Our First Trip to Tahoe

It was a little embarrasing to realize that we had lived here 4 years and still not taken a trip up to Lake Tahoe which is only two hours away! It was mostly because we just have little kids and sometimes it is hard thinking about taking them places. But the adventurous side in me came out and prodded Kevin that we neeeded to start doing more things with the kids out of our norm. It's not like we don't spend time with them, because we do, but we are homebodies and Kevin is especially, so if it were up to him we would always stay home. I talked him into doing an overnighter camping becuase we had never taken the kids camping before and they were absolutely beyond thrilled. Although after the fact I know why we aren't big campers, because it sooo much work. You are working nonstop getting ready for it and while you are there you are working nonstop and when you get home you work nonstop to clean everything and put it away. Talk about exhausting!

The weekend we chose Kevin had friday off work so we left around noon and headed up there. We stayed at Camp Richardson which is a pretty popular camp and it was really busy and full. When we got there there we ssome thunder clouds and Kevy was getting really nervous, but I was kept telling him it would sprinkle and that was it. Well I was way off. Right around dinner time,we had already started our dutch oven it started to pour and hail! It was totally crazy! Thankfully it only lasted about 15 minutes, but it left our camp so muddy that we were all so completely fithy the rest of the time.

 

 

 

Russ was completely in his element there. Dirt and tools, what more could a boy want? He spent a good portion of his time with this shovel just digging a hole.

 

Annie got really into the camping thing! This was within about 15 minutes of being there.

I was worried that the kids would be cold so we dug through out winter clothes and found their feet jammies. I thought this picutre of them together was just so cute.

This was Kevy in the morning after our very rough night. We didnt sleep very well to say the least. The kids did pretty well, but our air mmatress lost some air pretty quickly so we were sunk together and couldnt move very easily. Then I woke up and had to pee so I had to get up in the middle oft he night and it woke everyone else up, then someone's car alarm close by went off sometime around three and it took them about 5 minutes to turn it off, so we were up for a couple of hours in the middle of the night. All I could think that night was how glad I was that we were only staying one night!!

The next morning Annie was digging wearing these boots, she is very obsessed with shoes right now.

After breakfast we went down to the lake and spent some time. The kids loved it and digging in the sand. I was prepared for really cold water, but it wasn't as cold as I thought it would be.

It was seriously so gorgeous up there!

Anne wasn't too keen on the water this time which was fine by me!!

Russy did pretty good in the water, but got tired and a little grumpy after the girls freaked out about him wrecking something they were building, that made him really sad and it was all downhill from there.

One of the highlights of the whole trip though was when we got in our car and started heading home Russy said " Thanks for the fun trip Dad!" It was so cute! We had such a great time and can't wait to go back! Although we may just do a day trip!!

Summer Fun Part 1

The beginning of this summer started pretty rocky. For some reason the girls thought that summer time meantthat I was going to be entertaining them 24 hours a day. And if I didn't do that then they were allowed to be glued to the disney channel. So we had to set some ground rules so that I could remain a little sane theis summer. We made a daily schedule so that they knew what they needed to do and what things we wold be doing each day and so on. Although we didn't always stick right to it. I also made a jar of activites that we could do together such as crafts and activities to go do. I feel like I did a pretty good job of entertaining my kids and spending time with them, but they didn't always make me feel like I did very good job, which is why I am making sure that I put down a lot of the things we did so they can look back and see what I did with them.

One of the things I always do every summer is make sure we go to the library every week and that we participate in their reading program. That way the girls are still reading the whole summer and we are getting prizes and things that we can go do. We went to the kickoff party befcause I am a sucker for anything that I can take the kids to that is free. The girls got to make a fun little journal.

Of course our summer was filled with lots of popsicles. Most of the time I tried to make the kids wait until Annie went down to eat them because if she saw them she would freak out until I gave her one and then she would not let me help her with it, no she had to do that all on her own and in the process she made the biggest messes. Sometimes I think this girl thinks she is 5 years old not 15 months!

Lizzy is such a runner girl and at the beginning of the summer I told her that I would run with her. Well that didn't last too long, it just got crazy with trying to take all the kids and so we stopped. Maybe someday we can run together, although as you can see here, I have a hard time keeping up!

One of the biggest reasons that I have a hard time keeping up was that I was pushing over 80 pounds worth of kids! That is hard when you are out of shape! I knew that when Jane refused to ride her bike and decided that she had to run too that she would only get about 100 yards. And I was right! She kept saying how tired she was and then she got into the back of the trailer. It was just great pushing this lazy bum around.

We went to the park a few times when it wasn't too hot outside. Annie doesn't like being held down in case you cant tell.

Janie got a stamper for one of her library prizes and I guess she got bored stamping just paper because she decided to stamp her brother. Nice work Jane!

Once upon a time Aunt Judy gave us a little snow cone maker, and the kids still love making them.

The first week of summer the girls were begging me to make some gak so I used a new recipe and it didn't work out and Nellie was really upset with me over it, but the next week I went and got more stuff to make it and I used the right recipe this time and the kids were thrilled. Russy however wouldn't touch it and kept saying its nasty! I was not thrilled when I discovered they left some on the couch and it runied it, because it is basically just glue. Not cool. I don't know if we will be making that again.

I just had to take this picture because Annie snuck into Russy's corn dog and decided to take off with it and go sit on the couch. She thinks she is such a big shot.

One of the things that we had on our list of activities to do was visit the pet store. The kids loved it and they especially loved watching the mice because they were the only ones that actually ran around and did something other than sleep. They also loved the turtles, and all the other reptiles. One of the workers was nice enough to get out a snake and let them touch it. He also offered to let them hold it, but no of the kids were interested.

We made homemade popsicles this year too. It was really fun to find a really yummy recipe and make them ourselves.

We spent by far the majority of our time swimming this summer. We would go to the pool Monday, Wednesday, and Friday every week and we had such a blast. Nellie make giant strides this year with her swimming. The first part of the summer she wouldnt even stick her face in the water, and by the end she is swimming so good with no fear and she even would go down the slide this year. I was so proud of her, she did so good. The first day was so fun to see Russy, he kept saying, Mom I swimming!! and he would go around and make sound effects the whole time. Annie was pretty good and pretty much just stayed close to me and Russy knew his limitations and always stayed close by and didn't get too deep, so we ended up having such a good summer swimming.

We spent one day painting rocks and it ended up being such a fun activity! I think thiswasone oftheir favorite activities we did. We of course waited until the two little ones were asleep because that could have been a nightmare! The girls were so sweet and were so nice to me and kept saying what a good job I was doing. I love these little gals!

 

A California Fourth

We have lived here four years now and we have never spent the Fourth of July here. We always end up going to Utah because now they have the great fireworks and because it is the time most of the family is there so we get to see the most people. Since we are going to Washington in August, we decided that we were going to stay here and just celebrate with us. We figured that we would go to the parade after a plan to hike with some other families fell through.

I love the city of Roseville. I think it is a pretty great place, but I will just have to say that they put on the lamest parade ever! Roseville is a pretty big city, so I was expecting something much better then it was. It wasnt even as good as some of the small town parades that we went to in Kansas.

I did get this pretty great shot of my kids at the parade though, so there is always that.

After the parade we went down to a park where there were supposed to be all kinds of fun things going on, but there was only a couple of blow up things with incredibly long lines, and that is about it. We didn't end up staying too long because it really wasn't worth our while.

Nellie asked me to take a picture of her freckles because I told her how many of them she was getting. She was pretty excited. For some reason the girls really want freckles, and Jane really is working hard at being outside so she can get some, but so far no such luck.

Little Miss was just as cute as could be that day. I found this dress in some clothes that someone gave me and she just looked so darn cute in it.

Russ had fun playing on the playground. He found this pole and decided that he needed to try and slide down it like a fireman. In fact he even one night was climbing on the back of the couch and I asked him what he was doing and he said Im just trying to slide down the pole Mom! (our lamp that is in back of the couch)

` These kids are such monkeys, They love getting in any trees they can!

Lizzy is such a good sweet girl! I sure love her and I cant believe how grown up she is getting!

I sure love this guy!

When we got home we had a barbeque and hung out with grandma and grandpa. The boys had a good time watching the Dodger Game. It was fun becuase the Dodgers scored a bunch of runs and won the game so that always makes it fun.

Once it started getting dark we went out and lit some fireworks that Grandma got for us. They defiinitely don't have the kind of fireworks here that you can find in Utah and Kansas. I kept Annie up becasue I thoughtshewould love the fireworks but the exact oposite was true. She screamed her head off. Poor babywas just exhausted. She loves to go to bed early. Russ wasnt as excited as I thought he woudl be eitherr. He was so nervous to hold a sparkler. He definitely isn't a pyro yet.

After we lit ours off Kevin took the big girls and Russ down to the police station to watch the big city ones. They have a balcony where you can see them really well, but after a few minutes Lizzy said she was scared of the balcony so Russy said he was scared of the fireworks. It all went downhill from there. Oh well it definitely wasn't as good as we were used to in Utah, but we still had a fun day.

 

Cousin Fun!

To say that we had fun having visitors would be an understatement. It was so awesome and the kids loved it so much to have their cousins around! I love that my kids have cousins that are their best friends! I hope that always stays that way!

While they were visiting Matthew had a birthday so Janae had a little army birthday party for him and did an obstacle course. I love how creative Janae is. She always is so good at coming up with things.

The kids always love having a sleepover with their cousins. It is so cute to go in there and see them all asleep on the floor together.

We took them to the fountains and they played in the splash pad and then sat by the big fountain. Russ and Anne wanted to get in it so Kevin had to make sure they didn't.

We took one of our usual trips to Fairy Tale Town. It was fun to see the kids have so much fun together. Ruby loved being with all the big girls and it was cute to see them enjoy having her around so much. Jarom and Kristen decided to stay a couple more days and we were so glad. It was so fun to have them around. It makes me sad to think we get to see each other so infrequently, but that's life. At least we have such a good time when we do get together.

I swear the kids could run the crooked mile for hours. They love it so much.

Jarom was so patient with Anne and walked with her the whole way. So cute.

Grandma bought all the kids a snow cone, which was so nice of her. But Jane and Nellie decided to get sour apple and they were actually sour, they weren't sweet at all. They trided to dump off some and put a new flavor on which wasn't too bad, but they were still pretty sour.

Anne had fun just walking around thinking she was a big shot. She has gottten so mcuh personality lately. She has become very strong willed. Which is weird because she came out so mellow!!

Russy is really good at spilling on himself.

 

Russ and Jerry had a good time togehter. They had some issues with fighting, mostly Russ not being a good sharer of his things, (we are working on it) but they still had fun together.

While the cousins were here Russ got a new wooden firetruck that you sit in becuase Kevin saw an amazing deal on it, and he has a really hard time passing things up when it comes to Russy. Russ had a really hard time sharing it. Little stinker! It is really hard to teach him sharing when he is the only boy so he really doesn't have anyone to share stuff with.

Russ and Jerry are already gettting taught to be Dodger fans! I love it!

We were sad when all the cousins left and it was back to just us. We sure had a great time having visitors this summer!