from the blog for a bit.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Last weekend in August
We've had a busy weekend this last weekend in August. First off the kids woke us up a little before 7am on Saturday morning and Jacob asked, "Um, don't I have to go to school?" Aaron sleepily said, "You will soon learn about weekends."
Saturday we started off the day with a little yard saleing and then hit the local Farmer's Market for flowers and produce. We then attended Josh's 6th Birthday Party. It was a lot of fun and Karen outdid herself with the luau theme! The kids played limbo, pass the coconut, had some surfing lessons and wacked at the tiki pinata. Saturday evening we impromptu hosted dinner club which consisted of Chinese takeout and board games. Dinner club is always a fun time.
On Sunday we got one last visit in to Waterworks Park before it closes Labor Day weekend. We met the Nostrands there and everyone had a great time on all the slides and water features. I stayed on my butt in the shade all afternoon attempting to recover from a cold/sickness I've had for the last week, so it was a good day for me too! We're all hoping to start the week anew and refreshed.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Silly Pics
A couple silly picture instances to share. One...Aaron made the news AGAIN...totally non-story but still had to get a screen-cap of him!
And we finally got the DVD back from the 'limo dude' of Kim's birthday night/Dinner Club we had in July. Some funny shots were taken!
Click for pictures.
Monday, August 20, 2007
REALLY BIG NEWS
JACOB STARTED KINDERGARTEN TODAY!!
Everything went really well. He was very excited to start his day and knew right where his classroom was located. He was most excited to not have his parents stay with him all day! When Grandma asked if he liked his teacher he said no. I asked him later why not and he said, "Because I only like you." Awww....I'll take that answer! His other big milestone was that he got to ride the bus home, he was however disappointed that we were waiting from him at the bus stop and that he couldn't walk home. Yeah, it's gonna be a long time before that happens Mister!
Ella was disappointed that she too couldn't go to school today. It's going to be a couple more weeks before she starts Preschool. She got to stay home with Daddy and play Guitar 
work though. And I got to have a nice lunch with friends who also had Kindergartners starting today!
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Big news, though kinda delayed
I forgot to mention a couple weeks ago, while we were in Yosemite, Jacob learned to ride his bike without training wheels!! I was hoping that would happen because he has refused to try to ride it without training wheels at home for the longest time but as soon as he saw all his friends riding sans trainers, he too wanted to try! And away he went on the first try! Now it's become a daily thing that he wants to ride in the street....of course Ella is never far behind...
Friday, August 17, 2007
Happy Birthday Aaron!!
Today was Aaron's BIG 3-5 B-day!! Unfortunately he had to work it of course. We did stop by the station this evening with a chocolate cream pie though!
And we can never stop by the station without the kids wanting to play on all the fire engines. This evening Jacob had full fire adventures going on in his head and he wanted to act them out with the equipment.
And I'm just guessing, but I think his favorite gift was this....
If it's not Jacob and his video game addiction, it's Aaron! I'm preparing myself for some upcoming virtual concerts!
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Summer's winding down
Unfortunately, or fortunately, I'm not really sure at this point, our summer vacation is coming to a close and school is starting very soon. We are trying to enjoy our longer "unscheduled" days as much as we can. Today we met Jacob's kindergarten teacher for the first time and took a mini tour of the school. It's all very exciting yet scary for me, but he is just acting 'too cool for school' and doesn't seem to be nervous at all. We'll see how he feels on Monday morning! This evening we went to Aqua Golf to hit some balls and then we enjoyed Marketfest.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Junior Giants Finale
Last night while Barry Bonds was breaking the all time home-run record for the San Francisco Giants, our own Jr. Giant was playing his last game of the season.
It was an extra fun game because Brilee and Brayden were on the other team and their co-coach is their dad, Matt. It was fun to see all of them on the field together. Jacob also had an extra special crowd cheering him on...in addition to Grandma, the Nostrand family came to watch. The whole Junior Giants experience has been really positive and was a great intro for Jacob into baseball.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Back from Yosemite National Park
We got back late last night from Yosemite National Park and we had such an awesome time! If you ever get the chance to go, do! The sights and views are breathtaking. Once again, like Crater Lake, it is impossible to convey in pictures exactly what we saw. A 2,425 foot waterfall just doesn't translate well to a 4x6 inch picture, strange huh? :-)
We went with our friends, the McClungs and Mills. It was perfect because we each have 1 boy and 1 girl and all the kids get along great (the adults too of course!). We saw and did so much, I'll try to do a brief summary...
- Wednesday - drove down, we set up camp at Yosemite Pines RV Resort, we were expecting cooler temps but it was HOT so we took a dip in the campground pool
- Thursday - spent most of the day at Yosemite National Park...ooh and awed at many gorgeous sights-some of them....Half-Dome, El Capitan, Yosemite Falls. The kids stripped down to their underwear and played in the creek, campfires and smores.
- Friday - hung around the campground, drove into the local town of Groveland, played baseball at the park, had lunch at the Iron Door Saloon and ice cream next door, swam again in the campground pool, took a hay ride to listen to local spooky stories around the campfire. Finished the night with an interesting discussion of cult religions and cult figures around our own campfire...nothing like talking about Heaven's Gate, Big Foot, and Lemurians, etc. before bed to bring on some interesting dreams/nightmares!
- Saturday - headed back to Yosemite National Park...hiked 2+ miles (with kids that's a feat!) towards the Tuolumne Grove of the Giant Sequoias and saw some BIG trees, plus one a car could drive through. Cruised through the park again and ooh and awed some more and grabbed some more ice cream for the ride back. On our way back to the campground we stopped at a cool place called the Rainbow Pools near Buck Meadows. The kids (and Alicia) took another dip. It seems to be a local hangout and was very crowded. Would have been the perfect place to spend the day...if we were the only ones there! We finished the day with movie night for the kids in our trailer and game night for the adults...started with a funny game of Apples to Apples and ended with what had to be the longest game of Uno ever!
- Sunday - packed up camp, headed home. Stopped in Stockton for lunch, thought we were just going into a pizza place, turned out it was the Disneyland of Chuck E. Cheeses! It was called John's Incredible Pizza Company and it was! Great food....all you can eat pizza (literally about 12 different types), pasta, salad, etc. And tons of fun games and rides. If we didn't stall enough on going home, we then stopped at Ikea in Sacramento and browsed and shopped for a couple more hours!
Friday, August 03, 2007
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Dance and B-Ball Tuesday
Another Tuesday of dance class and baseball has come and gone! Today was Ella's last day of summer session for dance. She has made great improvements since 4 weeks ago. I think she really enjoys it and she made sure to give her teacher a hug before leaving today, it was very cute!
And we can't forget our favorite catcher either!
Monday, July 30, 2007
One of our favorite places, still!
We took a 3-day mini-vacation with our friends, the Nostrands to one of our very favorite places, Bend, Oregon. We still just love the area so much! This was the first time we'd visited in the summer and it was beautiful. I only wish we had a little longer that we could explore more outside the city limits. We did see and do lots of fun activities. We started our "tour" in Sunriver, Oregon which is about 15 minutes south of Bend. We drove around a little and saw some beautiful vacation homes and then did some browsing in the shops. After treating ourselves to ice cream, we headed into Bend to check into our hotel. We walked to dinner at the yummy Ranchero Grill and then did some late night swimming.
Saturday we cruised around town for a bit and found a park the kids could scooter and burn off some energy. Right across the street from the park was a barn with a couple of horses out front. This was the best part of the whole trip for Ella! She so loves horses and was so excited when one of them came trotting over for her to pet. Some of the other things we did today was visit the Old Mill District Shops, played at the Working Wonders Childrens Museum (Jacob's favorite part of the trip!), go-carts and games at the Sun Mountain Fun Center, more swimming, and lots of eating.
Sunday we did a little shopping at the outlets in the morning and then headed south. We visited Crater Lake National Park. It was incredibly beautiful! Such a surreal place and my fear came true...my pictures wouldn't do the colors and the view justice.
The past 3 days were so fun and it was such a treat to go on a vacation with Karen, Fred, Bryan, and Josh. The kids all got along so well and I think the only trouble was fighting over who got to sit next to Jacob at meal times!
We have one more trip planned for this summer. We are camping in Yosemite with friends later this week. And then.....school starts 3 weeks from today....yikes!!!
BONUS...little video of Crater Lake...again, this does not do the place justice....
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Crazy Sleep
Yes, believe it or not, Ella is asleep on this chair. When Ella gets upset and is the slightest bit tired she just shuts down and goes to sleep. Usually she manages to make it to her bed but not this time! What got her upset? Well Jacob was insisting that she mix her Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles into one bowl. So first she whined, then cried, then pouted with her head on her knees and managed to make it into this position and fall asleep. Can't say I blame her, I too would rather sleep on a chair then eat a mixture of those two cereals. Uh, yuck.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Shasta Lake
We spent the day today on a patio boat on Lake Shasta with Grandma and Uncle Jeff. This will be the third year we've done that, so I'm thinking it's now become an annual tradition! It was a lot of fun and we all got a good dose of sun. The previous two years we were on Whiskeytown but this year we opted for Shasta Lake. It was a bummer the lake was so low...about 50 feet from this time last year. It was still a lot of fun in the sun! Click to see more pictures We made it back to Redding just in time for another b-ball game of Jacob's.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Fun weekend in July
We've had a fun weekend. Friday evening we took the kids to see the movie Ratatouille. 
We then went to Sonic Burger for dinner. Love the drinks they have there...I got a lo-cal cherry limeade...yum-o!
Saturday morning Jacob had baseball practice. While he had practice, Aaron and I played some tennis while Ella was our ball girl. We had to dust off our rackets...it has probably been 8 years since we've played together. Back when we lived in Monterey we lived very near some courts so we got all the gear and haven't really played since moving back! It was a lot of fun so I think we'll do it more often. It's perfect because the courts are right next to where Jacob practices.
Saturday evening we had our monthly dinner club. It was a very special dinner club because we were also celebrating Kim's 30th birthday. Because of that we added a couple of special touches! Unfortunately Alicia, Michelle, and Aaron R. had to miss out this month...we missed them. We started the evening at Matt and Stephanie's house for cocktails and appetizers. We then headed out to one of Redding's newer restaurants, Moonstone Bistro. During our dinner a tuxedoed escort arrived for Kim. Awaiting in the parking lot was a limo to cruise us around town! The driver took us to the City Hall fountain, Sculpture Park, Sundial Bridge plus he took photos of all of us in funny poses at each of those locations. He's going to put together a slideshow of all our photos on a DVD for Kim...how fun! He also took us to Coldstone Creamery for ice cream!
Sunday, the kids and I, met Karen and Josh at Waterworks Park for the day. We spent most of our time in the Lazy Lagoon and on the Raging Rapids. Buying a season pass was money well spent this summer. Waterworks is so close to our house and so fun to just go for a few hours.
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