Surprises & Margaritas

On Tuesday night Mark & Vern's very good friends Jen & Christophe has some friends over to celebrate Vern's birthday a little early since they are going to be in Mexico. They have such a great entertaining house and are such warm people, we all had a great time. Didn't hurt that Christophe is a chef and made the most amazing paella ever!! Thanks for the great dinner, drinks & fun!!! All of the pictures I took with me & my girls were taken with my 'go-go gadget arm' as Vern was calling it. I kind of like the self portraits!!
The chef sampling his hard work. The hostess & Vern. My camera does not like misters too much but we certainly enjoyed them in the heat.

Monday night Julie & I took the boys downtown for a walk and to Las Casuela's for a snack. Margarita's for us can be classified as a snack, right? They boys got some chips, salsa & Guacamole.

We did a little dancing to the band.

And Luke licked the Guacamole clean. They love their guac. The band aid was the result of a spoon sword fight in the kitchen between the boys Saturday morning that Luke swore left a mark (I checked, no mark) but he insisted that the band aid made for knuckles be put on his forehead (does that make him a knuckle head??) and there it stayed despite my bribe attemps, which I am getting pretty good at I might add, until Miss Kristen at school convinced him to let her take it off. He's a sucker for the pretty girls!

While the big boys are away

Eric, Ty & Cali left for their road trip to Minnesota last Friday. Although it has been quieter without them & I miss them to pieces I have enjoyed my time with Mason & Luke. Julie has made it especially fun & joined us on all of our adventures. Sunday morning we all went up the tram, did a mile hike & had lunch. The boys did great on the hike and enjoyed seeing the fat squirrels lurking under the lunch tables. They are a bit too used to people if you ask me, I was just waiting for the next episode of 'When Animals Attack'.
A little rest during the hike.
On Saturday we took the boys to the Children's Discovery Museum, they would go there every day if they could, they love it!
On Friday night Julie, Tash & her kids came over for dinner, swim & I put candles in their yogurt and we sang Happy Birthday to Zach & Zoe. I am lucky to have such great girlfriends.

Road trip update: They camped in the rain in Utah on Friday night, stayed at a lovely (I am being a bit facetious) hotel in Idaho Springs CO on Saturday and then went white water rafting on Sunday. They spent Sunday night in Nebraska and lucky for Ty so did a 7 year old baseball team so it was super fun in the pool. They got to Minn on Monday night and went up to Lake Howard yesterday (Northern Minn by Leech Lake) with Tony & his lab. Ty has since caught about 300 sunny's off the dock and is waiting to catch the bit one!!

A little more beach...

Lukey checking out the surfers.
Funny what kids see that we miss. Mason laid down on pier to get a closer look at the waves underneath.

Mace at Mission Bay.
They were so cute playing together in Mission Bay. They would collect shells, throw them and then go get them, share & start all over.

Overlooking PB our last night.
Julie & Ty playing in sand at sunset.

Poppa with his 3 youngest grandsons.
Ty, Roman & daddy with some water action.
Ethan's favorite beach activity was throwing sand, mostly on himself and with a runny nose the sand had a very sticky pallet. I bring baby powder to the beach because it takes the fine sand off of hands so Missy decided to try to take the sand off of his face, not such a desired result but Ethan didn't seem to mind much.
Good daddy pulling the boys. There are four in there since our neighbor's came down for a few days.
Mimi & Poppa tried the bikes out and really enjoyed them. They peddled by Mission Bay one day when we were down there playing. I talked to them yesterday and they went out to Geneva, rented bikes and rode up and down the river.

The San Diego Zoo

For those of you who have seen Madagascar, saying the San Diego Zoo always makes me giggle.... We used our annual passes and enjoyed a morning at the Zoo, once again on a beautiful Southern Californian day. The kids loved it, especially the petting zoo which was more like a goat petting center, kind of yucky to me but I guess if you are 2 or 5 there is a lot to be said for petting goats. My mom had passes when we lived in San Diego and she used to take me about once a month so it's pretty cool to now be taking my kids.

Ty & Daddy
The zoo has the coolest polar bear exhibit. You are inches from them and when we saw them they were playing right by the window. I think I took about 20 pictures and lucky for me, having lots of little boys I got to sneak right up to the front of the glass to 'check' on them.
Once again, an attempt at a family photo.

A Crab Hunt

On Tuesday we went to the dog beach and tide pools of Ocean Beach. My dad joined us which was especially cool since that is where he & my mom first lived. He showed us their apartment that was steps to the beach, must have been a great time in the late 60's!! We went searching for little crabs in the little pools and were lucky enough to see tons of them, dad even caught a little one on a stick much to the delight of Mason & Luke.
The boys crab searching.
Could the day have been any nicer???

Even Cali got into the searching action!!!

Beach Love

I can probably say with confidence that the one in our group that appreciated the ocean and Mission Bay the most was Cali. We took her on our morning walks and I let her run out in the bay for a stretch each morning and one day we took her to the doggy beach in OB. If you could picture pure bliss on a dog's face it would be Cali running out in the water. Her tail goes so fast and she almost smiles from ear to ear, and then in the afternoon-long dog naps.
Mason in his favorite beach activity.
Monday morning the Posa's joined us on the beach for a bit. It was so fun to see them run around, run in & out of the ocean and laugh so much you couldn't wipe the smiles off of their beautiful faces.
Eric collected shells in the break just like his mom used to and they got two good buckets full. The seached all over for a shark's tooth and finally found one in the piles of shells.
Monday night Jono's cousin Grant came down from LA to bbq and they guys had a rousing game of Ladderball. We all had a great time and the guys went out later to play a little bag in the box at a little bar down the street.

Day 2

Yes, these posts may take a few days....I find myself sorting them day by day. On Sunday we began with a wonderful walk, breakfast and of course-down to the beach. Above are two of my cuties itching to get their feet wet.
Ty tried boogie boarding last year and had a blast-could not wait to do it again this year. He started out small and got right back into it, that is until Eric took him out to some bigger waves-he wiped out hard and refused to go back in that day. Luckily it only took him a day to get over it.
Poppa and Lukey digging away.
The most fun the twins had was burying themselves and then breaking free. This can be done countless times for endless enjoyment for 2 year olds. Later that day the Posa's came down and the guys went out of a fishing charter with Ty & Zachy. Tash & I and the little ones hung out at our place and then went to the park late afternoon. It was so relaxing knowing I did not have backpacks, clothes, breakfast, lunches, etc...to get ready for Monday morning. The guys had a little success with the fishing and Eric grilled up some great bass for everyone.

(Yes Stacy, we were all singing Happy Birthday to dad- poor neighbors!!)

San Diego!!!

We're home!!! After a long, wonderful & a bit chilly at sometimes week, we are back from the beach. We rented a house a few blocks from the beach in Pacific Beach & my parents rented the house next door & we had lots of visitors. This will probably take a few posts as I took tons of pictures. We started out Saturday by watching the sunset and the surfers then a bbq for my dad's birthday. Being able to be outside all day was such a treat and we enjoyed every minute!!! Miss, Jono & Ethan came for part of the trip and it was great to see them, especially Missy's 4 month baby belly!
A few minutes after the boys arrived (my mom & I went down a few hours earlier to get the shopping done) they took off on a bike ride.
Mason & Ethan having some appetizers. By the cheeks on that boy I can see my sister is not starving him- by any means.
Dad's birthday sweets.
Poppa taking the boys boogie boarding. This is about as much in the water that Mason & Ethan did. Lots of beach pictures to come & our many visitors.

The 4th!

We went up to Big Bear for the weekend courtesy of the Posa's again. It's so fun to go stay at their cabin and there are always lots of people. You also can't beat the fact that it is about 30 degrees cooler!! I have lots of pictures & they are in a very random order, I couldn't decide and am too lazy to organize. This one is of Eric & I down by the lake waiting for the fireworks to start. The sunset was beautiful with the lake, clouds & mountains and seemed to last forever.
4 sleepy 2 & 3 year olds after a long day of playing.
Zach, Ty, Redman & Quinn in the tree house Tash & Zolt started last month.
Ty, Zach & Red on the neighbor's swing. Everyone in their neighborhood is so nice and all of the people that have 2nd homes were up over 4th so there was lots of going between houses for everyone.

We went down to the park by the lake early to claim our spot for the fireworks, good thing we did because it was packed by 8pm!!!
Best shot I could manage of my boys this 4th. Too much going on for them to actually look at me.
Lukey was happy sitting on the deck with a bag of cherries. I could see from his pants afterwards that he didn't once use the napkin I had so nicely provided for him.
Eric encouraging bad behavior-as in Ty climbing out of a 2nd story window and then jumping to daddy on the deck.
Julie with Luke & Mace down by the lake at sunset.