More Hiking Adventures

Spring is a wonderful time to hike. We went back to one of my favorite hiking spots in Murrietta. There is a beautiful preserve located there. There are so many different trails. The wildflowers were just coming out. Some areas were just covered in wildflowers. We packed our lunch and headed out to enjoy some outdoor time!

The bright colors of wildflowers was amazing.
When kids find water...they must throw rocks in it!

More beautiful wildflowers.

Isn't it funny that if these grew in our yard we'd call them weeds!

It was a chilly but fun day!

Mady's Lifeskills Awards

Mady's school has a Lifeskills program. Throughout the school year, students work to earn their stars. The stars are put on a certificate and displayed in the classroom. The first star you can get is red, then white and blue. From there you move to the patch. Then a silver and gold star. If you earn all of these the last thing you can get is a pin. It's a great program. As the kids get older it's a little harder to get to the pin. This year Mady has gone as high as her patch. With only four weeks of the school year left she'll probably end here. No worries though. In past grades, she has gone as high as a pin! I thought it would be fun to see how much she has changed over the course of 4th grade.

Red Star - Beginning of 4th grade
White Star

Blue Star - I love this picture of her!

Patch - She just earned this last week!

Sophomore Track Season

Brandon had his first track meet last week. He did a great job running for the JV track team. He has been battling a cold for the past few weeks so his energy level and wind is not quite there yet. He pushed through it though and represented his school well. He only ran in one race since he was not feeling 100%. He ran in the 800m. Normally he will do the 800, 1 mile and 4x400 relay. He really seems to have fun out there even though soccer is his true passion. He mostly uses track to keep himself conditioned for soccer.

Hanging with his best friend before the race.

Spring Soccer

Mady decided she wanted to give soccer another try. She did it for two seasons when she was 4 and 5. She decided then it was not for her. Many of her friends play and since she is not doing ice skating anymore she decided to check it out again. I must say, she did great. We were a little nervous since it has been almost five years but she proved us wrong. We were worried she would hate it and want to give it up after the first game. That was not the case. She had so much fun and really got out there and worked hard. We are excited to see how she progresses through this season. The Spring soccer season is mostly for fun. They don't keep score. If she decides to play in the Fall, she will move up an age bracket where I think she'll have even more fun. Bigger field and they keep score!

Her team is the Lightning Strikers

They were getting their game plan in place. Scott is the assistant coach.

Great throw-in even though the ref said she lifted her foot. Doesn't look like it to me!

Big Bear 2010

We took our annual trip to Big Bear. It is so beautiful up there. We are fortunate Scott's mom has a timeshare there we are able to use. We drove up Friday afternoon and left Sunday morning. We had a great time and there was a ton of snow on the ground. When we went last year there was not much snow at all. We did ski but it was mostly man-made snow. This year there was plenty of snow that actually fell from the sky! We decided not to ski and opted for playing in the snow. We brought our sleds, packed a lunch and played all day in the snow. Mady was feeling really sick though so she did not do as much sledding. We felt so bad for her but she was such a trooper. She rested on the sleds and played as much as her body would let her.

It snowed Saturday night. I made Scott go outside with me.

One of the many snowmen the kids made.

One of the hundreds of times Brandon went down the hill.

Mady had more fun riding with us than she did alone.

San Diego

A day in San Diego with my family is just about the best day I could have. I love San Diego so much and miss being able to drive to all of my favorite spots. Mady is working on her 4th grade mission project so we decided to take a day trip to San Diego since that is where her mission is located. It was a picture perfect day down there. I was so glad the weather was nice since Mady has chosen to do a photo shoot of her mission. We stopped there first and let Mady go picture crazy at the mission. Fun California fact...the Mission San Diego de Alcala was the first mission established in California.

After Mady's photo shoot was done we went to Sea Port Village. It is so beautiful down there. The Village is right on the harbor. They have lots of fun little boutiques to walk through. Whenever we go we always get an ice cream while we walk around. It was nice to get out of the house since all of us have been battling colds!

This is the mission we visited.

I am so blessed to have these three amazing people in my life!

Brandon's just hanging out!

Mady couldn't quite get as high as Brandon. Wrong shoes for climbing!

Valentine's Day 2010

We had a wonderful Valentine's Day. Mady planned our entire day down to what we would eat. We started our day with pink heart shaped pancakes. They were really yummy. It's always fun to eat pancakes but when they are pink it's even better! For lunch Mady and I made heart shaped sandwiches and filled our picnic basket with goodies. We walked to the park and ate our lunch while we enjoyed the amazing weather (80!). The boys kicked the ball around while Mady and I relaxed and played with Ozzy. Then we went on a bike ride to Golden Spoon (our favorite frozen yogurt place). For dinner we had steak and shrimp with veggies. We finished our day with a homemade Pazookie! We had such a fun family day. It was nice to relax and enjoy each other's company.

It doesn't matter how old you are...swinging is fun!

Making Clay

Mady and I made clay. I got the recipe from my cousin (thanks Terri). Mady is off-track right now so we are finding things to keep us busy while Brandon is at school and Scott is at work. She decided she wanted to make Valentine's Day shapes for all of us. We had a lot of fun!

The clay is really easy to work with.

Working hard making her shapes.

Before they are cooked and painted.

She made all sorts of heart decorations for the house.

Here are the finished products!

The Rain Has Arrived

Rain, rain and more rain! That is what we have seen all day. I love the rain though. I'm just a little concerned by how much rain we are suppose to receive this week. They are predicting approximately 20 inches over the next 5 days. This is great but bad all at the same time. The city of Corona has required water rationing since summer 2009. On the good side, the rain will help that. On the bad side, the hills and mountains that burned can't handle this much rain. There are chances of major flooding and mudslides. We are fortunate that we do not live in a flood or mudslide area. For now I guess we will just wait and see how things go.

Loving our Weather

We have had some amazing weather for January. Due to some furlough days the kids did not have to go back to school until January 6th. We took full advantage of the beautiful weather and spent one day at the park. We took Ozzy with us. He does not always like going on walks but when he knows we are going to the park he gets a little more excited. I think he gets nervous because he is so small. He is full grown now and only weighs about 4lbs! Not much of a dog but he's perfect for us.

Ozzy looking all handsome

Mady is so in love with Ozzy. He's her little buddy.

We packed a lunch and Ozzy was hoping Brandon would turn his head so he could swipe his sandwich!

Mady being Mady!

This is what Ozzy loves to do...run!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010!

It's so hard to believe that it is already 2010. It seems like we just rang in 2009. Where did the time go? We spent our New Year's Eve with just the four of us. It's so hard to keep Mady up until midnight so we went to a later showing of the new Chipmunks movie. Then we came home and played a few of our new games; Guesstures and Sequence. Guesstures is probably one of our most favorite games to play. The kids got it for Christmas. We had so much fun playing it and laughed so hard. We all rang in the New Year and then promptly crashed.

New Years day we watched the parade and then headed out for a nice long hike. The weather was beautiful. It was in the low 70's which is a little high for this time of year. It was great though. I never get bored with our hikes. Scott and I went on another hike the next day in the mountains behind our house. Mady is not quite tall enough for this hike. There are several areas where you need long legs and lots of upper body strength. Scott and I are trying to prepare ourselves for our anniversary trip to Yosemite where we plan to hike Half Dome. Half Dome is approximately a 16 mile hike straight up the mountain. On average it takes about 10 hours to complete. We are so excited to do it but need to get some more strenuous hiking in first. Good thing we have 4 1/2 months to work on it.

This was at the top of our 2nd hike.

Making our way to the top.

This was New Year's Day.

This ecological reserve is one of my favorite places to hike.

We stopped under this huge tree to eat lunch.