Here Comes Summer

It's been so nice out lately, we are totally loving it! The kids cannot be outside enough, I think they would never come in if they didn't have too. Between riding their trikes to playing in the dirt or in the pool or swinging away, they're just loving it! Jeremy and Stephanie got Mason a little pool for his Birthday and it's finally been warm enough to bust that out, they both love it! And they've been filling up their tonka trucks with water and driving them all over the yard. Not to mention they're both already super dark, sportin' some serious tans and summer is barely here!

Carson Valley Days

Carson valley days was a fun weekend for us, Neil and Cassie were up to visit from Oceanside and it was Simon's birthday and of course the parade! Neil and his family got in on Thursday so we saw them for a little bit thursday night then on Friday morning we took all 9 kids down to their picture taken! What an event that was, it's hard to even explain the humor that went on there, you just had to be there. The kids range from 15 years old to 1 and the 15 year old and my 1 year old got paired together and were quite hilarious. As soon as I get the picture back I'll get up here, hopefully next week. Anyway, so after that adventure the kids and I went over to Nate and Jen's (where Neil and Cassie stayed) and hung out with the kids for a little bit, Mason just couldn't get enough of Owie (owen). Then Saturday morning was the parade. We've never taken the kids before, but everyone was going so we went for it :-) Mason was so funny, when he saw the beginning of the parade he stood up, put his hands on his hip and said "Joking?!?" it was pretty funny. And so he hung out with the kids and grabbed all kinds of candy and we had a nice time. Afterwards we brought Evelyn home with us to hang out for a little bit and then the rest of the fam came over and saw the house (they hadn't seen all the work we did on it) so that was fun and then just hung out for a few hours it was really nice to have them all over! The kids played wii and baseball and drew with chalk and mom gave rides on her bike :-) That night we all went over to Nate and Jen's to celebrate Simon's birthday and that too was fun, we mainly just sat outside and watched the kids play all night ;-) Then we had to say our good byes, Neil and Cassie left sunday morning. For the next couple of days Mason kept asking if we were going to Owie's house to play it was so cute, he misses his cousins!

"Joking!!!"

The kids gathering candy

Mason, Amanda,Waylon, Evelyn, Owen

Papa and Way :-)

Ev and I

Bike rides with grandma

waylon, mom, amanda, alyssa, mason, evelyn

Happy Birthday Simon :-)

Workin' In The Yard

We've been very busy working in our yard and I can't tell you how much I really enjoy it! It started out creating our garden, mom and I decided to do a big vegetable garden this year so with much help we built a wonderful garden! It was a ton of work but well worth it I think! We've got all sorts of things planted there and things are already starting to pop up it pretty exciting!

The boys mostly enjoyed playing in the huge pile of dirt!

Sprinklers in

Waylon eating dirt!

Some of the crew after filling in all the dirt! That was a lot of work!

I was also super excited to plant flowers around our house so once most of the garden work was done I started in our planters! I think they all turned out real nice. I planted some boxwood hedges in the planters between our house and garage and put some marigolds around them too. Then in the back there was some big bushes that we tore out and put a honeysuckle in one and a bougainvillia in the other with some other flowers as well. I love it, they're really pretty and bright!

This is my little basil bush the I planted next to our front door and then this is the little bird house that ed's mom and I went and built the other night at Ace's Ladies Night!

This is one of the two planters (they look the same) between our house and garage

The honeysuckle planter

The bougainvillia planter

Tim McGraw Concert!!!!

So as I said, Ed was so thoughtful and got me tickets to the Tim McGraw concert and my friend Jaqueline went with me! We had so much fun, we went and got some Baja Fresh before and then headed over to the craziness. I was a little nervous with just us two girls going so my first thought to safety first was to valet park my car, but that was full so we ended up on the roof of the parking structure! It was just packed so after going through this massive line we made it to our seats just in time for some Lady Antebellum. We were most excited to see them! The played a hand full of songs, each one better than the last if you ask me and then during the break I was trying to figure out where I knew the people sitting right next to us from... it finally hit me that I went to elementary school with their son and high school, such a small world so we talked to them while Timmy was setting up, but none of us could believe that we were sitting next to each other. They even took a pic of jaq and I and sent it to their son who's now married and in the marines, I believe, so that was pretty funny and the dad also works with my brother-in-law for the sheriff's department. Next up was Tim himself! It was a really fun show, we knew just about all the songs so that's always nice, we sung our little hearts out along with everyone else :-) Afterwards was kind of chaotic, I felt like sheep being herded along and after we finally got my car it took us a good 45 minutes just to get out of the parking garage! It was a super fun night though I really enjoyed hanging out my Kuh and singing along to Barbeque Stain!

Lady Antebellum!!!

Me and Jaq

The Timster!

:-) Fun Fun Fun

Brain Tumor?!?

When we got back from our oceanside/la trip my grandma called and said that my grandpa was having some double vision and headaches. He went to the eye doctor that ruled out it being a vision or eye problem and referred them to a neurologist. After running some blood work and doing an MRI they found a tumor on his pituitary gland behind his optic nerve and determined that surgery was needed. Within two weeks of that he was on the operating table. It's always a scary time when a loved one is sick or needs surgery but I knew that God's will would be done and trusted in Him and was able to rest in that. And Praise God, the surgery went well and he was home in two days. They were able to get 90% of the tumor and at first they had talked about doing radiation to get the rest of it out but now it sounds like they want to possibly try using a cyber knife but he'll know more the end of July.

A couple of Birthdays

First there was my uncle Darrin's birthday. My Aunt, Grandma and I got together and made his birthday cake. My Aunt wanted to do an El Camino car so we tackled it and it turned out pretty awesome. I wrote on the tires, ha ha, that was my contribution! It was fun though and we all went out to dinner at Red's and then surprised him with his cake!

Rylan, Mason and Waylon at Red's

My Uncle and Mason blowing out the candles

The Cake

Next up was me! I had a terrific Birthday this year. It started the night before, Ed took me out to dinner for Sushi at our favorite place at the lake. Then we went and got a movie and watched that a home while the kids stayed the night at mom and dad's! Saturday morning mom made us pancakes and got me some fun gardening stuff to start our garden. Then it was off to my uncle's house for lunch, always a nice time and my Aunt made me a yummy giant cupcake :-) Then we went home for a minute to regroup and then Jeremy and Steph had us over for hamburgers and I got some fun things from as well as long with some delicious cupcakes! Mmm!. Their neighbors were giving away free kittens too and since ours ran away and we have a little bit of a mice problem I talked Ed into getting another kitty! Then we I got home Ed surprised me with tickets to the Tim Mcgraw and Lady Antebellum concert that I've been dying to go to! It was such a nice day, I'm such a blessed girl, surrounded by such great family and friends!

Me and my sister with our babies <3

The giant cupcake!

Shadow Kitty :-)

Next up was my brother Zach's birthday. He turned 9 this year and had a super cute "Cars" cake, I don't think I got a picture of it, but it was really cute, Mason was really excited about it. We did another gathering at my aunt and uncles and they made ribs and burgers and another nice chance to get together with everyone!

Oceanside/Wedding Trip

Well as you can tell, I've been slacking in the blogging department, I must apologize! There's much to write about but I think I'll just do an overview of a couple of events until I get up to speed...

So back in May/end of April, we went down to Oceanside to visit my brother-in-law and his family. It took us 9 hours to get down and we had a car with two, well mainly one, screaming child and a nice throw-up aroma to get us down there. Once we were there it was much better! It was a pretty quick trip there, we did a little site seeing but mainly just spent time catching up with the fam. Mason was so excited to see "Owy" (Owen) so they were pretty cute, and it was so nice seeing the kids, I've really missed them, and oh how they've grown!

There's so many cute pics but I've tried to contain myself...

So I put Mason in this shirt and Owen says "I have that shirt!!" and he too wore that shirt and was very excited about it

Too cute, the kids on our way back from Ruby's on the pier

Our first night we couldn't resist and had a little hot tub party

It was also Waylon's first trip to the Ocean. It was pretty cute, Ed took Mason down to the water first and it was very cold and he was not liking it so when he went to take Waylon down to it Mason got all upset and was trying to rescue Waylon who also wasn't a fan, but boy did that boy love the sand!!!!

Next up we headed into LA to Peter and Emily's! Ed was in Josh and Michelle's wedding along with Pete so the next few days we had some wedding activities to do, or at least the boys did :-) I did get to squeeze in some time with Emily though, she and I and her mom went to Pete's sister's baby shower so that was fun, her mom took us out to dinner and then we headed over there. It was a nice girls out, I wish we could have more of them. Then the next night we left the kids with Ed's parents and Pete's mom and went to the rehearsal dinner at Universal City Walk so another fun night :-) Then thank goodness for my amazing in-laws, the next day (wedding day) mom came and got the kids so that Em and I could get ready with just one baby instead of three since the boys left early, so that was really nice we were able to relax a little and chat while getting ready. The wedding was beautiful, everyone looked fabulous and the boys behaved so that was good, Emily and I kept getting instructed to make sure they didn't do anything crazy :-) they did wear their tuxes to the rehearsal but they said that everyone thought that was funny... we were nervous and did not give approval FYI.

The 3 cuties! Scout, Mason and Waylon

Rehearsal dinner at Buca Di Bepo

Me and Scadoodle at the wedding

Friends <3

Peter and Ed with the groom