On Sunday we had a wonderful time celebrating my Sister-In-Law's birthday a little bit early. She is not a huge fan of cake, so we celebrated with some toffee bars, which she likes. It had been a while since our last visit, so it was amazing just to hang out and spend time with the gang, including Aunt Paulette, Uncle Bo and Auntie Abs!
Merrick had definitely missed his sweet cousin Eva! This pose even sparked Ryan to grab the camera. It has to be a super special moment for him to come running for the camera! Thanks Ryan ;)
After filling up on some late lunch, we took a short walk to the ocean hoping to catch the sunset! Watching the sun set in the sky was beautiful, even with the clouds at the horizon.
...two gorgeous girls!
Thank you Brooke for giving us a perfect reason to spend this special day together! We are all very lucky to be connected with YOU ;) I hope your actual birthday is just as amazing as you!
Every Thursday the doors at the girl's school close early to give the kids an early start to their afternoon fun! The girls had a blast with a couple friends playing at the beach, throwing sand, and coming up with all different kinds of imaginary play.
Smile
...another smile
...an even bigger smile
...and one more big smile to share. Ryan was all smiles when he finally got to tell me the surprise he had been keeping from me for weeks. He was taking me to a snowy mountain to go snowboarding!
We rode on a charter bus with a friend/coworker of Ryan's named Normandy and her boyfriend Jeff to Big Bear's Snow Summit. We had an absolute blast, and we were glad we got to enjoy the day with them. Initially I was thinking that they would leave us in the dust, but they were awesome and hung with us until our pace picked up. I was actually quite surprised at how quickly my brain/muslces remembered the sport.
It was so nice to spend time with Ryan one on one, and also slash out this fun sport side by side. Actually, anyone who knows Ryan can guess he was more often ahead of me, then by my side. He seriously doesn't have a choice, he has to be ahead of me to be right in "his" head. LOL ...and good thing I don't care if I am ahead of him or behind :)
In the above video, I am sort of interviewing Ryan about our experience while riding on the ski lift. Fun times!
Unfortunately at the end of the last run of the day it went a bit down hill for my rib cage and my morale. I was boarding just behind a girl who was plowing straight down the run, assuming she would continue to plow straight, I decided to go to her right when suddenly she decided to go directly to her right clipping my board. I flipped over, with my rib cage landing (crunch) on my elbow which was sticking up from trying to break my fall, then my head slammed down as well. Whew this certainly knocked the wind right out of me, and gave me a great deal of pain of which I am still dealing with, but the timing couldn't have been better for something like this to happen. We were only about 100-200 yards from the end of our super fun day. I will cherish all of the fun memories we created throughout the day with our friends on these fine, mile long runs!
We sure had an event filled weekend, all right here in in OB. Saturday, the girls school united with OB Surf and Skate to bring the Skate for Kids event, with pro skaters involved. The kids had just scattered after a nice group picture and yours truly just barely missed the nice shot by seconds. I was lucky enough to accidentally capture my friend Charlotte (blonde hair w/ black hat) front in center in this picture. Hi Charlotte!
The kids checked out the skaters, played catch with Ryan and played with their scooters and skateboards during the early afternoon. While they had their fun, I volunteered my time for the school by selling food under a tent. At some point, the kids were given these silly skater stickers. My personal favorite- (not pictured) Supporter of Your Local Black and Blue.
Kierce's skateboard came in handy when attempting to set the camera up for a group shot.
True dat.
The kids had a blast playing with their scooters at the kid friendly area of the skate park. The video above attests to that.
My friend Jewel and her daughter Cinnamon even dropped by the skate park for some fun. Jewel was cracking us up while doing a skate tutorial for her daughter.
The video above is Kierce showing me her very special new move :)
My cousins Lori and Steph gave us a shout later Saturday afternoon wanting to take us to a popular local pizza and brewing place in OB called, Pizza Port. It was great to spend time with the two of them, and also Steph's niece Natalie! Thank you for a wonderful time! ...and of course they wanted to come over to meet the new additions to our family- our three ratties, Machi, C-cow and Star (Rockstar).
Lori caught a silly picture of Kierce's rat C-Cow eating a large piece of celery while chillin' in my sweater!
Lori had no fear, at one point she had two rats on her shoulders at one time!
After church on Sunday, we all decided to take a swim. The weather has been really nice the past week, so it makes it a little less crazy to wear a swimsuit! I must admit, I only went in the hot tub, and anyone who went in the pool was in and out in a jiffy!
To top the weekend off, Dad and Kierce made time for a little cuddle on the couch.
Merrick now gets the privilege of joining the "I gave myself a haircut as a preschooler" club! Woot woot!
He was convinced that his little snip, snip didn't really cut anything. I think he had a reality check ;)
Here's a better look. Now when both of the girls cut their hair it was much easier to camouflage!
The girls and I did all kinds of brainstorming to preserve those most white blonde tips, especially because I had just given him a super cute trim earlier that day. This was the only solution we could come up with.
The second grade class hosted a poetry reading coffee house style this past Friday. Let me tell you, it was just what I needed to lighten the mood on this particularly hectic Friday morning! I had no idea how much fun it would be! These kids were so entertaining!
It gave me great joy to watch Kierce read her beautiful poem in front of a pretty large room full of people.
...and of course Merrick was pretty happy with the donuts and juice available for him ;)
This video shares Kierce reading her poem. I did cut off her reading the title. oops.
One of the last poems to be read, was by Kierce's best friend Perla. She was the only student who wrote about her friend. Of course I wanted to cry. ...sniff sniff. I am so glad Kierce has made some really good friendships. Later I shared with Kierce that good friends can last a lifetime.
Jumping jacks, drawing shapes, walking around the table backwards, while blowing kisses and waving. You name it, and the troops did it while testing out a new game last Saturday that will be on the market very soon! Our cousin Steph happens to be friends with a game maker, and he needed testers ages 7-9 years young.
Our neighbor Buddha decided to join in the fun!
Ryan tried to disguise himself as a 9 year old :)
Join in the game fun by watching the video above!
After the silliness came to a close, we walked down to a super thrifty, but very yummy, local sushi restaurant .
The kids surprised us with their amazing coordination with chop sticks and their affection for miso soup.
It was a great day, and a special treat to take the family out on the town, to get our chop sticks on.
Boy were we all excited when we found out we going to have the privilege of spending the day with little miss Eva! We started the day off at Merrick's school. Eva and Merrick had a blast! She loved playing with the younger siblings, and got so excited when Merrick's class began practicing Valentine songs for their upcoming Valentine concert! Merrick did a great job of keeping this girl awake on the ride home, so she could take a nice planned nap at our place. After picking up the girls from school we headed to the beach for some fun! Merrick insisted on pushing his cousin in her stroller!
There is ALWAYS something interesting going on at the beach! ...perfect entertainment for a toddler. She had fun watching two jugglers as they juggled and passed pins back and forth, as well as tightrope walkers to her left, skateboarders, roller skaters, professional hula hoopers, a unicyclist (performing trick on the rock in the above photo) and swarms of different types of birds!
Wow, a posed picture with Eva? She is one busy girl! I was lucky to get this super cute snap shot ;)
Yes, your mama is right Eva! You do love throwing sand everywhere, especially on your head! We just wanted to keep Daddy on his toes for bath time, isn't that right Eva?
The day came to a close after little, and big, miss sunshine were both stuffed with taco salad, raw crackers, guacamole and raw brownies, and rubbing their eyes. I think Daddy and everyone else was stuffed too! Eva, thanks for spending the day with us. It was the best day ever! Oh, and thanks for all of your help preparing dinner in the kitchen! I forgot how nice it is to have a toddler hanging out with me at my feet while getting dinner prepped!
The world is as many times new as there are children in our lives. ~Robert Brault
