Beach Trip JoAnna and Robert's October 2012

 The kids had a couple of days off school in October so we headed down to Jo and Roberts for some R&R. Love their view. I don't know how they will ever bring themselves to move.

 They were great hosts as always and we enjoyed ourselves. They are brave to take on five of us!

 We ate good food, went to the beach, got snow cones, played tennis, played ping pong, played games,
the girls made headbands one night, took the kids to a movie.

 This is probably how they really felt after we left!

 I am sure their neighbors below loved us. Hard to keep these two still and quiet for very long.

 Just letting them know what they are in for if they have a couple of boys of their own one day.

 Our favorite thing we did was rent a boat on our last day there. It was a blast. The kids and adults all loved it. We will be doing that again for sure!

 Kaden is ready to ride at the moment. Later he fell asleep and slept for half the boat ride. I guess we had been wearing  him out the last couple of days.

 Kayla is pointing to JoAnna's very small and cute baby bump. She is very excited to have girl cousin number two.

 The bathroom is that way...

 Should we trust him driving us around? Probably not but the kids did like going fast.

 Love Keaton"s hair in this picture!

 We found an island to swim to and walk around and collect sea shells for the boys. These two decided to soak up some rays.

 Poor Robert had to keep getting in and pushing us out of the shallow parts a couple of times. I think we sucked up some seaweed.

 I don't think I have ever laughed harder then seeing Robert jump/fall in when he misjudged how deep the water is. Jason was crying he was laughing so hard.

 You are a good sport Robert! We loved hanging out with you guys. Thanks for having us over again.

Yosemite/ San Francisco Trip August 2012

Shocking!!! I found time to do a blog post! Working has definitely eaten up my "extra" time and things like blogging just don't happen to often. Maybe I'll be better about it for a while since summer vacation is fast approaching:)

 

 Jason and I decided to go to San Francisco this past summer. I had been wanting to go for a while and we decided to just go for it. Jason has been out a few times for conferences but I was never able to work it out to go with him. We always try to do at least one trip a year by ourselves. Sometimes it is a smaller and shorter trip but it is nice to get away once in a while. The first day we were there we drove around and did a lot of sight seeing and also did alcatraz.

 We walked around Fisherman's wharf for a while and had to get a picture of the seals for the boys. The picture below is for Jason's mom. She calls flip flops thongs and I always use to laugh because the only thong I know of is the underwear version. This picture proved her right! i guess it is a western thing.

 We headed out to Yosemite for a few days for Jason"s fill of nature. The trees were simply amazing!

 Jason hiked to this waterfall. Just a couple days after we left two brothers were swept away and they both drowned.

 This deer was eating apples that had fallen on the ground.  This is a parking lot near some campsites Jason wanted me to stay in. They were not very clean looking from pictures we looked at and I shot that down pretty quickly. It ended up being a good thing because a couple of weeks later several people had come down with Hanta virus which they traced back to these tents. Instead we stayed at a really nice casino hotel that was gorgeous.

 Back to the city! I have gotten to where I really enjoy the big cities. I wouldn't want to live in a big city but it is very fun to visit. Always so much going on.

 The whole time we were there in the city I kept thinking we were in Europe again. Lots of people speaking foreign languages and the restaurants were so diverse. You could find anything and everything you wanted to eat. There was one place in particular that reminded me of Europe. We found a place that served crepes for breakfast and the owners were French. We went there a couple of times for breakfast. I sent Jo and Robert a picture of my crepe.

 We treated ourselves to a really nice dinner one night. Our anniversary was coming up soon so we said that was our anniversary dinner. The food was awesome! Jason had crab as you can see.

 We had to take a picture of this store for our little lefty, Keaton! Everything in this store is designed for people that are left handed. You don't realize how everything is made for a right handed person till you visit a store like this.

 We decided it would be really fun to rent bicycles and ride over the Golden Gate Bridge and down into Sausalito.

 It was beautiful but a hard ride. San Fran has so many hills! this was our last day and it was probably a good thing. We hiked, walked and biked until our legs were about to fall off. I was glad to sit on an airplane the next day!

Keaton's Pool Party!

 Keaton decided that he wanted to have a pool party for his 9th Birthday! I have to say that this was probably the easiest birthday party I've had for one of the kids. Another bonus was that it didn't cost much money either! He decided on a Star Wars cake.

 He invited his cousins and then a bunch of kids from our neighborhood. That is one thing about our neighborhood that I love, there are tons of kids and there is no shortage of playmates!

 The kids had a blast with each other while the parents sat in the shade and visited.

We ordered pizza for lunch and they delivered it right to us at the pool.

 Keaton showing off his moves. I have to watch him these days. He likes to try and do front flips into the pool and that makes me so nervous. I don't mind it on the trampoline but not in the pool. He has gotten to be a really good swimmer. I wish we had time to do swim team but we just can't fit it all in.

Blowing out his candles! Can't believe how fast nine years have gone by since my little Keaton was born. He has turned into such a funny and giggly kid! We sure do love him!

Kayla's Knee Surgery ~July 2012~

 Kayla is getting ready to go back to surgery to figure out what is causing so much pain in her knee off and on for the past year and a half. They had a little trouble finding a vein to stick for her IV but after that she was set to go.

 Had to get a picture with the nice surgical cap on! She was in surgery for a little less than an hour and she was all done and ready to go home. In surgery they discovered a piece of plica which is just an extra piece of tissue that was rubbing against her bone and causing the discomfort. After a little research on our part we found out that this can be caused by a trauma or fall, (aka the skiing fall when all this started). The piece of plica would have still been theret the fall may have just triggered the pain So the good news, it was an easy fix and other then recovering from surgery on her knee she has a perfectly strong knee.

 She was a pretty good patient except for when we made her get up and walk on it. The next few days she had movie fests with her friends. Kayla and I also had slumber parties on the couch at night while falling asleep watching Friends! The second and third days were definitely the most painful ones for her.

 She had four weeks of physical therapy to look towards. She hated that and it was painful but necessary.
She had to miss the first few weeks of soccer and she started back very slowly.

She has pretty much been back to normal the last few weeks and is playing regularly again. She has her good and not so good days. We are excited for her that she is back to playing soccer and that she is recovering well! Thanks for all the calls, cards, and candy for her!

Braves Game / Star Wars

 We took the family to a Braves game on a Friday night this summer because on Friday nights they have a fireworks show after the game. This was our second game this summer and when we got there we realized very quickly it was Star Wars Night! Jason gets the tickets free from work so alot of times we just decide at the last minute to go. A good bit of people were dressed up as Star Wars characters and it was a lot of fun! Kaden wanted his pic taken with Darth Vader.

 The boys and Kayla got their faces painted. The Braves team members were the jedis on the big screen so everytime they showed their stats they looked like jedis and the other team were storm troopers. All the games going on during the game were also Star Wars themed.

 Kayla and Sabrina having a good time except for the guy in back of them that apparently showered them with his spit throughout the game. Yuck!  They didn't tell us about that till later.

 The best fireworks we saw all year was the show at this braves game. The whole show had star wars music and was timed perfectly. It was really good and we all enjoyed it.

We had really good seats down the third base line but i was nervous about foul balls the whole game. The last game we went to the guy sittin right behind us caught a foul ball right where Kaden would have been sitting but we went up to let the kids run the bases on the upper deck.