Goodbye Summer, We'll Miss You!

This week officially ended our summer. I start teaching again, Chris went back to work after 2 weeks of vacation, Nicholas will start preschool in 2 weeks, and Samantha...will continue being a toddler hanging out at home.

We ended our summer by enjoying the beautiful outdoors. We spent a week camping in Yosemite National Park, came home for 2 nights to shower, do laundry, grocery shop, and repack before we heading off to do some more camping at Leo Carrillo State Beach. They were 2 very different camping experiences. Yosemite is all about biking around the valley surrounded by awesome granite rock formations - El Capitan, Half Dome, Yosemite Falls. It's about bears and deer, and going swimming in frigid mountain river water. This is our second year and loved it as much as last summer. We went with 2 families who had never camped in Yosemite. The Barbaras stayed the week with us and the Steinbachs joined us for the last half of the week. Both families were "roughing it" compared to us, since we brought up a trailer camper and they were tenting...well the Barbaras put up a tent but only used it for storage. They slept in their van since they were a little apprehensive about the bears. And we did see bears! We had about 8 bear sightings...and that means bears walking through our campsite less than 10 yards from where we were sitting.

Our campsite.

One of our daily rides through the valley.

Enjoying the river.

Here's the whole gang eating lunch before a short hike to Yosemite Falls.

Leo Carrillo was a little closer to home. I'm not sure if it was the fact that we had just spent the whole week before camping, that we were tent camping (no trailer), that we already live so close to the beach, or that the weather wasn't cooperating, but we ended up leaving a day early and spent the day swimming in the pool at Grammy and Pops house. It was a great trip none the less. We camped for 3 nights with Nicki, Adam, and Luke. We spent the day at the beach soaking up the sun, climbing rocks, and the guys even got in some surfing (well Chris paddled out and layed on his board for a while...) Nicholas' buddy Parker came with his mom and sisters to spend the day at the beach on Tuesday. They came back to camp with us for dinner before heading home in their pj's (a little dirtier that when they arrived).

Our campsite was shaded by a beautiful huge tree.

The kids LOVED the wagon.
Here's Nicholas, Samantha, Cousin Luke, and friends Parker and Ashley.

Nicholas woke up the second to last morning, rolled over, and asked Chris, "Are we leaving today?" Chris said, "No, not today." Nicholas smiled and contently went back to sleep. In Yosemite, when asked what his favorite part of camping was, he replied, "Sleeping in my sleeping bag."

Summer Fun

We started off July with a great Independence Day. Our friends Barry and Joanie invited us to their annual party. They have a house in El Segundo right across the street from where they let off the city fireworks show. They close down the street and everyone puts out blankets and beach chairs to enjoy the show. We weren't sure how the kids would react to them being so close. They ended up having a great time and loved it! Nicholas kept saying, "This is absolutely fun!" Samantha was in awe and the noise didn't seem to bother her one bit.




Being home this summer with Nicholas and Samantha has been so much fun. We've been keeping busy, playing with friends, and going on fun outings. During the week after July 4th we spent a day at Adventure City. I had never even heard of it before, but it is such a great place! It's like a condensed version of an amusement park with just the rides that the little ones can go on. No lines, inexpensive, small, easy, perfect! Nick even got to try out rock climbing. He was a natural!



Another day we had a play date with our friends the Marks. Shawn and Carol just got a new puppy, a German short-haired pointer...just like Milka! We finally got all the "kids" together to play and they were perfect matches for each other.

Brayden and Nicholas

Blake and Samantha

Milka and Coco (they wouldn't even stay still long enough for me to get a proper picture!)

Our latest adventure was last week when we went to Wild Rivers. We went with a few other families and rented a cabana for the day. It was great to have a spot in the shade right by the little kids area.

Nicholas had a blast on the kiddy tube slide. I lost count of how many times he went down.

We floated around the lazy river a few times. Nicholas' friend Madi was the perfect tube companion.

Samantha and I enjoyed a cool smoothie as an afternoon snack.

A full day in the water and sun wore Nicholas and Samantha out. We were barely out of the parking lot before they were fast asleep. Gotta love those good ol' exhausting summer days!

Well, summer is officially half over! 5 weeks of fun behind us and 5 weeks ahead. Nicholas has 2 weeks of VBS and then we are heading to Yosemite and then Leo Carillo for 2 weeks of camping. Hope you are enjoying your summer!

From the Beach to the Lake to the Pool

Teaching 4th grade for many years made me really appreciate that California has 4 natural regions that we can enjoy. The coast, of course, which we are enjoying even more as we start of our summer. The mountains - how nice is it that we can drive 2 hours and be up hiking through the evergreens and water skiing on mountain lakes. The desert - where we can soak up the warm rays of the hot California sun while lounging by a pool or playing a round of golf. There's also the Central Valley, but that isn't part of this story...even though we ate lots of delicious California fruit while we were on our vacation!

We just got back from our first family vacation of the summer and we enjoyed both the mountains and the desert within the week. We vacationed along with the Mayer family - Chad, Valerie and their kids Eden and Beau. Chad and Val are one of the couples in our church small group. Lately we've been trading off date nights with them and our kids get along great.

We started off in Lake Arrowhead and stayed at Larry and Patti's house. We relaxed at the house, hung out in The Village, played in the kids' park, and fed the ducks. We went on a hike in the Children's Forest and climbed up to the top of a fire tower. We spent a day out on the boat and relaxed on our own little island beach. It was great!


After a few nights in the mountains we headed to the desert and spent the rest of the week at the Westin Mission Hills Villas, a fabulous spot where the kids enjoyed the pool, the dads golfed, the mom's shopped, and we were all worn out at the end of each day. The pool had a water slide that was pretty awesome. Nicholas went down with Chris on the first day and it was a little overwhelming. It took a lot of convincing to get him to go down one more time. Samantha on the other had went down a total of 7 times! That was even after her first ride got so crazy she hit her head on the side of the tube. She loved it!

Other than me coming down with strep throat, it was the perfect vacation! Luckily I didn't get the worst of it until we got home and then I spend the rest of the weekend in bed while Chris took care of the kids by himself on Father's Day...he's the best dad ever! Here's Samantha trying to pack herself in the suitcase after we got home. I think she wanted to go back on vacation!

Down the Shore and to the Big Apple

It wasn't that there wasn't anything going on during the last 2 months that caused there to be nothing to blog about. Actually there was too much going on that left no time for blogging. That leaves me with the daunting task of putting way to much into one post, or...it may end up in 2 posts

Back in May, Chris and I left the kids with the grandparents and took a trip to the East Coast. Chris was a groom's man in Brad and Erin's wedding on the New Jersey shore. We had a great time enjoying the beach, the boardwalk, good food, and old high-school friends. It wasn't quite what we expected after hearing all about the kids on Jersey Shore. It ended up that all the festivities took place in a dry county. It kept the beach very mellow and family friendly. Luckily they allow temporary liquor permits for events such as weddings, etc.


From NJ we heading to the big apple for the weekend with our friends Mark and Emily. We had a lot planned, and I think we accomplished what we set out to see and do. Ready? Go...we went to the Top of the Rock, had drinks on the roof top bar of the Peninsula Hotel, we drank coffee at Dean & Deluca's, shopped 5th Avenue (while trying to avoid the Israel Pride Parade - there are a lot of Jews in NY!), took a horse-drawn carriage ride around Central Park, walked through Central Park, ate HUGE sandwiches at Carnegie Deli, picked out fun candy at Dylan's Candy Bar, loved Billy Eliott on Broadway, ate a bagel with lox in Grand Central Station, took the Metro downtown, strolled along High Line Park, ate meatballs and homemade ice cream sandwiches at the Meatball Shop, took a walking tour of the Brooklyn Bridge, viewed ground-zero, ate fries at Pomme Frite, pizza at Vezzo's, dessert at Serendipity, cupcakes at Magnolia...we did (ate) a lot!


The first weekend of June, I did the wedding flowers for Chris' hair stylist Vicki. She had a really fun small-yet-not-so-small wedding in her backyard (with 130 people!). She went with an island feel with green orchids and white peonies, sand and shells, and a pop of pink peonies for her sister as bride's maid. It was a fun small job!


Okay, that's all I can get in for now...stay tuned for the Arrowhead/Desert vacation on the next post...coming soon!

Fire Service Day and more...

We watched a fire exhibit put on by the Torrance Fire Department today. It was pretty cool to get to see the firemen in action up close. Nicholas' ticket was picked during the kids raffle and won a really cool firetruck toy! He was thrilled (no, the picture below is not the toy he won...ha, ha!)

During the show they put out a car fire and rescued a "man" from the car with the jaws-of-life and the ambulance drove him away.

They also put out a house fire with the hoses.

Both Nicholas and Samantha refused to meet the firemen after the show. Nicholas said he didn't want to meet them before we even got there. Samantha got close to one, but after further inspection she decided he was too scary with all that gear on. I keep reminding myself that fear of strangers is good, but they sure miss out on lots of cute photo ops.

Going back a few days...

Here are Nicholas and Samantha in the bath. Nicholas is trying out his new snorkel and goggles that he got for his birthday.

We also got a few more family pictures after the pirate party.

Making the most of the jumpy house before it got taken away...

Argh matey!

This is the best of about 10 attempts to get us all laying in the jumpy house!

With the craziness of April birthdays behind us we are winding down the school year and getting ready for summer! Bye for now!

Argh Mateys!

Happy Birthday Nicholas! Our big boy turned 4 on Friday and we celebrated with a pirate party today. The little pirates had a great time playing in the jumpy house, eating cupcakes, and sword fighting.

Noah's Ark Exhibit

This morning we went to visit the Noah's Ark Exhibit at the Skirball Center. It was a great exhibit, beautifully and artistically created, and fun for both Nicholas and Samantha. I highly recommend it! The animals were made from a combination of found objects and carved wood. There were interactive features that made sounds and movements.

Here is the front of the ark.


There was a cute conveyor belt that you could put pairs of animals into and wind the wheel to send them into the ark. They dropped back down into a basket to start over again.


Here's Nicholas and Chris checking out a smaller scale version of the ark. It was like a doll house with miniature animals. It even had lights that worked on a hand crank.


One of the rooms had a whole suspended netted climbing system.




















They had fake rubber animal poop (I guess there must have been a lot of poop on the ark with all those animals)! Samantha got right to work cleaning it up. Let's hope she doesn't get any ideas with Milka's poop at home now!


Here is one of my favorite animals. It was a push toy that was being pushed around by one of the people that worked there. Its head bobbed up and down as it went. I got a kick out of the red cowboy boot (no pun intended!)


Here was the end of the exhibit, the other side of the ark.



Thanks Auntie Lisa for the fabulous idea and including us on such a fun outing!