First Day of School

Today, all the boys started school. Is summer over? No, the boys are on a year round school schedule. Tylor is in the 6th grade, Kyle is in 1st grade and Ryan is in preschool in the afternoons. Tylor and Kyle let me drive them to school today. So I could take pictures of them. Here are to boys in front of their class rooms. Ryan had the kids camera and was taking pictures of the boys too, some are,.. well they're kid pictures from his perspective with fingers and what not in frame.
And they wanted me to take pictures of them getting off the bus in the afternoon.


So with Ryan in preschool I have 2 hours everyday to myself (what will I do). Today, I was able to talk to a friend on the phone with out anybody asking me questions. I talked longer then I though I had. With my time, I will most likely be helping out in all the boys classrooms during the time Ryan is in class. Ryan has already asked when I will help out in his classroom.





All the boys seemed to have a great day. I hope the energy can last all year long.

Day at the Beach

Family Reunion Camping on the beach

So every presidential election year James' extended family does a family reunion. It's always fun to see people you haven't seen for almost 1/2 a decade. So this time it was in Ventura CA, which by the way is a beautiful smaller city north of LA. The weather was ABSOLUTELY perfect, well almost. It was a little colder than we like, but then again we're Phoenicians who think that the summer should have lows in the 80's. Here's the only picture we took of setting up. As you can see Ryan's a big help to his uncle Jayson in setting up a tent.On Saturday the 19th we went over to the beach as a group. The boys borrowed boggie boards from James' cousin Clark. Here they are "having fun". Guess who had the most fun.

After a couple of hours swimming and playing on the beach we all got cleaned up and took a big family photo -we'll add a copy as soon as we get one from Poppie. Here's one of everyone getting ready and our boys playing... IN THE DIRT.

James took this photo, from standing in the line waiting for the cameras on timers to take the photo of all of us. That's his cousin Angie's husband and his dad (the boy's Poppie) running back.

We had a great time, and Nana and Poppie got elected to plan the next one, so we can only assume it'll be up in the great northwest, right...

Family Vacation - Disneyland

So last weekend we took a little family vacation. James' family (extended family) does a family reunion every four years and this time it was in Ventura CA (north of LA) so we meet his mom and dad and (some of) his brothers and sisters in Ontario (west of Riverside) the day before. We went early so we could surprise the kids with a day trip to DISNEYLAND! So early the next morning we got EVERYONE up in time to leave Pauline's house and get to Disneyland by 8 AM!!
Most of James' family came with us: Nana, Poppie, Michaelynn, Jayson, Joe, Rachel, Taylor (Rachel and Joe's daughter), Hailey and Zach (John and Misty's kids). James' sister GeorgAnnette couldn't make it as she's at design school in Boston MA, his brother John and his wife Misty couldn't make it but someone talked them into sending their kids for the weekend.
I have to say I love Disneyland. We got to the park when it opened at 8am and we did not leave the park until it closed at midnight! So, yes it was a very long, but absolutely fun day. The park was opened extra long because it was Disneyland's birthday. July 17, 1955, was opening day for the park, so we were there on it's 53rd birthday!

Here is (almost) everyone on the Mickey and Friends Tram, on the way to the park for the parking area. I guess the "cast member" who took the photo for us didn't realize we were as big of a group as we were. You take the tram because it would take too long to walk from the parking area and steal precious moments from being IN THE PARK.

Here are just a few of the pictures that we took around the park. The one picture that I should have taken was at the end of the day, when we were waiting for the laser light /fireworks show called "fantasmic". James was sitting on the ground with Ryan on his lap asleep (he'd been asleep for a little more than an hour) and then Taylor sat down next to him, then the next thing we know she's getting comfortable and is asleep too. Meanwhile Kyle was in the stroller ALSO asleep! NONE of them woke up during the show. And it was only Nana, James and I (everyone else was off doing one last ride or starting their shopping early). So I took Ryan, Nana pushed the stroller with Kyle and James carried Taylor. Some really nice guy with a stroller and a wide awake kid told James to take his stroller as it was obvious we needed it more than he.

Sometimes I think, we might have stayed a little too long in the park, but that's crazy talk because how can you?

The funny thing was that even with three sleeping kids we still did one more ride and a good hours worth of Disneyland shopping before we even started talking about going back to the car...

James took this picture of the castle all lit up at night.

4th Of July

Happy 4th of July


We had a great 4th of July as a family. It started out with 8am swimming lesson. Yes, the boys still had their swimming lesson of the 4th. The city did cancel the classes in the evening, but not in the morning. So needless to say there were less kids then normal. Then in the early evening, we had a BBQ with some friends and went swimming again. To end the day, we watch the Boston fireworks on the TV. It is the only way to watch fireworks in Arizona, at least for us.

This is a short clip of the boys letting off their fireworks.

These fireworks need a little help to work.