Roar....Jack turned 4

This year I decided to take a birthday shortcut and have Jack's party at an indoor inflatable bouncy place. I had a couple other birthday ideas, but this just seemed like a good place to celebrate this year.

And with smiles like these, I'd say he had a great time. The kids bounced and slid and giggled and sweated. Oh boy, they were worn out after an hour of bouncing.


We then headed to the party room where the purple and red decor of the room really clashed with the blue, orange and green decorations I had brought. But somehow, when everything was decorated, it looked real cute. If you can't tell, Jack (with some nudging from me) picked a dinosaur party. I bought a couple of digital files on Etsy and made the water bottle wrapper, cupcake toppers and a few other bag toppers. I also found some cute fabric and I sewed a banner in coordinating colors. Probably not necessary, but it turned out super cute. We weren't supposed to bring in outside food (I purchased pizza and fruit trays from them), but I did and they didn't say a word. What's a dinosaur party without some herbivore dinosaur treats? A basket of squeezable apple sauces and bags of veggie sticks were perfect for our hungry little bunch.




I had some mini plastic dinosaurs on the table that I used for decorations, but it turned out to be a fun thing to keep the kids busy while the food was being served.


Jack ended the party by passing out the goodie bags. I purchased plain kraft bags at the dollar store added a dinosaur ribbon and cut out a dinosaur on my Cricut. I actually purchased all the goodies inside the bag several months ago. Found some dinosaur goodies at Michaels in the dollar spot and took a gamble that we'd be able to use them. There was a dinosaur placemat, a dinosaur book, an egg with a dinosaur inside, an etched dinosaur pad and a small bag of jelly bellies that I packaged with a topper that said "prehistoric dinosaur eggs".

We brought the gifts home to open them as we were running short on time and Jack has been in toy heaven the last couple days.


Happy Birthday to my sweet 4 year old, you are a little ray of sunshine who delights in play and makes us smile every single day.

Summer-ventures-July

I wrote this up some time ago, but I guess it never got posted. Better late than never.

We're are making good progress on getting through our lists of fun things we wanted to do this summer.
One Friday night, we went to the county fair. It was a beautiful summer evening and the crowds were very light-my type of event.
We thought we'd be doing a lot of this...


But instead we wandered through the 4-H rabbit hutches and got detoured by the railroad sign. And Jack stopped us in our tracks (pun intended-ha ha). An entire room was devoted to O and H-O scale model trains. Of course we didn't know this at the time, but the elderly volunteers were quite taken with Jack's interest and knowledge of trains and spent a good part of the night teaching us about model railroads. We had so much fun watching Jack, we actually came back to the fair on $.99 day and spent an afternoon here again.



Our big summer vacation this year was in Cayucos. But on the way down we stopped at Gilroy Gardens. It was the last day of the dinosaur exhibit. You'll notice in the picture Jack looking back at that triceratops. They were animitronic and gave him a startle the first time they moved. I think he was never quite convinced that they'd take off after him.

Ahhh-Cayucos. My sister and her family made the long flight for the east coast to join us. Would have loved to get some better pictures, but the wind was pretty strong and the sand was even more appealing.

The big surprise. Everyone thought we were going to Cambria to shop for the afternoon, but a little surprise was in store. 4 generations in a limo, made for a pretty memorable afternoon. Of course, some of us remember it a bit more clearer than others. But...what happens in the limo, stays in the limo :-)

If you ever are in the area, I highly suggest driving to Montana de Oro State Beach. I believe this area where we spent the day is called Spooner's Cove. My goodness, this is one of the most gorgeous beaches. It's not a swimming beach or a lay out and sun yourself beach, but geologically it's magnificent. There are tidepools, rounded stones, unusual rock formations, areas to climb and explore. In one word-GO!

Garrett attended a 4 day camp at UC Berkeley. He liked the camp, but he loved the dorm experience at a prestigious college. All in all, I'd say he learned some new soccer skills, but also gained a strong desire to make sure he's able to go away to college.


After we dropped him off, I took Jack to the Lawrence Hall of Science which is on the same campus. They have a similar dinosaur exhibit, but bigger. There was a lot more to see.



Well summer is chugging along, we bought a few school supplies just the other day so we know what's around the corner. Still have a few days of fun we want to squeeze in before it's back to school. Stay tuned for our August Summer Ventures.

Well that was kind of cool

Last weekend Garrett and I flew down to Southern California for the NHB Soccer Tournament. With the tournament scheduled over Labor Day weekend, we were a little scared about the traffic we might encounter so Chris stayed home with Jack and Morgan-our regular cheering section for Garrett's games.

But our Southern California entourage showed up and definitely made up for it. And in return Garrett gave an awesome show. He scored 3 of the 9 goals in the tournament.



And I got lucky and captured a couple of those goals.

Unfortunately, our winning streak ended in the quarterfinals when a tied game was decided in PKs. Still had a great time.