Whistle While You Work

I am trying to teach my boys a good work ethic. Vacuuming always seems to be intriguing to them, so this is where we start. At this age it is a fight because both of them want to help at the same time, do you think it will be the same situation when they get older? I can only hope, that I will never have to remind them to put their clothes away, to do their jobs or clean their room.

Tadpole

Xander is fearless. Chris taught him to be self-sufficient in the water as he jumps in he swim to the steps and the does the process all over again. he loves the water. After a while with the swim jacket on he say,"out of water" and starts trying to take the life jacket off. Well, he only says,"out of water" so I will take his life jacket off. He thinks he can swim fine with out it. Then he does the jumping process again with out the life jacket, this time I am near to catch him, but only after he has gone all the way under the water. He won't let me get close other wise.

I think I have a Michael Phelps here, for actually both my boys, maybe we will see them in the Olympics, or maybe I am just a mother talking.

We are so blessed to have a pool because we swim in it at least once a day, it is a very part of our lives.

Surfer Boys

This is how we beat the 100 degree heat out here. Nothing like surfing in the pool, thanks to Benj and his surf board. The boys loved standing on it and being pushed across the pool.

We also went to the beach this week and I would've gone back, but I didn't take care of myself and got a little fried on my legs. Keaton thinks next time we go to the beach he will get to bring the surf board, I think we will start with the boogie board first.

Memorial Day Weekend

For this weekend we went camping at Cuyamaca Rancho Park in san diego with both Rands families.

DAY 1

Now, when we go camping I think we practically bring everything we own, literally. I can not believe all the camping stuff we have. The only house we own is our tent.

Thinking we couldn't pack anything more because we didn't own much more we headed out. The weather was a little cooler than expected and we arrived at out campground at 10pm,(we thought we would tour the mountain a little bit and go a little lost LOL) in the rain. We are exhausted and luckily our friends were already set up and helped us get out tent up. It was freezing outside and we are ready to bundle up and go to bed.

It is late and there is still noise going on, but it isn't my boys it is the next campground over and a couple were having a domestic argument. After an hour Chris yelled, "Good night angry couple", hoping it would quiet them down, but no, they kept going for another hour. What a night.

DAY2

It was very cold in the morning, but we started off good with dutch oven german pancakes. Thinking I almost brought everything we owned, I realized I should have brought everything. The rain had now stopped, but I only brought the boys and I a pair of shoes and then sandals (there was a lake close by and i was really hoping for sunny weather). Shoes were wet and we were quickly going through all pairs of socks.

We head into town, the Viejo outlets and loaded up with warmer clothes:

• new shoes for Xander at the Nike outlet
• new shoes for Keaton at the Vans outlet
• new socks at the Nike outlet
• new pjs at the Gap outlet
• the best deal of all $3 rain boots for myself at the Gap outlet

Things keep looking up. Now we all have warm feet ,more layers of clothes and when we are heading back to camp we come across some firemen. Keaton couldn't pass this up, so I took him over to look at the firetruck, the fireman gets out and lets keaton climb all over the truck. It made Keatons and Xanders day. We had an amazing dinner that night with bbq pork ribs, baked beans, corn and Chris made an amazing apple cobbler. A warm meal in front of the fire.

Since it was so cold I had the boys in layers when they went to bad, Keaton was layered as much as Xander since Keaton had a mummy sleeping bag. Xander looked liked the boy from A CHRISTMAS STORY, here are is layers I would put him to bed in:

• new pjs
• thermal pjs
• sweat bottoms
• sweater
• sleeper pjs
• coat
• 3 pair of socks

You definantely couldn't put his arms next to his side, but atleast he was warm.

DAY 3

Time to get cleaned up. We took showers and went to church, it felt good to be somewhere warm. Had some more good camping food, did a pinata for Madeleine Rands bday and enjoyed the campfire.

DAY 4

Packed up to go home and finally went down to the lake to cast a few times.

There is always a camping experience, next time we won't go camping when it gets down to 36 degrees at night, brrrrr that's cold. This experience won't stop us from camping more, the boys still had a great time running around and getting dirty and I always enjoy when the men cook, which they did most of the camp cooking.