Bon Voyage!

Well, I think I'm almost ready! I leave tomorrow for Melbourne Australia! I'm so excited! A HUGE thanks to everyone for helping with my kids all week! See you in EIGHT days!

Jane Eyre update

I finally finished it. I liked it better than I thought. Despite the paragraph long descriptions, and feeling like I needed a dictionary every now and then! Who knew that physiognomy meant studying one's face? Not me!! Actually, I enjoyed the love story between Jane and Mr. Rochester. At first I didn't believe he was sincere, but when she comes back to him in the end he was so sweet and humbled to be with her again. I wish I had kept it one more day (I already turned it back into the library) to quote one of his declarations of love for Jane! Quite the romantic!

A Blustery Day

What's that phrase, whatever can go wrong, will go wrong? Kaycee's party will go down as the windiest party of the year! We knew it would be HOT, 90 degrees, but we didn't know that the Santa Ana winds would kick up. Most of our party plans had to be changed due to the winds blowing EVERYTHING away! We couldn't set up much for the games, and had to improvise all along the way. So much for careful planning!

We got to the park and realized that there was no outlet. We had packed up our shaved ice machine planning on making lots of snow cones for the kids. So, our snow cone plans also changed. Thanks to the Keelers, who let Gary run to their house and shave all the ice into a cooler, we were still able to have snow cones! And boy, they hit the spot! THANKS KEELERS!

A big thanks to GARY who then ran home to clean up all the snow cone syrup that had spilled in the back of my car!

I had made "ice cream" cone cupcakes. A cup cake inside an ice cream cone, with a lollipop "cherry" on top. They looked so cute, that was until they all tipped over inside the box and all got smashed!

So, besides it being too windy to light Kaycee's candles, the rest of the time I think the kids managed to have fun! We played our games, did lots of face painting, went through about 200 water balloons in about 5 minutes, played at the park, had hot dogs, popcorn, snow cones, opened presents, ate the smashed cupcakes, and thanks to my friend Shelley, all the kids got a balloon animal or sword! THANKS SHELLEY! That was so great of you!

Another big thanks to the Taylors who came out for the party! Brent was the photographer, which is why I am in so many pictures! THANKS BRENT! THANKS TAYLORS for all your help!

So, all in all, despite the heat, and hot dry winds, and a few mishaps, I think it was fun. Kaycee thought it was too short, I guess that's a good sign!

Happy Birthday Kaycee!

Smashed ice cream cone cupcakes

Opening presents

Cool new shades

Ahh, a snow cone hit the spot!

The never ending relay race (the kids wouldn't stop running back and forth! :) )

Go Morea!

Face Painting table (notice the tablecloth blown up due to the wind!)

Matthew takes the lead in the sack race

Rhiana and Jesse come in 2nd and 3rd

Waiting in line for the 3 legged race

Pay back for a water balloon bomb

Amazing how fast we went through 200 water balloons! But notice the smiles on everyones faces!

Astro Camp

Lauren had a great time at Astro Camp. It was freezing those days up in the mountains, but they still had fun. They got to climb a 30 foot tall pole, stand on the top and jump down, do a zip line, put together a rocket underwater in the indoor pool, climbed ropes and many other fun things! These are the pictures she took while she was there. For more pictures check out our friend Julie's blog. She was a chaperone and took lots more pictures. http://julieshea.blogspot.com

Dorm buddies

Kaitlyn

Tauna

Gotta love static electricity!

Days 13, 14,15

The past three days we had lots of friends over, lots of sleep overs, lots of time on the trampoline, playing the Wii, and Guitar Hero. We visited the kids' Great Grandma in Riverside, and got to see Grandpa and Great Uncle Mike while we were there. The kids went swimming, even though the pool water was SIXTY EIGHT degrees! They didn't swim for very long! This morning we woke up to some hot air balloons floating by our back yard. We enjoyed the conference talks. Amazing how fast two weeks can fly by! We are now busy packing up for Astro Camp, and counting down our last days until school starts again. 10 weeks until summer!

Day 12

Not much else to do on a cold rainy gloomy day.

PS--Where is all the rain we were supposed to get? It's sunny, cool, but sunny!