Hop, soak, dance and paint!

So if you haven't noticed, I'm having a hard time keeping up with my posts.  For one, it's about impossible to transfer my photos from my phone (the only camera I use these days) to the computer and then get them from the computer to this site and sit down and write out the post.  And I love blogging!  I've been printing out our blog into books every year for a few years now and we love looking back through them and laughing, remember all our fun times.  If it weren't for this blog, we would have no idea what we did last month, let alone last year!  But I'm going to keep plugging on and keep documenting, two months behind or not.  Anyway, last April, Ty had his last Hop-a-thon with all his classmates.

Ty had a great time and this year he got to participate twice since they did it on Tuesday and Wednesday.  The first day he jumped 504 times and even more the next day!  He loved it and just kept jumping.  Here's Ty and Blaine, good buddies who bring out the competition in each other.  I think that's why Ty had a record high number of jumps!

Ty raised over $60 for the school and won 4 tickets to the Maritime Museum downtown.  Can't wait to go!

Since I'm so slow at blogging, I have to throw in random pictures whenever I get the chance.  So here's a picture of a heron, or something like that, that was walking by Grandma's home here in SD.  A beautiful bird and Ty was so excited and kept pointing!  The bird walked down the path and left but what an amazing sight!

Another day, when I was picking Ty up from school, he asked if we could go home and have a foot bath.  Why not!  So we pulled out the foot bath and he enjoyed a good soak after a fun filled day at school. :)

Our friends up the street have a beautiful pool and spa in their backyard and they were so nice to text and invite Tatum and I over for some wine and a dip.  Well, wine for me and a dip for Tatum.  Here's her with CJ and Destiny.  These girls are hilarious and get along really well.  So fun!  We have lots of plans of hanging at this pool through the hot summer.

It was Jacquie's birthday so we all got together for a delicious meal of sushi at our neighbors restaurant.  He hooked us up!  We had a wonderful time catching up since some of these people don't get together very often.  Here's from left, Kelly, Sara, me, Jacquie and Dana.

Garrett and I drove down from Costco on a back road one day and saw this track.  A few days later, when Garrett was at work and Tatum was in school, Ty and I took his remote control car and checked it out.  So fun!  It's on the property of a business but they said please feel free to use it anytime and it was awesome!  It's hard to keep control of the car, kind of like a car video game, but we'll have to go back and practice some more. 

Last October, we got notice that Cinderella was going to be preformed in April at the Junior Theater in Balboa Park.  Tatum couldn't wait!  We bought tickets and invited Shauna and Grandma to go too.  Poor Tatum had a head ache that day, we never figured out what caused it, but thank goodness, as the show began, she said it went away.  As we were driving there, she said, "It's not going to be silent like the Nutcracker, right?" and I said oh no, not at all, this is a play.  I said this because not long ago we went to the same location and saw Beauty and the Beast with Shauna and it was a wonderful play.  I assumed this show was going to be the same.  But as soon as the curtains parted and the ballerinas came out, I knew we were in trouble.  It turned out to be a ballet, not a play. :(  Oops, and a long 1 1/2 hours later, Tatum said, "I told you it was going to be silent!".  Lesson learned and we headed over to The Prado for a glass of wine before Shauna had to get back to her little puppy Sage.  It was fun to get out and dress up but no more ballets for us!

And on the artistic note, Shauna and I decided to purchase a Paint Night through a deal site where for $25, you can go to a restaurant and have a 2 hour paint instruction with all supplies provided, and enjoy some drinks and dinner.  Here's Tara and Noelle who joined us.

We had a wonderful time and enjoyed the lesson!  The food was great as well as the wine, double bonus!

And here's our finished products!  We all decided where we'd be hanging them.  Either above the cat box, in the storage unit, or a coat closet. :)  But we had lots of laughs and lots of fun!

The Flower Fields

A few of the Beaston's were in town, as well as Loriann and her two children, so we decided to head over to the Flower Fields in Carlsbad and check out the spring flowers.  Here's Tatum, Ty and Cassie. 

It was really sunny, as you can see from Ty's expression, so it was hard to get any pictures with eyes open.  The kids were handed a scavenger hunt where they had to find all the stamp locations and stamp their cards.  They loved it!

Me and my babies.

The view was beautiful and the day was clear and not too cold.

Shauna and the kids.

These three got along so well, it was wonderful.

My sweet fairy and my sneaky gnome.

When they completed their scavenger hunt and got all the stamps, they could take it over to this panning area where it was only $3 to pan for jewels.  They picked a bucket of sand, poured it into this sifter...

and they had jewels!  The kids loved this and the guide gave them names for all the different stones.  Garrett, Rick and Michael finished golf about the time we finished at the flower fields, so we grabbed In n Out and headed back to Shauna's place to hang with her new puppy Sage.  I wish I'd got a picture of her, too cute!

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day started with getting dressed in as much green as possible and heading to school.  Here's Tatum with her friends Kailey, Sophie and Addison.  The girls were so excited because some of them had made a Leprachan trap and set it up in the classroom.  They were hoping they'd caught a Leprachan over the weekend!

When they got into the classroom, there was a note left with treats on the table about different activities they would be doing.

Also, the traps were all turned over and everything was in disarray!  Someone's trap was on another's desk, someone's sweater was on the teacher's desk!  Craziness!

Grandma came by later that afternoon to hang with Ty so I could have my first Pho lunch with school friends.  Delicious!

Then it was a traditional St. Patrick's Day meal prepared by Grandma.  Corn beef and cabbage with potatoes, delicious.  And of course, green wine!

Grandma brought these fun cups for the kids, they loved having their milk out of these.

And Garrett enjoyed his green beer!  Lots of fun!

Del Mar Camping trip

We were so lucky to be invited by Lisa Finley and family to camp with them in the Del Mar military campground.  We'd never been before of course and since the Finley's are active military, they got first dips on the camping spots and secured spots 0 to 4 for all of us, right on the beach!  We got there late Friday and all the families had their own dinner plans.  But after everyone set up, ate and got the fire pit roaring, the kids settled down in front of this awesome beach theater!  We brought our wonderful collection of movies, courtesy of Papa Rick, and the kids had a blast!

The next morning everyone was up and working hard in the sand.  There were lots of kids since there were 5 families, I think the kids outnumbered the parents.  12 kids to 10 parents!

The girls got busy flying kites...

while the boys got busy digging a deep hole, for battle of course. :)

And the parents got busy with breakfast.  We enjoyed egg burritos, fruit and lots of champagne.  Here's Lisa and Matt popping open the bubbly!

Kids ate first and then we're off to play...

and then it was the parents turn.  Love the red cups!  From left, Matt, Leslie, Lisa, Jeff, Selvin, Kristen, Katie, and us!

Camping is truly one of my favorite things to do, and even more fun with you're with a great group of people. 

After breakfast, the military rode by in huge tanks so we had to get a closer look. The drove back by and went down to a large pond area where they were rocket the tanks into the water and turn on the jets and they'd float and motor around the water!  Ty thought it was amazing.  We had to ask both kids to put their hands over their ears since the military guys were doing a lot of yelling and scolding of their team, hard knocks life in the military! :)

Later in the day, Katie had organized some activities for the kids.  There was an egg hunt...

obviously she loved this....

and he loved the candy.

Katie also painted the back side of puzzle sets, two different colors, and then Garrett and I hid the pieces according to a list of clues Katie had made for each team.  The kids would gather the puzzle pieces and when they were all gathered, the team that assembled their puzzle first won! 

The kids loved this and it kept them busy for quite awhile.  After a delicious dinner, lots of drinks, laughs around the camping fire and a peaceful nights sleep, we all packed up and headed out the next morning.  I didn't even get a picture of Garrett on his birthday!  He was the birthday boy on Saturday and enjoyed his relaxing day.  What a wonderful camping trip!!!

Rhys' choo choo birthday party and Parker's farm birthday party!

First stop, Rhys' choo choo birthday party at Old Poway Park.  Look at this big 2 year old!  Susan and Matt did an awesome job putting this party together with delicious food and lots of fun. 

The party included a ride on the trolley so all aboard!  Here's Ty, Tatum and Blaine ready for the ride.

We were so excited to get to sit up front!

These three are too cute.  Bros forever!

Here we are, waving at some family members of Rhys' who stayed to catch this picture as the trolley went by.  Such a fun party!

We had to rush off though because we were meeting our tenants at our rental to discuss backyard plans.  Afterwards, Mom and I headed to Pacific Beach to return some shoes she bought and then decided to grab a drink.  It was so busy down in PB that we finally found a spot to sit at the third bar we went to.  Not long did we have this nice boy come over and ask if he could buy us some shots.  We laughed and said shots didn't mix well with our white wine but we enjoyed a long conversation with this guy and his buddies.  Us ladies still got it! :)  After our socializing, we headed to Wine Steals for delicious pizza and more wine.  A fun Mom and Daughter night out!

The next morning, while Garrett golfed, I took the kids to Parker's 4th birthday party at a small farm in Encinitas.  Here's Ty and Tatum greeting their beloved friend Keira. :)

And here's Keira's brother Tyler loving some horse play. :)

The kids loved all the horses and even pet their noses!

They also couldn't get enough of the horse rides so here they all are, in line, over and over again, for another ride on the little ponies.

They look like naturals!  Ty asked if we could get one.  Hmmmmm... that could help with our weed issue out back. :)

Here's the birthday boy enjoying his apple cobbler cake!  Leave it to Ty to say to me, "Where's the real cake with frosting?!" :)

Before we left, we went inside to check out some more of their animals, like this cute little bunny,...

and the guinea pigs.  Tatum could have sat here all day.  She loved this little orange guinea pig and of course, asked if she could have one too.  No caged animals for us!

Both of them loved this and sat here for quite awhile.  If this is what it takes to get them to sit still, maybe we need two guinea pigs. :)  Um, no.