Summer trip part 2

This is just one of the star fishes we found in the tide pools near Morror Bay. Isn't this just so beautiful? I could live here forever! If God can create this on earth just think how amazing heaven will be!

We headed up Highway 1 coastal view... let me tell you this is an awesome drive to do at least once in your life!

This is the famous Pebble Beach golf course and the 17 mile drive that takes about 2 hours. We couldn't figure out how to escape to the exit. We were kinda done looking at the beach by this time. The car got a little cranky. We were headed to the redwoods in Santa Cruz area to camp for one night. Again more amazing sites... this time trees. We left the tent top off just to sleep. Waking up to the tall trees was breath taking. I just love this about camping.

We had to drop our oldest to the Oakland airport for band camp so we did a drive through trip of San Francisco, literally we went over the Golden Gate Bridge two times, drove past the Warf, and then over the Oakland Bridge. We saw Alcatraz through the window and saw a trolley car. Guess it just wasn't our thing so we headed out to Yosemite.

Part 3 Yosemite, the final leg.

Part 1- Coastal Trip

This summer we threw abandon in the air and took a family trip which I had planned in January. (The trip was scheduled for July in which we ran out of funds, but decided what the heck let's just eat ramen for the next 3 months.) So we camped in a tent for 13 glorious days (except for the 103 degree in/un (?)glorious day in nowhere California.) We started our trip in Malibu Creek State Park. The opening scene of Mash was filmed here.

It was so cool visiting Muscle Beach. And yes we ate ice cream while watching all the people working out. What can I say, it was hot and a loooong walk to the actual beach.

2. Camping stop...MY FAVORITE OF THE WHOLE TRIP!!! Morror Bay state park. This was a beautiful place that we did not get enough time to explore. I want to go back and stay at least 10 days!! We did go to a farmers market in SLOW, to THE ROCK, museum, salt water taffy candy place, see otters and amazing jelly fish, beach with tons of sand dollars, and tide pool exploring. OH, and the sunsets were out of magazine to die for!

And we are OFF!!

That's right we are back to school and everyone is ready for the new year. (Well except Mom because she wants to keep the kids home to play!) That's right, I'm one of those crazy Mom's who HATE when school starts. Two reasons: 1. My kids are gone all day and usually come home to work on homework! 2. My hubby has to return to school too so our afternoon naps fly out the window. Exciting changes though for the Dumi kids... Peyton is in KINDERGARTEN and absolutely loves every minute of it. I asked her secretly whispering... do you miss Mom just a little? "No Mom, not at all, I love school!" Ya my heart broke just a little with that comment, but I smiled and gave her a big hug and said I was so proud of her and that Mommy missed her!

Now my 5th grader, who is ALMOST AS TALL AS I AM, was a little nervous to start school. It might of had something to do with her class being made up of 25 BOYS and 10 GIRLS! She is such a worrier and hates to have her class misbehave. Which has seemed to be the last two years. Her two best buds were also put into the same class.... NEXT DOOR! So in her mind she would now be kicked out of the best friend club. She has had such a great attitude and looking at it with excitement. I think she is really a half full kind of girl. The other exciting thing with her is her transition in to honors classes. Which when she is testing we are telling her it is for students who learn a little different than the average student. She has come close to making this class 3 times. In fact the teachers keep testing her because they feel she would really benefit from it. (Not that I would know because her father and I didn't have those kinds of classes.) Well she made the cut and not only in one class but both! HE HAW!! Kylie is also starting an instrument.... percussion!

This year will also be bringing lots of driving because our children are at 3 different schools. (Who thought about that when spacing out the kids?) Tanner is a big 8th grader. When I say big, I mean he is working on trying to pass up his Dad. We now don't have to ask who answered the phone when Tanner answers because he is defiantly an alto. He is setting a goal of straight A's again this year. (His goal not ours.) This kid is just awesome!

And finally the reason Mom and Dad started drinking again... our beautiful daughter has reached high school. She is marching in band and playing basketball. She has the boys already calling and managed to get her Dad to allow this. (WTH)... So as Mom lays awake thinking of all the things to stress about, she is one happy young lady. (SERIOUSLY THREE GIRLS< oh my I might not make it through one!)

I pray we can keep our heads above water and survive this year! I might need a life preserver thrown to me every once in awhile.

Yes, I have the High School Musical song... SUMMER in my head. We are at the half way mark of summer. So far we have had a wonderful summer of swimming lessons, basketball camp, California trip (basketball camp), FCA camp in Flagstaff, and 4th of July fireworks on the canal.

We have two little ones who are getting ready to enter this big world. KINDERGARTEN.... this will be the last summer of freedom for my youngest and my niece. They are completely ready (wish I could say the same).

Basketball Season Part 2

The older girls have both started playing basketball this week. YEAH WOO HOO!!! To kick off the season right.... Mamma made some cookies! Oh yea, normally I would not brag about my cooking skills, but these cookies kicked some booty! I got this great recipe from http://www.ourbestbites.com/2008/12/sugar-cookies/
Seriously the best sugar cookies!! I got the glaze top ideas from there too.
I don't own many cookies cutters so I used the top of a wine glass to cut out the dough. Made a perfect basketball!

I don't have black dye so I just picked up a little gel of black at the grocery store. (I don't like how it didn't dry up like the orange did. Can't stack when it is a gel.) I had some clear bags from Wallyworld and made cute little toppers that said HOOP IT UP!! Used the shoe box from one of the girls new basketball shoes to hand the goodies out.

Campout Birthday Party

Peyton wanted to celebrate her fifth birthday with her friends by doing one of her favorite things... CAMPING!! So how do you have a camping birthday party with a bunch of 4 and 5 year olds? At our local Riparian Preserve http://www.riparianinstitute.org/riparian.cfm. We love visiting this park to go on hikes, feed the ducks, and play in the unique structures that you just don't find at regular parks. This pictures were taken by Carrie and April since I was a little busy managing the troops. We did some rubbings. Not sure many of the kids had done this before so it was really cool to see how excited they got when the images transfered onto their papers. We talked about the different images on our hike back to our campsite. Before going on our hike I gave out trail mix and juice boxes for all the kids. (I wanted to make up our own trail mix, but it was easier to just get the pre-made ones for this party. While hiking back to the site we talked about all the different birds we were seeing and some of the plants. This wonderful park has a few large campsites you can reserve to stay the night. We used the campsite as a base for our birthday party and later had a few families stay all night long with us. I let the kids explore on their own after we got back from our hike. We set up a tent and the kids played in that too. We made a pinata for the camping party. We looked and looked for one Princess P liked, but decided to surf the net for some ideas on how to create our own. After browsing a few ideas..(sorry forgot where those sites are) we came up with a plan. Make a tent out of a card board box. Basically we took the sides of a box a put them together making a triangle, Princess P and Daddy painted it green on Daddy Date Night. A then later my oldest put some tissue fringe on it to complete it! This all cost about a $1.
The kids loved hitting the piñata.... (note to self-when foretting eye cover use a gift bag... oh my goodness!!) I got some binoculars and a compass and put together a little bag of smores for the gift bags. We added the candy for the pinata that the kids scooped up too. Heading back to pick up area we hiked to the bridge to feed the ducks. I bought a big bag of bird seed and filled up cups for each of the kids. The ducks went CRAZY for this. Finally, we let the kids play in the dinosaur dig area. It's a big covered sand area with some dinosaur bones barried that the kids can uncover or discover!
The kids loved it! Here are some snapshots of our night too. Yummy smores and all

Valentines... 2012

I had such good intentions, but with everyone sick.. this is all I got. Kids made letters with paint and spelled LOVE... we used their feet for the v. Heres what we did...