The Pretenders

The kids defnitely like music. All kinds of music. Recently the collectively made a playlist for the car that has songs ranging from Alison Krauss to Veggie Tales to Indigo Girls. This song from Foo Fighters is on that list, too. Kate is on drums, Robbie is on guitar and Padyn is lead vocals. I think we may be taking our band on tour soon. I'll keep you posted of tour dates....

Photo Friday-So So So Behind

Here we are, almost at the end of summer, and I don't have much to show for it. When the current 3 day swim meet is over, and Daddy returns after being gone a week, maybe I can spend more time going through the 500 photos I took over the last month and a half and post more, in a more organized (and captioned) fashion. But for now, enjoy a few of my favorite photos of this summer....



Happy Friday.

Day at the Races

Today was the last day of summer swimming for the girlies. We had our final, very low key swim meet this morning. It was Kate's first opportunity to swim an event this summer. Can you guess how excited she was to take first place in her heat? You can't tell by the picture, but she was pretty jazzed. She wanted to know if she could swim in the fall (no) and when would her next race be (next summer). From not wanting to get in the pool last summer to swimming 25 yards freestyle by herself...what a difference a year makes.

Padyn chose to swim 3 events today: backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle, all 25 yards. She took the backstroke race in her heat (so excited!), came in 5th in breaststroke (very disappointed until I pointed out that had it been a proper race, 3 kids who beat her would have been disqualified for not actually using breaststroke kick) and 3rd in free (she missed 1st by a second and 2nd place by a fraction of a second).
All in all, a pretty fun and successful morning!

Camping 2010

We went camping over labor day weekend. No, really, we did. I'm serious! Of course we didn't go alone. Why would we even go then? We went with 3 other families with whom we spend most of our time during the week. Thanks to the camping abilities of two of the families, we actually had a great time. The nights...they weren't so great. We were in a trailer and the kids were all sleeping alongside each other. Padyn was coughing and sometimes up every hour, so you can imagine how that went over. The kids were up too earlier and asleep too late...but the daytime was great! Here's a picture collage to tell our story.

No no...Daddy didn't do car repair on the camping trip. He had to do it before we left. It was a long, arduous task and I won't go into it. But eventually Daddy beat the truck and we left. Oh, and Robbie really wanted to help. Here's a favorite activity of the kids-push another kid in the hammock. You can imagine how treacherous that got at points. I think we only had one major crash, and that was when the rope snapped when an adult was in it. We had a few bruised noses, but all and all, the major injuries of the trip did not occur around the hammock. And there were major injuries. How could there not be with 11 kids?

Robbie thought it was great to have Daddy around ALL WEEKEND LONG and constantly demanded his attention.

He also liked cruising around from camping chair to camping chair at the fire pit. But really, Robbie's favorite part of the trip was getting dirty. And being outside.

Day 1: Searching for a Geo cache and hike. This one was very close to our site near a trail we attempted to hike.

Finding treasure. Each kid put an object in the cache and took one out. Sometimes, it was an item one of their friends had just deposited.

Treasure!

So, we went on this hike. But really, Padyn and all our friends went on the hike. Kate started complaining BEFORE we got on the trail and after about 1/2 mile, we couldn't take it anymore. We sat and rested while the rest of the gang trailed onward to the railroad tracks. Then we took our whiny kid back to camp.

I'm not sure why he is crying here, being surrounded by his favorite things. Can I just tell you how much he loved being outside all weekend? He thought it was the greatest thing ever. Well, not at this exact moment...

Our site was on the Yuba River, which is very cold. That didn't stop us from playing in it one day and bathing in it the next. Though, the kids were way happier to play than bathe.

Kate really just liked sitting on the rocks. Kate had a few rough moments during the weekend. I don't care to relive them, but I will tell you most of them involved socks, shoes and jeans. Next time, I'm just letting her pack herself.

Here we all are...eating.

This was Padyn's favorite camping activity.

And this was one of Robbie's...

On day two we jumped in our cars and heading to a small lake for some swimming and fishing. It was so very cold. Not much swimming happened. And while there was a lot of fishing by many people, no actual fish were caught on this trip.

Some dirt was caught, though. The kids were covered in grime when we left the lake and headed back to camp. Hence, the river bathing...

I didn't get any pictures of bathing because I was one of the scrubbers. This is an after shot from the opposite bank. The kids complained of the cold all the while being cleaned, but once it was done, they jumped back in the water for playtime. I think they are looking for crawdads here.

Another favorite camping activity, especially for Kate. I don't think she is even in this picture, though.

Will we ever go camping again? Sure. But not until next year. And Kate has to pack her own socks. And we may need a bigger trailer. And some ice for cocktails. No one has made true campers of us yet.

Photo Sunday-More For Daddy

Four days until Daddy comes home...here are some more pictures for you, hon.

Picture Perfect

My daughter was in the paper today. And they even spelled her name correctly! Since most of you reading this don't get our town's paper, I thought I should share it... This was taken at the swim meet this past weekend. This was her first event, the 50 yard kick. She came in 2nd out of 14. She missed first place by about 2 seconds, but beat 3rd by 6 seconds. She is pretty proud of that medal.

And I love that you can see the whole in her mouth where one of her top teeth should be...

Photo Friday-More Oregon Photos

We are home now...just barely. Hence, the lack of explanation for these photos...

FYI-don't feed this boy spaghetti.

Watching all the fishies.Robbie was king of the bean bag chair at the nature center.

Padyn very proud of her otter pic at the nature center.

My river man...

Pretty girl.Robbie feeding Papa.

Rainbow Face Girl-this was her face painting from the fair.

It's a miracle! She likes the pool! (and looks super funny in those goggles...)

Happy Friday!