Huntington Beach

My friend Michelle and her family and friends were having a beach day and bonfire night at Huntington Beach last Saturday.  Kent worked for a while, it was HOT and the girls were in the pool.  I hadn't decided if I wanted to pack up for the beach or not.  Kent got home and he wanted to go to the beach.  So we packed up a BUNCH of stuff, headed to Stater bros. and then off to the beach.  It was 108 when we left here and when we arrived at the beach it was a glorious 77!!  Really 30 degrees, It was so nice.

Hannah was LOVING the sand and her sand toys.  Usually at the river we are on a rocky beach.  

 Happy girl

 Kent dug out our old boogie boards and helped Amy.

 She fell and wasn't happy about the way the salt water tasted.  It looks like Kent is yelling at her, but he wasn't they were just talking.  

 Check out this little surfer girl.

 Amy decided to give the boogie board another go.  Thats her friend Carly next to her.  They have a blast together.

 Hannah wasn't so sure about the waves.  

 Thats how you do it.

 Way to go girls.

 This other little girl Michelle's sisters niece(?)  She was a crack up.  She walked out where Hannah and Kent were and then grabbed Kents hand.  HAHAHA

 Hannah was like run run here comes another wave.

We BBQ sliders on the beach and stayed until it closed about 10:00 p.m.,  we had a blast.  Thanks for inviting us to crash your beach day Don and Michelle.  Or was the crash when the beach patrol shut down your illegal bonfire in the sand??  HAHAHA

Feather

As you know school is back in, with that comes so many new and exciting adventures.  Amy came from  school a couple of weeks ago and announced that EVERYONE at school has a feather but her. So I emailed my friend Genn and she hooked me up with a lady at her Salon who does the feathers.  Anyway, I called her, her name is Anna and she had an opening for today at 3:30 p.m..  I didn't tell Amy that I made her an appointment.  I wanted to surprise her with something special on a Friday. We were driving down Hamner and Amy says, "where are we going?", I say "oh my gosh I don't know where I am going?".  Then I asked Hannah "Hannah where is mommy going?" Hannah replies to get a feather in Amy's hair!" Amy was so excited.  Here she is we just picked out the feather.

 Disclosure, Hannah took the next two pictures, they are a little blurry.

Getting ready for the feather to go in.

 I think she likes it!  Check out that smile.

 All done!

This is one happy little girl.  She said she wants me to surprise her EVERY friday with something.

Love this girl!

Picnic on the playground

Last Friday was the 1st picnic on the playground for this school year.

It was HOT and the only shade was by the kinder classes on the cement. 

So thats where we sat.

Amy and her friends.

 Playing with my new camera.  I see I need a lot of practice.  We have too much happening money wise right now, so I am hoping to take a class on line this spring. Hopefully sooner.

 Not sure what Hannah is looking at but thought this was a cute picture.

 Someone loves their chicken nuggets.

 The girls are deep in conversation, look at Hannah she is moving in on the food.

 More friends arrived.

 Once they finish lunch, we get a goodbye and they are gone. 

Jury's not out on this picnic on the playground stuff.  This is our 4th year.  Its actually kind of a pain.  We have family friday in the class room from 8:45 a.m to 9:15 a.m. or longer, which I stayed until 10:00 a.m. on this particular Friday.  Then I left the school ran to get my nails done, by this time its almost lunch time at school which is 11:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m..  So I run home grabbed my camera, run to Mc Donald's, back to the school, park (which isn't easy when you have 500 kids parents at the school too), get the stroller out, get Hannah out, carry food, drinks, camera, phone, blanket to sit on, (don't even think about trying to carry a chair or an umbrella for shade), etc,  while pushing the stroller.  Then you have to find a place to sit, find your kid, find their friends or your's, eat lunch and then the kids want to run off an play.  Now you get to toss the trash, pick up the blanket shake the food off of it, never mind now you have more laundry when you get home, load the stroller back up, make it back to your car with a crying baby because she wants to stay and play and its getting late and she needs a nap, get home about 12:45 p.m., get the baby down for a nap, then you only have a couple of hours because school is out at 2:57 p.m. and you have to wake the baby up because its time to get your other kid from school. Its a lot of work for a short lunch with your child. If you don't go, then you feel like a heal!  I say one parents gets a large pizza drops it off at the school for the kids and then all of us parents head off to a nice air conditioned restaurant for a drink and good adult conversation. Kids just want the fast food anyway as a treat, they don't really want to hang out with their parents, right?

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

My birthday

Oops, I almost forgot this puppy had her birthday too.  She turned two on August 14!!

Spoiled puppy, this is what she does everyday.

 Now on to my birthday!

August 15, 1970!  

Really 41?

Wow!

Do I look 41?

 We celebrated my birthday at the river, my in laws gave me my birthday card with $$ in it before we left and while we were at the river my parents gave me a birthday card with $$ in it, plus Kent gave me the camera. So on Monday it was back to the usual stuff.  I had to get Miss. Amy to school, then get Hannah to grandmas so I could get to my mammogram appt..  Why did I schedule that on my birthday?  Oh well, I did.  Then picked up Hannah, went to the bank, closed a bank acct at another bank, went to the grocery store, came home put the groceries away and then back to get Amy from school.  From there we ran to Victoria Gardens to get my dress I ordered.  Then back home, Hannah had finally fallen asleep in the car, so I carried her into the house.  Luckily, she stayed asleep.  Then when Kent and Rick got home we went to Rodrigo's for dinner.  After that, we had Angel food cake and cards to read.  Ugh, I am exhausted.  Then we set up the new camera and snapped a few pictures.  You can see I need to figure out settings from the color of the pictures. I am working on it.  

What an amazing birthday celebration I had!  Tons of fun, great memories and lovely gifts.  

Thanks family for making me feel so special!

Love you all!

Sunday, the final day of the fab birthday weekend

As I said on my previous post, rick came to the river with some friends.  They went for the River regatta, not my birthday.  Anyway, Saturday night Rick said him and his friends wanted to go out in the boat. (We had spent two very long fun days on the lake and really hadn't planned on going out Sunday. Since he asked we thought we would spend a few hours out on the lake for him). 

We loaded an ice chest and off we went.  It was BEAUTIFUL, no wind perfect weather and a boat load of kids (big and small).  

Rick showing his friends how to Knee board.

 Hey Rick, shouldn't you have the rope in your hand?

 My sweet princess was exhausted from the past 2 days.

 Ricks friend Austin, showing us how its done.

 Kyle was up next. This was his first time and didn't try to do much.

 The show off!

 Way to go Amy.

 Another show off, like father like daughter! HA!

Kayleigh showing the guys how to wake board.  None of them got up (Rick, Austin and Kyle that is)!  

Off to do some cliff jumping.

Umm, excuse me is that my baby in your arms? 

I thought we agreed that age 5 was the first year to cliff jump?

 There goes my baby.  Not sure how I feel about this.  Actually, I am sure. I hate it.

My other baby.

 Geez, is there anyone of my babies that won't jump?  

Apparently not!

 My babys 2nd jump.  See that guy sitting on top of the mountain.  thats Kyle and he already took one walk of shame and decided to go to this cliff because it was smaller.  He eventually did jump, but he was not about it.  I think he only jumped because Amy had done it twice!

 The boys wanted to tube.  Do you see who is on there?  My Amy can hang with the boys. Shortly after this Kyle wanted off. Who brought that guy?  He was a bit of a wimp.  Come on Kyle do you see my baby GIRL is on that with you?

 Kyle's off now thats get this baby to fly!

 Rick and Austin were flying off this tube and Amy stayed on.  It was classic.  These boys were jumping over Amy and tackling each other to knock the other one off the raft.  It was hysterical to watch.  Unfortunately, it did get to rough and Amy got hurt.  Someone took a knee or an elbow to her leg and she ended up crying.  The boys felt so bad, but it didn't stop them.  Then Kent decided to take them out to the middle of the lake and see how fast they could go.  I believe he had them at 40 mph.  It was crazy, they had a blast!  BTW, Austin was a pleasure to have on the trip.

 Finally, it was getting late and the kids wanted to get on the road for home.  We left the launch ramp and laughing about our day.  When suddenly we heard a loud pop.  Our rear tire blew, not only did it come apart but it broke the rear tube(?) where the radiator fluid flows through to heat the back of the car.  Its a 116 out and we are tired and hot.  The boys jumped out and it was like our very own pit crew.  They had the tire changed and Kent was able to get the hose back together as a temporary fix (burnt his hands on the hot hose and hot fluid) until next trip.

 Cute pit crew, if I don't say so myself.

 BTW, the back of the excursion was full of stuff ice chest, towels, food, life jackets.  So I had to move everything out so we could get to the jack and then the tire had to ride back there.  I climbed in and out of the boat tucking stuff into places so it wouldn't blow out on the road.  Did I mention it was 116 out? 

That is a sad looking tire.

 Funny part is, when I drove the excursion to the river in May we had a flat.  So the front right tire has a used tire on it.  Now the back right tire has a spare.  The 2 left tires are the same.  I guess we are rolling ghetto!!!

Now we need to purchase 4 new tires before bringing the excursion home.  Wouldn't be a good idea to cross the desert without a spare!!  

It was still an amazing birthday weekend.  I had a blast!

Thanks everyone for a fun trip.