4th of July, burglars, and more!

So my sister finally got to come visit for a week and a half! The kids were SO EXCITED!! The first night she was here we went and got ice cream and just had to sit on the giant banana! It was so funny though cause this couple was sitting on it FOREVER! So we were trying to be polite and just wait until they got off but after about fifteen minutes Maurcine and I sent Brynnlee and Tayson over to ask if they could sit on it. Haha but they were too scared so they just stood there and stared at the couple! It was so funny! But do you think they got the hint?! Oh no. So finally after they were sitting there for about half an hour I finally asked them if they would mind if I got a picture of my kids sitting on it before we went home. They were nice and said Oh of course! Is that what they were waiting for?! Um.... HELLO! You're sitting on a GIANT BANANA! Of course that's what they were waiting for! Haha. So we took some pics and then left cause there were some other kids eyeing it and we knew how that felt!
The next night we got to go to LA and go to the Dodgers baseball game for "Mormon Night". That was pretty cool.  Before the game started Austin was trying to find me after he had taken Brynnlee and Tayson down by the field to see the players and when he stepped off the elevator he almost brushed Elder Uchtdorf! He said he wanted to just reach out and touch him but he probably would've been thrown to the ground by bodyguards or something! Haha j/k. Well who knows! Anyways... the kids thought it was fun and were actually really good to last through all nine innings so we could watch the fireworks afterwards. I thought it would be kinda lame but they put on a really good show. I was impressed!  And the kids loved it. It was a long night though. 
So for the fourth we were going to go to the beach cause they were going to do fireworks and it would've been super fun. So we get online to check the weather and it was only going to be 65 degrees at the beach!! What?! It's in the high 90's here and an hour and a half away it's all the way down to 65?! So we decided to go to the Sequoia National Forest instead. Which was really fun. By the time we decided to do that instead of the beach it was already past noon so we jumped in the car and made the drive which ended up taking a lot longer that it should have. With the road construction and everything by the time we actually got into the park and parked the car it had taken us almost 3 hours! It was supposed to be about 2 I think. And the road was so curvy up the mountain that right as we are entering the park Brayden barfs all over himself in his car seat. REPEATEDLY. I kept thinking he was done but no. Poor baby. And all I had was a handful of wet wipes to try and catch it. Disgusting. After the third time I didn't even bother trying to catch it cause I really wasn't doing much anyway. So when we parked off came his cute little fourth of July outfit and I put a new pair of shorts on him. I didn't have any other clean clothes so he had to wear his onesie that I cleaned off the best I could from the barf. Haha poor boy! So he totally looked and smelled like a homeless child. Oh well. we still had fun and those are some amazing trees! So again we had a late night.
Then the day before my sister went home we decided to go to the beach even though it was only going to be 68 degrees this time! So again we left sunny hot Bakersfield and headed to the beach. We pulled up and it was actually 60 degrees and overcast! Not what you picture when you want to go to the beach. But we got out and when we walked down on the sand it actually felt really good! The sand was nice and warm and it didn't feel cold at all. So we were really glad we went. We almost ran out of gas on the way home but found this old gas station that was open that was only $4.56 a gallon! Geez! Then when we got to the next town it was a whole dollar cheaper! Sheesh. That's what happens when you're in the middle of nowhere and you have no choice but buy gas at a tiny town's gas station I guess.
Oh ya. The other thing that happened while my sister was here was we got burglarized. Sad. We decided to go swimming for Family night at the community pool that my bishop's wife is a member to cause the kids wanted to show off their swimming skills they learned in swimming lessons to Austin since he hadn't seen them yet. We were gone for One hour and 27 minutes and came home to Austin's laptop and all of our rings except for our ctr rings stolen. Yup. My wedding ring got stolen. I know I must be really vain but I LOVED my wedding ring! Austin had it specially made by this guy who custom makes rings and he had asked me what I wanted and drew it up for the guy so it was truly one of a kind. I could care less about Austin's wedding ring even though I paid a nice 375.00 for that thing because it's everywhere. I can buy the exact same ring for only 15.00 now! And have found his ring multiple times when searching. But there's no way we could afford another ring like mine for a long time. So I went to walmart and tj maxx hoping to find just a cheap cubic zirconia ring that would have to make do for the next five years until we can afford a nice one, but guess what. Nobody carries a size 4.5 ring that doesn't look like a little girl's ring with butterfly's and hearts. But I did find one on Overstock.com for about 45 bucks that hopefully will look ok. It actually has real diamonds even though the color and quality of them is not that great. Obviously for 45 bucks! But it will just have to do. I just keep praying that those stupid people who stole our stuff get caught and I can get my ring back! It actually has a serial number etched into my main diamond but it depends on if they sell it to someone who knows to look for that or not. They also stole money out of my wallet and out of the kids' rooms,  which the kids were extremely upset over. And a 20 from my sister.  But they didn't take my credit cards, our cameras, my handheld video camera which I was surprised since it's pretty nice. They looked at all those things but then left them. They also found my safe under my bed that is one of those fireproof safes that I keep our birth certificates, social security cards and the kids immunization cards in. They brought that out into our living room and somehow busted the top off of it and rummaged through it but didn't take anything. Because of this I'm thinking they were pretty amateur because if they would've realized the importance of all those things they would've taken them! We've flagged our accounts just in case but it looks like they were pretty much just after cash and jewelry. They also got a pair of earrings I got for mothers day that were square diamonds. Fake of course but I'm sure they thought they were real. So I hope they're extremely disappointed when they try to pawn those and discover they are worth a whole ten bucks! Ha. Although they did hit the jackpot with my ring. :(  Like I said I just keep praying that they'll get caught. Austin had all of his school info on his laptop that he needed to study for his CPA exams and other tests he needs to take so he was a little upset about that too. Again... Stupid people. So pray that the stupid people will get caught and we'll get our stuff back. And no. We didn't have renters insurance. We had talked about how now that we were actually making some money we needed to get stuff like that but we just hadn't done it yet. So anyways, this is a way longer post that I planned on. I hope everyone had a Fun and Safe 4th of July! Here are some pics!

Waiting for our turn on the banana!

The kids wanting to sit on the banana but too scared to ask the couple to move!

Tays staring longingly at the giant banana!

Brynnlee finally having her turn!

He was so excited to get on that thing!

You have to get a family pic on it!

Tays swimming

Getting ready to dive off the diving board!

Brynnlee did awesome diving off the board!

Brynnlee learned how to swim on her back!

Elder Uchtdorf getting ready to throw the opening pitch.

Such a great guy!

They also put up Welcome Bakersfield 2nd ward (along with all the other wards) up on the screen but I missed getting a pic of it.

I love Brayden's face here!

Brynnlee taking the pic

Brynnlee being the photographer again

Cute Bray-Bray waiting for the game to start.

General Sherman the largest tree in the world!

Brynnlee thought we were going to kiss so she had to jump in the pic to make sure that didn't happen!

Cute boys

She's so cute!

So fun to bury mom. ( I had so much sand in my mouth and ears!! It was so gross!)

Brayden wanted to get covered like mom! And he had to have the ball as his pillow cause that's what mom did!

Brynnlee spelling her name in the sand

On the bus to see General Sherman