san francisco

Our big trip this summer was driving as a family to San Francisco to visit Cale and Hailey. Despite my trepidation on taking a 12 hour car trip with the kids, it actually was quite pleasant, probably due to the fact that Josh's parents took Luke in their car with them, and Ava was sick, so she just rode mellowly along, with a diaper change needed almost every hour. Some stomach bug, I guess, but pleasant driving. So twelve hours, and six outfits (Ava again) later, we arrived. I cannot even begin to tell all the fun things we did, saw the city, redwood forest, coast, swimming in the pool at the condo where we stayed, catching up with old friends. It was lovely. Here is the whole family at the coast. Despite my aversion to cold wind, it was actually quite pleasant weather-wise, and extremely beautiful and mysterious what with the fog and the water and the dark rocks.

This here is Josh's favorite picture of the kids. They found a few treasures and loved running in the sand. Notice Ava like a little hermit crab off at the back left side. This was how most of her vacation was, due to not feeling well, poor thing. Just taking a back seat and enjoying from afar. She (along with us all) really enjoyed Golden Gate Park. there was this really cool carousel that the kids could ride for 50 cents. It was refreshing for once to not be charged an arm and a leg for entertainment for the kids. Way to go Golden Gate!
At the kids playground part of the park, there was this amazing slide for the kids to ride down on a piece of cardboard. Look at that cavegirl go!

And here we all are at the end of the day, Josh, his brother Nick, his dad and mom, Cale and hailey in the front with their little Kira in the pink, and me holding Ava-Luke ann Ally in the middle. The drive home was not quite as fun as the drive there, but then again, we had all the ruffians then and Ava was back in full swing. We made it though, and can;t wait to go back.

more of summer

Oh where has the summer gone? We have done a lot of fun things this summer, and sadly, have taken pictures of almost none of them. The kids have taken a couple of swim lesson sessions, and Ally and Luke are great swimmers now. We have been boating a lot at Black Canyon, playing with friends friends and more friends, and staying busy between the park and pet watching and camps to learn to cheer and cook and do crafts. And then of course lots of practicing this at home. Oh, and ice cream, snow cones, popsicles, if it is tasty and cold, we have eaten it this summer. Our bedtimes have also really relaxed, which is kindof nice when all the kids sleep in. We love Idaho summers with the warm weather and it doesn;t get dark until well after 10. Here is Ally at her cheer camp, the one in the pink shirt. She loved it. she is a little cheerleader in her heart.
Our stake asked everyone to turn off the TV and movies and video games for a month. So we have been spending a lot of time on bike rides and reading stories and walks and playing games with each other. It has actually been really great. We have one week left to go, but really do not miss having the TV on. We had gotten to where it was just in the background most of the day some days. We have not been perfect, but a couple of times our sanity was worth a half hour of Blue's clues. Just to stop the crying.
We went downtown to the Twilight Criterium, like we do almost every year, can you see the bikers int he background? They are there, just going so fast that you can hardly tell. Just a blur. We scored big at the free Power bar booth, the kids were really excited until they tasted them. Not so good as they look. We will add them to our food storage I guess. the kids favorite thing was the free little clicker they give you to cheer on the bikers.
And my kids have managed to adopt another dog, at least for the week. We love babysitting dogs. We get enjoyment, and then we send them home when we have had enough. One thing I have learned about dogs though, the bigger the dog, the bigger the poo. And this last dog was pretty bid. Can you tell which one is the real dog? Luke made a bed on the floor of Ally's room so he could sleep with the dog, Aubrey was her name.
and what is summer without enjoying an ice cream sandwich at a slip n slide party? Ava liked the ice cream way more than the slip n slide.

Gonna party like it's my birthday!

Well, little Ava Pearl has turned two. We kept telling her it was her birthday, and she would say "birthday" but she didn;t really know what birthdays were all about, se we had to show her. I took her to King's to help shop for her present.

She loved the Princesses and dolls, but she picked out exactly what I thought she would, a Doodle writer that you can erase. She is a budding artist, and can color for hours, well not really, but it entertains her for a long time.
And this is what she really wanted-CANDY!!!! But she did not get it due to the fact that i noticed two little cavities on her back teeth earlier that morning and made her first dentist appointment. Yikes!
Then we went downtown to the Boise Co-Op a fun grocery store that has little carts for the kids, and tasty gelato, mmmmm our favorite. Ally's friend Sydney came along, Ava wanted to hold her hand the whole time.

And here we are with our little carts. The kids each picked out an organic fruit leather and put it in their own respective carts. But then they got a little wild and were causing traffic jams in the Co-Op, so we had to get them out of there. From there, we took a picnic to the Foothills Learning Center in the Boise foothills where a story teller was talking about bugs.

And then home for the best part, decorating cupcakes and opening the presents. the kids each got a pair of star goggles since they are so into swimming now and can go underwater without plugging their noses (I can't). And Ava of course just wants whatever the other two have. The kids licked the frosting off of their cupcakes, and we went to bed. It was a nice birthday, I hope another couple go by before Ava realizes that she needs friends to come to it. She is such a darling girl, and we are so happy to have her in our family. And we can't believe that she is two. Happy Birthday little Avesie.

Summer!!!

So Ally graduated from kindergarten last week. She is sad to not be in school anymore, she had the best teacher and such a great class with so many friendsshe absolutely loved kindy. I am so proud of her, she has learned to read and did such a great job, she can hardly wait for first grade. But she did have summer to look forward to, and one of Ally and Luke's main needs this summer was a slip n slide. So I bought them one...
And it remained just like this, in the box for over a week while we checked the weather every day to see if it was warm enough for the slip n slide. Luke would get up in the morning, and ask if it was warm enough today. One day there were black clouds in the sky, and he said "Oh man, I woke up and saw black clouds." The weather here has just been weird, not near as bad as some parts of the country, but definitely too cold for summer lovin' kids like mine...
But then today, after a long long wait, summer has arrived. The slip and slide made its way out of the box and on to our lawn. The jump house came out to visit too, and some popsicles made their way over.
And the kids had their friends over and are outside right now, as I write, slippin' and slidin' in the sun. Until the slip n slide breaks. It does not look very sturdy. But so far so good.
Ava and her friend Sophie are not too sure about getting wet, so they are cruisin' instead. We love summer!!!

the merry month of May

Well, we have had a lot of things happen this month, so I will just put a couple of highlights. It seems like May gets so busy with the end of school, soccer season finishing up, so many parties and things to go to, our anniversary, Mothers Day, trips and family coming to visit. It just flew by in a flash of fun activities, but we loved it all. My sister Suzi and her husband Matt came to see us. Suzi is a whiz in the kitchen, here she is whipping up a batch of blackberry cream cheese muffins for ally's school teacher appreciation. Those lucky teachers, they were the tastiest muffins I ever had. I tried to re-create them later, without Sue, but not even close. She also gave me the best recipe for Mexican Lasagna I have ever had.
Josh and I got to spend a few days in SanFrancisco last week. We are sad that Cale and Hailey moved so far away but are glad that they moved somewhere so fun. We are at the Golden Gate bridge. It is very high. A helicopter flew under it while we were on it. We ate delicious sourdough bread and saw the sea lions and rode the Trolley cars and went to China town, and walked and walked and walked all over the town, there was so much to see and do. We can;t wait to go back.
Here are the kids modeling their Chinatown pj's.
Pretty tricky.
Uncle Nick also got back from China yesterday, after being there since December. We were happy too see him, Ava loves Nick. We are excited to go up today and see his pictures and hear all about his trip.

So those were a couple of May highlights. I can;t believe that the month is already gone. Only three more days of school, and then summer is here. Hope everyone is doing good.

Happy birthday batman

Our little superhero is 4 today. He wanted puffy pancake for breakfast, complete with four candles to blow out. They kept melting in the hot pancake though, so we stuck them in a hamburger bun where they stayed in place beautifully.
And then after church we went up to grandma and pa-pa's where Luke got a cake in the shape of an L. I think 80% of the frosting got eaten and 10% of the cake.
That frosting with the dots is rather tasty though. I was giving some to Ava, but then there was some still left on my finger. Really. Look at the excitement on that little face as he sees the four-pack of superheroes. I love being the mom to these little kids, they make everything so exciting and fun.
and here is batman in his cape, mask, utility belt and bat-arang enseble. Looking good batman, here's to another year. We love you!

moneydooz and skateboarding

Ally got to go to Monkeydooz for a friend's birthday, a hair salon fir little girls. They did her hair and nails. she loved the hairdo, and slept in it for two nights until it was super fuzzy and we had to take it out.
Look at this little teenage wannabe and her posing. and look at my sad daffodils that I bought from Costco, I just don;t think they are going to make it. But isn't ally's hair cute?

and Luke' new love besides superheroes is skateboarding. His pinata for his birthday is a skateboard even though it is a superhero theme (he just can't pick between batman and incredible hulk. too hard, they are both so cool) so here he is trying out a few tricks.



However, this new hobby has not been healthy for our wood floors.
Look at that caveman go!