Opening Social, Beach Party!

Today was the Young Men, Young Women Opening Social, Beach Day! We all went to Carpinteria and we had a beautiful day! The weather was on its best behavior today, not one cloud in the sky. We had so much fun!!! Love working with the youth, they always have the most fun! :) My assignment was to go early and get us a spot on the beach. My good and supportive husband came with me along with my children and we set up a couple of Easy Ups and blankets and got us a great spot. The Garcia's met us there to play and the Bartley's came too, along with the Almond's, Darrow's, Thompson's, Keil's...the activity was a great success...tons of families, youth leaders, youth...tons of fun! We played at the beach and several of the youth along with adults went on a 14 mile bike ride. I was going to go with the girls but one of the boy's didn't have a bike so I gave up my ride for him, so glad he could go and do it, so fun for these kids...so good for these kids. We just stayed at the beach and played and when they got back Brother Schramm fired up the BBQ and he and Kathie, other leaders and mom's contributed food and made dinner for everyone.

Roman buried the girls and then turned them into mermaids and then smashed their mermaid bodies by laying on top of them.

Have you ever seen a dirtier dad, he does not seem to mind being so dirty, so fun for the kids!

Elijah, Ashton, Asher

Tatiana, Ali, Sonora, Sierra and Brynn (quite the bathing beauties!) :)

We left about 7:00pm, right when everyone was getting ready to eat. We had been there since 12:00pm so we were ready, we got Carl's Jr. on the way home, not as good as a BBQ on the beach but we filled our tummies and straight to bed for kiddos when we got home.
WHAT A GREAT DAY!!!!

OC!

We had a great day in Orange County with my sister, Briana, yesterday. She is so blessed to live in such a beautiful place. Truly is awesome!!!! We needed lunch to take to the beach so we found this little Bagel Shop and mom bought us some really delicious sandwiches and salads to take, why is it that places by the beach have the best food! Briana took us to this new beach that she found about a week or 2 ago. We had to climb up and over these rocks and walk down a steep flight of stairs. We were in this great little cove. The swimming area was roped off by buoys and on the other side of the buoys boats were going back and forth. The beach was very small, so the boys in particular could not wander to far away from us. There were no waves, or very tiny waves made by the wakes of boats going very slowly past us, GREAT for the little ones however Sierra was missing waves. I did get in the water with her to play and it was freezing! I made it work and we both layed on her boogie board sideways and kicked to the buoys, great time for us to spend together, we needed that because I was having a grouchy day. I took Ashton in the water after I played with Sierra and swam with him for a minute and talked and spun him around, good for us too! We stayed at the beach for a few hours and then on the way back to Briana's mom took us to Frigato's, Healthy Mexican Food, is what it says on the sign outside. It was so GOOD!!! Mom got each of us a salmon taco with grilled veggies with cheese on the side. So YUMMY!!! Then mom took us to Tootie Fruity and that also was so good, Pomegranate Frozen Yogurt with dark chocolate mini chips on top is what I got and thoroughly enjoyed. The kids each got peanut butter frozen Yogurt with sprinkles and Ashton got gummy bears too and Sierra got Cookie Dough chunks with her sprinkles. We went back to Briana's finished our yogurt, said hello to Brett, talked for a little bit and then said our goodbyes. It's always hard to say goodbye but we really had a great day, great memories.

We walked to the rocks too and gently poked at some sea anemones, well my kids did Briana didn't let Nixon disturb the sea life. Ashton squished one of the anemones a little to hard (didn't hurt him) and it squirted water up at him and Lincoln. Made me laugh!


What is with these boy's not looking at the camera!


What are Ashton and Nixon looking at?

Oh, just the seaweed monster!

(Sierra came to me and said "mom there's the Seaweed Monster, Is it real?")

The holes were there but Sierra added the scariness or you could say grouchiness to the face. This is how she was feeling about there being no waves here. :)
Shortly after her first visit to the water she came back to the sand and asked me if we could go to a different beach because there were no waves here, I told her to go ask Grammy because she was in charge today sadly Grammy told her we are staying at this beach today because we are here with Aunt Briana. She walked over to where I was with the boys and wrote in the sand. This is NOT too much fun! :)

She tried!

The boy's were building a ramp for the monster truck to go over, Nixon was blowing on it. Funny story about our monster truck. Lincoln came to me and asked me if he could play with the monster truck, I said "sure where is it?" Couldn't see it anywhere. I asked Briana because she was on the other side of the beach with Rossi, didn't know if maybe he had it. She said "I saw a little boy in white underwear playing with it, he's had it for the last hour." Sierra is a brave soul, I asked her if she would go over there with Lincoln and ask for the truck back. She did and the boy ran away from her. His mom heard Sierra ask for it so she took it from him and gave it to Sierra. This boy had a meltdown. He started chasing Sierra, never reached her because his mom stopped him. But he was running away from his mom, crying and freaking out. I felt bad but it was our truck and our boy's wanted to play with it. He ended up calming down and being fine.

Who needs a bed?

This is where my kids usually end up. They go to bed in their beds and by morning they are on the floor next to our bed. Sierra not as much as Ashton, Ashton sleeps here about every night. I don't mind, as long as they are not in our bed but it can't be as comfortable as their beds it's pretty squishy and it's the floor. I say to them, "let's just get rid of your beds, you don't need them." But for some reason they don't want to, they like their beds. :)

A day entirely spent at home...

Ashton was sick last night so today we did not go anywhere. We needed a day to get well. I have not had to give him any Motrin all day. When he woke up this morning he said he was okay and he has been eating and drinking and not throwing it up. I think we are over it already which I am so grateful. So our day consisted of washing all of his bedding of course and the blankets that were on my floor too. Making bread, the kids did chores around the house (picking up, watering plants, emptying the dishwasher) so they could earn stickers, we watched "The Land Before Time" (so cute and my kids had never seen it), and me and Ashton took a nap (my favorite part of the day :)). During our nap Sierra sprayed her fragrance spray on herself, put makeup on, brushed her hair, put on her purple cape and just played quietly. I love that she was playing and not watching TV. :) Ashton made a zoo train and he was putting animals in every box. Chloe climbed in one of the boxes, so cute!!!

Ashton and I went out to the garden too and we picked some of our yummy veggies. He got so excited when he found a ginormous zucchini! :)

COYOTE!

I was running this morning with my mom and we were running on the left side of the road up the crazy Tournament hill and right there to my left in the green grassy area was a coyote enjoying a tasty treat. Needless to say I quickly crossed the street and kept my eye on him! He was to busy to bother us though, he was enjoying!

Today...

Today Ashton continued his 3rd session of swim lessons, he's on his last week-almost done. Sierra played at Grandma's during Ashton's lesson and got to eat some Trix cereal, lucky girl! :) When his lesson was over we played at the park for about 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours. Saw Lara F. there with her kids and we really enjoyed our time visiting, swinging and Sierra and Sage helped Ashton build a sand castle. Then went to Smart and Final and stocked up on a few necessities(pinto beans, corn, Alta Dena milk :)). Ate leftover Sunday dinner at Mom's house for lunch. Took Melissa G. and kids down to our pool and played and Sierra got a nice battle wound when she fell on the diving board. Kids were squirting the diving board with big shooter guns and it made it slippery and Sierra was walking quickly and slipped and landed on the diving board right on her tummy. Red marks on her elbow and shoulder and scraped up her right leg. Poor baby! :( Came home, turned on Spongebob, fell asleep for a minute, made nachos for dinner. Jake came home from work and picked up Ashton, who was only wearing his underwear and said "oh my gosh he is burning up!" I went and felt him and truly he was... I grabbed the Motrin and got him medicated. About 45 mins. later Jake's mom and dad came over with Uncle Ray (Terry's Brother) and Aunt Jan and Ashton was feeling like a million bucks, thanks to the motrin. We enjoyed a nice evening with them and we used our fire pit once again. :) Kids went to bed, Jake and I watched repeats of the Office. Checked on Ashton before I went to bed and woke him up because he was burning up again, gave him some more Motrin and up it came...chinese food that Terry and Janelle had brought over as their leftovers was coming up and out of Ashton all over his bed. Gave him some new Motrin because the last had come all out and moved him to my room on the floor. Woke up once to him dry heaving in the middle of the night. Doing okay this morning but I think we will stay home and take it easy today.

Sierra took Chloe outside on the leash for the first time!

Jake had to go to the store to get some more firewood and grabbed a yummy treat for all of us, Drumsticks and Snicker Bar Ice cream Bars! MMMM...:)

Terry was telling all of us his Big Fish Story, he was a teenager growing up in San Diego. He was at the beach with a couple of friends and somehow he ended up by himself. He was floating out far in the ocean and was trying to get back to shore but felt like he wasn't getting to far like he was caught in a rip tide. A porpoise jumped right over him. He thought it was a shark it was so big. When he finally got back to shore the lifeguard said "are you alright? you know if you needed help I wasn't going to be able to save you you were out to far."

"MOM WHAT'S BIGGER...

A HIPPO

OR A "TRINOCEROUS"!"

Ashton has been into figuring out what's bigger. He says "let's see inches." He has been asking "mom are you taller or is Aunt Briana taller, let's see inches" or "who's taller, Daddy or uncle Brett" or "who's dog is bigger, Sister Spendlove's or Sister Sander's" or "what's bigger a firetruck or a semi truck?" I get to answer these questions all day long! :)