What we've been up to

Earlier this week Logan came down to visit again and he and I took Mads down to the lake to feed the ducks. The ducks were surprisingly not very aggressive and so Mads loved it!

I believe this week was the first official day of fall. Living here in southern California you'd never know. We're still in the triple digits! To beat the heat this weekend we went over to some friends house and bar b qued and swam. Good times were had by all.Mads is sure to stay afloat.
Mads swimming away.
Shaun and Connor decide to take the plunge together.
Even the dog went for a swim, sort of.
For some unknown reason, other than just being Sam, Sam refused to get in the water.
Mads working on her tan.
An update on Sam's campaign: She lost. It was kind of a bummer, but she had a pretty good attitude about it. The day of the election all the candidates had to give a speech. I taped Sam's for Shaun to see, since he couldn't be there. Madison helped me out as you'll see.

Take CHARGE

Sam is running for Student Body Secretary and the election is this week. She is running against three other girls. We figured that the girls would split the votes between all their friends, so it was the boy vote that we went after. We decided on "Take CHARGE (using the CHARGERS logo) and vote for Samantha for Secretary" as her slogan. Last night we got out the poster paper, glue and a lot of glitter and made her campaign poster. Here is the final result.
These are Sam's campaign stickers she hands out. A big shout out to uncle Logan for helping us make them. He's the best!I sure hope she wins, but if not she's had a lot of fun in the process!

Uncle Logan weekends

My brother Logan just moved down here to the San Bernadino area, and we are very excited to have some family living kind of close now. We've had the first couple, of which I hope there will be lots more, Uncle Logan weekends. My kids love having Logan around because he's fun and I love it because he's so darn funny. This last time he came to visit we decided to try out the experiment of mixing white mentos and diet coke. They supposedly react to each other and cause a mini explosion. Of course you could try putting the mentos in a glass and pouring the diet coke over it, but with a willing subject like Logan we decided to try it in his mouth. It wasn't as fantastic as we had had hoped, just A LOT of foaming, but still really funny! Have a look.
Any other crazy ideas for us for when Logan comes for his next visit?!

A super Saturday

This weekend we got to have a couple of cute red heads spend the night while their parents went away for the weekend. It was very fun! Saturday morning we got to go to the Poway Days parade. It was a great parade this year. I totally teared up when a bunch of Marines came by in full combat uniform and then were followed by a float of WW II Veterans. Yeah, I'm a bit sappy.
After the parade it was the first soccer games of the season for this tough girl...
...and for this one too!A very busy, but fun Saturday.

Dear Mom

Dear Mom,
Please come visit soon. Love, Cole

What to do?

As of Tuesday, all three of my big kids are in school all day, and on Thursday's Madison goes and plays at a friends house for about four hours. This picture is her anxiously waiting to go. She stood by the front door for about a half an hour and yelled at the top of her lungs, "Ready to go to Anna's house!" She was VERY excited to go! I was excited to have four hours all to myself to do whatever I wanted. The possibilities are endless! What's a mom to do?
Maybe I should start with this. All the laundry that was washed and dried yesterday, but never seemed to get folded. Good times.

Labor Day

We had such a great time at the beach on Saturday that we decided to brave the even bigger crowds on Labor Day and go back. We were not disappointed. Yes, parking was WAY worse, but the waves were great and we had a really fun time!
The best part of the the huge crowds at the beach were these beauties. Lined up, up and down the beach. Connor thought they were great. He made two trips to them while we were there. He told me after his first trip, "Mom, I wish we had this kind of bathroom at home. You get to pee in a hole in the wall and then you don't have to flush or wash your hands!" Wow.

I love body surfing

Yesterday, with the rest of southern California, we headed to the beach with some friends, the Harveys. Parking was miserable, and the beach was crowded, but it was a lot of fun. We body surfed for hours and the waves were fantastic. I think it has something to do with the phases of the moon and it being a full moon a couple of nights ago. I don't really know, but we did have a great time!
The kids had a great time digging a big hole to play in.
Connor was pestering the girls in their pit(destroying sand castles, splashing, and other annoying little brother stuff) so our friend Bill dug Connor his own "man hole"
After hours of body surfing and sand castle making we bar-b-qued and then played games. Sam and Mads played a little football.
Everyone else played a few rounds of run the bases.A great game for Connor since it pretty much involves a lot of pointless running.

Amanda getting tagged by Shaun!

Yummy cookies

It's been really hot here. I thought that we would escape the heat this year by being in Utah for a lot of the summer, but apparently not. Even with the heat I love to bake. The other day was my friends birthday and so I made her these yummy Chocolate chip toffee cookies. I got the recipe here. They were delicious and definitely worth heating the house up for!