Spring Break '12

It's time for Spring Break! It came early this year, the first time our school district has scheduled it not near Easter. We have no plans, which makes for a nice, relaxing time where we can unwind and play and play and play. In this case, bake and bake and bake.

Brooke has been on a baking spree. She made mock Reese's peanut butter bars (9x13), two cherry cream cheese pies (one for Shaun's birthday - his favorite), and cookie cakes:

Brooke and Monroe wanted to get creative and expressed it using stuff they found in my cake decorating box.

Cute girls.

Madison and I spent a morning at the Bishop's Storehouse filling orders. It was really fun and a great way to get some service hours. Unfortunately, she has several (like 6!) projects that are due the week after break. Ridiculous! So she's been spending a lot of time on those while Brooke works on a video presentation she's doing for school.

Thursday was a totally awesome day. It was sunny, a perfect temperature with clear skies that begged to have the books put away and to be played under.

First up, we went on a bike ride in the morning, found a neighborhood that had a very steep and quiet street and enjoyed flying down it at top speed.

Then John and I had a golf date that was his birthday present (3 months ago). It was for an hour-long lesson for the both of us at Malibu Golf Course by golf pro Rusty Tucker.

It was super fun, especially because we got to ride around in our own golf cart.

This makes us want to play golf for real.

Too bad we don't have the time at this point, but it was fun nonetheless.

While I was away, the kids had made a cooking show, filming how to make lunch which consisted of mac-n-cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, ants on log, and chocolate milk. Brooke has been having fun all week making a movie for her class about the state of Iowa and is now using her newly-acquired filming and editing skills to become the next Rachel Ray.

It was 3:00 in the afternoon and they mentioned how we still hadn't gone to the beach yet during Break. Why not go now? We got to the beach after 4:00 and someone told us the fog just burned off. It was clear, beautiful and pleasant.

Christian drew in the sand. I texted it to John and he said that right there is worth the price of gas to drive to get to the beach. (Gas is crazy $4.35 now. GEESH)

why is this underlining??
They immediately ran all over the place, loving that the tide was way out and nobody was on the beach. It was perfect.
Draw 2 lines in the sand and have a leaping contest. Why not?

Since we are missing track practice, why not have our own sprints?

Christian found a piece of wood, made a see-saw and used it to catapult a broken shovel several yards in the air. Such a boy.

I'm so glad that we decided at the last minute to go to the beach. It was perfect and we stayed until after 6:00. Then drove through Chick Fil A on the way home. I've never been there, but heard it was decent for fast food and always wanted to try it. (This area only recently got this eatery). The only drive through we EVER do is In-n-Out, so we are really branching out here and found that we may now have a 2nd fast food option to add to our short list.

We got home, ate, the kids took showers and John and I went for a walk. It was such a beautiful night with bright clear stars and I wanted to still enjoy the great day, not let it end. We took Cole and walked to our Bishop's house who lives about a mile away and returned some books his daughter needed (Hunger Games). Walking hand in hand, chatting away, walking the dog, looking at the constellations.

It doesn't get much better than that.

However, it would be much better if I could figure out how to get rid of this underlining, and find out why it randomly shows up. Annoying!

Friday is supposed to be snow day, but I think it might be all gone (at least for the hour-long-drive locations). We couldn't go earlier in the week when there was some because Ashlyn was sick with the flu. Poor girl.

I love how Spring Break gives us a taste of summer. Now if we could just get our heads back in the game for 2 1/2 more months, we'll survive, knowing we have this and more (like Hawaii!) in store.

Samples of Summer

Summer if flying by way too fast around here. There are only two more weeks until school starts and I feel like I'm being cheated. I don't like school starting in August at all. School needs to start in September. We go back on August 24th and that's the earliest it's ever been around here.

We've been hanging out have a nice time and enjoying not having a set schedule to keep. Next week we are going to go on a little extended weekend family vacation and are thrilled that John is actually going to take two days off work! We'll see if it actually pans out, but the intent is right on. After that, Madison gets to go to her first girls' camp and will be away from her family longer than she ever has.

I've taken a look at our goals we wrote out at the beginning of the summer to see if we've accomplished anything and I've been pleasantly surprised.

Ashlyn learned to tie her shoes and ride a bike.

Christian got really good at riding his bike, started piano lessons and started Tae Kwon Do and is even testing for his yellow belt tomorrow.

Brooke is learning to surf, sewing and reading a lot more.

Madison is teaching Christian piano, and becoming quite adept at many complicated pieces herself. All of them have been keeping up on schoolwork.

For now, here is a small sampling of some of our summer happenings . . .

We live in flip flops.

Having fun with the iphone camera. See what happens when the kids play with your phone?

Lots of fun beach time.

Tandem surfing, sort of.

Making forts all over the house.

Hanging out at the campfire.

Late night talks by the fire with Julie while the kids are playing games on the beach in the dark.

Ward(s) beach day. Every Thursday. A nice group of people congregate - put up an umbrella, beach chairs and towels and have an instant party.

My favorite . . . going swimming after the beach. Nothing like getting all that sand out before going home! The maximum capacity on this spa says 6. I think we exceeded it by a couple.

Family Reunion Time

The Merrill Family Reunion was held July 5-9 camping at Leo Carrillo State Beach.

The cousins all had a blast getting reacquainted and playing non-stop on the beach or at the camp.

left to right: Madison, Spencer, Mikal, Uncle Matt

Maddy and Spencer collide.

I think every child was buried in the sand at one point or another.

Here are the ABC's of 2001.

Alyssa, Brooke, and Christa.

When they were just toddlers, we took a cute picture of them sitting on a sand dune at the beach, all wearing hats. Heather (Joe's) picked up some darling hats for them to wear for another history-making shot.

Then we used them on Becky, Miranda and Madison for fun.

Kids frolicking in the gorgeous surf.

Family picture time! Daniel designed these awesome family reunion t-shirts that we donned for the photos.

Here are the Heathers and me. Yes, they are all Heather Merrill. I am non-Heather.

Here's the whole Merrill clan. Grandma and Grandpa, 7 kids, 7 spouses, and 28 grandchildren.

Andy always wants to have an "outlaw" shot. We are the Merrill Outlaws.

S'more fun just about every night.

Uncle Andy brought this cool bottle rocket launcher (fashioned from an old Dish satellite).

The kids had a blast making that thing blast off.

We drove down to the far end of the beach. I had a dozen kids piled (literally) in my car along with 3 longboards and boogie boards, and Cole. They loved the unconventional way to travel.

I think Ashlyn here is not only enjoying the rays, but trying to breathe as it was pretty packed in the car!

Notice the kids playing happily in the sand . . . and the guy wiping out on the wave! So funny! I don't know who it is, but it was great timing.

Christian and Gavin goofing off.

On Friday night, John came back from work and went surfing. I brought the girls down to the beach after dinner so we could watch and take some pictures.

The pelicans were very active

dive bombing in the water

and making quite a splash.

Here John is coming in to say hi to us.

The setting sun put out such a beautiful light which made for some gorgeous photos.

Saturday morning we packed up camp and came home tired, hot, sweaty, dirty

to this . . .

Our neighborhood was completely closed off with

SWAT, a dozen sheriff cars and trucks, a hook-and-ladder, paramedic, 5th wheel, tents, trailers, K-9 units, battering ram, a chaplain and negotiators.

We had to park our loaded-to-the-ceiling-and-on-the-roof cars on the main street and have a police escort walk us to our house where we were to remain indoors the whole time.

John even got lightly reprimanded for trying to water the grass by our front door.

Turns out that a neighbor went berzerk and threatened his life (with a SWORD!?). His fiancee called 911 at 6am and she was outside the whole time with the police.

CRAZY!

For six hours our neighborhood was under house arrest (there's only one street to access) while the negotiators tried talking the guy out.

After about an hour of silence, they went through the unlocked front door and found him unconscious. Seriously, I'm hoping that law enforcement was using this opportunity for a DRILL as it was pretty over the top! There were no hostages, his fiancee was working with the police letting them know everything the guy owned. The man-power was pretty incredible and I don't even want to know how much it cost. Just goes to show how low-key this area is when something this benign can garner so much attention.

(the photos were taken from my balcony)

We were glad when it was over so we could unpack and go to the laundry mat!

Our First Week of Summer

So far, so good. The first week of summer has turned out to be so fun, even if they sun hasn't shone consistently. We started out the week first thing Monday morning with chores, homework and this . . .

It's done! It's finally all done! The glass guy came and installed a massive shower enclosure that's super heavy with 1/2"thick glass almost all the way to the ceiling. The best part is that we now get to use it! I don't think my children have showered so much in any given week (especially summer with all the swimming) in their lives. It's beautiful, functional, and totally works! It only took 2 months, which is a record here. After a few more smaller-scale items, the bathroom can officially be called remodeled. Hopefully that will be within the 2 1/2 year mark.

On Monday we went swimming with the Johnsons

On Tuesday we went to the Free Movie with the Johnsons, then here to play and have In-n-Out for lunch, then swimming

On Wednesday we went to Malibu ...

It was a nice day, even if it was cloudy and the kids made good use of this little sand dune.

Then I signed Christian up for TKD which at which he was totally awesome and surprised us all. I hope he can commit to it.

I had a difficult time understanding the Grand Master, but everyone tells me you get used to it and eventually start to comprehend his Korean/English.

Thursday is beach day at Silverstrand! Yeah! The tradition continues. There were several families from a different ward, and our cousins, which Ashlyn was so excited about- she loves her Chelsea.
Christian and I had fun playing badminton, velcro-ball (?) and he loved climbing on the rocks.

The shore was lined with millions of sand crab skeletons. Weird! I don't think I've ever seen that before.

The older girls wanted to go down the beach a bit to find a better boarding spot. They just looked too cool walking back. They also wanted to go for a walk down the beach a ways on their own ... they are growing up! Pretty soon they're going to want to plop their towels down yards away from us, if I let them. Which I won't.

Brooke wanted to get her own surfboard so bad! She emptied out her piggy bank and was all set to go get one. She begged and begged John to take her to the store every day. She certainly did not want to wait until her birthday (late Sept) so with her determination, we took her to the store and she picked out her very own surfboard and she paid half for it. The other half she's paying us back by tutoring Ashlyn, teaching her piano, doing extra chores and developing her own talents. Here in this picture is giving her surfboard her very own signature. She's so pro.

Friday was spent baking for the tri-ward picnic and running errands. Another super fun thing of the week was riding bikes and playing outside UNTIL THE STREETLIGHTS CAME ON!

I LOVE SUMMER!!!