Stanford and Oakland

On Thursday, October 20th, Ivan's mission president and his wife were in Oakland and they invited all the missionaries in the area to go down and have dinner with them. We jumped at the opportunity to see them and were super excited to go. The dinner was SO fun! It was great to see President Fotheringham and his wife and some of the elders that Ivan served with. Our camera died before we could get any pictures (so sad) so we are waiting to get them from the other guys. We decided to make a long weekend of it and we headed down to Stanford to stay with Heather and James and their boys Talmage and Everett. We got to tour the campus, which is gorgeous by the way, feed the ducks and go on an adventure. We had so much fun with them! Heather spoiled us. We had "cupcakes" for breakfast and received the royal treatment. Tyson was in toy heaven that's for sure! She had the most amazing white chocolate macadamia nut cookies I have ever had and Ivan loved the s'more bars. So yummy! We also got to see Heather's parents, which are old family friends of Ivan's family. They are such a blast!

At the top of Hoover Tower. It looked out over all of the campus. Gorgeous. We are so glad we got to see it!

A reproduction of the Burghers of Calais by Auguste Rodin.

In front of the Memorial Church on campus. It is beautiful!

They have a pretty awesome community park right in their backyard so we couldn't pass that up. The boys played on the toys, passed the football (and Ivan taught Talmage how to tackle, sorry Heather), kicked the soccer ball, and took a ride in a red wagon. Ivan pulled them around for probably about 20 minutes. They loved it! The only thing they couldn't decide on was which way to go. Tyson wanted to go backward and Talmage wanted to go forward. Decisions, decisions. So Ivan made the executive decision and they went sideways. So funny. Then they played a game where Ivan pulled them through the rope swing and the boys had to try to dodge it. They thought it was pretty funny. Tyson especially liked it when it hit his head. Sometimes we wonder about this kid:)

Ivan also taught Tyson to throw the bread at the ducks heads. He seems to have a knack for teaching kids naughty stuff:) He justifies it saying that he was aiming for their mouths, but we all know the truth. Tyson thought it was pretty funny though. He loved to see the ducks scramble after the bread. I wish I could see into this kids head because he thinks the wierdest things are so funny. Pretty sure he has the cutest laugh ever though so I don't mind!

The two boys throwing together. I love Talmage's face. Classic.

Talmage deep in thought about the ducks.

We went a little further down the road from the duck pond and found a little inlet of water. We went out on the dock and Tyson thought that the bird poop was rocks, so naturally he picked it up and threw it in the water. So gross. Talmage and his grandpa were causing an earthquake on the bridge and the boys thought it was pretty funny to hear their voices while they were bouncing. We also got to see some guys windsurf. It was pretty cool. Then the guy fell.
And Tyson crashed on the way out.

Thank you Wiggingtons for having us! You are Be-awesome! We had a blast!