A Long Weekend in California (The Beach)

Wednesday night we left for Southern California. It's going to be hard picking from over 800 pictures so be patient with me. Since I don't have all of my pictures I am going to post just a few of the ones that I do have.

Here are some of my favorites from Saturday at Huntington Beach. The kids have been asking that we take them to the ocean so they could play in the water. (In years past we have only let them walk on the pier LOL!) They had so much fun and absolutely loved the ocean. They giggle each time a wave would come and push them around. I wanted to wait a couple of years before we took them to Hawaii but Paul thinks they are ready. We will see.

Emma loving the beach

Andrew still has most of the beach stuck in his swim shirt

Emma loved the sand too (Poor baby with a farmer's tan)

A lot

Andrew wanted to get in on the action

I've been wanting to do this for a while...

so I'm finally getting around to it. I want to do a Product Review every once in a while. I like to try new things and get very excited when I stumble upon something great. I will now be passing that excitement on to you!

This is a dip that Karin had at our BYU party a couple of weekends ago. It is fabulous. Everyone that was there liked it. Paul likes it on a Wheat Thin and I prefer it on a Triscuit. It would also be fab on a toasted slice of baguette. It can be found at Costco near their Mango Salsa and things like that. It cost somewhere between eight and nine dollars. I was asked to go two towns over to get some on Saturday before the BYU game against Tulane. I think it is now going to be a football snack necessity.

Hey, I just noticed looking at the picture that is says great heated. Hmmm. We haven't tried that because it was so dang good cold. I bet it would be awesome warm though. See, now I'm getting all excited again.

I'm not going to pretend that this is good for you. Let's get real, it is mostly cheese in a mayo base. (Don't let that scare you. Paul hates mayo and loves this.) Eat it in moderation, serve it at a party or eat it all but don't get mad at me when you gain a bunch of weight! I hope you that if you try this you will enjoy it as much as we do.

Flag Duties

At the kids' school one person from each of the four sixth grade classes is selected to put up and take down the flag. This is a real honor and Emma was thrilled to have been chosen. Their duties last one week. Today was the last day for her. Of course I had to go and take pictures. There was no adult supervision. It wasn't needed. They had been taught the etiquette and they took great care and consideration to make sure that the flag was treated properly. It was a bit of a challenge to keep it from touching the ground since it was quite windy today but they kept the flag safe. I really appreciated the devotion the kids had for their duties and for their flag.

We Will Never Forget

Thank you to everyone who is still fighting to keep us safe.

May I Brag?

I do these pages to earn free kits over and Weeds and Wildflower Designs. Well for that reason and for the satisfaction of finishing a project that I started. W&W took a good part of the summer off but I kept up! The whole summer is due this week and I'm ready. Can a leopard change it's spots? Am I working through my procrastination issues? I certainly hope so.

How Can it Get Any Better?

Thank goodness for Tivo because they all start tonight. I put my $5 in the Pea Pot for Survivor. Gosh I hope I win again. The Amazing Race is right around the corner. How can it get any better? I love me some fall TV.

It's that time again

On the Road to Wolf

WHY IS THIS UNDERLINED?????

Grrr. Sometimes blogger puts me in a really foul mood.

One of the things Andrew still needed to do to earn his Wolf was help me plan and prepare a meal. He wanted fried chicken, rice and carrots.

He helped mix up the flour and seasonings (boy was he messy) and then he shook it all up for me.

Yes I realize he looks creepy in the picture. I don't know what he was thinking. This was right before he shook it all up.

He peeled the carrots (just when I thought he couldn't get any messier he does this! I actually cussed when I saw it.)

and poured in the stuff for the rice. He set the table and helped clear the dishes. He was pretty proud of himself.

Incase you didn't know...

yesterday BYU beat OU 14-13. We had our second annual BYU football kick-off party. This year we had it next door at Karen and Cameron's house. There were 13 adults, too many kids to count and tons of food. Maggie and Robb smoked a brisket for us and it was awesome! There was so much good food. We also had a bunch of munchies to snack on during the game and almost 10 pounds of cake. The game was intense. There was so much yelling and cheering going on we thought for sure that we wouldn't have a voice left today. We even had a belly bump courtesy of Paul and Cameron. Good times were had by all. We are so excited to go to the rest of the games. Go Cougars!

Here is a portion of our group.

Chandler, Max, Emma and Andrew

Cameron and Paul

Some of the munchies.

The cake!

Here is Martina really getting into it. Her parents were here visiting from the Czech Republic. They were all decked out in BYU gear and got a pretty big kick out of the Americans getting crazy over football.

I love me some Max

Andrew, Max and Cosmo

Max/Cosmo? Who can tell!

Poor OU.

Final 14-13 BYU!

Fishing with Grandpa

I had asked my parents if they would come down so my dad could give Andrew a fishing lesson. There is a cub scout patch that he wants to earn and he needs to do all the activities associated with fishing to earn it. This also gives him more arrow points (if he ever earns his Wolf) and a belt loop!

They came on Friday. We were going to go up to the Provo river but then switch to Tibble Fork Reservoir at the last minute. I was more than okay with that because I love the AF canyon so much.

They started with a casting lesson in the backyard.

We got up to Tibble Fork and it was beautiful.
It took a long time to get everything set and ready to go so I took pictures.
Of everything.
The kids were really into what grandpa was teaching them.

I'm still taking pictures.
We could see the fish. They were everywhere. They were jumping out of the water to eat bugs, they were swimming near the shore and my guess is they were looking at us and laughing
because this is all we ever caught. Lots and lots of moss.
The kids got a lot of casting practice.

I was getting really hungry and tired. It wasn't long before Andrew was hungry too. We officially gave up on catching a fish. We went to a picnic area and had a weenie roast before heading home. The kids kept saying that they had a lot of fun even if they didn't catch anything. They really want to try again.