Fourth of July

We had a fun, relaxing Fourth of July. We kicked things off with flag pancakes - blueberry stars and red sprinkle stripes. They are easy, yummy, and festive.

I was happy that I actually remembered to use our patriotic table cloth. I usually forget.

After lunch we headed over to the beach. It was pretty crowded, but we managed to get good parking, a BBQ and 2 picnic tables right on the beach. The kids swam and had a great time.

The only bad thing about the crowds was the bathrooms. It felt like Levi and I spent half the time waiting in line.

After dinner we drove the little kids (Brennan, Levi, Chloe and Luke) home and watched fireworks online.

 

Meanwhile, Spencer, Tyler and Dallin stayed and watched fireworks in Cayucos with their cousins. They had a huge adventure and told us it was the best Fourth of July ever!

Cub Scout Day Camp: A Galactic Adventure!

The week after our family reunion was cub scout day camp. This was Dallin's second year, and he LOVED it. Plus Spencer got to be his den chief, which was awesome. 

I helped run the skills station one day, and it was a lot of fun. Spencer said that was always the most boring station (they do things like first aid and bike safety), so we tried to make it cool. We had communications, and I had the idea of using some kind of tube to play telephone. My friend Amy took that idea and came up with something amazing. She bought 200 feet of electric conduit and had her husband cut it up into pieces and bend some of them into all kinds of fun shapes. Then the scouts put them together with couplings to form super long tubes.

 

 

They took turns talking into one end and listening on the other. It worked great!

Shooting BB guns was definitely a highlight. They especially liked how it was organized this year. Half their group shot BB guns while the other half did archery, then they switched. That way they got to do both things every day, and there was no boring waiting.

 

Spencer loved how he got to do everything the cubs did while still being in charge. He also got to shoot during lunch every day.

Dallin got an award for shooting a bull's eye in archery.  

 

Friday was a half day, and then they invited all the families to join them for skits, awards and lunch.

 

Here's their whole den. After helping out that one day, I could see that they definitely had the BEST den of the whole camp. The Tiger cubs (6 and 7 year olds) were cute but needed lots of help and cried easily. The oldest boys were more competent but didn't listen or follow directions. These kids rocked!

Spencer kicked off the ceremony by leading a repeat-after-me song, Baby Bumblebee. He was super loud and energetic. It was hilarious.

Then each den came up and gave us their den yell. "We are the Apollo! We will lead and you will follow!" 

Their den did a bunch of run-on, mini skits between each of the other dens' skits. Dallin did one with his friend Mason. They were in the same den this year, yay!

Then they handed out awards. I was SO glad I left Levi and Chloe home with Jacob this year. It went on for hours, and they would have gone nuts!

It was a much smaller group this year - just 80 cub scouts, as opposed to the usual 120. I don't know why it was like that, but I liked it better.

After the awards was lunch, which was horrible. It was the worst hot dog I've ever eaten. I wasn't even going to get one, but I had an extra ticket since Levi didn't go. Then the fire department came to spray everyone.

 

This is always SO fun for the boys. They did it a lot more the last couple of years when it was super hot, but they did it just once this year. We really lucked out with the weather - it was in the mid-upper 80's all week!

 

Dallin was sad to see the week come to an end. He really thought it should have been 2 weeks long.

Tyler was totally bummed about being too old for day camp this year. I might volunteer the whole week next year so he can volunteer too. We love day camp!!!

Tiny But Mighty

My boys have been begging me to have their own blog for awhile. I even helped them set one up last summer, but we never finished. They even forgot how to access it. So today they finished setting it up and wrote their very first post. They are excited for people to read their blog. Enjoy!

http://tiny-butmighty.blogspot.com/

Father's Day, Piñatas

We got together for Father's day, when Emily's family was still here. We each made our hubbies' favorite dessert: I made apple crisp, Kristen made oatmeal cake, and Emily made pecan pie.

 Then we broke out the piñatas we never got around to doing at the reunion.

 I love these three goofballs. They crack each other up!

                                                                                                  

 

The older kids were blindfolded, which isn't nearly as good for pictures.

Then I took some pictures of Christopher's friend, Valerie. Isn't she cute?

Family Reunion: Friday and Saturday

Alas, I only took three pictures on Friday - and this is the best one! It started out rough for us because Dave and Brennan were both sick. Some of us moms walked to the park with a slew of kids in the morning, and we all went to Kristen's house for lunch, jewelry-making and ping pong in the afternoon. Then everyone went over to my parents' house to Skype Ben and Barbara, who weren't able to come. I didn't make it there because I was checking on the sickies at home. And low and behold, Dave was all better! This was great news, because then he was able to join us for the evening's festivities. We hired babysitters for the little kids while everyone 8 and up (or so) went to the Melodrama in Oceano. It was a ton of fun, and my boys kept asking why we don't go there more often. They loved it from the moment we were in line to buy our food and all the actors sang to us and made jokes. After the play we lingered in the parking lot for awhile, saying goodbye and not wanting the reunion to end.

Most people left Saturday morning, but Emily's family stayed a couple more days, and Ellen and Jason left their kids for a week so they could go to Philadelphia and clean out their storage unit. Those of us remaining went to Morro Bay Saturday afternoon. 

 The younger kids played at the park while the older ones caught hermit crabs in the bay.

There's Chloe's little whale spout pony tail. She usually pulls it out as soon as she can, but it keeps her hair out of her eyes in the meantime.

After a quick stop at the Shell Shop (we can't go to Morro Bay without going there), we drove over to the sand dunes by the rock and took pictures of everyone jumping off. This was great fun, and we had to pull ourselves away to get back in time for dinner.

 Check out those long legs!

 Our little beach babies!

 

 

And my favorite jumping picture of the day...

 

 Have you ever seen Nathan looking so crazy and relaxed? Yay for vacations!!