Smiles All Around

Kierce was excited to ask her dad if she could go to work with him for "Bring Your Child to Work Day" this past Thursday.  She was blessed with the opportunity to go, and it sounded like both Kierce and Ryan had a great time!  He even had her learning a creative program called Illustrator on the computer. 

Rowan's school was planning a "Walk to School with the Mayor" event this morning.  Here are most of the kids, and some people from some different advocate organizations.  Rowan was a little bummed that the mayor had to cancel, although he did send his right hand man, Bob Filner, to walk with us. 

It was a lot of fun!

...and Rowan won a free brand new street helmet!  Her helmet was getting a little rough, so she was stoked!

When I picked up Merrick from school today, he grabbed my hand and lead me into the classroom to show me where his clip was at on the color ladder.  See his name on purple?  That means his behavior was excellent, and his friend Noah was on purple as well!

Merrick has a sharing project once per month.  This month the sharing project was creating a robot out of recycled, and unneeded materials.  When he first found this box, he took about 3-5 minutes just checking it out, opening it up, then he decided that his robot would open up to expose his insides.  The guts of this robot was really the showcase.

His dad thought it would be rad to make the robot move!  So he helped Merrick fit one of his remote control cars into the bottom of the robot.  Merrick LOVED this, and was so happy to have his dad's help.  Rowan and I helped Merrick along with the decorating.  He was loving all of the attention and getting to use his ingenuity.  He LOVES constructing things!  Some days after school, he will come home and start pulling all kinds of supplies out, or use an item from nature he found on our journey home to inspire him with a creation of some sort.  His forte is creating functional art.  

Kierce made a big decision to let go of her prized nutcracker she had asked Santa for almost a year and a half ago.  Considering that the arm had fallen off, we all thought it was time.  It was fun to capture some silly memories before allowing him to find a new home.

Kierce and the Nutcracker say, "Have a wonderfully, especially nutty week!"

All Girls Sunset Cliffs Adventure

I think there was a bumble bee behind them! lol

All nice and clean and dry...not for long!

Beginning to climb down to the most gorgeous beach ever!!!

She loved this rock formation.  It is all one rock, but looks like patio blocks pieced together.

Enjoying some God time.

This gorgeous place to rest was worth the slippery, somewhat dangerous climb.

Beauty...

Silly Kierce

 

This is some kind of a runoff pathway.  Well, after climbing the ropes to the right, Kierce decided she was going to climb up it until she struggled with finding a grip only three feet from the top.  I was right below them insuring if they slipped they wouldn't fall.  When we got to the top the safe way, she looked over at this slide looking structure and she couldn't believe what she had done.  She was shocked.  She was only looking ahead and not behind, even while getting down.  Not one time did she look back, and she had no idea until that time what she accomplished, now that is a life lesson.

Rowan climbed up behind her to help her get back down.  Kierce shocked both Rowan and me with this rare dare devilish move! 

To be honest, I LOVED seeing this brave side of Kierce.  She is maturing in many ways, and it's beautiful to witness.

Love <3

March and April Fun!

Merrick was invited to Lily's 6th birthday party.  This was the best birthday party we have ever been!  We had so much fun!

They hired the Lizard Guy!  Ooooh, he brought spiders too!!!!

Think this is a big snake?

Look at this one!!! :-)

Yes, I took a turn :-)  The best b-day party ever!

Yes, we are keeping up the dates with each other!  ...and this was the BEST basil curry EVER.

This is probably Merrick's favorite part about playing baseball, and spending time with his dad.  He is not crazy about any organized sport.  I think we might try putting his physical nature to good use and let him try some mixed martial arts classes.

Within two weeks we had all three rats die as well as our new littlest hairless rat.  

R.I.P. - Machi, C-Cow, Rockstar and Nilla

This was a very difficult time, as this was the children's first real experience with death.  We all definitely learned a lot, and grew closer as a family through this experience.

Kierce's school has an annual spring fling every year at her school as a fundraiser.  This year the theme revolved around the Wonderland Theme Park that was located in Ocean Beach in the year 1916.  We all dressed the part, or wore black and white clothing.  It was a great time, they had giant tricycle races, hula hoops and these really cool performers, as well as a silent auction to raise money for the arts program.

Kierce had the opportunity to enjoy the arts program while learning a hip hop dance routine.  Here she is just before the start!

....a quick sunset pic after the festivities!

I occasionally enjoy "trying" to surprise the family with adventure trips.  Usually, at least one of these guys figures it out and the surprise is spoiled.  However, this time they were all stumped until we arrived!  One of my friends father built this arena!

Here we are with our friends Kim and Michelle!  It was an interesting experience to say the least.  

Winter Photo Highlights

Christmas at Dana and Brooke's lovely home with my parents in town for a visit!  The kids had fun doing a gift exchange!

I think the adults had even more fun stealing gifts away from each other!

The kids and I were invited to meet up with my dad, Dana, Brooke, Eva and Enzo for the annual balloon festival!  It was a fun, new experience for us! 

Auntie Abs celebrated her 26 birthday with us!  She is such a big part of our life and helps us so much, we had fun creating a special basket for her special day!

We had so much fun while my parents were in town!  Dana took us to a special place for the BEST brunch we have EVER had!!!

We were blown away with the huge variety of food, and very much enjoyed the company!

This visit, we didn't let our mom sneak away without blessing all of us with her famous egg rolls!  This was Lori's first time enjoying them, since she has lived in San Diego most of my mom's egg rolling days.

The day before my parents flew back to Michigan, we shared one of the most spectacular places with them.

Gorgeous...

Finished the visit off with some silly at Smash Burger!

Apparently the silly didn't leave with my parents! lol

Ryan and I are working on incorporating more "us time"

We are still going to Wednesday hooping at the ocean and loving it!  The kids are learning more and more.  We love our visits with the people of the community and all kinds of friends who meet us there!  Merrick and I love playing frisbee, and Rowan and I play hacky sack with some pros as well!

Walt is the man who brings the hoop to the ocean!  He is a cross between my dad and Uncle Kenny!  Every week he brings Kierce the books full of comics!  He loves showering her with things.  Of course I am saying, where are those things going to go???

Many times the Hare Krishna people set up a tent right by the hooping on Wednesday's.  They let the kids play little instruments along with their chanting.  The kids have fun, and respect their spiritual supposition. 

One of my friends took the kids to a place called the Corvette Diner.  This is how you leave!

The kids and I were surprised by a friend of ours by the opportunity to visit Legoland for pretty cheap.  We had a great time!

As you can see, Merrick and I had a blast on a bike ride to Fiesta Island.  He rode on the tag-along bike which attaches to my bicycle.  This allows him to take breaks when he needs to, gives me an even better workout, and allows us to go on longer bike rides without a single whimper from this little guy! 

We had our bags packed with his remote control boat, and his remote control dirt car.  We had so much fun  playing with his boat, the hopped back on our bikes for our beautiful ride home to meet back up with Ryan and the girls!

One of our strangest moments in OB.  We still don't know who was in this morph suit.  The kids and I had fun trying to figure out all kinds of scenarios about why anyone would wear a morph suit!

Merrick and I had a blast at the Birch Aquarium.  I was blessed to be able to chaperon his school field trip there.  Merrick is a hands on science kid, so this was the perfect place to visit!

Meet our newest adopted addition to the family, Indiana!  He is actually our neighbors dog, but comes to visit frequently and we love helping to take care of him when our neighbor and friend Alex, needs help.

One weekend, we decided to be a little crazy and hike up Cowles Mountain!  The girls raced ahead of us, while Merrick did great, but rode up on his dad's shoulders much of the way.  Boy, what a view at the top!

A little, or a lot of Valentine's love <3

To celebrate the 100th day of school, Merrick and I folded 100 paper airplanes!  We were both tired after this adventure :-)

Go Rowan!

Rowan's school had a mustache day this winter.  Since I ride bikes with her and a group of kids, she talked me into wearing a mustache as well!  I also had fun making a shirt full of funky mustaches for her to wear.

The two people behind all of The Merricks craziness!  Actually, there is only One person behind all of this fun!