Oh, What do you do in the Summertime, Zane?

Play Nintendo DS, of course. ...and show off my new front teeth coming in:)
and play, and play, and play....until Mom tells me I have to turn it off.

And, yes, the tongue sticking out helps one earn more points.

Oh, What do you do in the Summertime, Sierra?

I have been able to spend some time with all of my three grandmothers. First, I went to CA to see Grandma Cake (see post last month). Then, I went up to the cabin in Pine to hang out, play games, and shop with Grandma Nonie. I had a lot of fun with Nonie. Grandma Nonie spoiled me by buying a Breyer horse they found in an antique shop. (note from Mom - Can you see me rolling my eyes....that she has another Breyer...but she is estatic!) I even helped Grandma get some work done. Grandma commented on what a great worker I am.

Lastly, I came home and made a purse with Grandma Beanie. All of the older girl cousins got to pick out their own material and go over to Grandma's for a lesson in sewing. Above, is the finished project. I really enjoyed it and I am very proud of my new purse.

(Note from Mom - Since, we showed her recent purse, we thought we'd also show off BOTH of her homemade purses. She crocheted the blue and white purse with Grandma Beanie last year during a cabin trip with all the girls. Rumor has it that they'll have another girls cabin trip coming up soon:).

Thanks to all three Grandmas for spending some time with our Sierra Dawn. She loves you all!

Oh, What do you do in the Summertime, Lance?

I cook the yummiest breakfast burritos for everyone....tortillas (the ones you have to cook yourself....yum), eggs, bacon, and spicy sausage...oh, and, you can't forget, the cholula. Of course, Mom makes it a little more fattening and adds sour cream to hers. (note from Mom - What a nice surprise to get out of the shower and find your son cooking breakfast for everyone. Thanks for breakkie, Lance. )
Also, I built a skate park for my tech deck (mini-skateboard). Yea, I still plays with "toys" at 13:). (another note from Mom - I told you he was still my baby. Just ask him if he likes mommy kisses.)

Sequoia National Forest and Magic Mountain

We just returned from a trip to California. First, we went to the Sequoia National Forest in our motorhome with Todd's mom and stepdad, Kay and Bob. We had a great time, even though it doesn't look like it in this picture. For some reason, Zane and Weston didn't want to be in the picture. But, here we are, in front of the world's largest tree, General Sherman.
This is the "Auto Log", named that because people used to drive their cars up on it.
Here is the bottom of the Auto log. The size of these sequoias is amazing and beautiful.
Sierra and Zane posing in our campground. It was gorgeous up there!
Wes and Dad taking a siesta in the hammock.
Zane is standing in a "footprint" of General Sherman.
Wes playing in a tunnel carved through one of the trees.
Zane exploring the fallen tree.

Back at our campground, the kids were having a blast riding their scooters and tricycle. ...Until the rangers came and told us they couldn't! Party Poopers! Bikes were okay, but not scooters. Go figure. So, Wes could ride his trike, but the older ones could not ride their scooters or the waveboard. I guess they fall in the skateboard category. Oh well. We still had fun.


Grandma and Grandpa cruising along on their scooter. Since we didn't want to travel around the forest in the motorhomes everyday, they brought their scooter and car (towed behind their rv) and we brought along our scooter. That way we could all travel around more easily.


After our stay in the forest, we headed south. We were planning on going to Knott's Berry farm, but when we realized that Magic Mountain was much closer we changed our plans. Above, Zane is giving Wes a piggybackride in the park. We had spent the night in the Walmart parking lot after the long drive down. In the morning, we drove to a city park where the kids could play. Todd made us biscuits and gravy for breakfast. YUM!
Here are Wes and Zane riding Thomas the Train at Magic Mountain.

Weston and I had fun on the teacups while the big kids and Todd went on a roller coaster.
Sierra and Zane on the bumper cars.
There are two reasons why this picture is here. One is below - Wes was PETRIFIED of all the characters. It was rather amusing. He didn't want anything to do with them...even the more "human" looking ones like Wonder Woman. He would hide behind us and start crying if we got too close. The second reason is Todd's childhood memory. I tried to get Todd to pose with Wonder Woman, but he refused. I told him that I could still blog about it anyways. In fact, I'm going to have to find his picture and scan it in:). When Todd was younger, Todd's cousin had a wonder woman outfit. Todd tried it on and, what's worse, posed for a picture in it. Wig, tights, and all. Talk about funny. Yea, he must have a thing for Wonder Woman...or woman's clothing and tights:). Kind of scary, huh?! Oh, I love my man. I'll just say he's not afraid to be in touch with his feminine side. hee hee

Overall, we had a wonderful trip. The sequoias were beautiful. It was great to spend some time with Kay and Bob. The kids enjoyed playing card games with Kay. She is always so good about spending some one on one time with each of them. (I guess it's a good thing we didn't have eight kids or she'd be really overwhelmed:). The big kids were brave and rode all the big roller coasters at Magic Mountain. Even Zane went on the X2 - the newest ride...very scary. At first, he seemed so freaked out and mad, but he says he' d do it again. He says he thought it was the best...after he had some time to regain control of his senses. And Wes was a great trooper - loved the little kids ride and waited patiently during the big rides. Wes' favorite was the swinging pirate ship. He'd raise his arms up and giggle when it swung up high. The weather was on the hot side unfortunately, but it made for small crowds. Sometimes, there wouldn't even be a line for the roller coasters. We decided having to deal with the heat was worth not having to deal with long lines for each ride.

I almost forgot to put these in....a couple movie clips from our trip. Above, Lance is trying out his new yo-yo trick. I guess Papa was quite the yo-yoer back in high school. He was kind enough to teach the kids some of his "skills." Lance practiced the most, so here he is doing the "Spank the Baby" trick.

And, here is Weston following in Zane's goofy footsteps. He likes to be just as silly and corny as his big brother. While we were waiting for the big kids at Magic Mountain, Wes heard the background music playing over the speakers. He couldn't help himself, he just started jammin' out.

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth! We got up early in the morning and went to our ward's 4th of July breakfast and parade. Lance participated in the flag raising ceremony. He even gave a short spill on "What freedom means to him." Unfortunately, we missed that part because we didn't know he was going to do that:(. I guess the boy that was supposed to do it suspiciously disappeared. Anyways. We had a yummy breakfast put on by the ward. Then, the primary children participated in a parade after they decorated up their bikes and scooters. Sierra decided that she was too old for this. We had a great time despite of the heat.

That evening, we went to a junior high pool that our friends rented out. It was a lot of fun - jumping off the diving boards and going down the slide. We had a lot of fun! Thanks, Sam and Lani! The kids kind of missed out on the fireworks though, so next year we might have to leave a little early to catch some fireworks on the way home.

Seventy Dollars

...that's what one pays the Doctor to remove an air soft pellet out of a child's ear canal.

What was he thinking?! Yes, Zane put a pellet in each ear. Why? Who knows? We'll never know why. Although, his Dad could only laugh and rememer the time he got a pea stuck up his nose. Hmmm...now we definitely know it's from his Dad's side of the family. I guess we don't need to know "WHY", we'll just point fingers at those crazy genes.

At first, I tried to get one out with tweezers, but all it did was to push the pellet back more. So, we made the dr. appt. and started to get ready to go. Zane went upstairs and found a tiny suitcase key and somehow flicked out the one pellet that was not so deep into the ear canal. The other one...we could barely see though. So, I told him that I didn't want him to even try it on that ear. So, we went to the Dr. with only a pellet left in one ear. They used a small squirt gun to get water back behind the pellet. The Dr. wasn't sure if it would even work because the pellet was so far back and practically filled the whole ear canal. But, luck was on our side. It came out, so we didn't have to head on to the ENT (ear, nose and throat specialist). Zane and I had a nice, little talk about not sticking things in our ears...or noses (incase he got another bright idea later).

Camping Up North

We had some fun this past weekend. We took the horses and the boys' quads and went up north with some friends. Bob, Cindy, Kate, and Jason all came. It was so much fun!!! Here, everyone is having a shooting contest...at a pinecone on a piece of firewood. The losers (whoever didn't knock it down) had to go gather up more firewood.
The boys loved riding their quads around. Lance had his cycle and would often give Wes rides on it, when Wes wasn't wanting to ride on his own.
Below, Weston is showing off his very dirty camping hands and face. Where was his mother?

The photographer and horse lover in me had some fun trying to take pictures of the horses as they loped around. I decided that that was very hard to do...to catch the feet in the right position as they ran.
We were able to go out and ride everyday. It was beautiful scenery and nice, cool weather. I really wanted to stay up there longer. We had some fun racing on the horses, loping through the trees, and climbing up the hills. The horses got a good workout!

And, I read the book, The Host by Stephanie Meyer, on our trip. Well, I had to come home Sunday night and finish it...at 12:15am. What a great book.