A New Year

August as we all know means school starts! 

Max and Jesse started the the First Grade 

and Damien starts 8th Grade. 

I like to make breakfast on the first day instead of the usual cold cereal and milk. This year I did something different and made smiley face pancakes. Well, no one was smiling when I presented my work of art, Max and Jesse pushed their plates away and said, "we like to eat the yummy food at school." Thankfully they ate them when they came home from school later that day. Should have known better. They insist on me taking them to eat breakfast at school. Damien would have appreciated my efforts, since he dislikes school food.

My big first graders! 

One of the bonuses of having twins, both start the same grade at the same time! No having to wait a year or so for the other kid to start. Love having all day to get things done by myself, and that includes coupon shopping in PEACE! 

Max has been a trooper. No tears. Loves playing on the big playground.

 Jesse has had a bit of anxiety starting first grade. His best friend is in Max's class and that has made things hard. He has shed lots of tears. It's hard to drop him off when he is so sad and doesn't want to go.

Both made pledges at school to graduate high school and got a sticker. 2024 seems a long ways away! 

As for Damien, he graduates in 2017!

Looking forward to going to Back to School night, meeting their teachers and seeing how much progress these 2 make this year. I've already been to Back to School night for Damien. One of his electives is Engineering and Drafting. In his computer class one of the things he gets to do is design an app. Pretty cool! He is in Algebra 1 and Spanish 2. No football this year. He is holding out for wrestling season. Sure missed sending him off on his first day of 8th grade.

Time to Ourselves

Last year Mike and I signed up to be drivers to take the Youth to Cambria for a 2 1/2 day Youth Conference. Since we had so much fun we told ourselves, that if we were able to get a sitter next year, we were signing up again! As luck would have it, we were able to secure a sitter (check) Mike took the time off of work (check) and we reserved a hotel, the same one we stayed in last time in Morro Bay (check check)! (We really didn't want to have to stay on the camp grounds with the Youth and sleep in separate cabins). What kind of fun would that be? Our getaway started off a bit bumpy with a brief visit with the CHP in Kings County, and me having a hard time missing Damien, and with the unexpected visit with CHP. Thankfully things began to look up as our trip progressed. Once we dropped the Youth off at their camp, we were GONE! While the weather was 100+ in Fresno we were enjoying weather in the 60's maybe 70's.

Needless to say the weather was GREAT! Clear sunny skies!

Sand, lots of walking and flip flops do not mix :(

We had fun exploring, and doing whatever we wanted without kids!

We spent lots of time at the beach. Our first night we stayed and watched the sunset. 

Morro Rock

Honey + Baba = love

The cute little Hotel we stayed in

The Youth we had in our car were great. (Thank goodness)! We packed lots of food so we didn't have to eat out a lot. We were so dedicated to not eating out, we brought milk and cereal for breakfast.  We planned to splurge on dinner our first night and salt water taffy. We were like kids in a candy store and spent $20 on candy! After watching the sunset, we warmed up with some hot chocolate. As I said in a previous post, I was very happy to stay on top of the Olympic coverage when we returned to our Hotel at night!  Mike loved having cable and being able to channel surf, watching multiple shows/movies like the good old days when he had cable. I enjoyed spending this time with my Honey. These past couple of months have been hard, and to do things like this are much needed to keep our bond strong.

Articles of Faith

In Primary the kids are asked to memorize the Articles of Faith. About a month ago I decided Max and Jesse should be old enough to start doing this. So each night before we read Scriptures, we practice. Max and Jesse already had the first 2 done, we just needed to do it together with them to help the process. Since we took on this challenge they have passed off 8! Almost one a week. On Sunday, after Primary is over, they recite the memorized Article of Faith to the "Article of Faith Specialist", they get a star by their name on a chart, and a candy. So far Max and Jesse are memorizing them at the same pace, thankfully. The competition is fierce! They cry if one gets it and they don't. They want to make sure they get that coveted candy on Sunday too! In the end, when they memorize all 13, they get a huge, homemade, chocolate chip cookie that they were given strict instructions by those in Primary that they were to share with no one!

More Summer Fun

To add variety to our summer and still stay cool and not spend a lot of money, we go to the splash park. The splash park is great because you can chose if you want to play and get wet, or just play on the play structures without getting wet. So either way you are having fun and staying cool, on your own terms.  There are a lot of things that spin at this park so I have remind the boys to be careful how long they spin for, since our first trip to this splash park a year ago ended, well, lets just say, they spun TOO much after
eating :(

Jesse showing off that he lost a tooth. So far he has lost 4. 

And Dad just showing off :)

And it's always more fun when Dad comes too!

Food, Family, Fun!!

Since going out of town can get expensive, we try to look for ways to have fun in town. I wouldn't say John's  Incredible Pizza is in any way cheap, but, it was far more affordable than going to Disneyland and the kids had a blast. We couldn't believe we stayed for 3 hours! After we played, we went back for even more food! (You know you burn a lot of calories playing arcade games). The last time we were at John's was when the boys were younger and they couldn't do too much on their own, but this time they were like "old pros". It was fun to watch them play, collect hundreds of tickets, and redeem them for fun prizes. I am so thankful that  we are able to do fun things with our boys, really missed having Damien there.

2012 Garden Update

This summer has been HOT and so gardening has not been fun. The cucumbers have been out of control, vines growing everywhere producing HUGE cucumbers. And I am beginning to find out, we AREN'T cucumber eaters. So that makes caring for said huge plant a major chore, waste of water and time. BUT the cherry tomatoes are doing GREAT and we love cherry tomatoes. We had one big harvest of our "big" tomatoes and I decided that I would try canning them. So I called up my Mom (the one with the know how) and Anna (the one with the supplies) coordinated, and combined and between my Mom's garden and mine, I think we canned 13 jars of whole tomatoes! I was excited, and felt VERY domesticated :) The true test came when I made our salsa with the fruit of our labors. I was a little skeptical, but it came out pretty good! We even got a watermelon out of our garden. It didn't crack, or get very big. So, the other day I decided to pick it, cut it open to see what was inside and well, it looked like a watermelon! And it tasted decent too. No jalapenos this year. Plant died. We got some basil and I use it whenever I make spaghetti or lasagna. I think next year we will try new veggies, stick with the tomatoes, maybe one more plant to can from.

My boysenberry plant is growing up and over across our patio. Curious to see if we'll have any more berries from this plant?

We have a strawberry plant that is still alive, green, producing more plants I think they are called "runners"? In the middle there are some berries, had to put a net over the plant to protect them from birds who liked to eat the berries before they even matured. Planting strawberries is new to me so I am still learning. May have to stick with the ones sold on the side of the road :)

London 2012

Another reason that I have been M.I.A is the Olympics were on. Every night I hurried to get the boys to bed so that I could tune during Prime Time. (Some nights, when one was awake, and the other asleep, I allowed who ever was awake to stay up with me and watch. It was fun to see the boys get in to it and cheer for team USA). I tried my best not to read the spoilers during the day. Sometimes I made it til midnight, other nights, not so much. Need less to say, I loved watching the Olympic coverage, there's just something about it that draws me in for hours, for 2 weeks, every 4 years.

Above are pics from my favorite events.

Go team USA!

(when we went to Morro Bay, I tuned in at night, even in the morning since we had cable!)

Island Getaway

As you have noticed....I haven't posted since June, well, one reason is because we've been using our season passes to the........ 

I don't have any pics, since I didn't want to carry my camera around water for hours, or go back to put it away with our stuff. But, we had fun doing laps in the "lazy river" a family favorite. Also, another favorite was the 4 person raft ride. When it didn't have a long line (which it always did) we went on it. Loved going with Dad and crashing waves in the wave pool. We packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every time we went, even met up with our Cousin Katelynn, and some friends from church. One time we brought $5 pizzas from Little Ceasars! Yum! It was a nice getaway from home, Xbox and the Fresno HEAT!

Future Olympians?

We started off our summer in the water with 2 weeks of swimming lessons for Max and Jesse. They learned how to push off the wall and glide like "superman", float on their backs and stomach. They also practiced swimming with their arms and kicking their feet with straight legs. One day they learned how to "save" someone who is drowning and water safety. They went for 25 minutes each day and time just flew by. This duo isn't like Phelps or Lochte......yet.....but they are on their way.