California baby!

We made our family trip to California this year and visited my family in Sacramento and some good friends who now live in San Francisco.  We got up before God woke up at 2am to get to the airport and on the plane.  Here's Dane and Drake in our rental car before we even were able to stop and get lunch.

Drake

Dane

We BBQ'd and played cards with my family every night.  This evening was at my Uncle Dale and Aunt Pauline's place.  My Aunt Pauline made a home-made slip-n-slide for the boys...

Almost every day Drake would ask for a fly swatter.  Occasionally he would kill one too.

Andy relaxing (trying to) with the boys after a big meal and before losing to cards again:)

Another BBQ at my cousin Terry's.  We had bought a little pool for our boys when we were out there 2 years ago and my cousin Terry saved it and put it up for them again for this evening. 

 Uncle Kennth, Terry and Aunt Pauline

We did a lot of relaxing...

Uncle Dale

We took off for 3 days and went to San Francisco to go to Pier 39 and their Six Flags out their (our season passes work at all the parks).  Drake had taken a liking to Uncle Kenneth's stuffed puppy so we brought it with us and returned it once we went back to his house.

The Six Flags was quite a bit smaller than ours here in St. Louis and didn't have a water park, but was okay to us because it had a Sea World in it.  Here we are before the Dolphin Show.  We spent more time watching the shows than anything else.  That also allowed us time to visit with Rob and Julie since they met us there.

I let Dane chauffeur me around in the bumper cars....Oh My Gosh!  I had a raw mark on my neck from the seat belt.  This is before the thing even got turned on and I'm giving Andy the regret look.

 Right afterwards Andy went on this water ride with the boys. Here's my turn to practice with the zoom on his new camera.

No only did this Six Flags have dolphins, but it had land animals as well.  Of course we watched the tiger show.  That's a big animal.  I was looking for the place where the sharp-shooters would be hiding; out of sight, but close enough to help if necessary.

 Dane rode an elephant

Drake would not, but here he is petting his ear. 

Rob and his youngest (Mary Helen) rode with him.

 Drake opted for something a little more tame...

He rode it several times, so Dane joined in too.

The lines were surprisingly small, so they got to ride a lot of the kids rides a few times each.  Rob and Julie watched the boys for a few minutes so Andy and I could ride a big roller coaster.  

Towards the end of the day we watched the whale show.  We were close (Drake's request) and we got soaked.  Then he cried, said he was cold and wanted to move back.  By this time it had been a long day for all of us.  I was cold, hungry and tired too.  The wonderful thing about going to our Six Flags is we live close and we can spend a couple hours there and go home.  This one we stayed at from open to almost closing time.

We went to a Mexican restaurant and hung out with Rob and Julie before saying good bye for another year. Here's Andy and Rob...buds from college.

Our last day in San Francisco we spent swimming...another long day.  On the way back to Sacramento Drake fell asleep in the car with the puppy.  Upon arrival, he didn't want to get up.  So we put him to bed...with the puppy.  I love sleeping pictures:)

Another night of cards:

Cousin Susie and Uncle Kenneth

Uncle Kenneth and Aunt Pauline

Andy and Susie

Uncle Kenneth and Uncle Dale

 Our flight out of California wasn't until 4pm.  I planned it that way so we could sight-see downtown and visit the train museum again.  But what I didn't plan for was the delay in Vegas getting us home at 3am instead of 1:30am...which was bad enough.  THAT was our longest day.  But before that we did have fun at the museum and downtown area.

Drake in front of the train

Dane in the train

Just when I think I'm caught up, we take more pictures!  We installed an above ground pool this week and have spent our time in that.  Since all of our fireworks in the area were cancelled we hung around home and celebrated in our own way.  Andy has another 1/2 IronMan competition Saturday in which we'll likely have another couple victory pictures from that.  Other than that we've got a pretty low-key rest of the summer planned...except for August when the birthdays start...mine the 11th, Drake's the 14th, Andy's the 27th and Dane's Sept 2nd...and then our 10-YEAR ANNIVERSARY on the 14th!

Til the next time, stay cool:)

A good start to our summer

 We've gotten off to a busy summer start.  I'm thankful the boys didn't want to play baseball and T-Ball, it's given us every one of our weekends to do, well, to do whatever we want!  Plus Andy's doing another 1/2 IronMan next weekend in Indiana and he spends a lot of his time training.  To add a busy schedule of sports would be over the top for him.  

Andy got a new digital camera for Father's day...here he is practicing close-ups on the boys.  He captured a tear on Drake...I think it was because he didn't want his picture taken.

and now Drake's being silly

 Now Dane's turn

 He doesn't even know he's being watched; Andy was sitting across the room from his checking out the zoom capabilities.

I have wreaths for every season/holiday.  Here it is June and I still have my Easter wreath up...but I can't take it down, check out the nest and bird eggs in it.

 Here all 6 of them are hatched...

 Mom and Dad birds learned to ignore us and took care of their young chicks even with us sitting on the steps of the porch.

 Just about to burst out of the seams of this nest.  

So far this summer we've done quite a bit of horse back riding.  Here's Drake on Boogie, the horse I ride.

  Me (on Boogie), Emma (Ruby) and Dane (BullsEye).  That was officially the last ride he was led by a lead rope on.  Now he's riding solo!

 Even bare-back...

 And so is Drake, though his attention span is under 10 minutes.

 Our beloved horses got out of the pasture a few weeks ago.  They wandered to our neighbors.  We went and got them, but it was a stressful few hours.  Here's Andy walking them back in.

 Our neighbors cat had kittens and here's the one Dane wanted soooo bad.  Since Andy doesn't "do" cats, they said we could call it ours, name it, etc, but it would stay at their house.  Dane named it Mittens.

We went to a small carnival with our Aunt & Uncle & cousins at their church.  Here's Dane and Drake waiting for the parade and then walking to the carnival. 

 Here's a great example of how good the zoom on the camera works.  These two are at the top of a 2-story slide and Andy took this picture of Dane helping Drake.

 We spent a long time here and made several trips back to this slide.

This is a stomping game.  Stomp the board and get the bunny in the bucket and get a prize.  See how supportive Dane is while Drake is playing.  He's trying to help out...that or practice for his turn. :)

 Notice Dane is on his own, and putting a lot of effort into this as well.

 Drake is checking out his prize.

Another close-up taken from afar on a Ferris wheel

 There were lots of little rides for the kids.  Makes me nervous letting them ride rides that are put up and down several times a week.

This is probably the ride that looked the most fun..."I'm flying!"

We currently don't have any foster kids and this bedroom has turned into another play room for our kids and their friends when they come over.  Here it's a restaurant with the kitchen below and the dining area on top.  

It has been a little warm...just a "little warm"....:) around here, so we've done some inside stuff.  Here they are painting fish for our aquarium mural.

 finished product.  The fish were tiny clothes pins and we glued google eyes to them.  

And they made critters of some sort, using pom poms, pipe cleaners and googlie eyes.  We also painted ceramic bobble head cats and dogs (in the background).  Honestly these indoor things don't last long, I'd rather be outside swimming.

They got bored in the pool so we made up some water balloons.  It takes 40 minutes to fill and 5 minutes to throw at each other.

The next day we invited 5 neighbor friends over and had water fights.  Not a speck of the concrete is dry...it was a good day:)

Dane and Drake made a tepee in the woods below our house.  I wasn't home for this, but I got the grand tour and even got to meet their "pet", the grass hopper and sat in the rock chair. 

While sitting at the breakfast table Andy noticed a deer right below our house.  I wasn't able to step out onto the deck, but I got this picture on my phone.  Should have used Andy's new camera and we could have had a close-up...

  

A few weeks ago (before it was too hot and dry) we had a bon-fire and put WII up on our garage.  It was fun racing and playing tennis.  Great idea Andy!

 Seriously, the cars were almost life size!  That's the whole 2-car garage side filled up with game.

We've also been to California to visit my Uncles, Aunt and cousins.  That's another blog entry....because we have a new above ground pool and I'm the only one not it it...see ya later...Ima goin' swimmin'!