Happy Birthday!

My little man turned 5 today! I can't believe how old he is, honestly, the time went way too fast. He is such an amazing little person. He is the most responsible 5 year old I have ever known, he always puts everything where it belongs, flushes the toilet and washes his hands (without being reminded), and always turns out the light when he leaves the room. I love how silly he can be and the hilarious one-liners he delivers (yep, he is just like his Dad). I feel truly blessed to have him in our family, he brings so much happiness to our home. Plus he always says,"I love you more than Colby and Marissa love you." Happy Birthday to my most favorite 5 year old ever! :)

Badwater

My friend Jarom raced in the Badwater Ultramarathon last week. It starts in Death Valley and ends up at the Mt. Whitney portal. I was part of the crew and was able to pace him for about 45 miles of the race. The entire race is 135 miles! It was one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced. I have never been so tired (only one hour of sleep during the entire race) but I loved every minute. Here are a few pics I took, but I really didn't have much time to take pictures. Our driver Rob Schopke took pictures and created a website from his truck as the race was going on. I thought he did a great job, so go to his website to get a better idea of what the race was like. www.triracer.com



Picture taken at the race start


How we dried Jarom's shoes


This is Badwater, where the race starts, the little white mark on the side of the mountain is sea level.


The crew and Jarom at the finish line.
The video is of Jarom's brother Heath, funny stuff!

Summer

Okay, so I may be worse in the summer with updating my blog. I thought "Hey, I'm not working, I'll be so on top of things." Ha-ha! But I have thoroughly enjoyed this summer so far. Enjoy the slide show of our various activities. Riding, dance recitals, zoo, Hailey's new puppy, Colin's preschool graduation, Hailey's high school graduation (btw she is now engaged to the cute boy she is pictured with!!!!), gigantic tree hauled in for campfire by Brian, pretty waterfall, pretty rose, swimming lessons and finally my beautiful new nephew Beckett London Turner.

Mother's Day present

Yes; I know I have a problem, but how do you resist this face?

Final Spring Break post

Here is what we did for the last few days of our vacation.


What kid hasn't wanted to do this. Colby saw all of the seagulls standing on the beach and couldn't resist.


This is at Montana de Oro state park. It was my favorite place to go when we lived here.



Again, Montana de Oro.



This is the crack we had to crawl through.......



to get here because the tide was too high to just walk in the cave.



Isn't she cute? She certainly had her eye on us while we were looking at tidepools.



Colin and Steve; this was the coldest day of the trip, but still a lot of fun.



The kids playing in their driftwood fort.



This is at Monterey Bay Aquarium.



I thought it was funny to see the sea otter just stare at its trainer. I think it really just wanted a treat.



There is the coolest jellyfish exhibit at the aquarium. They had more varieties than I ever knew existed.



I highly recommend a trip to Monterey for the aquarium alone. We spent the entire day there and had a lot of fun!
That was one of the best vacations our family has had yet, there is nothing like a good road trip.

Spring break continued

We had two choices for this trip, take our diesel truck and trailer and camp or we could rent a prius and go to hotels. After sitting down and figuring out how much each would cost we spent half as much on the prius (including rental) because diesel is totally outrageous anymore! This is the highest price we found for gas on our whole trip, it was in Cambria, but everything was more expensive there.

When in Rome! I love the central coast, sometimes I feel as though the entire "green movement" is a bit much there. I love the earth and yes, I do recycle and do my best to be eco friendly, I just don't like having it shoved down my throat.


Gum alley in San Luis Obispo! The kids loved it and even got to add their own gum. Did you know Seattle has one of these also! We found it last year on our anniversary trip. I wonder which was started first? I'm guessing Seattle.

The next few days of our trip were spent, playing at the park,

going to the zoo,



playing at the beach,


perfecting boogey boarding skills,

and going to Hearst castle! This is one of the "small" guest houses,

outdoor pool,

Main house, or Casa Grande,

indoor pool.

At this rate I should be posting about this week for at least a month!

Spring break

We had an fantastic spring break. Steve took an entire week off of work!!! That was the first time he has ever taken more than two days since we have been married (even when we had our babies). The kids and I loved having him to ourselves for eight entire days. We went to Atascadero and let the kids see all the sights of the central coast. Colby loved getting to see where he was born. I'm going to use this trip for several different posts because there is just too much for one! These pictures are from the first day, we went to see some tide pools above Cambria and then headed back to Morro Bay to look at the big rock, the boats (for Colin), and have some dinner.


This is Colby at Morro Rock



Colin and Riss- Morro Rock



Just outside of Cambria



The appropriate stance for tidepool watching.



This was a beautiful little crab I kept trying to tease out of the crack in the rock. This was the best I got. After seeing all of the crab, Colin decided he wanted crab for dinner.



Cute kids, don't you think?



After Colin saw this sea lion he decided he wanted to eat that for dinner. Perhaps we talked up eating good sea food too much earlier in the day! He ended up settling for regular, boring halibut; which he loved.
This is a video of a sea lion known as Bubba. He is friendly with people, probably because people feed him often. There was a restaurant a few feet away that brought out some fish for my kids to feed to Bubba, they loved it. In the video Bubba is referred to as a seal, the kids and I now know the difference!