made Ruth a special birthday girl sundae.  She was ecstatic about the sundae but not at all happy about the singing that came with it.

Here are some photos of the birthday girl!

Today, we went to Gilcrease Orchard near our house and picked carrots, peaches and apricots.  Joel ate 4 peaches while we were picking them -- he loved them!  The apricots are for Cousin Abby.


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Such a long time has passed since our last Grano kid post, I don't even know where to begin.  Looking over our photos, I see that we've done lots and lots of fun things.  We went to a Cubs baseball game with Jazmin.  We also spent some time with our friend Matthew: went to Touch-A-Truck with him, made a truck cake for his brithday party and then met Barney(!) at the party.  Later, we experienced our first rodeo (with cowboys!) in Laughlin and out first roller coaster at the Spring Festival.  This past weekend we discovered swimming and boating at Cottonwood Cove on Lake Mojave.  Now that's a long list of craziness for us crazy busy kids!  And somehow we still found time to perfect the art of posing for the camera.  Enjoy the photos!!

And the kids are growing through all of this.  Joel now signs lots and lots of stuff.  He's begun saying some words and is good at repeating words you say.  Ruth just got to the "why?" stage so we're starting to answer a lot more questions!


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February was a fun month for the Grano clan.  We did a lot of things around town.  We went on the Southern Nevada Railway, spent some time at the Children's Museum, went to the park, hung out at home.

We also got to meet the author of our Chef Joey's Cupcake Creation book at Little Pastry Chefs.  This was the first time Joel participated in the cupcake making.  It was great fun!

Grandma caught Joel in his role as Joel the Builder.  He's a tower builder.  He is so proud of himself when a block stays up and doesn't seemed to be bothered at all when they fall; he just keeps going.




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This past weekend, we went to California.  We stayed in Oceanside and got to spend time with Uncle David & Aunt Leah and Grandpa Mike (Ruth now calls him Grandpa Mikey) and Grandma Katie.  We all had a great time.

Saturday, we had lunch and then went on a ferry from downtown to Coronado Island.  A grassy lawn with birds provided lots of fun. 

Sunday, we went to the San Diego Zoo.  The highlight of our time there was feeding giraffes.  Ruth says that it was scary AND fun.





Joel had a great time with his new hat and new goat friend!





Monday morning we stopped by Grandpa Bob and Grandma Ann's house for lunch.  Ruth remembered the last time she was there running around with her cousins and immediately wanted to go out onto the lawn.

While I'm at it, I've also posted some photos of the kids around the house.  The first is of Ruth reading a book to Joel while he enjoys a bottle.  Then, Ruth is showing off her scarves made by Grandma Judy out of yarn from RJ.  Tonight, Ruth made a camera by putting a stack of foam stickers onto a small box; she had a great time taking pictures of Grandma taking pictures of her.  Joel even thought it was a real camera and posed (although mommy didn't think it was real so she didn't look her best). 

Here's Joel and Ruth saying hello and goodbye.



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