Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

We had a fun visit to the organic farm to pick out pumpkins, see the animals, and grab some of the most delicious tasting strawberries I've ever had. Casey was on a mission to find the biggest pumpkin, and Kyla was on a mission to find the most perfectly round one!

We invited a few friends to come along.

Kyla sat near her perfect pumpkin for most of the

afternoon to make sure no one else would take it!

Casey was admiring the piles of pumpkins and gourds.

Great America was... GREAT!

We were given some tickets to Great America (thank you Sheryl and Travis!!), so we made good use of them this past weekend. We escaped the cool weather of Monterey for a trip up to 95 degree Santa Clara for a day at Great America.

We had a great time riding lots of family rides and even tried our luck on some of the roller coasters. I nearly ruined my day after riding "Top Gun", but I'm still alive!

We stopped at the new water park after getting all sweaty on the regular rides. The kids loved the wave pool and played at the deepest end for most of the afternoon.

Kyla and Casey's favorite ride was the swings. They rode it a couple of times and couldn't seem to get enough. Although this used to also be my favorite ride as a child, I just sat and watched this time to save my stomach! It's amazing how much more "action" you can handle when you're a kid!

Diving in Monterey Bay

Kyla had an extraordinary opportunity last week. She was selected, along with 3 other students from her school, to go for a surface dive in the protected tide pools of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. She had her own personal dive instructor that helped her from start to finish.

Kyla had fun putting on all of the gear and wasn't nervous at all about using a regulator or putting her head underwater.

Kyla got to see starfish, decorator crabs, sea cucumbers, and other various types of fish. She was having lots of fun until a flounder moved unexpectedly below her! She was pretty much finished after that!

Kyla was very brave and had a wonderful day with her dad and her friends at the aquarium. The organization that sponsored the dive, Accessible Events, will have more pictures and video of the dive on their website soon, so I will post the link once they get it set up.

Ladies Man

My little boy takes great pride in being a real ladies man. His friends, Mackenzie and Manon, showed up at the door the other day with a surprise birthday party for Casey. It didn't matter that his birthday is actually in February, they just wanted an excuse to surprise him with a shower of balloons.

The "party" was complete with lots of goodies! Even after they went home for the day, they called and talked on the phone with Casey for a while. I am not ready for this!

Back To School

I can't believe I am the mother of a 7th grader and a 4th grader! It really does blow my mind and I have no idea where the time went! The kids were a little nervous about starting school this year, but once the first day was behind them, they felt much more secure. Both kids got to see friends from their classes last year, and are already making many new friends. It helps tremendously to have daddy home now as well!

Not a bad picture for a delayed timer with a bunch of 6-year-olds! I am blessed to be teaching up at the same campus where Casey goes to school. You can actually see his classroom from mine, so I get to see him all day long and keep a really close eye on him! I think he's still trying to decide whether that's a good thing or not!

Carmel Beach

Aren't grandmas great? We think so. Brandon has been out of town this month and I have been busy trying to set up a classroom, so we invited grandma out to spend some time with the kids. They have been having so much fun with her, and I am so grateful for the help!

We went out to Carmel Beach last night to watch the sunset. Well, in true Monterey Bay fashion, the fog rolled in and there was no sunset at all. The wind and cold stayed away, so we had fun anyway.

After a few failed attempts at starting a fire, we finally got it going (we are women....hear us roar!!!) and enjoyed way too many smores by the fire.

My beautiful babies.

Casey and Kyla laughed their heads off at grandma's funny ghost stories once it got dark. We had a great time together!

Vacation Bible School

We just finished up our final day of VBS today. We had five fun-filled days of crafts, snacks, singing, and most important of all, exploring God's Word.

The first grade "coconuts" earned the most points on Tuesday, so the leaders in our group, including Kyla, had to wear (I mean, were privileged to wear) grass skirts the following day.

All 3 of us made many friends this week, young and old. This is one of Kyla's special friends, Hannah. Hannah was one of about 10 children in our group alone that surrendered their lives to the Lord this week. It was a privilege and honor to see so many children earnestly seeking Christ.

The picture isn't zoomed in very far, but Casey is the cute one in the front row with the green hat. You can click on the pic to enlarge. He was a "gecko" this week and memorized 5 new verses from the Bible. He also learned all of the books of the Old and New Testament through a song which they performed for the parents.

Tonight we performed our VBS program for the parents and then enjoyed some ice cream! It was a great week and I was truly blessed to be a part of it.

My two little buddies

I definitely do not have a green thumb, but apparently my children do. Kyla's gardening project for this summer was to try and grow carrots. I wasn't sure how well they would do in sand, but we mixed in a bag of potting soil and.....voila! Kyla was pretty proud of her carrots, and they were actually quite tasty! We were also able to have a handful of sugar snap peas with dinner the other night from our makeshift garden.

Brandon has been away for a couple of weeks, and sometimes those separations can make Casey a little sad and clingy. To cheer him up one night and help him sleep, I told him that when I get lonely for daddy and can't sleep, I close my eyes and imagine disco ducks jumping over a fence (my little version of counting sheep). You see, Brandon's new fantasy football name for this year is "Disco Ducks". Not only does this name make us laugh, but it also helps us think about dad while he's gone. It kind of turned from a funny idea to a private joke between Casey and I. We laugh everytime we see or hear anything about disco or ducks now. This is a picture of Casey in his bubbly "disco hair".

Lovely Utah

When I downloaded my most recent pictures from our camera, I realized that there were some more Utah pictures on there that I had forgotten about from one of our last days on vacation. This is a four generation picture of my grandma, mom, myself, and Kyla in Zion.

Kyla and Casey explored the hyroglyphs with their great-grandmother and my dad.

This is our literal "family tree". If there are any environmentalists in the crowd, I caution that this image may be disturbing. When my parents first got married, they carved their initials in this tree (KM + LM) up in the Cedar mountains. Years later, the boys and I carved our names in the tree below our parents initials. Brandon's initials were next, and every few years we visit the tree and carve the initials of each new member. Casey's name was added this trip.

Southern Utah Part 2 (The Narrows)

I decided to devote an entire blog posting to my favorite part of the Utah trip, Zion National Park. I have fond memories of Zion as a child, and try to make a trip up there everytime we go to Utah. We decided to hike "The Narrows" which is a natural trail cut into the canyon by the Virgin River. Most parts of the hike are through ankle high up to waist high water, with some dry rocks on the sides in places. We hiked for 5 hours round-trip, and were so proud of our two little troopers. Kyla and Casey didn't complain once and hiked through that water like champs, just as well as the adults. The pictures don't do it justice, but give you a small glimpse into the beauty of Zion.

Here are the boys and Kyla hiking up the narrow canyon.

My boy.

Kyla and Casey in one of the few dry resting spots.

I took this vertical picture to try and show the true beauty of the canyon. The mountain walls go so high up on either side, letting in only a little sunlight in a few places. That is my mom there in the middle. At this point in the hike, we were virtually alone because we had hiked so far in. It was a long, tiring hike, but well worth it!

Southern Utah

This blog posting will probably have to drag on for a while because there is no way I can capture the beauty of Southern Utah with a couple of pictures. We had a very special visit with my parents, my brother Dusty, and my brother Cory. Rather than post a long narrative of what we did during our week long visit, I will just post several pictures with short captions. The quote of the week was from Casey: "When I think that heaven is better than Utah, I get really excited"......I agree.
Here we are visiting the old ghost town in a place called Grafton. My maternal grandma, Carole Beardall, came along with us.

Here I am with my mom and dad in front of the lake near our campsite in Pine Valley.

Brandon using the jet ski to splash all of us on my grandpa's boat on Quail Lake. I had to put the camera away permanently after this photo!

Dusty drove his jet skis all the way from Illinois for all of us to enjoy. Here he is teaching Casey how to ride on Quail Lake.

Casey bonded with my mom's new kitten, Katie. We were very surprised to see how big Abby seemed after playing with such a small kitty all week!

We spent two days and one night "roughing it" at a wonderful campsite up in the Pine Valley Mountains. We took my cousin Tanner along along with us.

Summer Vacation

We have just finished up three back-to-back weeks of great family fun. We spent the first two weeks of our vactation with Brandon's parents and the Ferguson's. It was so great to show our family around the Monterey Peninsula and enjoy some great memories together. Having our nephew and niece (Grant and Sophia) here was the highlight of the trip. It was so special to spend time with them and see them interact with Kyla and Casey. This is the best picture I could get of the four of them.........check out Sheryl's blog for a much better one!

The boys enjoyed a few hours on the sea cod fishing.

This is Sophia and one of her many expressions. She has the most adorable faces and quotes of any two-year-old I have ever met. It was such a joy spending time with her and Grant during this visit.

This is Brandon and his parents at Lover's Point in Pacific Grove.

Pictures of our time in Utah coming soon..........

MORRISSEY!!!

Brandon came to my classroom last week and surprised me with Morrissey (only the most brilliant songwriter and singer ever) concert tickets. I can't remember the last time I was that excited! The surprise involved a whirlwind weekend trip to Phoenix, Arizona. I have to say that the 105 degree heat was not at all what we are used to! After our section in the concert hall was closed, we were upgraded to front row seats! We had fun messing around with Brandon in the hotel room after an exhausting, yet amazing weekend. That was a weekend I will remember for a long time! Boy oh boy does my man love me!

Jake and Abby boy held down the fort while we were gone. Our two old men!