Greetings from Yuma

We are in Yuma this weekend to visit Adam, Elida, & cousins.

Preston's baby blessing

Earlier this month we went to see our new little nephew Preston have his baby blessing. It was great to see all the Teares. The kids loved being with their cousins as usual. Congratulations Josh and Sarah! Preston was so fun to hold. He's just adorable! And the best thing (according to the kids) about Josh and Sarah's place was Phyllis the snake who patiently let the kids play with her multiple times. 1. Jessi with cousin Lucas and little cousin Preston 2. Sarah, Josh, and baby Preston 3. Orion and Phyllis 4. Phyllis wrapping around Meri!

beach trip

In July we went to the beach and up with Cody and Shannon there. We all had a ball. The kids loved seeing their cousins and playing in the waves and sand. 1. meri and jess 2. Orion and cousin Jaidyn 3. Brayton and Ethan booging boarding

Next summer

We have been enjoying watching the 2008 Summer Olympics. It has inspired us to plan a visit there next summer. We want to take our six kids to see some of the inspirational sights in the Land of the Dragon.

Here is me playing aeronautical engineer. This the Wildfire race plane that I have been working on for years now. I am designing the landing gears doors for the plane. One funny thing about this photo is how the hair on the top of my head has changed from blond to a fleshy pink color. Is that weird?

a few more

Here is a picture of Brayton's water color painting. I had each of the kids do an outdoor scene. Orion did mountains, Meri did a forest, Jessi- a rainbow, Ethan - the desert, and Brayton - beach sunset. I was so happy with how they all turned out we framed them and hung them up. I need to get pictures of the others. (Brayton took a pic of his for a Webelos thing). I love the next picture because it's just how I think summer should be- swinging and popsicles. The last picture is of these little monkeys the kids decorated last week. This week is our no electricity week - "The Old Days". I have to admit, I chickened out and we decided to do no electricity for 2 days (thurs and fri) instead of all week. My sister Krystal does this with her kids and they do no electricity ALL week! wow! But we are still doing some activities that have to do with what it was like to live back then. Today we learned about the first 49ers and how they came to California looking for gold. We went on a gold hunt and found some gold! (Well, dollar store gold anyway). We also harvested radishes from our garden. Tomorrow we will wash our clothes by hand and hang them out to dry and bake bread. I really want to make soap and candles at some point too so we'll see if we can figure that out. Tomorrow those who are brave enough are going to sleep in teh backyard under the stars like the cowboys. And Friday we will go on our family camp out. I'm really enjoying this summer. I love not having to be too many places at a certain time and just doing our thing.

more summer weeks

Here are the sugar crystals we grew. Last week, after science week was "Artsy Fartsy". We did lots of art projects. Here are the kids with the salt dough temples we sculpted with our friends. Then we have some fingerpainting and Ethan with his pastel chalk drawing.

rocket scientists

Our Summer Weeks

When I was a kid my mom often would do theme weeks during the summer and my sister Krystal and I have kind of continued that tradition in our own ways. The kids and I came up with 10 weeks we wanted to do- Our first week was in San Ramon with our family. Our 2nd week was called "Food Fair". We made lots of different things that week - the kids mostly decided on what to make (as you can see by their choices of foods loaded with sugar). Our favorites were treat pizza and sweet spaghetti. We also learned how to make freezer jam and made some fruit roll ups with our food dehydrater. Our 3rd week was "Science Center". We did a bunch of science experiments and at the end we launched rockets. The boys LOVED this!

Here are a few more photos of Meri's birthday: Ethan learned "America the Beautiful" on the piano and played it for her to start her party. The next one is her reaction when she opened her monkey webkinz. The last one is of her being blind folded while we brought her bike in. It was a really fun day.

more 4th of July photos!

Happy Fourth of July!

We had a ball this past 4th of July. It was so nice to be together this year - last year Shawn was with family in San Ramon and the kids and I were up in Oregon with family waiting for our house to be done. We went to the parade and a carnival at a park in town. The kids loved the petting zoo and having a look inside a fire truck. They also enjoyed a bunch of rides there and getting a popsicle from the ice cream truck. Later we went over to the church for a ward social which turned out to be a lot of fun. The kids rode their bikes all over the church parking lot with friends and had a great time. And Shawn was in the ice cream eating contest. We stayed and watched fireworks on the church lawn and had a great view there. We even made it through the fireworks without any of our kids freaking out and screaming for the noise to stop. Although Jessi hid in a blanket the whole time. It was so nice to enjoy the fireworks! I love this country and I'm so so grateful to live here.

Happy Birthday America!

Our America turned 6 years old on July 3rd. For her birthday we went to see Kung Fu Panda and had a lot of laughs and even spilled half the bag of popcorn like we always do when we go to the movies. She got her 2 wishes come true for her birthday. One, she has been dying to have the monkey Webkinz because it's "pet of the month" for July. And two, she has been wanting a bike for months. She had a small one someone had given us that she's been riding but it is just way too small for her now so she would always be bugging Orion to let her ride his. So now she has her very own bike and can't get enough of riding it. We love our Meri!

Playground Complete

Well our back yard is coming along. After much hauling of sand from our driveway out front - many calories were burned in that activity by all of us, and Shawn using his engineer skills to put together our Costco playground, it is now complete! Hooray! The kids are loving it. And I am loving that I can send them out back to play. It is so fun. Our next project is to get the sprinklers and grass in around it.