Bowler bonfire

A bonfire .. Just because we can. We had a couple this summer with the Bowler. always with yummy hot dogs and smores my favorite. We ended up going around 3 or 4 p.m. each time and it was puurfect. not to have to stress about sunscreen or crowded pits. but it was still warmie and sunny

Syd and Paigee walking Elliot down to the beach. I think Michael was here at this bonfire. 

It was fun to get to know him a little.

 Rowdy had come down earliter with aunt Letty and Ezra was so sad. Letti gave him a dollar (because we met in the target parking lot) and he bought this dino claw. Total hit. Great for digging

 Our sweet little beach baby. Loving the sand

 Nan helping the kids dig a moat. I think the castle was already mostly made

 I love all the scenery behind Ezra..but I love Ezra too

 Embellishing

 The beginning of a beautiful cousinhood friendship

mmmm. So nice.

IE tidbits

Cody always thinks of fun crazy things to do.

 We went over to the Donavans one day after church for Cody to try and fix their sink and they have a cool swing. I don't think its supposed to be used like this but hey. The boys loved it. Rowdy wanted to go back to Brayden's house so bad so he could ride his cool swing.
Tasha is so great. I feel like we have hung out a lot more than we actually have but I guess pictionary and blogs do that. love this girl.

 Rowdy and Cody helped demolish (by request) Papa and Yaya's pantry/laundry room

 Cody wanted to wash Yaya's truck for her... and cool off the kids

 Elliot: not a fan

 Ezra and Rowdy: fans

Cody, ever the crafty, tried to make a waterbed.

 

Drop cloths and duck tape. It was pretty cool for the day that it lasted.

 Papa and Yaya's back porch. We probably won't ever sit here again...They are moving

 I cut Elliot's hair and was tickled with how cute it came out in the back

 Ezra's new trunks were a little big

Everyone seems to be chowing down

Nan's glow in the dark Birthday

It was so fun to be there for Nan's birthday. She wanted to go swimming so we borrowed Letti's neighbors pool and partied in the a.m. Rowdy was pretty much back to square one with swimming but nan encouraged him to go around the whole pool holding onto the edges and then he didn't want to get out.
We parted ways and later Nan, Letti and Lynda went to stake conference, the sat night session and we snuck over to Nan's house before they got back. We filled up balloons with glow sticks bought a cutie cake and a couple lego people. We put the glow sticks in white balloons and it was all pretty when she came home. Then the fun began :) She told us about how her girls at girls camp had popped the glow sticks all the way open and splattered them everywhere so we did it! and started painting Paige's face and body painting with these glow sticks it looked awesome! but then some got on someones shirt and we decided we better check to see if it stained. no staining it said, but you need to be careful of the glass!!! Just as we read that all the kids started complaining oww! my face is burning! aww. it was sad funny. and sure enough we notice little glass viles all over. Yikes! But when it was all calmed down we did it outside and it was Beautiful!  Just like Nan. We are one lucky family.

Sticks bugs and Little Saigon

This was sort of the Summer of the Stick bugs.

My Mom had inherited some from another preschool teacher for her class. They are not native to California and so your not supposed to let them go. Anyway these stick bugs were pretty cool the kids liked to help take care of them at my mom's house. So they were so excited when they saw the stick bug guy at Disneyland hiding in the bamboo. Those Disney folks are so good at the details. rowdy begged me to take a picture for Yaya :)

The darn stick bugs multiplied like crazy and I think most of them died when she came to Texas. It was probably for the best. Rest In Peace little friends

 Brings a tear to my eye, can ride all by himself.

 Afterwards we met BFF Mon Bon in Little Saigon and I found myself kicking... myself for not having eaten in Little Saigon more while I lived so close to it. I flippin' love Viatnamese food. and..We flippin' love Mon Bon. and then I found myself kicking myself for not buying a plane ticket to go to Fiji with her on her scuba slash teaching adventure. ..( I wish :)

Monica is just so great.

love ya girl.

and I love ya Mom for watching Elliot so I could take the boys.

The Mulberry bush

No really, it was!

There are a few mulberry bushes around San Bernardino. My Dad loves to take the boys to go pick berries...actually He just loves to go pick berries... and yeah SB is pretty urban so there is always a certain level of suspence hoping we won't get caught berry pickin'

Ric Rac Racer

So.. It was really an anyone welcome, Colton Ward activity Pinewood Derby and I thought yeah, lets do it. Of course we probably would've won if Cody the master pinner/creative blogger had been here to look up all the secret tips. I didn't have time for that. We received the car the day of the race. 

 The boys were excited to help.i

 Nan had to run off to help with the dinner for the evening and left us free reign over her crafties, of course I am sure we probably accidentally used all of the things she really would have liked preferred us not to use....sorry :/  We had Dee help with the wheels minutes before the race :) and it won ! time! and that was good enough for the boys and i :) They had a lot of fun with it.

 Even after the Race

 We called it the Ric Rac Racer

May & June

At Tad n amelias we put cousins glow in the dark sticks on the spokes of all the cousins bike 

tires! IT was so surreal looking!, angels game, mothers day eve was so lovely. 

We went in Tad n Amelia's spa, Monday Cody drove up in a new 
car! for my birthday!! I felt like I was in a fancy advertisement! IT was covered it crepe 

paper and full of people. rowdy leaked info, 

tueday rowdy preschool grad...rowdy said he wanted to be a lion tamer when he grows up :) 

Lots of thoughtful birthday peeps, b day ended fun, angels food cake, at lake w livee 
then just dance w canciennes. ...road trip to ca...I fell asleep driving and hit a big 

orange barrell in my brand new MAzda :/ , Then later in the day rolled my finger in 
my window. It turned purple! IT was so painful, 

We surprised everyone in CA, kids finally getting used to the "new" faces. Hung 
out ...lakers nan n pops. Letti's bbqed. Disneylanded. Letti watched Elliot one 
day, camping memorial day weekend....turned into Disneyland. 

It turned out we would've had to hike 3 miles to our camping spot!!. Then dinner w 
monica, Saturday we went to a Scottish festival papa took boys on the train..nagas. 

We saw Cypress ward peeps on Sunday., We went to pharaohs water park, 

Cody goofed on work or dates to go home? so we had a surprise b day party for him 

before he left.
 & we may or may not have had syd dress up like a gorill at Taco Joes then later eat ice cream 

and cake at the park 

Camping trip!!

We had a Bowler camping trip in Lake Arrowhead. The temperature was so nice. We had a big double campground. Lots of Food and lots of fun. It was really a great trip. My kids had soo much fun in the dirt! It was a losing battle for keeping them clean but a winning as far as entertainment.

 Nan included so many cute/useful details. Here is a wash station. and unbenounced to us every evening these crazy flying insects would come out of the trunk and just bother us. There were so many!! luckily they didn't bite or anything. One evening Paige and I took a run and we could barely run because so many crazy insects were in the way!

 Muscle men

 mmmm. I loooove foil dinners

 One evening we were playing baseball and someone realized Paisley and Ezra were missing. I found them in our tent buck naked jumping on our air mattress laaaughing! The baseball game was super fun though we just used an old stick and had a killer tree stump as 2nd base. just ask Zoe :) That was her favorite part. We laughed a lot.

 Paige must've brought her curling iron. Elliot is trying to dirty her up/ break her in

 "I may be dirty, but I look good"

 The ginormous tents

Ezra kept wandering off

 Lots of fun campfire discussions. One of my favorites the evening was when we all started telling riddles and puzzles.

 Nan made an awesome shelf with random sticks and rope. Nan I forgot the scientific name for it :) There were a bunch of games, I remember rumikub, clue and my kids loving the superhero memory

 Look at all the cute details Nan included. It felt so homey. I don't think I got a picture of the garden gnome though. He was cute too.

 I took some kids to Lake Gregory one day. That was fun. In fact I think they are trying to spell fun. We wanted to go low maintenance so we didn't bring suits. but we did have some awesome leaf racing and rock throwing competitions

This picture was for Cody because he was in TX and kept bugging me for pictures

 This picture of Chloe and Zoe cracked me up

 and this one did too :)

 Yay. it was really nice. I think the last evening though there was carnage. Chase had a bad sunburn and was illin', Paige fell pretty bad on the scooter or bike?  Letti was tired and offered to take them home. She ended up taking the littles which made camp clean up swift and fabulous. It was a great trip.