Our night out

A couple of weekends ago Kirk and I got away for an evening at the Hollywood Bowl to see Carrie Underwood. We had great box seats and had a great time! She was really good in concert and I just love the Hollywood Bowl. The traffic to get out of there leaves a lot to be desired (which we had completely forgotten about since it's been so many years since we were last there), but it still was a lot of fun!

Excuse the blurry pictures above. Oops!

No more swimming

Devin had his last swimming lesson last week. It had been getting increasingly more difficult to get him out the door each week. I think that since school started it was just too much. After coaxing him out the door each week and really kind of fighting with him to go, I gave in. Well, at least he can swim now. And I do plan on putting him back in around April or so just to brush up on his skills to make it a more safe and fun summer next year. You'd never know he was tired of it when looking at the picture above, would you? Silly boy. :-)

Kirk, Mark and Vegas

Well, I don't have any photos for this post because it's about Kirk...and he doesn't tend to take pictures. But last week he and his brother headed to Vegas for Mark's 50th birthday. As a gift to his brother, Kirk did some work on a friends house in return for some golf packages. Those golf packages included $200 worth of food at one of the courses! So, they left Sunday morning and stopped in Prim to golf and have lunch and then headed to Las Vegas where they stayed at the Venetian (Mark's wife's gift to him...thus to us too :-)). They golfed the next 2 days and had a nice time. Of course when I asked him how he did he wasn't too thrilled. He never is. He has high expectations of himself, but they did have a good time and I'm happy they were able to get away together. Kirk works very hard and deserves a get-away here and there.

Mini recital

Justin's 6 week hip hop class is coming to an end, so Friday night they showed us the little routine they had been practicing. So cute! Those kids had such a great time! Most the pictures turned out blurry, so I'm only posting one.

Just for Linda

Hey, look who is playing together! We did it. Are you proud of us? Tee hee. So, for those that don't understand the little inside joke, my cousin's son and his family live here in Temecula. They have 3 children, 2 of which are Avery's and Devin's ages, and live only about 10 minutes from us. 10 minutes must be pretty far because we never see each other unless we run into each other at Disneyland or get together with family in another state. It's become quite the joke. So, Tandy and I decided to request their Lexi and our Avery be on the same team this season for soccer because then we'd be sure to at least see each other during practices and games. So, today was a game and Braeden and Lexi finally came home with us for a few hours to play. The kids had a great time (except maybe for poor Braeden who had to listen to Devin get in trouble quite often for various things). Lexi and Avery weren't ready to separate when Tandy came to get them so, as I write this Avery is over there continuing their play time. We really need to do this more often!!!!

Little Mev is 5!

We celebrated Devin's 5th birthday over the weekend. He turns 5 on September 14th (and happy birthday to Donna, too!). I won't go as far as saying the time has flown, because with this particular little guy it hasn't. :-) We love him a ton and I, for one, am happy to be at this phase of life. He has come a long way and continues to surprise us. He understands his world much more now and that makes things much easier.

His special day was spent with only family - my parents, Grandma Sumida, Uncle Mark, Aunt Sylvia and cousin Matthew. He got everything he wanted - a skateboard, DSi and a couple of games. He's excited to be 5 and celebrate it at school with popsicles too. Happy birthday, little Mev. We love you!

Love this picture. We are singing to him and he appears to be somewhat embarrassed. So cute!

Proud new owner of a DSi


So excited to have a skateboard of his very own.

This is what it has been like ever since he got his DSi. He just loves it!

Uncle Mark playing camping with the kids.

Hanging out.

Go #10!

Avery's team changed their name to The Purple Diva Girls and they had their first game yesterday. Although, they lost, Avery did a great job on her first ever game! She played forward twice, goalie once (her favorite) and was sub once. She even almost made a goal a couple of times. Should be a fun season!

This is her almost goal.

Labor Day Weekend

Of course we went camping over the long weekend. Is anyone surprised? Ha! We went down to a very nice campground in Chula Vista that's right on San Diego Bay. Our trailer backed up to this bike path that you see below with Justin and Kirk riding on. It was a beautiful view!
When we first arrived, and after we set up camp, we went on a little bike ride along the bike path, stopped to play on the playground

and before we knew it the kids were in the bay fully clothed and having a ball!

We then rode back to get cleaned up.


On Saturday we decided to drive down to the border and show the kids where Mexico is. They were thrilled to actually be able to see Mexico! They really thought it was the coolest thing. It's too bad times have changed so much and we couldn't actually enter Mexico. I know how much that would have impressed them. It's just not safe anymore. But we took a couple of pictures of the border and with Tijuana in the background.


We then took a drive onto Coronado Island and stopped to play at a little park on the bay over there. It was so beautiful and perfect weather!

Then we headed back to camp and went to play in the bay. It was actually pretty chilly, but they had a great time!

Sunday, the campground put on a great Labor Day party with lots of free things - a bouncy house, hot dogs, snow cones, cotton candy, popcorn, drinks, a tattoo parlor, games, etc. It was really fun and it was a highlight of our trip.

The rest of the time was spent hanging out at our campsite and playing catch and riding bikes. It was a fun time!