Double digits

Justin will be the first one to tell you he is now the age of double digits! Last Friday (July 23rd) Justin turned 10. I'm still a little weirded by that thought, but he's excited. Thursday we drove to Huntington Beach and spent the night. His Grandma and Grandpa Winn had a cake for him and gave him his present. We left on Friday morning and then Friday evening we went to Grandma Sumidas and he collected some more money. He's been very anxious to save all his money to buy his very own netbook so he can play Club Penguin whenever he wants to. He was a little short, so we loaned him some money and he is now a proud owner of a laptop. Woo hoo!

Because this is an 'even year' it was the year for a friends party. He chose to rent out a movie theater and watch "The Lightning Thief" with just a few friends. They had a great time running around during the movie and being crazy in between eating popcorn and actually watching the movie. He got a skateboard from his best friend, Hunter, and was very excited about that. He's doing really good with it now too. Unfortunately, it's become the source of many fights being that his brother and sister are wanting a turn all the time. I see two more skateboards in our future.

Happy double digits birthday, Justin! 10 years ago you made your dad and me a couple of the happiest parents in the world and you haven't stopped! XOXO

Great weather, good times

On Wednesday we had planned to go to the pool, but when we got up it was cloudy and too gloomy, so we came up with Plan B. We headed over to Old Town and went to the Children's Museum. It was a lot of fun. The kids loved the hands on scientific stuff and playing around. The weather turned out to be absolutely perfect, so we decided to walk around Old Town for a bit and also grab some ice cream. It was a very fun, last minute decision! (excuse the blurriness. They were taken with my phone and the lens had a finger print on it!)

Summer vacation

We took a short trip this summer. Being that our summer break itself is only 8 weeks and Kirk doesn't get paid if he doesn't work, we opted for a 6 day trip in our trailer to Pismo Beach for a beach vacation. You know, easy...just go to the beach every day and play their hearts out. Doesn't get much better than that, right? Well, this summer has been quite chilly and the weather along the beach was even cold. But let me back up a bit.

We started out with a bang. The trailer was all packed up, everyone had used the restroom and Justin went out to help Kirk hook it up to the truck. A few minutes later he came in with a cut on his chin that obviously warranted a trip to urgent care for some stitches. Kirk was teaching him how to use the drill to retract the levels and it kicked back hard and hit him in the chin slicing it open. Luckily it wasn't real deep or too large and the urgent care wasn't too busy. It only put us back just under 2 hours. Before the doctor let us go she informed us that he needed to keep it as clean as possible and dry. Dry? What? I don't think we heard you! :-) We arrived and set up camp and headed straight to the beach...a very cold beach. It seemed when the sun came out it just got colder. The kids braved it the first day, but every day after our beach time got shorter and shorter. (of course baseball was part of our trip. Can our kids go anywhere without playing baseball?) The highs were only about 62 and windy and the water just wasn't very warm. So much for a warm beach vacation. As you can see we bundled up while watching the kids play and even Devin was too cold and got bundled up to wait until we could walk back and get in warm clothes. We made due with bike rides to the pier (where we made friends with a pelican), playing in the park in the campground, driving our truck along the ocean just because we could and it was something none of us had done before, a drive to San Luis Obispo to walk in the mission just to see what it looks like, bean bag toss, playing Wii in the trailer,, making braclets, eating, going to the pool a couple of days, going to the driving range to hit balls (Devin absolutely loved this and was so good and quiet. Kirk is going to start taking him and Justin more) and of course smores every night.

On the last evening we went out in a Hummer and rode the sand dunes just down the beach from us. These pictures don't do it justice of just how huge the hills really are or how rough it is. Avery still says she hated it, Devin didn't like it at the time and kept asking to go back, but now says he changed his mind and liked it and wants to do it again and Justin, Kirk and I liked it, but agree it was way too rough and we don't think we'd care to do it again. It was amazing, though, how those vehicles get around in those sand dunes. It was a pretty hairy roller coaster ride and Devin now has no more excuses not to want to do that little one in Mickey's Toon Town at Disneyland. If he can survive that Hummer ride, he can do a rollercoaster! It was crazy! I think their favorite part was when our guide let them get out and run up and down the huge dune hills.

It was a really fun time all in all and wouldn't you know it - it warmed up just in time for us to get home. It is about 100 degress now and from what I understand it was only in the low 80's while we were away (very mild for us this time of year).

These are just a few more pictures that I didn't know where to place them. This is Kirk putting up our new "happy lights" we bought on this trip.

This is just a picture of life basically. Whenever Devin has the opportunity he's on my lap.

We were on the go a lot and up late every night and Devin was pretty tired by each afternoon. One day he actually fell asleep in the middle of all the noise. Just crashed out.

Almost home...