Saturday, March 27, 2010

Egg time!

Some girls got together at the park and had an egg hunt. The kids loved it. Seriously though, who wouldn't love running around a park finding brightly colored plastic eggs filled with candy!! Joy for all, including me who got to snack on the candy later when they were playing on the playground. The Grimmers happened to be here for a visit so Samantha and Savannah got to hang out and wear tutus together. They looked quite adorable!
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Checking out the goods
Creed ate any random jelly beans or peanut m & ms he found that had dropped on the ground. He was in heaven.

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Creed was so excited with all the yummy candy!

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Don't even think about taking this egg away from me!!
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Savvy's field trip!!

On Thursday Savannah's class went on a Field Trip to the Skirball Museum in Los Angeles. Nicole had volunteered to go and was really looking forward to it. On Wednesday night Nicole was on call and ended up being at the hospital throughout the night. When I woke up to go to work she still wasn't home. So when she appeared at the door a few minutes later, I told her that I would go so that she could sleep. So daddy got to go and play with all the fun little kids pictured above. The whole thing was a blast, though the bus ride back got a little loud and crazy.
This was the inside room of the Ark. They had three separate rooms, each depicting a part of the story of Noah's Ark. The entry into the Ark. The walls were painted with dark clouds and the kids were able to play with different machines that made lightning and thunder, rain, and a wind machine. Then there was the inside of the ark room, pictured above, where the kids played with all the animals and even got to sweep up some fake animal dung. Yea! The last room depicted the exiting of the ark. The walls were painted as blue sky with birds flying, and from time to time a rainbow appeared on the wall. In the final room, the kids celebrated with all the animals that the great flood had ended.
This is one of the walls from the third room, or exit of the ark. Why don't my kids walls look like that?
Some of the animals peering out the windows of the ark out into the new world. All of the animals were made from other items. Some of the things used to make the animals were brooms, golf balls, ropes, forks, bicycle handle bars and many many others. It was really cool.
This is supposed to be the dove that returned with an olive branch.
This was the group that I was in charge of, the mighty Elephants. Hopefully I get their names right. From L-R. Heath, Savannah, Marie, Charlie, Zaki, Dayla, Richie.
Here is sweet Savannah on the bus in front of her school. She actually fell asleep with her head on my lap on the way to the museum. It was nice. Like I said before, the ride home, not so nice. All in all though it was a great little trip with Savvy and I'm glad that I had the chance to go.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Dad's camping adventures

As of Saturday, March 20th, it's officially spring. I love spring, especially here in Southern California. The weather has been in the 60's and 70's and we were lucky enough to get a lot of rain during February, making everything green and alive. So now all I want to do is to go camping. Luckily, I can do just that. Nicole hasn't had the privilege of going out with us yet but I'm sure I'll go enough times to be able to get her out there once in awhile. Two weekends ago, I took the kids to Carpinteria State Beach. I love this beach and we all had a great time. There were two problems however. The first was the super obnoxious camp ranger lady. I had just finished jacking the trailer up, setting up the sides and getting all of the interior put together when wonder cop rolls up and advised me that I had to move my trailer back. I walked to the front of the trailer to look at what she was talking about. For those of you who have not been beach camping in Cali, just know that they pack you in like flippin sardines! The front of my trailer was, and I'm not exagerating, about one foot past the little white painted marker on the ground. "When this place gets filled up, this road gets really narrow and hard to manuver on" she said. Well, is it going to get really filled up this weekend? because at the time of my asking it was about 4:00 pm and there were three other campers out of a possible 160 spots or so. "That doesn't matter, I told you to move your trailer back, so you need to do it now!" Yes maam I said. I then had to drop the trailer off it's supports, fold in the end of the trailer, re-hook up the trailer to the van and move it one foot back. Wow! That ended up wasting half an hour which sucked. Then, I grabbed Savannah's bike, hooked the bike trailer to my bike and we headed off down the road winding our way through the camp ground. We had made it almost one loop before I had been yelled at by four different people about how my daughter needed a helmet. Not camp ragers or camp directors, just random people who were very concerned about my daughters safety. So our bike riding didn't last too long. Instead we just walked down along the beach and collected some really nice sea shells, which we kept even though I know that I was taking possible future homes for hermit crabs. Boo hoo! All in all a great camping trip.

Two weeks later, being this past weekend, Nicole threw her BFF a baby shower. So knowing that she would want the house to be clean, and knowing that that is impossible with kids around, I used that as an excuse to go out again with the kids. This time we headed to Ventura Ranch KOA. I think this is the first time I have been back to a KOA since my grandparents used to take Shannon and I when we were kids. I still remember the Snake River KOA just outside of Jackson Hole, Wyoming and how fun it was to stay there. Especially this one time when I found a water snake swimming across the Snake River. When it reached the side, I picked it up and threw it back into the river. It swam back to shore and I threw it back into the river. I must have thrown that snake back into the river five or six times before I got bored and let it come to shore. This...was not that KOA. This KOA was previously Far West RV resort and had just been purchased by KOA less than a month ago. Most KOA campgrounds come with playground equipment, a swimming pool, laundry facilities, game areas, activities for families with kids, etc. This one had a hand full of peacocks and that was about it. It was nice though, no loud teenagers or twenty somethings drinking and acting like fools. Just quiet old people in their $100,000-$350,000 motor homes and fifth wheels. The kids just chased the peacocks and baby rabbits and Savannah swears she saw a snake (unfortunately for her though there was no big wide river to torture the snake with).
Some think I'm crazy wanting to take the kids camping without Nicole, but I just love being with the kids and being out in nature makes it easier for me to interact with them all.




This was just after Cole and Creed woke up. About 6:15 in the morning. Surprisingly for some, this isn't an early morning for our family. Just about normal.


As you can see in this picture, Creed just hates going camping!
Savannah and Cole spent tons of time just climing this hill and sliding down it. This was also where Savannah said she saw the snake.
Dinner time at the campground consists of hotdogs and chips. Daddy doesn't cook when it's just me and the kids. Trust me though, the kids do not mind.
Savannah just learned how to ride her bike the weekend before I took them to Carpinteria. She is a little pro, always going too fast and I swear she has no fear!
This is our tent trailer! If you are ever in the market for a trailer, I am a huge fan of tent trailers. When they are set up, they actually have more sleeping room than most large campers and fifth wheels. Ours has two king size beds on either end and two additional full sized beds. Best investment I've made in a long long time. So many good family memories will be made in this puppy!
Savvy on her bike
This is one of the many peacocks that were at Ventura Ranch KOA.
Another view of the peacock. It was not too worried about me, but wouldn't take it's eyes off of Savannah. Don't blame him.

This was the morning from Carpinteria.
Poor Creed stuck in the stroller the whole time. Once he finally learns how to walk I'll let him out. But not until then. That is his motivation and yet still no walking.
This is a picture from our camp site to the ocean. You can also see how small the sites are.
Cole and Savannah enjoying themselves by the campfire.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Our baby

Creed is one! Well 13 months. So we took him to take his 1 year pics a couple weeks ago. Also took him for his yearly check-up
he is 17 lbs 3 oz
30.5 inches
I know he is pint sized. But oh so cute! I discovered something new he loves today. Whole oranges. It was a gorgeous 70 degree nice and breezy day today so we decided to set up the jump house for the first time this year. Creed was crawling around the backyard and when I wasn't paying attention he had picked an orange and eaten about half the peel off. I picked another one and peeled it for him. He went crazy for it. He ate 2 big ones before getting tired of it. He also loves getting into cupboards and pulling things out. Another of his favorites is taking laundry out of the dirty clothes hamper in my closet and filling the toilet up with them. With all these fun things to do around here who needs toys!! he is a very busy and happy baby and we love him SO much!







Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Solvang

Our baby pirate


They had the coolest park with all these wooden houses. The kids went crazy

Cole was crying in this picture because he wanted to ride the horses
We got to the ranch before it opened so we weren't able to go in. We just stood on the outside and watched the little mini horses.
The mini horse ranch
Twins!
This is Mike's new enemy. He only got her backside. When we were eating the breakfast buffet and our kids were the only ones, she kept giving us dirty stares. C'mon now, he is 1, expect a little food on the ground. Well by little I mean about 3 bagels and 2 cups of cereal. Please I deal with it everyday, and i don't even get paid!


Our own personal patio with jacuzzi! It made us really want to get one of our own. We ordered pizza that night and ate it around the jacuzzi. It even rained a little. It felt so good!

Getting ready to go hot tubbing!
Take a picture of me sitting on this bench!!
before we upgraded to the cottage this was our room. We decided we needed the cottage because we really wanted a jacuzzi.
Here is the Wine Valley Inn we stayed at, classic Solvang style.

We have been sick and tired of being cooped up in the house for so long with 3 sick kids on and off, we decided to drive up to Solvang and spend the night for a quick getaway. We stayed at a gorgeous inn that had these adorable cottages. Ours had one bedroom/ bathroom upstairs and a living room fireplace kitchen downstairs. It was so cute!