Annual trip to Pebble Beach

It's summer time! One of the things that means for us is an extended trip to Pebble Beach. This year, because of the way the schedule worked out we were able to stay for 8 days. It was fabulous to move into the house and just enjoy each other and all that Monterey Bay has to offer. Since this has become a digital scrapbook for our family I am including a ton of pictures in this post for our memories, so consider yourself warned:)

Since our kids are such great car travelers...(read with a lot of sarcasm) we usually end up stopping once if not twice, making what could be a 2 1/2 hour drive into a 4 hour drive. This year we decided to take the train ride at Casa De Fruita. The last time we did this I was very pregnant with Hudson and Brooklyn. It was a fun start to our great week away.

The kids wasted no time climbing into the tree in the back yard.

It was quite chilly and windy the first couple days we were there, so despite the fact that it is June we were bundled up as if it were January. Here the kids are checking out one of the first crabs caught on our trip.

Of course no trip to Monterey is complete without a visit to the aquarium. They have a new jellyfish exhibit which was a lot of fun to check out. In this picture the kids are drawing their own jellyfish on a computer screen and then "releasing" it onto the big aquarium screen.

Checking out the touch pools. Hudson and Brooklyn really enjoyed seeing all the fish.

One night we took the kids out to dinner at Il Fornio. We like to take them out to eat at nicer restaurants every once in a while to teach them to sit nice and behave, even though it is a little stressful. We've found that it works best to get to the restaurant around 4:45 to beat any sort of dinner rush:). They did great. When we sat down they gave the kids some pizza dough and told them to make a shape and then they would bake the bread for them. The kids had a lot of fun with that.

With our trip to Il Fornio it has become tradition to stop at Pebble Beach Golf Links to take some pictures and admire the view.

On our way back up to the Inn we saw a gentleman with a large owl. We got to talking to him and he said that he is hired by the resort to walk around every couple weeks with a large owl (Louise) because it makes the smaller birds afraid to build nests on the building. It was quite fascinating. He even got Louise to fly from pillar to pillar, talk about big haunting eyes and a huge wing span! The kids thought it was great.

Beach time! We spent most of our time on the rocky beach, but we hit the sandy beach a couple times so the kids could build sand castles and get their feet wet.

We invited some friends up for a couple nights. It is fun to share the house with friends and give the kids a chance to play with people other than our family and then we get some fun adult time as well. Kevin and Kevin got to do some golfing and Janey and I got to do some shopping on Saturday.

Ethan and Mason loved climbing on all the rocks to check out the tide pools. They kept very busy and were very brave heading out quite a ways on the rocks.

We always love to take friends to see the bag piper at Spanish Bay. The night we chose to go was SUPER windy, like blow you over windy. The kids didn't seem to care though and had a blast running around. Since it was so cold we had our choice of fire pits since most people chose to stay inside.

New this year, we decided to check out the Municipal Wharf and Old Fisherman's Wharf. Now that the kids are older they enjoy seeing new things. We loved checking out all the fishing boats and looking in the fish shop.

In the spirit of keeping it real, here is Miss Mo less than thrilled to be posing for a picture with her brother.

We loved watching the harbor seals and sea lions at Fisherman's Wharf. This day it was gorgeous weather. We were actually hot walking around which doesn't happen too often in Monterey.

Since it was so warm we decided to head down to the beach after naps. Unfortunately by this time the breeze had picked up and it wasn't quite as warm as we had hoped, but Kevin, Ethan and Morgan got in the water for a while.

Nothing says beach time like being buried alive!

The whole crew. Note Brooklyn's outfit. She was not thrilled to be down by the water until I figured out that she was cold so we put her hood on and Hudson's hat and then she was as happy as could be to be digging around in the sand.

Sea turtle in the sand.

We LOVE the beach!

Another highlight is spotting all the deer that roam around the area. Ethan likes to keep a count and according to him we had over a 100 spottings, now that is of course the same deer over and over...but I'm still not sure how accurate the count was:)

The second to last day it was overcast and a little chilly so just the boys headed down to the beach to throw rocks and be boys.

Check out this crab they caught on the last crab hunt of the trip, significantly bigger than the first one! Ethan even got into catching them himself, quite a big step for our cautious little guy.

We had such a great time together as a family. It is always refreshing to spend time relaxing and playing together. We also went to the Dennis the Menis park, out for lunch a couple times and Kevin and I got to play twilight golf and go out to eat the last night when my mom came up to watch the kids for us. Thanks mom! Not to mention lots of time in the backyard "golking" (as Hudson calls golfing) with wiffle balls. Ethan said several times on our trip, "Can't we just move to the beach house?" I think that sums up how all feel about leaving. It sure is a blessing to be able to enjoy this great part of God's creation as often as we do.

Backyard project

A couple weeks ago my sister and I brought the kids to a little zoo nearby. It is the perfect size for our kids ages, we made it through the whole zoo in about an hour and then we played at a playground and had lunch. I see many more cousin trips in our future.

While we were at the zoo the guys were in our backyard doing this......

Nana and Papa and Opa and Oma bought the kids a play set for our backyard for all four birthdays this summer. Everything we read online said to plan on about 12-15 hours to put it together. We really didn't know what to expect, but Eric and Kevin put 6 hours in on Friday and about 6 again on Saturday. They did a great job and the finished product is great. The kids love it!

While the daddies were working on Saturday I got to play with the kiddos since Kara had worked the night before. We had lots of fun and were very busy:)

The finished product! Our very own park in our backyard!

A Kindergarten Graduate

It is hard to believe that it is the end of the school year already. I feel so old saying it, but this year really flew by. Ethan had a fabulous time in Kindergarten. His teacher was phenomenal and he learned so much. He is an incredible reader and there is definitely no more spelling words in front of him! He had his kindergarten celebration on Wednesday, it was lots of fun to celebrate with him and his friends.

On Tuesday all three kindergarten classes went to the local water park and played fun games and ran around in the fountains for a while. I was able to go along and help, it was a lot of fun to watch him and all his classmates interact. Let's just say after this year I have a whole new respect for Kindergarten teachers!

Here are the girls waiting for the program to begin. I arrived at the church at 9:30 for the 10:00 celebration. Kevin thought that was way too early, but we ended up only 8 rows from the back. We're thinking some people slept there to get good seats:) We know better for our next one!

They don't do an official graduation at Ethan's school. It was a program with super cute songs and poems and a slide show. They received their awards and diplomas the day before at school. It was a perfect length and really fun. Here Ethan and his friend Madeline are dancing to one of the songs.

They all had a speaking part. Ethan had to memorize 4 lines to a poem. By the time graduation came Morgan had most of it memorized as well. He did a great job. Afterwards he said that talking into a microphone was really fun. He must get that joy from his dad!

A family photo minus the littles. We left them at home with a sitter so the rest of us could enjoy the program.

Papa, Nana, Auntie Kara and Annika were also able to join us.

Here we are trying to get a cousin picture. Doesn't Morgan's enthusiasm amaze you? Just proof to the rest of the world that she's not always smiling.

That's better!

Ethan and Madelyn-I think this may be the friend Ethan misses the most over the summer. He sure had a lot of fun with her this year. We have promises of several play dates over the summer.

Ethan and a couple of the boys in his class. He has a lot of fun with them too.

Ethan John, you had such a great year. You grew so much academically, spiritually and socially. You became more courageous as you met new friends and conquered the monkey bars. You read 147 books this year! WOW! You have memorized so many scriptures that I know will help you as you grow up. Mommy and Daddy are so proud of you! It is kind of bittersweet knowing that next year you will be in school ALL DAY! I think mommy and your sisters and brother will miss you having lunch with us everyday. But I know you're ready and we can't wait to see what you learn. First though, let's have a great summer! Love you buddy!

Lately

I realize it has been a while since my last post. We've been busy just doing life around here. Truthfully I feel like we are at a very challenging and exhausting phase right now. Having 2 20-month olds with increasing independence and individual minds is exhausting to say the least. Just when I have 1 corralled where I want him/her to go the other one takes off, so I chase him/her down only to have #1 run off again or climb up again or dump the crayons out again or, well you get the picture. We like to call our life controlled chaos 98% of the time and the other 2% of the the time it is uncontrolled chaos. We have snapped a few pictures in the past couple weeks though so I'll share those with you.

Morgan got her first haircut about 4 weeks ago. She was thrilled to finally have her turn at a hair cut and smiled like this the whole time.

Also about 4 weeks ago we had an Easter egg hunt with some of my cousins. Here are Hudson and Brooklyn with their cousin Audrey. We like to call them the triplets:)

Here are the kids with Opa and Oma on the Sunday morning after we got back from Mexico. Brooklyn was not to thrilled to be unattached from me once she had me home. I think she missed us.

Brothers

Kevin took this picture of Hudson and Brooklyn a couple weeks ago. They are starting to interact more with each other and it is fun to watch. Unfortunately they are also starting to fight more. Sharing does not come naturally that is for sure.

Anyone who knows Ethan will know what a big deal this picture is. Our neighbor brought over some puppies that were in the animal shelter. There were 8 puppies and he brought over 3 for the kids to see. We are trying to get Ethan over his fear of dogs and my neighbor thought some harmless puppies might help. He actually sat on my lap and pet one of the puppies for about 10 minutes. It was a HUGE step for him.

My pretty ballerinas. Morgan and her friend Emmry were playing dress up the other day and Brooklyn had to join in.

Not to be left out of the dress up time. Hudson had to be Spiderman for a while.

Ethan is doing an amazing job with his reading. He has learned so much this past year in Kindergarten. He has started to sit down and read with his little sisters and brother. It is fun to watch.

We are working on finally finishing our back yard. It has been a  6 year work in progress but we're ready to be rid of all the dirt. We moved one of our trees so we put the kids to work digging the hole.

This past Friday I was treated to a special "Muffins and Makeovers with Mom" at Ethan's school. I had this little cookbook and plate Ethan made for me waiting when I got there. The cookbook is really cute, each kid had to write the ingredients and steps to one of their favorite recipes. Ethan chose Grilled Pizza. He even included cutting the pizza up into small pieces if you have babies. Guess what he watches us do every day? We had to come fresh faced and with clean toes so our kindergartner could give us a lotioned foot rub, paint our toes and fingers and do our make up. Ethan actually did a pretty decent job. It was a very fun morning.

My toes, not half bad for his first attempt. He told me that I could stop going to get pedicures now because he could just do my toes for me. What a sweetheart:)

And the finished product. I'm not sure cosmetology is in his future but that is probably ok with daddy.