Good Old Summertime!

I tried out a popsicle recipe for the 4th of July weekend. They seem to approve.




A very nice young man fell in love with Amanda, although he is a bit of a flirt!




A sea monster washed up onto the dock. Since she is a friendly sea monster, we have decided to keep her and name her Alyssa.




But with summer here, there are a few extra chores as well. Here is Daniel watering a hanging basket of flowers. That is the flirt checking to make sure Daniel is doing a good job. He did.

Putting the Dock In

So here is part of the dock being designed on the spot by the head engineer, Grandpa. Head of constructions is Daniel and heading up logistics is Nicko. Isaac was the head bug inspector whether they needed a bug inspector or not. Alyssa was a consultant. Her most frequently asked question was from Grandpa wanting to know if she knew where he left something. I am not sure about this particular project, but generally speaking we have found that she does know exactly where something was left. Grandma was Head of decorating....but that will be a separate post. Everyone helped and worked hard. Grandpa gets most patient man alive award. (I would have been screaming my head off when head bug inspector was bug inspecting instead of holding the board like he was supposed to!) :-)



The garage was construction central. Good thing we have a big garage.




I helped too. I painted the ramp. Thank you Mr. Eric for giving us non slip sand to mix in with the paint so the kids do not slip when they are wearing their water shoes.







Finally the day of putting the dock in was not the glorious sunshiny day that we were hoping for, but the water was not super cold and things went very smoothly. So we went from....





to....




So after all that hard work we had no choice but to.....(sorry for the over exposed picture)




Then, drum roll please, it was time for the maiden voyage.




And finally it was Dad's turn to help too. We left him this. :-)



Overall, it was a super fun week. Poor Grandpa was so busy being Head Engineer that he did not have the time to sit back and enjoy the fruit of his labor. I can say that we have had a ball with the dock already and summer has barely begun. :-)

Quick Update

I wonder how many of my posts are titled 'Quick Update'? Anyway, ummm, we've been busy. Really busy. Kids are pretty sure that it is summer vacation despite still having to go to school. We've had the last round of concerts for the year, track is finished now, extra projects and staying after school has been wrapped up, field trips galore have been planned and paid for, summer activities are getting their final plans and on top of all that, we have 4 kids that have turned off the school schedule mentality and turned on laid back-summer vacation-relaxation mode. Main topics of conversation include shorts, snacks and when is the dock going in? Fun times.

But here are a few pictures from the recent weeks of activities. Here is a shot of our favorite park. We went on a lazy Sunday afternoon so the kids could roller blade, play soccer, play on the playground equipment, run around and play football. They were so excited to go and they loaded up the car with all the balls, roller blades, snacks, water bottles, and they even remembered a blanket for Joel and I to relax on. So you can imagine our surprise when 5 kids wandered over to the blanket and just hung out with Joel and I for the better part of two hours. Isaac and Alyssa did spend a fair amount of time on their roller blades though. Either they needed some relaxation time as much as their parents...or our teenagers really like us. ROFLMBO! (That means rolling on floor laughing my butt off in text language.) Yep, I'm going with the second option. ;-)





That is Daniel waving from the tree.


Concert smiles from Isaac and Daniel. I am a horrible mother because I forgot to even take the camera to Nicko's concert. I'll get two from the Memorial Day Parade of Nicko to make up for it.





Also here is a shot of Daniel smiling away on a beautiful day at one of his track meets.

Bake Sale

I love a bake sale. I think it is such a good fundraiser to have. And this year, the bake sale was even more fun because Amanda helped me. I had so much fun baking with her. She was a great helper and we were really able to come up with some fun things for the kids.

This is Paul Deen inspired TV dinner cupcakes. Aren't they so stinking cute? You get a chicken leg, peas and carrots and a little pile of mashed potatoes with a pat of butter. It is amazing what some green M&M's and a donut hole can be transformed into.




This is a version of puppy chow, which I am informed is like the best thing EVER at a bake sale. I took an old Chirstmas tin and used scrapbook paper to give it a new look. It was so cute. I almost wanted to keep it just to look at it.





The second favorite treat for a bake sale is apparently rice crispy treats. So Amanda made the rice crispies and pressed them into a jelly roll pan. Then she cut them out into circles. We frosted the edges and then rolled them in sprinkles. Colorful and so cute.




Then we made some of our favorites. Magic bars make Daniel drool. So...


Here is a shot of everything we made. The baking was Amanda's favorite part, mine was making everything look pretty. Together we made a pretty good team. By the way, we used colored ribbon from Wal Mart and seran wrap to wrap everything in a super cute way, and while it took more time than packaging everything in zip lock bags, it was a fraction of the cost. :-) We thought the colorful ribbon would make things cuter and draw the customers. I don't know if it worked.

Spring Break 2010

I have misplaced the photo card that has all our Easter and Spring Break photos on it. Bummer. But luckily the kids have a camera and they always take as many pictures as I do, so I borrowed their memory card. :-)

We started off at the zoo.


And we saw...


and...

and...the bears weren't available for our viewing pleasure. But we did see...





We woke up to this on Thursday morning.



But the snow melted quickly. Good thing because the boys had a date for their friends to come over for a game of football.




We also managed to have a Lego fest. Isaac created a swimming pool for the little space guys.



Here is a close up in case you are interested.



And Amanda made little spring cupcakes.



We also put three puzzles together, heard lots of music being hammered out on the keyboard, we cleaned zero closets, we made cookies, and we mostly enjoyed sleeping in. Happy Spring Break!

P.S. If I find MY photo card, I'll post pictures of Easter and the kids smiling like crazy in front of the zoo sign. :-)

Morgan

We have the best dog in the world. Morgan is gentle, sweet and amazingly vain! Nothing gets her so excited as a trip to the groomers. Every girl loves to have her hair done and Morgan is no exception. Here is a picture of her sporting ribbons in her...ears? She was so excited that I could not even get her to sit down so I could take her picture.

Glacier Canyon Lodge

Nothing excites us as much as going to Glacier Canyon Lodge for a couple of nights. It will never get old. We had to take pictures of this trip because it was our first trip with Amanda.







We have our routine down pat now. First we take a bunch of pictures before the kids can mess things up.
Look, the boys have a clean bedroom for once!


Then we watch a movie. It is VERY important to watch the movie on the first night. Night two after water parks, I guarantee that we will not all make it through a movie.




After that, we all head to bed. We have to get a good nights rest so we can hit the water parks in the morning. The water parks do not open until 9 or 10 so that leaves us plenty of time to make a BIG breakfast to keep the kids going until they stop for lunch. I happen to know that Nicko not only ate all of this, but he also had another full plate of food.




Then it is time to put on our wrist bands and head off.




We came back to our room for lunch and then were back at it as soon as possible. After a few more hours of running up endless stairs to get on the rides, screaming their heads off...just for fun, and trying to stay afloat in the wave pool, it is time to head back to the room and find a lower energy way to play. A game of Rumicube is just the thing.



Wake up Amanda! It's not bedtime yet.



One of the things we really like to do is bring cookie dough and bake fresh cookies for a treat after dinner.




The only trick is protecting the cookies from...

(That is Daniel hiding behind Joel and the two of them are so bad at sneaking treats on the sly. They do not even have the nerve to look guilty!)




And then it is off to bed. It takes about two minutes to pass out after a day in the water park. The next morning the sun comes up, but the kids...not so much!