Pool Fun

Lately our weekends have been filled with swimming. The weather has been too hot for much of anything else. The kids (all three of them) manage to find new ways to entertain themselves while swimming.

Mady trying to blow up her shirt so she can float.

Brandon's attempt at looking buff. He floats too!

The three musketeers attempting a water pyramid. This is not how we did it in cheerleading.

Mady loves being dunked over and over and over....

Mmmmm.....Cookies

It starts out as a giant, gloppy, orange mess.

Then they become little gooey balls on a pan.

And then they turn into perfectly tasty pumpkin chocolate cookies.

Mady and I love to bake. It's never too hot or too cold to fire up the oven and whip up a batch of some of our favorite treats. Mady has become quite the little chef in the kitchen. She still has the dream of becoming a chef one day. Yesterday it was a little too hot for her chef's coat and hat but we still had a great time. I think Mady's favorite part of baking is licking the beaters and taste testing everything!

Even though Mady and I do all the work, Brandon is always willing to help clean the beaters and taste everything we have created.

Birthday Fun

I had a wonderful 36th birthday. I spent the morning helping in Mady's class. This turned out to be a lot of fun as all the kids and her teacher sang Happy Birthday to me. She has such a great class. I just love helping and am so thankful she still wants me to.

When Scott got home, he brought in these two adorable birthday cakes. The worm cake was just for me. Mady and I enjoy watching a TV show called Ace of Cakes. They make these amazing and wild cakes. I mentioned to Scott that it would be fun to get one of those cakes for my birthday. Since the TV show is filmed in Baltimore it would have been hard to actually get an original cake. He did the next best thing...he found these adorable cakes at our local grocery store. They were so yummy. Scott never ceases to amaze me with how wonderful of a husband he is.


July 11th we decided to have a belated birthday/BBQ/pool party with the family for Brandon. We had such a great time. There were five kids and eight adults swimming. It was a very hot day but the water was perfect. Even though the kid's ages vary (Haiden(2), Brandon(15), Mady(9), Alyssa(4) & Hailey(5)), they all get along so well. The cousins love spending time together.

The older kids (AKA...the adult men) decided to make a game out of the water rings. The goal was to see who could jump in the middle of the rings without doing serious bodily damage to themselves. Let's just say the moms were not involved in the creation of this game. It was very funny to watch though! It ended up being a wonderful day. I have to admit, I think the adults had more fun and laughed harder than anyone else!

Mady Starts 4th Grade

I'm not sure how it happened but somehow Mady has grown up so quickly that she is now in 4th grade! I was certain she was going to stay my little girl forever. Unfortunately that isn't going to happen. She is an amazing daughter. She is witty and funny and a true free-spirit. She was so excited to go back to school. She really loves learning and being with her friends. I know this is going to be a great year for her. She's now a part of the "upper gradesmen" on campus. Her class size increased to 34, she has homework every night and she has to keep an organized binder (the size of China in my opinion) with subject tabs and everything. It will be a wonderful year for her!

Vacation 2009

All I can say is we had an amazing trip. Our trip began with a drive through the Sequoia National Park. That was an amazing drive. We stopped and walked through an area of trees that were so unbelievably huge. We looked like little ants standing next to these trees.

This day also happened to be Scott's 36th birthday. The kids and I made sure we sang really, REALLY loud in the car on the drive up. We took him out to dinner after we left the park. Of course he enjoyed his favorite sandwich (California Chicken Burger) from Red Robin.

Our time in Yosemite was so much fun. We went on several challenging and beautiful hikes. One of our favorite hikes was to the top of Vernal Falls (2 miles, up the mountain, one way). We were unaware at the time that this was one of the more challenging hikes in Yosemite. The kids were amazing. I had no doubt either of them would make it to the top. There were 600 steps near the falls we had to climb. The mist from the waterfall completely soaked us! It was a spectacular thing to see though.

We spent a day at Bass Lake which is outside of Yosemite. The funniest part of that trip was running into one of Mady's Girl Scout friends. We realized that day how small our world really is. We just happened to pick a very small, secluded beach to stop at because there was only one other family there. The family ended up being her friend. The kids spent the day playing in the lake on rafts while Scott and I enjoyed relaxing on the sand.

We ended our vacation with a short visit to San Francisco. We had so much fun there and plan to take another trip so we can see more. We drove in on the Bay Bridge (this is the one that collapsed during the earthquake many years ago). Needless to say that scared me a lot. We also drove across the Golden Gate Bridge. We decided to take a drive to Golden Gate Park and stumbled on the King Tut exhibit. This was truly spectacular. I am so glad we found this because it was something Scott and I both learned about in school and something the kids will eventually learn themselves. Both kids loved the exhibit but Mady was the most drawn to it. There were ten rooms to visit and she read everything on each exhibit. She was completely fascinated by what they were able to create so long ago. The rest of our time in SF was spent walking through the streets and enjoying the BEST hot fundge sundae we have ever had!

Our 2009 vacation was another adventure we were able to take as a family. We had such an amazing time making some incredible memories together. We laughed so much during out trip. The best part was being able to do all of it together!

Our Crazy Life

Sometimes life gets away from us. I often wonder where the last 36 years have gone. I have been blessed with an amazing husband and two incredible children. The four of us try and make life an adventure each day. We only have one shot at things so we make the best of every opportunity. I hope to stay on top of this blog and keep it up to date with many stories from our family.

Stay tuned....