Last day of School, Ballet and saying goodbye

 It was a busy week as always.  It was the last week of school for us.  The kids are missing the last week of school.  They are headed off to Nana Camp for a week.  The kids wanted to celebrate their birthdays at school so on the same day I brought 5 dozen donuts to school for their classes.  They loved that.  Lily also had her geography bee.  She did a great job and ended up in 4th place.

Nana and Papa came to visit.  They wanted to see Lily's ballet recital.  All of us went to her dress rehearsal on Friday night.  It was long.  We went out to dinner that night to Red Robin.  It made the long afternoon seem like a distant memory.

 Lily's ballet recital was Saturday.  She danced in 2 dances.  She did a fabulous job.  Nana and Grandma came with us to the recital.  We were so proud of her.  She worked really hard.

 Today I had to say goodbye to a dear friend of mine.  She is moving across the country.  We've had so much fun over the past four years.  Our girls are great friends.  We are all sad that the Fellars are leaving.  We wish them well, but are sad.  We hate saying goodbye.

Love these girls.  Hate to see the twins leave.

Lily's Early Birthday Party

Lily is turning 7 in two weeks.  Her friends, the twins, are moving at the end of next week.  She wanted to celebrate her birthday with them like she has over the past 3 years.  So we decided to have her party a little early this year so the twins could come.

 We had 7 silly girls here on Friday night for dinner, crafts, dancing and cake.  Hopefully they all had a good time.  I know Lily did.

4th of July

Happy 4th of July.  My dad always says "Happy Independence Day!"  I think he does it so we remember what the day is actually about.  We try to stress to our kids what this day is about.  Hopefully one day, it will actually stick.

Until that day happens we continue to use the 4th as a day to celebrate, relax, eat lots of food and have lots of fun with family and friends.  This year wasn't any different.  What's the 4th without a flag cake!

We went up to Mortensen Manor early on the 4th to start the day off with crepes and blue waffles.  The kids loved the toppings choice of peaches, syrup, ice cream or whip cream.  After breakfast and doing a few chores (gathering eggs from the barn and hosing down the pool furniture) they got to go with Uncle Brent to pick out fireworks for later.  They had a blast.

Swimming, eating, talking and running around the back yard filled the rest of the afternoon/evening.  We got to see the new chickens and could even hold them.  We played with sparklers and smoke bombs.  After it got dark we let the real (legal) fireworks go.  We hummed a terrible rendition of Stars and Stripes while the explosions were happening.  After that was over the kids burst into the national anthem, but then starting screaming and ran behind a fence when the fireworks made to much noise.

All and all a grand night.  We are so fortunate to live in this great land where we enjoy so much.  We feel so blessed.  We hope to never take it for granted.

Family Date Night

We've all been a little stressed lately.  This past week has been particularly trying.  With things on the upside we decided to go to the symphony as a family.  The kids were more than thrilled to be included in the outing this time around.

The theme of the symphony was "Star-Spangled Spectacular".  The kids new most of the music and I heard them on more than one occasion singing along.  This wasn't the traditional symphony.  It was the summer pops so it's a lot more laid back and outdoors.  The kids found tree to climb in before we got through the gates

It was a great evening.  We had a picnic dinner by the water at the Embarcadero and enjoyed each others company in a relaxed setting.

The fireworks at the end were spectacular as always.  Everyone loved them.  I think we just might make this a family tradition.

Piano Recital and more

 I finished up my 6th piano recital here in Scripps Ranch.  I still stress over them like it is the first one although I know it is getting easier.  This year's theme was "Movies".  All the kids played music from the recital.  Sadly I didn't tell Damon to take any pictures so this is the only one I have from the night.  The boys did a great job.  We were so proud of them.  I'm relieved to be done.

We had the Jog-a-thon at school on Friday the 15th.  The kids had a blast.  They did a great job running.  I got to run with them some of the time and Nana got to play nurse to several scrapped knees.

On the 18th we went to see Madagascar 3 with Nana.  Adam and Lily didn't have school and we felt like it was the best thing to do with some time off.  We enjoyed the film and the laughs.

Nana left on Tuesday and the kids still had the day off.  I taught a cooking class.  The kids learned how to make pizza and pancakes.  That was fun.

Noah and I have been by ourselves the rest of the week and we have gone to the beach twice.  I have decided that going to the beach is much better than dealing with the reality of life and all its complexities.  We grabbed our next door neighbor so Noah had someone to play with and I grabbed a book (well, my kindle).

 The kids had their art show/open house at school on Thursday.  They did a great job on their work this year.  It's always fun to see them progress.

 Friday after we got back from the beach we picked up the other two from school and headed back out to the beach for some late afternoon sun, waves and dinner.  Damon ended up joining us for the last hour.  It was a nice evening out.

A Little Behind

We haven't had the time or the brain power to blog lately.  I'm a little behind in posts now so this will be a catch-up post.

For Mother's Day the kids got me an ice cream maker.  We finally got around to using it over Memorial Day weekend.  It's been wonderful.  We've had so much fun making all sorts of different flavors. It's the gift that's going to make me gain weight.

 Adam had Pinewood Derby on the 6th of June.  He and Damon worked really hard on his car and on the Saturday before the race Damon accidentally cut the car in half.  So by Monday they were frantically making another one.  They did something right though because Adam got first place.  He was so happy.

 On the 8th of June I drove on a field trip to the zoo with Lily's class.  We had loads of fun.  We love the zoo and are so glad that we have passes there.   We saw the new baby giraffe that was only 2 days old.  The girls loved seeing that.

 Noah finished school today.  Yea.  We are all happy to be done with 6th grade.  It was an exhausting uphill climb the whole way.  Happy to report we all survived.  Very glad it is summer for him.

Nana is here to help celebrate the end of the school year and to have fun with the kids.  We love when Nana is here.

Good Mental Health

Damon and I love the TV show Fraiser.  It makes us laugh and laugh and laugh some more.  One of the phrases the main character uses a lot is, "Good day and good mental health".  It's how he signs off his radio show.

Well, we try to take care of our body's and we do a great job doing that for the most part, but we tend to run ourselves and our spirits ragged.  So when our friend's, the Melanson's, said that they were coming down to Anaheim for the weekend sans kids we decided to join them.

It couldn't have come at a better time.  We have been so stressed with life, work, kids, etc.  Even trying to leave Saturday was a bit stressful, but everything fell into place and we were able to get out of San Diego only 30 minutes later than planned.

The drive up was touch and go once we got into the OC, but we managed to still get where we needed to go in 1.5 hours.  We met Pete and Julie at their hotel room at the Grand Californian, which is an absolutely beautiful hotel in Downtown Disney (I keep typing Downton.  Ha!)  They had the best views form their balcony.  The grizzly bear from the rapids was just outside their window.

We headed to Downtown Disney and scoped out our options for lunch.  We ended up eating at the Jazz Kitchen, which was fabulous.  I've never eaten anywhere else except Rain Forest because of the kids.  The place had the best beignets that I have ever had.  They were so tasty and covered with powdered sugar.  YUM! Had I been by myself I would have eaten the whole bag and not cared.

After lunch we headed for the pool and stayed there for 3 hours.  That was the best.  No worrying about kids and their locations or anything.  Damon, who strained his back on Thursday, was able to stretch it out in the pool and have some of the pressure taken off.  He also went in the spa.  I rode the water slides and everyone enjoyed the conversation and the relaxation.

After the pool we changed into our evening attire and decided to make the boys happy and ate dinner at the ESPN Zone.  It was load, full of people, and had TVs in every direction with every sport on you could imagine.  The Laker game was on on the  big screen.  We had to wait an hour to be seated.

We waited outside where there was a 1920's style dance lesson being taught and a band.  We were able to learn a few dance moves.  It helped pass the time quickly.  Dinner was nice.  The boys watched the game and Julie and I gabbed.  We walked around and enjoyed the sights and sounds.  We also explored the remodeled Disney Hotel.  They did a fabulous job.  At Tangaroa Terrace they had 2 Polynesian singers playing and right after we walked up they started playing "Somewhere over the Rainbow".  It sounded so good and made a good night even better.

All to soon it was time for us to head back to San Diego.  We had a lovely day and hope we have many more days for "good mental health".