Spring Fever

The trees are blooming (achoo!) , the sun is shining , I'm procrastinating (it's so hard to pay bills on a beautiful day like this!) and we are now the proud owners of 6 baby chickens! The kids each picked out two (Timothy had some help) and are enjoying watching (and playing with) them. It will be an interesting adventure. : ) Hopefully at least some of them are female so we'll get some eggs in a few months. If we end up with any roosters we'll have to send them out the my sister's farm. : ) (Where they will live happily with the other chickens, ducks, geese, goats, cats and cows.)

Look to me like hours of entertainment for the children... and trauma for the chickens! : )

Spring also means it's almost MCC Sale time and the playhouse is just about ready to be auctioned off! My hubby is so talented it's just amazing. : ) You all can feel free to come to the sale and bid on the playhouse next Saturday at noon! All of the proceeds go for disaster relief around the world. Can't beat that!

Happy Spring everyone!!!!! : )

A Work In Progress... (With Pictures!)

12:05 pm: Our friend Todd came over today to build a playhouse with Lowell to donate to the MCC Sale in a couple of months. It will be auctionned off along with a lot of other items and the proceded go to relief projects all over the world. It's a really fun event that we have attended and spent money at since we were in college. It's a tradition! But this is the first project they've attempted to donate, so I thought it seemed like a great opportunity to take some pictures and even attempt to blog about their progress while it's happening! (I'm feeling quite ambitious... or avoiding paying bills and doing the dishes. You decide.) Here's how it's going so far.

And here's how the kids are helping. : ) Be sure to check back later and see how things go and to find out whether or not Brownie (our other dog) comes back since he took the opportunity when the gate was open and nobody was looking to wander off! Mikaela said, "That's the end of Brownie, I guess." : ) (I doubt it...)

2:15pm: The men are at Home Depot, Timothy is asleep, the older kids are watching WordGirl (Thank you Tivo & Thank you PBS!), the dishes are done and Brownie is back in the yard where he belongs. And the house now looks like this:

It has also crossed my mind to wonder where this playhouse is going to sit for the next 2 months before the MCC Sale actually occurs... Hmmmmm.....

Next task: the bills!

7:17pm: They're done for the day... kids are getting ready for bed, I'm getting dinner cleaned up and ready for church tomorrow where I get to lead worship - with a sore throat and a voice that may or may not work with me tomorrow (I called in some extra back up in case my voice is a no show in the morning...) Apparently the house is going to be a resident of our breezeway for the next couple of months. There's still more to do, including painting which I've been informed has been delegated to Sandra (Todd's wife) and me, and nobody wants to move it more than once. I can't blame them. What I can't figure out, though, is why they started it so early. They OBVIOUSLY aren't as committed to procrastination as I am. Go figure!

A few more pictures of the helpers...

(Don't worry... Todd used to be an EMT and Lowell took the screwdriver away right after I took this picture.)

THE END (for now.)

Happy Saturday!

A Whole New Year...

Hi friends! I'm sitting here typing this on my new laptop! (Gotta love those Christmas sales!) Hubby & I have talked about it for a while and he tried (unsuccessfully) to get one for me the day after Thanksgiving, but finally found a great deal online - no early morning trips and long lines necessary. : ) But, oh, where do I really start? Last Monday morning, as I was sitting down for breakfast with Lowell, he said he had a secret he needed to tell me before Christmas. He was quite serious. I said, "Okaaayyy..." and braced myself for whatever he was about to say. (Are you worried that I'm about to divulge his secret out here on the world wide web?????) Turned out to be that his sister and family (the ones who live in Thailand!) decided at the last minute to fly home to CA for Christmas and they were arriving in town the next day!!!!! He was the only one that knew. It was SO MUCH FUN to surprise his parents Tuesday night when they all got here. We hid the boys in over-sized duffel bags and Christmas carolled at their house and then told them we had a couple of early Christmas presents for them. : ) They both thought we had dogs hidden in there but were extremely ecstatic to find their grandsons and parents hiding behind the bushes. Like I said - SO. MUCH. FUN! So memorable. We'll be talking about this one for YEARS, I'm sure. : ) (Sherry, I'll try to get some pictures up here soon. : ) The next days were filled with Christmas Eve service preparations and Christmas celebrations with Lowell's family and 2 with my family and lots of (oh my goodness - so much!) delicious food, a trip to the snow (for everyone except Timothy and me) and to top it all off, we - just Lowell, Mik, Toby, Timo & myself -went to the coast for 2 nights. It was beautiful and a nice, quiet change from the full schedule of the weeks before. Honestly, on Friday I was thinking back on the weeks before and could hardly remember what happened in between Dec. 14 & Dec. 21st. I thought Mik's bday (12/13) had just happened the weekend before and then realized it was 2 weeks ago and what in the world happened since then????? I am PRAISING GOD for getting us through this month the way He did. I had so much fun (could be the theme for this month!) leading worship on Dec. 21 and coordinating the Christmas Eve service for our church and in spite of the added load of responsibilities (TIME!) we were more ready for Christmas (in regard to presents being purchased and wrapped) than we've ever been before. I KNOW it was because God knew what was coming and that I would be madly cleaning Monday and Tuesday and everything else. He took care of everything in so many ways that I don't have time to describe. I guess I won't likely be posting again here in 2008. : ) I love starting new years looking ahead and wondering what God is going to teach me about. And I'm looking forward to sharing more with you as the weeks and months come and go faster than I can get a handle on. : ) This life is quite a ride! I'm glad to be sharing it with you. : ) And I'm glad God's holding on to me so I can throw my hands up in the air and scream with the twists and turns knowing I'm secure in His grip. FOREVER. “This is what the LORD says— he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”- Isaiah 43:16, 18-19 Are you ready for the new thing He's going to do in your life in 2009??? Happy New Year everyone!!!!!

Finally, Flying, Fish, Fathers & Fruit

Well, I don't have a real thought-provoking post for you this week...  Just some random thoughts that I managed to make all start with the letter F.

 

Finally, Mikaela is done with First grade!!!  We are happy and I am amazed at how much we have both grown this year.  Perhaps more reflection on that will be coming, but for now I'll just say I'm grateful for how it ended and that vacation is here!!!

 

Flying airplanes doing stunts and leaving swirling smoke trails were fun to watch at the annual Father's Day weekend airshow Saturday morning here in town. It was lots of Fun!  Sorry...  I'm not going to take the time to post a picture right now so you'll have to use your imagination.  (Sun, airplanes, beach chairs, umbrellas, sun, exhibits, more sun, more airplanes...  you get the picture!)

 

Fish were friends, not food (except for the Goldfish crackers and gummy-fish) at my niece's birthday party on Saturday evening.  Bailey turned 2 and her parents put on quite the Fabulous party.  Toby finally (after watching kids much younger for at least an hour) got up the nerve to go down the inflatable waterslide and there was no stopping him after that.  Hooray!

 

Father's Day weekend was special.  For maybe the first time in a long while, I got to see all 3 of my dads (Dad, Step-Dad, Father-in-law) on Father's Day weekend.  And we also celebrated my favorite father of all...  the father of my kids!  (Well, God's really my favorite Father...  but you know what I mean!)  I love each one of you men so much!!!

 

And...

 

Fruit!!!  Not just eating it...  but learning about it!  This summer, God gave me the idea to teach Mikaela and Toby about the Fruit of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22-23) and we're very excited about it. There are nine "fruits" (though I think they're really aspects of the same Fruit?) listed in that passage and we have exactly nine weeks of vacation, so we're going to talk about one each week.  I'm excited as I know that kids will learn a lot and I will too...  And maybe we'll all be showing some spiritual fruit by the end of our study as well.  I'll be sure to keep you posted.

 

: )  Have a Fabulous week Friends!!!

 

J, Melissa

"We made the best jam in the world!!!"

On Friday afternoon, my mother-in-law, Mikaela, Toby and I undertook our yearly sticky, sweet tradition of making homemade jam. (My kitchen floor still hasn't quite recovered...) Toby declared that night when he tasted it smeared on some bread, "We made the best jam in the world!" (And I have my mother-in-law to thank for teaching me how to do it and for doing it with me. I never get around to doing it on my own. And it' wouldn't be nearly as much fun!)







It's still strawberry season in Fresno, and I'm sorry if you don't live here or somewhere you can get real fresh strawberries because they truly are so amazing! So, of course, after eating lots of them... we turn them into jam! (And here I am washing/de-topping them. Exciting, huh?) This last year I ran out of jam and had to (gulp!) buy some Smuckers. It couldn't be that different, right? WRONG! Now I understand why people rave about this stuff when we give it to them. It truly is so much better!

This year I decided we should try making cherry jam, too, because we had a bunch of cherries from our cherry tree, but I was sort of disappointed with how it turned out. (The Cherry-Strawberry, however, was quite yummy!) And Mikaela holding a bowl of cherries (that just begs for a pun of some sort!) was a photo-op we couldn't pass up!







Toby found these jar grabbers and had lots of fun holding jars (Agh! Over the tile!) with them.

I don't have any pictures of the cooking/boiling/"don't touch that it's hot!" part of the process because I told Lowell he really needed to NOT be in the kitchen at that moment. You'll just have to imagine what it's like to be stirring a pot of boiling, fruit lava next to another pot of boiling jars... with 2 eager children really wanting to help or at least see what's going on! It is truly an experience that stretches the best of both mothers and Buelas!

But in the end, (after pizza because we DO NOT cook dinner after making jam and thankfully our husbands don't argue with that!) we are rewarded with jam that is delicious, can be eaten or given away and memories that last longer than the jam will. It's so worth the pounds of sugar and boxes of pectin and moments of insanity and the sticky spots on the floor. And I couldn't help but imagine what it's going to be like next year with a toddler running around again! But we've done it before with little ones, so we'll just do it again. But next time, at Buela's house!!!

Thank-FULL

Last weekend we went to Cambria (on the coast of California, a couple of hours away from where we live). And God taught me a lesson about thankfulness. On Saturday afternoon we went to the beach. I had this big plan to build a big sandcastle. We had buckets, shovels… we were set! Except the beach we went to didn’t have great sandcastle-building sand like I remembered. It had pebbles. Lots and lots and lots of pebbles and a little bit of sand. And once we got there and we discovered that Lowell was right and I was wrong, we couldn’t just go somewhere else, because we were waiting for Lowell's brother and his family to meet us there and we didn’t have cell service.

We sat down and tried to build a castle with the little bit of sand that was there, but it collapsed. So we just played in the pebbles and dug holes and fed and chased sea gulls and searched for “gems”. Mikaela had quite a beautiful collection of pretty rocks (her "gems") and by the end of our time there, we were all hunting with her. Well, in the middle of my gem hunting, I found a real treasure: thankfulness.

About a week ago, I was asking God about my tendency toward regret & disappointment. For example, I was really sad when I found out we could have sent Kamin a camera and other gifts when he was referred to us. I wished we had known and was in a small way grieving the loss of pictures we could have had if we had sent something earlier. But God showed me (as I pondered the regret issue) that a big part of the solution is TRUST. I needed to trust Him that it was fine and maybe even good (for whatever reasons) that we hadn’t sent anything before. If it hadn’t been fine or good, He would have done something about it. So I could trust Him, grieve what we had missed and move on.

That day at the beach, after we had been there a while having a very nice time, I was still wishing I would have remembered the beach wasn’t sandy so we could have gone somewhere else. Then God opened my eyes. Toby and Lowell were having fun trying to get the waves to make water go into a hole they had dug. And Mikaela was in paradise!!!!! She loves pretty little things as much as anything in the world and she was surrounded by them! And they were free! And she could collect as many as she wanted! And her mom was helping! And I was on the beach, listening to and watching the waves (one of my favorite things in the world to do). What in the world was I doing still wishing for something else? And that’s where I discovered thankfulness. When I stopped wishing for something else and started being thankful for what I had found instead, the regret and disappointment started to evaporate. And I also realized that thanks-GIVING is really quite easy when you’re thank-FULL to start with.

Y, Melissa

Sweet, Sweet Spring!

Well, I think it was almost 2 weeks ago now that I took this picture, but I had to share it with you all! Mikaela had a day off from school and the weather was BEAUTIFUL (I am SO glad I live in the middle of California... I'll take the relentlessly hot summers as long as I get mild, short winters anytime!!!) (Remind me of that in July when it's 110 degrees, please!)

Anyway, Mikaela and Toby played outside for 7 HOURS STRAIGHT that day. I don't know if they've ever done that before. I guess they had spent enough time in the house over the last few months and were making up for it. By the end of the day, they had made enough mud to cover the slide (on the left there) and they were sliding down their nice little mud-slide. So creative, I know.

(And by the way, in case you're jealous of our weather, Spring was very short and we're back to Winter & rain. I really hope we don't go straight from here to summer, regardless of what I said just a few sentences ago!)

And though I don't have much time, I also wanted to tell you about my incredibly sweet husband and Valentine's Day and the singing card he made me open in the middle of Black Angus, but unless you understand the words to "Besame Mucho" you probably won't understand. : ) But I love him so much... even if I don't blog about him all the time. I wouldn't be where or who I am without him and God knew that when he put us together.

I love my family! Can't believe next month we might get to see the face of our missing member!!!!!!!

A Suitcase & Real Live Missionaries!

We are going on a short trip to Yosemite to play in the snow tomorrow (we're staying overnight). I left a suitcase in Toby's room for him to pack. A little while later he had zipped it up and was rolling it down the hall when I stopped him saying I needed to check it to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. When I opened it, this is what I found.



He is obviously very prepared, but I still have to finish packing. However...

I first want to share this fun video with you all! My very talented nephew and his dad made it way over in Thailand, (which for so many reasons is a special place to us!) You'll get to see their church (TLC = The Life Center) and the Abundant Life Home orphanage that their church started. (No, it's not where our child will be coming from b/c our agency doesn't work with them-- as far as we know anyway!) So enjoy this little taste of Thailand and I'll see you next weekend!

Y, Melissa

Legoland Recap

Hi Everybody! Well, I've discovered there was a downside to taking a break from blogging. I now have way too many things I wish I could tell you all about... Christmas was wonderful and full. One of the special things we did was surprise our kids with a trip to Legoland. They had no idea we were going until Christmas morning. We left a few hours later to drive to Bakersfield where we spent Christmas afternoon with my dad, stepmom, grandma, siblings and a whole bunch of uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews and cousins. (Did I miss anyone?) (It's one of the things I would love to tell you lots more about.) We spent the night there and drove the next day through day-after-Christmas-LA-why-are-we-doing-this-traffic and arrived at Legoland (30 min. north of San Diego) around 4:00pm and stayed there until the fireworks show at 7. We returned for another 7 and a half hours the next day before returning to Bakersfield and then home the next morning. (I tell you all this b/c I know you care about our travel itinerary. And maybe I'm out of practice blogging.) Anyway! We had a lot of fun. If you want to see a lot of pictures, watch the video below and you'll see dinosaurs, giraffes, zebras, the Washington Memorial, other skyscrapers, and a mariachi band all made of LEGO!!! Really amazing!!! What you won't see is me about to go nuts late Thursday morning because we were spending too much time PLAYING and not enough time standing in line. Because I like to pack as much as possible into a day like that because we might not be there again for a very long time and isn't that why we're there??? To do as much as possible??? (You can laugh at me. It's ok. I'm laughing, too.) Oh, and my wonderful hubby? Well, he mostly just shook his head and smiled at me knowing I was churning inside and that there was no reason for it. And he let me go take a walk while he and the kids kept playing. Well, praise the LORD, God helped me realize (just in time) that if I kept feeling stressed and thinking everyone in the park was having more fun than I was (and many were having more fun b/c I was being a little, ummm, let's say uptight) that the kids would eventually pick up on it and stop having such a good time just loving being there. God helped me to let go of my control-freaky-ness and just enjoy the rest of the day. We had a fabulous time and (surprisingly or not) we DID pack an amazing amount into the day. One thing I remember from growing up is that the adventures are great, but many times, what is so precious about them is remembering them together. The trip was a gift from God in many ways. We are really thankful for it and are going to enjoy remembering it together for a very long time. If you watch this 5 minute video, know that if I were with you I would be telling you about everything in the pictures because I like doing that... but then, of course, it would take even longer. : ) Y, Mel

General Family Updates!

What a weekend! Saturday, I was inspired to move Toby's bed out of Mikaela's room and into his own.  Before doing that, however, Lowell wanted to texture the wall in there and then he even got it painted Sunday!  Toby is sleeping in there now and is thrilled.  And Mikaela's room looks better than it ever has before.  We spent hours in there over the weekend and my allergies still haven't recovered from all of the dust we apparently stirred up. (There is still a lot of stuff in there, but Mikaela won't have it any other way--because she is, after all, my daughter!  : )  We have always been quite hospitable to "stuff.")  So finally we are all in our "new" bedrooms, even though there are still a few finishing touches left to be done.  You'll get to see pictures someday.  : )

Anyway, I'm glad we got it done and got a head start on the mad cleaning frenzy I will be in this week as we get ready for a church game night/potluck we're hosting next Sunday night.  There could be a lot of people here and I don't want them to have to put their plates on stacks of papers and piles of who-knows-what.  So I'll be doing a lot of taking care of that this week.  If you don't hear from me again soon, that would probably be why.

And since I'm doing some general updating here...  people lately have been asking what's up on the adoption front.  And the answer is...  time is passing and we're waiting and praying and waiting.  Every 3 months our agency gets a list of children (and their info) to be matched with families on the waiting list.  Usually around 6.  So there is a very small possibility we could be matched with a child in December, but probably for sure by March.  We're no. 8 on the list right now, but they don't just go straight down the list b/c sometimes they're looking for the family that fits the child best and some families have requested specific genders, etc.  (And after we're matched we wait another 7-9 months before we go and bring our Little One home!)  And so we wait and dream and wonder...  but mostly wait.  Once we have been matched and have seen a picture and all, I'm sure things will feel very, very different.  But for now, I'm grateful for this less-intense time in the middle.  I have a feeling I'm going to have needed it.  : )

Because it's my job.

It's my job to post videos of my family on my blog, that is. : ) This video was taken yesterday late afternoon when it was almost raining outside. This is Fresno after all. We have to celebrate whatever rain we get! So watch the video and you'll get to see Mikaela and Toby's riding skills and my hubby's video/editting skills. The talent will astound you. : )

Show & Tell

Just for fun, I thought I'd share a few pictures with you today.
First we have the kids showing off their new Lego. After a couple weeks of waiting since Daddy won them (uh, the Lego--not the kids!) on an ebay auction, the box of used, purchased by the pound Lego finally arrived today! This is only the new stuff-- and they are very excited about all the new cool pieces we were missing in our current collection and already building stuff!

Next is a picture of Toby taken last week. Can you see the scar forming on the bottom of his chin? He's actually healing very nicely. I'm so glad we didn't bother with a potentially traumatic trip to the Dr. that day.

And last but certainly not least, we have Mikaela's latest hair creation. She's even done this on me once. So far it hasn't caught on much elsewhere, perhaps because of the impaired visibility it causes, but you never know! If you see this on the fashion runways soon, you'll know where it all started! : )

Happy Thursday everyone!

Wow! It worked!

Below, you'll find a short video (not from a video camera, hence the not super quality) of Mikaela taken at the Fall Program last week. The boy she's with is named Kyler and after the program, Lowell informed his father that they were going to have to have a talk about his son dancing with our daughter. : ) Mikaela's class sang 2 songs. It was a fantastic, fun program and over in less than an hour! : ) It was really neat to see/hear the older kids in the Bilingual program singing/reciting poems in both languages so fluently. Fun, fun!

El Twist de Mik's Colegio

Click on the big arrow twice to play video.

God is Good

Lowell and I came home yesterday from our Annual Marriage Immunity Booster Conference. (It's actually Hume Lake's Fall Couples Conference #1, but my name for it is so much more descriptive, don't you think?) It did rain most of Saturday afternoon, which meant we didn't get to shoot shotguns or go on the GPS Adventure (follow GPS coordinates to get to the prize) and we skipped the rainy extreme Bocce tournament b/c taking a nap was just a lot more enticing. But the most important pieces were all there... A really good speaker (I'll talk more about him in a minute), awesome worship, lots and lots of good food and meals shared with a lot of neat couples we'd never met before and time for Lowell and I to be together and learning and thinking about our marriage. It might not be a cheap weekend, but we've determined that our marriage is absolutely worth investing in and this is a great place for that to happen. Unfortunately, I don't have any great pictures to show you b/c we left our camera at home and Lowell's phone wouldn't work. Oh well. The speaker was Pete McKenzie from Southern California and he was so good. Our favorite quote from his sessions was this: "Life is difficult. But it's more difficult if you're stupid." Nice, huh??? But the thing he said that hit me the hardest was that we have to choose between the path to Pleasing God and the path to Trusting God. I wasn't sure where he was going with that at first, because I've always tried to do both. But he explained that STRIVING to PLEASE God depends on our own efforts and focuses on our failures and trying to fix our sin and do everything right. But TRUSTING God starts with humility and repentance and lets God do the work of changing us and changing those around us. It says "I'm standing with God and my sin is before me and we're working on it together" instead of "I'm working on it..." He also mentioned that to "Be Still" means to "Cease Striving" which means so much to me especially since I wrote a song back in July called "Be Still". So, I'm going to be learning for a while about how to trust God without the striving. Striving to be better and do everything right is as natural to me as breathing so it's going to be a hard habit to break, but I'm trusting God to do it because I know I can't do it on my own. And I can trust Him. God is good and life is good when I'm walking with and waiting on God. Even when it's difficult.

Hume Lake here we come!!!

Lowell and I leave today for one of Hume Lake's couple's conferences. This is the 4th year in a row we've gone. I'm very excited and hoping it doesn't rain too much. Mikaela and Toby are going to be staying on the Friesen Farm with my sister Coleen and her fabulous family. If you want to have an idea of what we'll be doing, after you finish reading this, click HERE and scroll down a little. Then click on the Fall Couple's #1 Video link to watch a video of last year. Pay attention and you'll see me in a black sweater shooting a shotgun (yes, I promise that's me) after a few seconds of the video starting. (And I'm not doing the skeet shooting range again this year b/c my arms get too tired holding up the gun. Yes, I'm a weakling.)

And if you have even more time, click on the tab up at the top of their page where it says "Fun" and select "Video archive" and watch some of the videos they have produced over the years. Funny stuff!!!

OK, Have a nice weekend everyone! I'll be back next week to tell you about everything Lowell and I learn!

~Melissa

Season's Greetings from the Ens Family!

Since we didn't send out a Christmas letter last year, I thought today would be an appropriate day to send out a greeting.  Toby came out this morning carrying two little doggies who were both wearing Christmas hats and when I asked him about it, after a moment of thought, he said it was because today was "Dog Christmas!"  So in honor of Dog Christmas, because even dogs can celebrate Jesus being born and with the whole 7:1 year ratio thing they really should celebrate Christmas 7 times a year, we are wishing you all a very Merry Dog Christmas and a Yappy New Year. 

J ~Melissa

Things Toby and I learned while Mik was at school today

1.  (This was all very non-graphic, by the way...  purely too many Gingerbread Man stories!)  Toby asked me what I would do if a real fox ate my head.  I said I would cry.  He informed me that I couldn't because what if the fox ate my face, too? 

 

2.  "Look Mom!  They're selling rocks at Costco!"  A closer look revealed to him they were actually mushrooms, not shrink-wrapped rocks in between the carrots and broccoli.

 

3.  If Toby parks Mikaela's Dora scooter on the far side of the van and Mommy doesn't see it and tries to back over it, the scooter won't drive perfectly straight afterward--even after Daddy fixes it.  (Oops.)

 

4.  I learned that when Toby goes to the Diego Live! show next week with his grandparents there will be 190 boys there and 10 girls.  Because he saw a little bit of it on TV so he knows.

 

And finally...

5.  There are such things as Attacking Tornadoes that shoot fire and even if you erase them (they only exist on dry-erase boards, thankfully!) they can still shoot fire through the eraser.  Wow. 

 

Toby and I sure had fun today.  J

 

And in case you're wondering, Mikaela had a nice day too, even though she said the day was longer than she thought it would be.  But I think we're off to a great start.   

So Much to Say! (But then, what's new about that???)

Well, hello my faithful friends!!! Life around here has slowed down a bit. (Sigh. I'm SO glad!) So I thought since it's been (GASP!) almost a week since I added anything to my blog it was time! So here I will share with you some pictures (worth several thousand words you should be grateful you don't have to read) of our camping trip to Morro Bay, CA where we spent several days playing, laughing and getting sunburned even though it was overcast for all but maybe 15 minutes.

This first one is MOST of the group we were with. It's missing one family (who didn't come with us to the museum) and one crying child (Caleb Parra) who refused to be in the picture. I don't have any pictures of the Ebury family, but I do have pictures of the crying child when he was playing with Toby at a different time with our fabulously stylish tent trailer in the background. : ) Dontcha just love it??? (And Carlos, your picture is officially on the internet on somebody's blog.)

Here is a picture of Lowell at the beach with his girls. They didn't pose this way for the picture. They were already sitting on him when I got there. : )

This is Mikaela and Toby with their adorable cousin Caleb who lives in San Luis Obispo (not to be confused with Caleb Parra who is missing from the group picture above). Caleb brought his parents (Lowell's brother Matt and Matt's wife Anne-Therese) to Toby's party because he'd never gotten to hit a pinata before.

We took care of that.

And last but not least... THIS is Toby's cake!!! And Toby, of course. It was his birthday we were celebrating after all. : )

So there you have it. 6000 words worth of pictures and only a few hundred to read. I call that a bargain! I wish I had video of the ROARING (thanks, Duane) campfire and the singing we got to do the last night. It was so sweet. But we were all too busy enjoying ourselves to take any pictures, so (unless you were there) you'll just have to join us next year and experience it for yourself, okay???

Dirt and Deer and Bears, Oh My!

We got back yesterday from a 4 day camping trip at Hume Lake. The weather was beautiful, the kids were OH-SO dirty, and we saw LOTS of deer. One even wandered through the back of our campsite a couple of times. And though Stacie thought she heard a bear the first night, it turned out just to be somebody snoring. We were with our friends Stacie & Carlos Parra and their kids Natalie and Caleb and we had lots of fun swimming in the lake, hiking to the Little Brown Church, exploring Boyden Cave and Kings Canyon, getting sticky making smores, playing in the dirt, and just being together. I'd love to tell you more about it but I have a LOT of laundry to do and an ice chest to clean out. I'll TRY to post some more pictures later today (if I get the laundry done!)