July Fourth Week

It's amazing how reliant I have become on the internet. I do a majority of my cooking with recipes off the internet, my social life (you know- playgroups and preschool) revolves around my email, I keep track of my books on loan from the library online and my favorite form of entertainment, reading blogs, is, you guessed it, on the internet! I have not had internet service for about 1 1/2 weeks now. I was going crazy!!!!! (It's a long story- trying to save a buck or two and then it blew up in our faces. After 8 or 9 visits from the technicians, we finally got rid of the service with the lower price we had switched to and now we are in the process of trying to get working internet again.) I have it right now and am going to take advantage and finally post all these pictures and memories of our week with the Dawes family. Kenneth's Sister, her husband, and their five children came to visit. We had a blast! The kids had so much fun being together and we took advantage of living in the beautiful state of California and did a lot of exploring.

Here are some pictures/ commentary of our adventures:

The day after the Dawes family arrived, we all packed up for a big camping trip. For some reason we can't seem to be able to plan things out in advance around here, so we headed north to camp on the coast without a reservation and not knowing exactly at which campsite we would end up. If you have never driven along the California coast, I would recommend it as something to do before you die. It. is. gorgeous! About 8 years ago, Kenneth and I drove the coast south of San Francisco and fell in love with it. The Sonoma County Coast, which is North of San Fransisco, did not disappoint.
Here is our family at a short stop near the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a chilly day- almost always is with the breezes off the ocean and I love how the fog is covering the top of the bridge!

And the Dawes family in the same spot.

After you cross the Golden Gate bridge heading north, you go through a Tunnel with a rainbow painted around the opening. Grant still talks about the 'rainbow tunnel'. He's so into cars and trucks and roads, you know. Before we actually got to the coast, we drove though some of the agricultural land of Sonoma County. Not at all like the flat, dusty Central Valley. This land is full of hills and happy cows grazing the grass- they don't mind that it has to be irrigated. Should have gotten a picture, oh well. The kids enjoyed seeing the animals.

Here is a picture of the coast during our drive. Doesn't even do it justice. So beautiful.

While we enjoyed the Coast, Grant did some of this. He insisted on wearing his bear hat.

We stopped at one campground to check it out and were not impressed. So, we decided to drive the additional hour to get to the Ocean Cove Campground, which had rave reviews online. It was well worth it!

Check out our campsite!!!!! Very cool.
Here is the fam just steps away from the Campsite.

Taken from the rocks just below the campsite.

What is a camping adventure without S'mores! We learned, however, we do not prefer the Campfire Giant Roasters. It is definitely better to roast 2 or 3 smaller marshmallows. The middles of those big ones never did get soft enough for our tastes.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunset. All from the comfort of our fire ring. Okay, so it was a little windy. (Okay, a LOT windy, but it was still cool!!!)

We were a little worried about the wind that we would have a hard time sleeping with the tents swaying this way and that, but thankfully, the wind stopped when the sun went down. I went to bed at the same time as Grant (around 9 pm) so was ready to be up with the sun and I am so glad I did. It was nice to spend some quiet moments by myself and then have Kenneth join me unexpectedly for a few minutes.

Early morning at the coast.

Another shot in the early AM.

Kenneth pondering on the meaning of life. . . or something like that.

Morning sun shining through the trees of the campground. I like mornings.

The little girls looking at the water.

Ashley and the little girls.

Doesn't she look like she is on Prince Edward Island or something? I love this picture of Arianna.

My handsome little boy

Our family at the edge of the rocks just 50 or so yards from the campsite.

The lovely Dawes family. We had such fun camping together!

Playing in the little patch of sand above the rocks.

This picture is hilarious to us. It may just look like a herd of cows, but these are no ordinary cows! So, we were driving along the twisty Highway 1 which has incredible ocean views mostly because you are up on a cliff!!! On one section of the Highway we saw cattle signs and even drove over cattle grates in the road. We thought it was funny because why in the world would cows be on the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean? (Which has a highway going through it?!?) Sure enough, after a little while we passed right by a group of cows huddled on the side of the highway on the CLIFF side of the road; Nonchalantly rubbing their sides on the road signs as if not to notice that one wrong move and they would stumble down the mountain into the ocean!!!!! The picture above was taken on the way back and they weren't on the cliff side, but we definitely wanted to take a picture to remember this by!

A stop at Goat Rock to see the colony of harbor seals.

We had to walk quite a while across the beach to get to be able to see the seals.

At least we had nice scenery while we walked.

Here are the seals (and the geese). Cool, eh?

View of the San Fransisco from the north.

One the way home from camping we decided to drive right through San Fransisco, since Karen had never been there. We took her down Lombard street, the twisty street. Here is the view from the top. We then drove BY the steepest street. (We weren't about the drive on that street with our loaded down minivans!)
The next day Kenneth, Allen, Tyler and Ashley went to see an Oakland A's baseball game. They had a lot of fun!

The cherry pie I made from the cherries on our tree. Yum! I had fun making meals for this bunch!

Here we are on the Fourth of July! What better way to celebrate this beautiful nation than a day at the beach. We went to Twin Lakes beach on the south side of Santa Cruz.

There was a whole lot of digging and burying going on. Kenneth and the kids had so much fun together!

Here are the three little bitties buried in the sand.

Kenenth and the kids out in the ocean. I was perfectly content to stay on the shore. Get me a wet suit and I might go out in that water. BRRRRRRRRR. . .


Arianna and Grant doing who knows what.

Daddy decided to bury the children standing up. Grant really liked this and was very protective of the pile of sand surrounding him. Here he is protecting his territory from the 'evil' Arianna:

"DO NOT!!!!!!!!"



You can see Grant wasn't very pleased with Emma posing on his pile, either.

Here they are all lined up buried in the sand. Arianna started to dig out before I could get a picture of all three of them totally buried.

The last day we had together, we took the Dawes to see a Redwood forest. The kids had fun on the walk, but definitely had more fun at the playground we went to afterwards.

The girls under some hollowed out trees.

Here we are on our walk.

Gorgeous trees.

Here we are at the largest tree in the forest.

Look how big that tree looks with Emma at the base.

Here is some more perspective. If you look very closely, you can see Arianna in the trail in middle of the picture. The trees are so majestic!

Tyler enjoyed some man time with Grant after so many hours being cooped up in the car with all his sisters!

Happy kids!

Happy girl!!!

That was the visit. We had a really great time together.

New pets and cherries, among other things.

My goodness, we have been busy around here. I just do not get around to blogging as often as I would like. When you have cherries coming out of your ears, they kind of take priority over blogging about them- even though that would be more fun than actually canning cherries! But, I will talk about that more later. As an incentive to read on, there are pictures of Kenneth and his new hair do later in the post!!!

First, as a run down on how the children are doing:

Emma: is actually reading!!!! She read Go Dog, Go! all by herself and is reading so many other things! On Sunday, she read the scripture in Primary all by herself. I was so proud of her. She still wanted me to stand up there by her, but she did it all by herself!

Arianna: is writing her name- I love how she writes her a's with the little lines going up (and backwards). Today she practiced numbers. She really wants to do everything that Emma does! She is still in the phase where she wants to wear a dress everyday. So sweet.


Grant: is such a chatterbox! Last Sunday he talked the entire sacrament meeting. Yes, the entire time; Despite all my best efforts to help him to be quiet. He is very delightful, even though he is so noisy. I sure do love this age! One of the funniest things he says right now is "DO NOT!!!!" when he wants his sisters to stop doing whatever it is that's bothering him.

These kids just crack me up. They find the joy in everything. They do the funniest things with their food. Their mango slices doubled as family members- one slice was the dad, one the mom, one the baby. The olives said the prayer. Grant even played duck, duck, goose with his black beans on his plate one day. They also love to dress up with the random assortment of costumes we have received through the years- the other morning I had a dog, a cow and a fairy romping around here. I love that they all three play together now. Sometimes, of course, it's not so nice- like when I hear screaming and and whole lot of "DO NOT!!!!!"s. But, the good times really do outweigh all that. It's kind of like a miracle.




Here is a picture of Daddy and his girls on Father's Day. Arianna did such a great job writing the card all by herself! I was amazed! We love you, Daddy!

I saw the coolest card the day before Father's Day, which I did not buy, but I told Kenneth about it.
It said:
You are an incredible father and an amazing husband. . .

Inside it said:
I guess that makes me pretty brilliant for marrying you!

In other news, I was able to volunteer for a couple of hours at the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life held here in our city. Kenneth came over with the kids at the end of my shift and we got to watch all the Cancer survivors making the first lap around the track and I got all choked up. I just feel so thankful that Kenneth is now a 'survivor'!

We have some new pets around here. No, they're not furry or scaly and they don't have feathers. They really are great pets- they even eat my garbage! But the best part about them is that the kids love them!
A couple of days before our trip to New York, I brought home some worms. I decided to start vermi-composting. My city even gave me a pound of them for free! Just for attending a 2 hour workshop on composting! (Normally that number of worms will run you $20!) When I told my sister about it her comment was, "I don't know what is more weird, the fact that your city gives out free worms, or the fact that you actually took them up on it and got them!"
The day I got them happened to be a bust day for us- Kenneth had some more free tickets to Great America and it was the only day we could use them before they expired, so I dropped Kenneth and the kids off and the park (I realized I didn't share any pictures from that day yet- look for them after the worm story!) and I headed off to the composting class. Two hours later, the worms and I made the short drive back over to the park to join in the fun. (I mean, I joined in the fun, the worms stayed in the car. Don't worry, it was a cool day, they were not in danger in the vehicle.) They did great in the van and that evening when we got home Kenneth brought the bag on worms in the house and set in on top of the refrigerator. I saw that he had done that, and thought to myself, I would not have chosen that spot to place a bag of worms, but then thought, well, at least the kids can't get to them up there and didn't think about it again. We got everyone fed and in bed and I, too, was ready for bed. The worms would have to wait until the next day to be settled in their new home (which I was too tired to create that night) In the morning, I being the first one up, came out to the kitchen and my first thought was, "How did these pine needles get all over my floor?" Then I realized what they were-

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Kenneth!!!!!!! There are worms all over my floor!!!!!!!

Sure, enough, those worms and wriggled as a one pound mass until the bag managed to move into a horizontal position rather than the vertical position of the night before and about 200 of the little guys did a little thrill seeking of their own and jumped off the refrigerator (maybe I should have brought them into the theme park to ride some coasters the day before!) The jump didn't kill them and they all started to spread across the floor. By the time I came out most of them had dried up and died. They were in my kitchen, dining area, a few even made it down another step into the family room. Of course, they also went under the refrigerator seeking a dark moist place. Dark? Yes. Moist? No. And there they died. So, that Sunday morning was spent picking all the dead worms off my floor, salvaging the few survivors and then thoroughly cleaning the floor. Yuck! And there you have the story of the beginning of our adventures in Vermi-composting.
Since that fateful day, we have made a very comfortable home for the worms (there were still a lot left- a pound of worms is a LOT of worms!) The kids love to go out on the back porch and check on them every week or so. They hold them and watch them 'flip and flop' in their hands, they give them rides on their bikes and try to make new homes for them. One time we were visiting them worms, they found a very small new baby and they said, "Oh! It's so cute!" They crack me up! After the kids play with them for a while, we feed them our fruit and vegetable scraps and give them some new bedding (shredded paper) and don't think about them for another week (besides saving my fruit and vegetable scraps for them!) That's my kind of pet!

Emma and Arianna holding the 'pets'

The worms in Arianna's hand

And now for the Great America pictures:






On to another subject: Cherries!

We are very blessed to have 2 beautiful cherry trees in our yard. The owner of the house came and took what he wanted and said all the rest were for us, so for about a week and a half, Kenneth was out there every evening picking away, while I was busy preserving them all. Cherries are expensive, so it was pretty cool to be able to do so many things with them! The final counts are thus: 14 quarts plus 1 pint of regular canned cherries, 7 quarts of cherry pie filling, 6 pints of cherry jam, 1 pint of dried cherries and 1 fresh cherry pie (which was very tasty!) My fingernails are still showing signs of my labor. It was a lot of hard work, but I feel good having done all of that. And I couldn't have done it with out Kenneth out there picking them all! I am also sure that the kids are glad it's all over. Emma had fun helping sort and pit a few times, but the other two just felt the lack of attention from mom!

Kenneth was the main picker in the operation

Emma was a great help with the sorting and pitting of the cherries.

Mom and Emma with the cherries!

The kitchen in the midst of the canning.

Here are some additional pictures of our adventures as of late:

Painting outside. When the paper was full they moved on to the donkey and their feet and hands and patio!!

A great park play day- playing in the creek

Emma and her friends at a park play day

Kenneth's sister, Karen, and her family are here this week. We are having a fun-filled July Fourth week with them. So, stay tuned for a full report after they leave!