My mom decided to have all of us over for the 24th of July to watch the fireworks. She has a perfect view of them from her backyard. We decided to make it a slumber party too. It was so much fun! The kids loved sleeping outside with Grandma. They thought it was great!

Grandma has the best view from her swing set.

 

 

The kids with all of their tents set up (that Grandma Margo gave them). That is Grandma’s bed in the middle. We had to find a way for all of them to sleep next to her. So fun!

 

Rob’s family reunion got cancelled this year because there was so much rain it flooded the camp ground we usually go to. We couldn’t find another campground to accommodate that many people so since we had all taken the time off work anyway Rob’s Mom and a few of her sisters got together and we all headed out to Starvation Reservoir. Rob was thrilled because he could bring his boat! We also were so busy taking everyone for turns on the boat we didn’t take any pictures. Thank goodness for my Mother-In-Law. She is always taking pictures for us.

The first day on the water I ended up ruining the prop on our boat. BOO! We were using a private boat ramp that the campground provided. It was a piece of crap. We realized it was not great when we launched the boat but didn’t realize just how bad it was until we tried to get the boat back out of the water the first day. The ramp was really steep so you couldn’t even see the pylons on the trailer. The boat would go right over top of them. So when I first started bringing the boat in I was going crooked so I tried to back up and turn around. The area of the boat ramp was really narrow and needless to say I didn’t quite make it. The prop hit some rocks. I was SO mad! We ended up getting the boat on the trailer and decided we wouldn’t use that ramp anymore. After that we drove over to the state park to launch the boat and it worked out much better! We did have a spare prop but Rob ruined it at the end of last summer (I’m glad I’m not the only one who does these things). Rob decided instead of the whole week being ruined he would find someone to quickly fix the props. He took it to some local guy who said he could have them done in a few hours. After quite some time had passed and he hadn’t called Rob decided he would go down there and see how it was coming. He had one almost done so Rob waited until it was done and just took them both because it didn’t look like he knew what he was doing. We put the prop back on the boat and took it out again. It was vibrating like crazy! Apparently the guy didn’t do a very good job. We called another guy that was a couple hours away but actually knew what he was doing. Rob drove it out there on Tuesday (it was broke on Friday – so you can only imagine how anxious he was to get it fixed and get out on his boat!) he dropped it off and went to breakfast for an hour and it was done! It was VERY nice of him to fit us in! When Rob got there the guy looked at it and told him the other guy that fixed it had no business touching prop’s. It was off by as far as an inch in some places! It was really annoying that someone would say they can do something they clearly don’t have the tools to do. Lucky for us we got to pay to have it fixed twice! That’s ok, we were grateful the guy fixed it and we were able to enjoy the rest of the week. Also, lucky for me it rained most of the time we were without a prop so Rob didn’t want to kill me TOO bad. Haha! Anyway, here are a few pictures.

This is a funny new face Halle likes to pull.

 

Kissing cousins.

This is the only way I could get Rob to wash up! Threw him some shampoo while he was in the lake. I’ll take what I can get.

Jayci and Corbin love their EZ Ski. They love to show off and ride with no hands!

 

 

 

And of course some pictures of Rob on his Sky Ski.

 

Corbin loves to ride with his Daddy!

We spent a day at the beach. The kids love the sand!

 

 

Jayci also dislocated and broke her toe on this trip. She was going down a slide and caught her pinky toe on it. Poor girl! She was so tough though. Rob’s aunt is a nurse so she relocated it and we taped it up for her. We are lucky to have nurses around all of the time! I didn’t get a great picture of it but here is a couple.

 

We went with Rob’s family to the Centerville Parade. It was very hot and we were staring right into the sun but we had a good time.

 

 

 

After the parade April invited us all over to her apartment to go swimming. It was a nice way to cool off and the kids had a lot of fun!

 

 

 

This is what happens when swimming parties are right at nap time.

We went to Syracuse City’s Heritage Days. The kids love to go but I’m afraid this might be our last year going. Each ride is like $4…we could probably go to Lagoon for less than that. Rob had to go help his parents with their backyard remodel so I tagged along with my neighbors. They are awesome and the kids just love each other! It was lots of fun!

Halle and her little friend Charlotte happy as can be stuck in their strollers.

 

Eric rode the rides with the kids so the Mom’s could stay with the babies. What a good sport.

 

Jayci, Corbin, and their best buddy Aiden.

 

 

 

 

One special treat and it’s time to go home!

 

I’ve been a slacker this year. Not very good at taking pictures. So the only camping trips we have pictures of are the one’s that Rob’s Mom goes on and takes all the pictures for us. Thank goodness for my Mother-In-Law! It is kinda nice though because we end up with some pictures with me and Rob in them. Thanks Juanita!

Swimming

 

 

 

 

I don’t think we ever camp without at least one day of rain. We got a rainbow out of it this time.

 

Jayci and Corbin were doing some craft projects. Halle got a hold of a bag of confetti and dumped it all over. So, this is me spending hours picking tiny pieces of confetti out of the grass.

The kids building castles with the Koob blocks. Apparently Corbin wasn’t happy that it tipped over.

 

We locked all of the babies in a baby gate. They enjoyed themselves and we didn’t have to chase them all over the campground.

 

We went on a hike one day and ran into this moose. The kids thought it was awesome.

 

Rob’s new favorite treat to roast around the campfire is bacon wrapped marshmallows. Mine is bacon wrapped asparagus. Yummy!

 

Corbin’s favorite is bacon. Jayci’s is smores made with fudge striped cookies.

 

This campground has a clubhouse for the kids. It came in handy this trip since it rained on us most of the time. They had so much fun in there.

 

 

 

We decided to take the kids on a surprise trip to Disneyland this year. They knew we were going on a trip somewhere but they didn’t know where. We thought we would be smart and save some money by trading our time share. The problem was the closest place we could trade was an hour and a half away. We thought it would still be ok. It wasn’t. We didn’t save a penny after paying for gas to drive so far and poor Jayci got car sick every morning. She was probably thinking Disneyland wasn’t all that fun after the third day of puking! Another problem was if we wanted to get to the park when it opened we had to get up REALLY early and if we stayed until the park closed we didn’t get home until midnight. That made for some tired people! Next time I’ll definitely fork out the money and stay close! When we arrived at Disneyland the kids still didn’t know where we were…we rode the tram from the parking lot to the entrance. They kept saying “Welcome to Disneyland”. I kept looking at Jayci and Corbin to see if they had heard. They weren’t paying attention. I told them to listen. They still didn’t hear it. When we got to the entrance I asked them if they knew where they were. Neither of them did. Haha! I guess they are a little too young for the whole surprise thing. They were happy after we got in there and they figured out what the whole thing was though.

The hotel we stayed at had a cute splash pad and a pool. The kids loved it. It was a little cool but they still had fun! Halle loved the water.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 
We spent a few days at the beach. We tried to convince the kids to spend a day at Sea World but they could not be convinced. They just wanted to go back to the beach which was fine by me!

Corona Del Mar – We heard there was some great tide pools here so we thought we’d go see!

 

 

 

 

Carlsbad Beach

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first character we saw in Disneyland was Cruella DeVil. Not a good first for the kids. They were terrified of her.

Next we saw Pinocchio. Much better. The kids weren’t as afraid after that.

Goofy trying to show us that him and Corbin are twinners!

We ran into some familiar faces while we were there. Grandma Hales, Aunt Martha, Aunt Wendy, and Aunt April met us there for the first day we were there. Jayci didn’t care about her Mom after that. She wanted to ride all of the rides with Aunt Wendy! Sad day for me. I wanted to be with her when she experienced the rides for the first time. Oh well. Stinker.

Aunt Martha and Aunt April helping with Halle.

Mad Tea Party

Let us out!

Trying to shut Goofy’s closet.

Halle did not want to be in the picture. Can ya tell?

Halle did get to get out of her stroller every now and then. However, she did spend so much time in it that we almost had to re-teach her how to walk when we got home.

Playing the piano.

Laying in Pluto’s bed.

Meeting Mickey

Riding Gadget’s Go Coaster. Do you think Grandma thinks it’s funny that Aunt Martha got wet? Haha!

Jungle Cruise

Poor kid fell asleep in the stroller. He wasn’t even buckled. It’s a good thing he didn’t fall out!

Taking turns driving the car at Goofy’s Kitchen.

Us & Goofy in his kitchen.

Chip

Pluto

Aladdin

Baloo

The Mad Hatter

Dale

Jayci dancing with Dale and The Mad Hatter.

Goofy again.

Queen of Hearts

Halle being so content.

Meeting Belle. Jayci’s favorite princess.

Corbin didn’t want to get his picture taken with very many of the characters. Belle finally got him to step away from the stroller. Then she convinced him to give her a hug. Then she asked if she could tell him a secret and he said yes. She leaned in and gave him a big ole kiss! He was so embarassed! It was so funny!

It’s hard to see it but there is the lipstick on his cheek. We only got one quick picture before he was wiping it off.

Belle then walked him over to Mulan and informed her that he was her’s so all Mulan got was a high five.

Jayci & Mulan

Jayci & Ariel

Ariel got a high five too. Apparently something was funny too. I love that picture.

Minnie Mouse was one of the few characters Corbin didn’t fight us getting his picture with. Not sure why?

Corbin enjoying his Mickey Mouse ice cream.

Halle loved Winnie the Pooh

Tigger

Playing in Tarzan’s Treehouse

The second day we were there we met Nikki and the whole Whitehead family! This is the only picture we got with them at Disneyland.

Autopia – Jayci and Corbin are terrible drivers.

Right as we were leaving we decided it was a good time to get a picture in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. Rob took a few of me and the kids (I thought they were smiling…little stinkers!) and then some lady offered to take some of all of us…Rob handed her the camera and ran to stand by us. In the process he fell and sprained his ankle pretty bad. See that suck it up and act like you aren’t in pain smile? Haha! Poor guy. He still had one more long day of walking all over Disneyland too!

It’s Tough to Be a Bug!

Flik’s Flyers

Tuck and Roll’s Drive ‘Em Buggies

Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train

My kids are huge fans of Monster’s Inc. Unfortunately Sully was on his way out when we got there. We still tried to snap a quick picture of him leaving.

They thought it was pretty awesome to see Boo’s door.

Showin’ off their muscles with Mr. Incredible.

Washing Mater and Lightening McQueen

Sailor Mickey

Halle taking her daily nap. She was such a good little girl for being so off her schedule and out of her element.

Rob took the kids on Mickey’s Fun Wheel. They wanted to go on one of the swinging gondola’s. I thought they were all nuts! Rob said the first time it swung around it caught them by surprise but they both loved it! Mom stayed back because she is a big chicken Halle was asleep.

Jumpin’ Jellyfish

Jayci was dying to go on the Grizzly River Run but Corbin just wasn’t quite tall enough. We felt bad but then Corbin saw that he could go and get wet even if he wasn’t on the ride. He was tentative at first but then he got soaked and enjoyed every minute of it. He didn’t even care that Jayci got to go without him.

Huntington Beach – The Whiteheads were kind enough to let us invade their family day at the beach so we could spend a little bit more time with Nikki. The kids had lots of fun playing with their cousins.

 

 

We were going to be out of town for Jayci’s preschool graduation. She had been working hard on all of the songs for it so we asked if we could come to one of the rehersals so we could still see it. They agreed and I’m glad we did. It was very cute and Jayci was so excited for us to see her. She loved preschool this year. Here are some pictures of a few of the friends she had. We didn’t have time to get pictures of all of them and for some reason I totally spaced it and didn’t get a picture with her and her teacher! So sad. At least she is in the class picture.

 

I’d like to put the whole graduation video on here but it is a bit long so here are some clips from it! (I’m a terrible videographer. My excuse is I was trying to juggle Halle while I videoed.)

The cupcakes. Frosted by Rob. He’s such a domestic diva.

The Birthday Girl with her cupcakes.

Trying to sneak a taste.

Showing off her Birthday outfit…

And her walking skills.

Happy for her Birthday!

So precious.

Dinner – Sandwhiches, chips, and pasta salad.

Opening presents.

She loves her pillow pet.

Really loves her pillow pet.

A little tentative at first…

Do you want some?

Ok, I’ll eat it.

This is good!

Uh oh! Look what I did!

Good times!

That was fun!

Oh man! I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!

She made a haul!

Yes, I stole all of the captions from Rob’s Blog. Don’t judge me, I’m not as clever as he is.

I can’t believe my baby is 1! We got her 1 year pictures done a little early so we could put one on her birthday invitation. I did however, still wait until the last minute I could because it was supposed to keep getting warmer and warmer and I didn’t want her freezing for the pictures. Waiting isn’t always the best idea. The weather was perfect but Halle decided to get sick that morning and since I had put it off for so long we still needed to get them done. The poor girl had fluid running from every orifice in her face. Her eyes were bright red and she looked miserable. Despite all of that she still cooperated fairly well and we ended up with a few cute pictures. One day I’ll learn not to procrastinate so long…or not!

 

My husband is insane. In case any of doubted that at all. He was determined to get out on the lake before April was over. With the weather we had this year it wasn’t that easy. But we did it! On April 28th we finally got out there. Rob was the only one who got in the water. If you look at the sky and all the snow on the mountains you will soon figure out why. The rest of us have a brain. I was cold just being on the boat in my hoodie! I did put my arm in the water just to see how cold it actually was. It started to ache immediately. I don’t know how he did it but he must really love to Sky Ski!

The pictures aren’t that great. I was using my phone and trying to drive at the same time. Surprisingly though there wasn’t any other boats out there I had to look out for.

Corbin tagged along. The girls didn’t want to brave the cold so they went to play with their Aunt Kailee.

Watching Daddy gear up.

Brrrr!