out from behind the camera

I am trying to remember to get out from behind the camera... a little more often! I am always the one with the camera in hand, documenting our lives. We ended our super fun day at Lake Tahoe with some yummy pizza from one of the local pizza joints. After dinner, I handed my camera over to Carter and asked him to snap a few photos of John and I. This is what I found on my camera. They made me smile, silly ones and all!

I sure LOVE him. Yes, I do!

Summer tradition

This favorite(family) Summer tradition is 8 years strong. Our very first family trip to Kings Beach was when Garrett was just a few weeks old. Garrett is now 8 years old. We love this Summer tradition, it is one of our absolute favorites for sure.

We spent a gorgeous day on the shore of Lake Tahoe. The boys were armed with their string, hot dogs and fishing nets. They headed over to their favorite dock and began collecting crayfish by the buckets. This was the 1st year that Brody caught them all by himself. He was thrilled and giggled the entire time.

There was plenty of picture taking.

Dock jumping.

Boat rides with friends. It was fun to visit with the Jones family!

Hanging out on the shore with friends.

Playing in the sand...lots of sand.

Yearly family photo on the shore of our favorite lake.

We are already dreaming of our next visit!

lake day

One of our favorite Summer activities is to head to Lake Tahoe. This Summer flew by and before we knew it, the boys had started school. We realized that we had not enjoyed a day of play on the lake. On a whim, we decided to head to the lake. We were thrilled to have our friends, the Pinney's join us. It was a perfect California day. We spent the day playing in the water, fishing for crayfish, soaking up the sun, building sand castles, eating, reading books and enjoying each other. Perfect day in my book.

on the shore

We enjoyed a beautiful Cali day at our favorite Lake Tahoe beach. The weather was perfect. The company was great. The water was refeshing and there were smiles all around.It was fun to have a few of our favorite families join us. Between the 6 families, we had 20 kiddos. That simply means lots of F-U-N!

{Brody had already escaped this photo}

It is always a treat for me to visit with my girlfriends.

{love these girls}









aaahhhhh...another perfect Summer day.

It's official, summer is coming to an end...booooooo. We decided (last minute) to take the boys to Lake Tahoe for one last trip this summer. It was a little windier that we would have liked but it did not damper our fun! The wind on the lake actually provided some awesome entertainment for us. We watched several guys do some parachute surfing. Have you ever seen this? It was very cool & entertaining to watch. The boys had a blast digging in the sand, fishing for crayfish, running in & out of the lake, having Dad pull them really fast on the boogie boards & spinning out of control, & eating lunch on the shore of our favorite lake.

With the end of summer comes the start of Fall.I am so looking forward to cooler weather, Caramel Apple Cider from Starbucks,, soccer games(oh wait, we have been attending soccer games all summer), sweater weather, wanting to exercise outside again, Crock pot dinners, favorite fall candles burning, & the lovely colors of Fall.

a summer tradition

Our summer would not be complete without a visit from the cousins. Malakai, Kannon, & Jace came to stay with us for a few days! What's a few more boys? It is a yearly tradition that we look forward to. The boys always have so much fun together. I was online looking for fun activities to create with all of the boys while they were here. I found recipes for things like "Make your own slime" & sidewalk paint. They kept themselves so busy this year that we didn't get to any of that. They had a great time. I enjoyed watching them play, laugh, wrestle & behave like a bunch of energetic boys.

I met my sister in Fairfield(the half way point) on Wednesday to grab the boys.














We headed home with a packed car. The music was bumping :-)! Tanner has become quite the backseat DJ. He is always making sure that I have the music loud enough & that all of the songs are appropriate :-)! It was fun to listen to them belt out the songs they love. We made it home & enjoyed a yummy taco dinner. After dinner we headed to the FOUNTAINS to get frozen yogurt at BIG SPOON. The boys LOVE BIG SPOON. You create your own...yogurt, toppings & all.





















While enjoying our Yogurt, we headed over to the Fountains to enjoy the music & watch the colorful fountains squirt water to the beat of the music.

















Gee, do you think these boys have Moms who take photos -LOL?
I told them I wanted to take a picture of them & this is how they posed :-)


We started our Thursday off with waffles, strawberries, & whip cream. Each time I made breakfast, lunch or dinner, I felt like I was feeding a small army.














We enjoyed the cement slides today. I was happy to see last years grafitti was gone. Thank you, city of Roseville.


























Brody was big enough to ride down on the cardboard all by himself. He was all smiles each time he slid down.



























The slides wore the boys out. They spent an hour running up the stairs & sliding down. There were many competitive races down when the older boys were sliding. We LOVE this park & need to remember to visit it more often.


















After the slides, we went home & the boys kept themselves busy with baseball games out front, many rounds of the card game SPEED, water balloon fights, & even some down time.

For dinner, we picked up some pizza & headed over to the local water park. Do you sense a theme of the cousin visit? I let these boys play hard all day so they'll sleep really well @ night :-). It seems to work in my favor at the end of the day.



















We ended the night with a silly string war in the front yard.


















We spent Friday at Lake Tahoe with our family & friends! We had so much fun! The boys caught crayfish by the bucketfuls, they played football in the lake, they swam, built a few sand castles,had their lunch on the shore & they went boogie boarding. Not the kind of boogie boarding like we enjoy in the ocean, but none the less, they called in boogie boarding & had a blast.


























Whew!!! I am tired just typing about our activities over the last three days. The boys went home this morning, bright & early. We loved having them. We are already looking forward to next summer when the cousins can visit again.

I am exhausted & need a nap. See ya!