Thursday, August 13, 2009

1st Day of School


Today was the girls first day back to school after summer vacation. We are all very excited for school to be back in session! Definitely ready for more structure in our lives :) Ashlie started 4th grade and now goes until 3pm everyday. Sari started 7th grade and moved to a different school than the elementary school! That means that for the first time the girls are at different schools. Weird for all of us. Things seemed to go good today for both of them. This is a picture of the girls this morning! I'm not sure what Craig was doing but that is his arm flying through the picture :)

Friday, August 7, 2009

Ashlie Turns 9

Wow! What a fun (and exhausting) time we had celebrating Ashlie's birthday. Several weeks before her birthday, Ashlie had her entire birthday planned. She knew who was being invited, what to eat, where to go, activities to do, decorations to put up, and even what kind of cake to make and ice cream to buy. It made it easy to pull it together last minute but we hadn't taken into account our exhaustion coming into the celebration! It all turned out fine, just very tiring! She had a good birthday and that is what matters! I'm just wondering though, why do they call it a slumber party when there is very little slumbering done???

The celebrating actually began the day before her birthday with the primary children singing happy birthday to her at church. It just so happened that there were 2 other children who shared the exact same birthday with her!

Her birthday fell on a Monday this year. Craig made her scrambled eggs (her request) for breakfast and then the 5 of us headed over to Adventure Park for some birthday fun. We went at lunch time so were able to all eat at the pizza buffet and then we played some games in the arcade area. After that we all went out and rode the bumper boats! It was especially fun because this was Tyler's first time riding the bumper boats. He finally hit the height requirement. Tyler rode with Craig in one boat and then each of us girls had our own. We were the only group on the boats and no one was in line so the attendant let us ride for a really long time. By the time our ride was over we were all pretty wet! Ashlie spent most of her time over by the waterfall, the rest of us spent our time trying to squirt each other! We all had a really fun time.


This is a picture of the kids after the bumper boats!


After Adventure Park we came home and straightened up to get ready for the slumber party. Ashlie had 3 friends over! We had tons of fun! They got to make their own mini pizzas for dinner, decorate their own cupcakes, make chocolates, swim, eat popcorn, watch movies, and play RockBand! At 3 am we had to finally put our foot down and make them go to bed! We're too old for 3 am parties!!! Especially since we realized that Craig had to work the next day :( The next morning Craig got up early for work and made pancakes at Ashlie's request. We had M&M's, whip cream, strawberries, chocolate chips, and sprinkles for the toppings! They all had a great time and were very tired to prove it!

The beginnings of the morning after the 3 am party!


And now they sleep!


There are 4 of them there! Can you count them all?



During the night they played with dolls, played games, played RockBand, and had a hair cutting party with the Barbies!


Breakfast condiments

This is the state of the kitchen table the morning after the slumber party :)


Do we really have to wake up???


This was her cake for the family party! She requested a waterslide cake. On each of the three layers there is a fondant wave all around the top. It didn't turn out as good as I wanted but I guess that is what happens when you are working under the conditions I had :( Oh well, Ash was happy!

Saturday, August 1, 2009

July

Wow!!! I do not know what happened to the month of July! It just flew past us! That might have been because we were running constantly to something new and exciting!

Ashlie came home from Idaho after being gone for a full month on July 12th. We drove to San Jose to get her from Chris' house. We rang the doorbell and it instantly flew open and Ashlie totally attacked Craig! She jumped on him and was laughing and crying all at the same time. She was even excited to see Tyler. We took guesses as to how long we thought the euphoria would last. We were pretty sure it would only take just a few minutes in the car with Tyler and Ashlie would be ready to go back to Idaho. Much to our surprise it lasted a whole 2 days before she announced, "Tyler is annoying me!" She had a great time and we are still hearing about all of the fun things she did with Grandma & Grandpa.

On July 13th, I slipped down my parents porch and ended up bruising my tibia and tore a tendon in my ankle/foot. I am still recovering from that one. So the rest of the month has been done with my hobbling everywhere and attempting to keep my foot elevated!

On July 21st, we packed Sari up and sent her off to Girls Camp for 4 days. A little weird for me, I can't believe she is old enough already! She had a blast. I've had several comments from friends about what a sweetheart Sari is! All I can say is, "I know!"

The same day, Ashlie and I headed to Las Vegas for her dance camp. She danced for 7 hours a day on both Wednesday and Thurday, and for 5 hours on Friday. I was exhausted just watching her dance! We had a blast and learned a lot. She is already planning on next years camp. While we were there I was able to go to a Parents Meeting, yikes, if she wants a career in dancing there is so much to do and so much money to spend! This is beginning her 5th year in dance and she loves it! I'm not sure if she is thinking about this as a career or not but she is quite good at it and really has a lot of fun. I guess we should probably talk to her about it a little!

Sari got back on the afternoon of the 24th and Ashlie & I got back around midnight the same night. Craig & Tyler had spent most of the week living the bachelor life! Craig had to work a couple of the days so Tyler spent a little time with my parents and had a great time.

On Monday the 27th Craig and I packed our stuff and headed to Long Beach to go on a cruise to Mexico for 5 days. It was so wonderful and relaxing. I told him that I didn't care what we did as long as we relaxed (and I elevated my still sore foot)! And I think we did a good job of relaxing. Every day we got in at least 2 naps and one day we were able to get in a 3rd! Good times right there! Plenty of room service, lounging by the pool, and cool weather! We were in heaven! While we were gone cruising the kids stayed home with my grandparents (The Greats)! They had a great time. I think because Great Grandma spoils them!

We got back just in time to get our act together for Ashlie's birthday on Monday!

In addition to all of the fun times already mentioned I managed to fit in 2 wedding cakes and a couple of cupcake orders, Craig worked 2 jobs, Sari had riding lessons 2 days a week and 2 Gymkhanas, and we still got a little bit of laundry done :)

Unfortunately I left my camera at home during dance camp. When we got to the ship for our cruise I pulled out the camera only to discover it wouldn't work even with brand new batteries :( Luckily Craig has an iphone with a good camera :) This is what he got of the cruise.


This is a picture of the ship. In Catalina Island we have to anchor out a bit and then ride a tender boat to get to shore. This is on our way to the shore.


While in Catalina we went on a Glass Bottom Boat. It was so cool! You could drop little fish pellets into this tube and it would go into the water and within about 5 seconds hundreds of fish would be swimming under your glass area! Crazy!!!



One afternoon we were out walking on the deck and the horizon was so beautiful. You could see the sun rays shining down on the water through the clouds.



Every night they have a different show that we went to either with dancers or comedians or whatever. One night while we were waiting on the show to start they had music playing. If you look at the picture closely just about dead center is a little oriental lady wearing a white shirt. Every time a new song would start she would be sitting on her seat. As we watched you could send her arms begin to move to the music and soon she was dancing in her seat and before long it was like she couldn't contain herself anymore and would jump up and start dancing all over her little area there. She had a friend beside her and soon the friend would join her. At the end of each song she would sit back down. If you watched, she would soon start to move again and before you knew it she would be back up dancing. This is a picture of her dancing! It was sooo funny!