Twice in 2 months

Hi everyone! I'm back with my pesky blog where I brag on my kids and talk up all the normal everyday boring things that we've been doing. I know, it's tough being us...:~) Seriously though things are great... school is back in, Troy's job is still going well, and I can't complain about a thing. I seem to be getting my groove back now that the kids have gone back to school, I can cross a few more things off my to do list when I don't have a lot of little distractions (bored kids on break) in my way.
We just had a great week with my Mom out here for a visit. She tends to spoil us all a little when she comes, and she did again this time. Thanks Mom...Love you!!!

Read on, and post a response if you want.
Have a great September!!!

Big Bear

In addition to La Jolla on Friday, we spend the Labor Day weekend in Big Bear California. More and more I appreciate where we live and all that it offers. From our house we can be at the beach in 1 hour AND from our house we were in the San Bernadino mountains in 2 hours where temperatures were in the 70 and 80's. Perfect hiking weather. And thats just what we did. The picture above was taken lakeside on one of the paved multi-use trails.

Sunday was the BIG HIKE DAY. The 6 of us and the dog hiked almost 6 miles roundtrip from the lake to the PAcific Crest Trail somewhere around 8000 feet in elevation. I am please to announce that not once did any of my kids whine or complain or want to be carried. Actually it was Winston who I think struggled the most. We've turned a corner, I know what my kids are capable of if they can have a "can-do" attitude. I am so glad we did this because I burned of the Chocolate Torte from Friday night.

Sea lions and Chocolate Tortes

We were able to paddle right up to these sea lions, there were even a few playing around in the water that would swim by the kayak. It was really cool.

We had a fabulous Italian dinner, complete with lots of bread and a few good glasses of wine at a place I love in Leucadia Ca called Vigiluccis. In the back of the main restaurant is an old little cabin that has been converted to seating and we had this whole room to ourselves. It was like we were in someone's home in Italy.
Gabriel and I threw down on this delicious chocolate torte thing with hot fudge and rasperry sauce. I rolled to the car and then passed out into a slight diabetic coma for the ride home.

La Jolla Kayaking

Mom was here last week and I wanted to make sure we had plenty of non stop fun on hand for us, so on Friday we pulled the kids out of school and took them to La Jolla for an afternoon of kayaking. In the picture above, Henderson's expression is saying " I really wish I was in the kayak with Dad, cuz Mom is pissing me off" He and I could not find our paddling groove. ( Actually I paddle just fine, he was the problem). Shortly after this was taken I traded Troy one grumpy 9 year old for an excellent paddeling 6yr old. The rest of the day was just fine.

See there, he is much happier now.

And Gabriel was so happy to be with me too....

Back to School

The kids went back to school August 11. And not a moment too soon, everyone was getting on each others nerves from all the togetherness. I am already looking into camp for the boys next summer so if anyone would like to contribute to the Camp Sea Gull 4 week money suck for the boys I think I will be needing about 5 grand...(don't all rush to the checkbook at once :~))

Anyhow, I digress......Here are the kids being forced to look like they aren't totally sick of each other for their 1st day of school photo. In case you didn't figure it out already by the fingers being held up , Henderson is a 4th grader, Vivian an 8th and Gabriel a 2nd. And the best news is that Troy and I have the house to ourselves for 7 whole hours each day. Things are clean again, the tv is off, there is no bickering and fighting over the Wii...... there aren't these eating machines going thru hundreds of dollars worth of groceries every minute...it's glorious. But seriously I should probably think about getting a job.......or going back to school...or going shopping...or having my hair done.... or maybe meeting my friends for lunch....

Whats been goin' on?

Well , for starters Henderson has been taught to cut the grass. I fully expected one of those experiences where he whines about having to keep the lines in the grass perfectly to Troy's standards, and then Troy would get short of patience with Hendersons futile attemps at perfects cut lines,....but I was way wrong...Henderson did great, and actually loved cutting the grass. Now he askes if he can cut the grass even when it doesn't need cutting. Im really proud of him for trying his best and for doing so well.

Since operation money hoarding is still plodding along nicely, we had to find fun ways to entertainthe kids this summer without breaking the bank. So what did we come up with? Outside movie night. We borrowed a projector from friends(now were gunna have to buy one) and we project a movie onto a sheet that we put up on the swingset. We've been letting the kids camp out in the yard and cook hotdogs and smores over the fire. I has been a real hit. Here are the boys with the Rucker Brothers (we always say "Rucker Brothers" and never call them by their names because we cannot tell them apart) at their last campout before school started.