Happy Days

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Here come the pictures!

Our last two weeks in pictures.

The celebrations all started Friday June 6th. I got to spend my birthday at the pool with the entire 5th grade! It was a really fun day and I'm so glad I got to be there and help out.

I will try and track down some digital copies of Lauren's 5th grade pool party.

Tuesday June 10th 9:30 am 5th Grade Vs. Staff softball game.

Tuesday June 10th 6:30 pm Kaycee's kindergarten promotion

Kaycee received her diploma!

Wednesday June 11th 1:30 pm Wacky Olympics. All kids are put into teams and they had a really fun field day.

I was going to go and cheer Lauren and Sydney on, but we got a surprise that day! Josh (Gary's brother) visited us that afternoon and evening! The great news is that he and his wife and two daughters will be moving to So Cal in just a few weeks! Yeah we are so excited to have them here!

We had to celebrate with some Rock Band!

Thursday June 12th 9:30 am Lauren's 5th Grade promotion. Mrs. Lawrence's class of 2008

Lauren and her sweet teacher Mrs. Lawrence. We were blessed to have her two years in a row.

Friday June 13th 9:30 am. Lauren receives her award for making Honor Roll. Sydney's class ran the most miles of any class in the morning running program. If I remember right, it was 875 miles!!

At the very end of Friday Flag Salute, Mr. McTasney promoted all the students. 5th graders got to run through a tunnel of all the teachers.

Lauren High- 5 ing kids as she ran past. Farewell Elementary School!

After a surprisingly emotional day, we headed to Knotts. It was lots of fun. Kaycee and Matthew both have grown over an inch since March, and Kaycee (with the help of her Heely's) can go on the "big" rides since she makes the 48" mark. Matthew is now 42" and can ride the Camp Snoopy rides all by himself! We saw Kung Fu Panda, which was surprisingly hilarious, and swam at the hotel.

Sunday June 15th

Happy Father's day to our great Dad's out there. We are so blessed to have them in our lives. Thanks to Gary for being such a great Dad to our kids. We love you so much!

Now, here's to summer!

Friday, June 13, 2008

Life Remote Control

I wish that we had a remote control for life sometimes. Pause some moments, skip others, rewind and see that again. Today is one of those times. I wish I could rewind this whole year and do it again. Today is the last day of school for us. Usually I am whooping it up, ready for a fun filled summer! But today is different. Today feels like the end of a very special era. All three of the girls at elementary school. Lauren graduated from 5th grade, and is on to middle school next year. Kaycee graduated from kindergarten and is now a 1st grader. Sydney is now an upper grader. We had an absolute perfect year at school. All the kids' teachers were amazing and seemed hand picked for our childrens' needs. I have never once cried over my kids at school, not when they went off to kindergarten, or sang those cute Mothers Day songs. But today I have been bawling all day! I had to say goodbye to Lauren's teacher of two years, goodbye to Sydney's teacher who due to budget cuts has been let go, goodbye to Kaycee's teacher and the end of the special kindergarten year, goodbye to our PE teacher who due to budget cuts has been let go as well. It's been too much today!

So, I need to pull myself together and look forward to our fun summer, and learn how to be a parent to (gulp) pre-teens! We are moving forward!

A huge thank you to all our teachers and staff this year. It has truly been a perfect school year.

We are off to Knotts Berry Farm this weekend, for a end of school year/Fathers Day celebration! When we get back, I'll bombard our blog with pictures from the last two weeks!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Mexico

We got to spend Memorial Day weekend in Rosarito Beach in Mexico. Josh and Mimi bought a condo there, well a villa actually. It's beautiful! It's right on the beach in a gated community. We had a great great weekend! It rained the first night and the next morning, but after that it was gorgeous and sunny. A little cool, but gorgeous! Our kids aren't stopped much by weather, so we still swam, and a few of them even wandered down to the beach Saturday afternoon! It was a great trip. Thanks so much Josh and Mimi!!!

The view from the pool. Josh went out surfing and Gary took the kids that wanted to go down to the beach.

We took a walk along the beach early Saturday morning. We climbed the rocks and enjoyed the nice misty morning.

Mexico--The pools

Anyone who knows our kids knows that swimming is one of their very favorite things to do. So even if it's raining, or only 60 degrees, they will be in the pool! Luckily, 1 of the big pools at Josh and Mimi's condos was heated, and all of the spas were. So we got in lots and lots of swimming time!

Mexico--Fox Studios

We found out that Fox Studios has a huge lot a few miles South of Josh and Mimi's condo. We spent the day touring it and seeing all the props they have used in movies. Titanic was filmed there, as well as Master and Commander as well as some other movies. It's right on the ocean and a beautiful spot.

Shall we go for a ride on the Subway? (from the movie Phone Booth)

This the spot where they filmed the famous "I'm King of the World Scene in Titanic. It's just a wooden platform! Crazy huh!

Hurry, man the lifeboats, the ship is going down! (From Titanic)

Turtle from Master and Commander, the ship in the background was from Pearl Harbor

No idea what movie this was from!

A fierce battle at sea was waging. The kids weren't scared though. (From Master and Commander)

Arggg Matey! The ship used in Master and Commander

They had a huge studio open with cars, bumper cars, and large props (like a giant hand and an elephants head) and the kids could paint it all to their hearts content!

Look who's starring in the latest movie!!

It's Turbo Man!

Kaycee decided to climb tall buildings with only a grappling hook and a rope.

Sydney's taking a ride in the pod. From Minority Report

The Vortex Tunnel--Can you make it through?

Lauren and Sydney walked miles and miles in the tunnels of the submarine! From The Abyss or Deep Blue Sea, can't remember which one!

Friday, May 23, 2008

Monday-Friday

What do the last few weeks before schools out look like?

We had joy school at our house--theme-- cooking. We made aprons, banana bread and pizza.

The boys are GOOD cooks!

We had Lauren and Kaycee's dance recital. Lauren danced to "I Don't Dance" from high school musical and "Stray Cat Strut". Kaycee did "Dinosaur Rock" and "Best of Both Worlds". They both did a GREAT job!

Sydney had her 2nd grade play on Thursday "Just for Grins". She had two lines to say and lots of songs to sing and also did a great job!

I had joy school that day, so I took the boys to see the play. Lilly (Eric's Mom) helped me watch the boys there and afterwards we walked to the park that is next to the school. Ok, remember how it was 100 degrees just 4 days ago? Thursday it was maybe 60 and a huge thunder storm came through and it POURED down rain! So here I am at the park with 6 little boys, with no car! Luckily, just as it started to rain Lilly came with her car, Debbie came with her car, and Tanya came with her car! All the boys and I were rescued just at the last moment! It was an adventure!!!

So far, that has been our week, Monday to Friday. This afternoon we leave for Mexico, to our brothers condo there to spend Memorial Day weekend.

Monday, May 19, 2008

What's new?

We've been busy as usual. I haven't posted in a while! We decided on a whim to paint our master bedroom two Saturdays ago. I have never done anything with our room since we moved into this house. It's the only room in the whole house that I haven't painted! It was nice to have it fresh looking again.

We celebrated Lauren's 11th birthday. She opened presents from her sisters and brother and she chose where we went to dinner.

On Lauren's birthday was Kaycee's kindergarten Parents Day program. She sang some cute songs and also spoke a line. We all got to participate in the final song and Kaycee served us some yummy chocolate covered strawberries and coffee cake. (Kaycee assured me that there wasn't really coffee in it :) ).

I had a great Mothers day and got spoiled at church and at home.

This last weekend we had Lauren's birthday party. She decided that she wanted to go camping! So we took 5 of her friends and camped at Dos Picos Campground just north and east of Poway. It was a lot of fun, but unfortunately the weather was against us. It got so hot last weekend! It was 100 degrees every day. The girls stayed up the entire night, roasted hot dogs and s'mores for dinner, played Frisbee golf, had a scavenger hunt, and a huge water fight. All in all I think it was a great party and everyone had a lot of fun. That's been what's going on the last few weeks for us! We have lots of fun and exciting things planned in the next few weeks for Memorial Day weekend, end of the year recitals, 5th grade promotion, kindergarten promotion, and a 2nd grade play. Stay tuned!