Getting a Taste of Summer

The very last track meet, the co-conference finals, was held at Santa Barbara College.  

Who wouldn't want to attend a track meet with this view and perfect year-round weather?

We only went for a little while to cheer on our friends, then hopped on our bikes for a nice ride down the coast and by the zoo.  Look closely and you'll see a giraffe.  How cool is that?

Then we grabbed some fish tacos from the beach stand and had a little picnic by the shore. 

A perfect day!!

By a Finger

At our last track meet, Christian got it all figured out . . . if he just sticks his hand out when crossing the finish line, then he'll win.

Technically, his hand is in front of this best friend Harrison, but sorry Christian, that's not how you win the race. 

This picture is taken from the finish line camera.  Pretty cool!

The funny thing is how many people commented about the kid who stuck his arm out.  Even today John was  hearing about it, but didn't know it was his son!

Catching Up

Track has begun.

It is super fun.

It takes over our lives.

I'm helping out with both Ashlyn and Christian's teams this year; it is Ashlyn's first year to run. Technically, she is too young, but with us all four participating, and me helping out (and John being the President), she's now a Gremlin Girl.

We practice four days a week (with the younger two only doing two days) and have meets on Saturdays.

There are 275 kids in the Club (which is the max amount) ages kindergarten to eighth grade, we even have a waiting list. That has only happened since John became the president. Once the kids are in 9th grade, they go to the High School team if they want.

Putting on an event like this with over 500 children, plus all the adults, takes a lot of peoplepower. We have wonderful families that volunteer and truly live in an amazing community with great kids and great parents.

My friend's dad said when observing this meet for the first time: "This is Newbury Park's best kept secret! Seeing all of this participation, and these little kids giving 100% is really special."

Christian (white t-shirt) running neck-and-neck with his BFF Harrison.

It was a cold and drizzly day, which made it sort of miserable for many people. We heard lots of cries of "Let's cancel the meet!" And others from out of state say, "What? We always ran in sleet, snow, 110 degrees, whatever!" Californians are such weather wimps.

The kids spend a lot of time on the field waiting for staging, then for their event. The kids are so great, they automatically entertain themselves and Ashlyn is learning the fun of hand-clapping games.

It was her birthday so her coach gave her a sticker and made the team cookies.

Then the sun came out and it was gorgeous. People had to hurry and put on sunscreen.

When we got home, it rained again. Rainy days are perfect for playing the new Wii Just Dance game that Ashlyn got for her birthday.

A rare treat: Kim Thomas and her family came into town for Spring Break. They were spending it with her mom in O.C., but came up to have dinner and family night with her besties. We had a great time reconnecting, playing Do You Love Your Neighbor and seeing the kids all interact. Kim, Marie and I have been BFFs for twenty+ years. It's always wonderful to get together. And Marie ran to get her salmon sweater so she could match for the picture.

A beautiful spring day perfect for walking to school with friends. This is up the little hill at "our field" that has a view of their school. The friends thought that was pretty neat.

Ashlyn was in the Peter Rabbit play at school and had the part of Mother Rabbit. Perfect for her. We were laughing because she kept yawning during it. She must have been warm up on the stage in the costume, and it was the 2nd performance that morning. Mothering must be so exhausting!!

So cute!!!

For Christmas, Brooke received voice lessons, and has been taking them every other week this year. She had her first recital this last week and sang "My Favorite Things", accent and all.

It was very strange not having Easter along with Spring Break. I felt like we had to rush and dye eggs at the last minute.

On Good Friday, we had the day off so took a hike to "our bench" and enjoyed the view.

I love Spring!

Aren't You Wondering If There's Been Any Progress?

The shower and bathroom project has been moving right along, albeit at a snail's pace.

IT WILL BE WORTH THE WAIT.

It's looking pretty fantastic, isn't it? Even with just a cement floor.

Now we're talking! It's really coming together.

Just when one part is looking good and the dust is all cleaned up, it's time to create more mess.

John installed a pocket door, so had to move the door frame over to create room for the pocket which required knocking out part of the wall and building a whole new door frame.

We wish we could keep the nice, wide opening which grants a better view to the beautiful shower.

This is standing in the shower looking out. Hello mess.

Here's my shower head. It's installed! At my perfect height! John's side is at his perfect height!

One down, three to go.

In case there is doubt, the hole in the wall where my medicine cabinet is going to go was created a year and a half ago...

Yup, there's the date in close up so there's no doubt. This next week marks the TWO year anniversary when this project started. Don't be jealous.

The kids asked why dad wrote the Dodgers logo on the wall. Little do they know yet of abbreviations for things like True Love Always. And kids these days think they own the texting language - ha! Just check out our yearbooks...they're all in code. K.I.T!

Look, the wall's back.
And there is a door! It slides. It glides! It hides in a pocket!

On another front, the school and sports year is coming to a close (yeah!!!) and with that come all the festivities. We put on a end-of-season family track club picnic for the entire club so I got to go to Costco and buy 500 of their large cookies. Oh I got some comments alright. The entire basket was completely full of boxes of cookies with Ashlyn riding in the front. The bigger surprise was having 500 cookies in the trunk of the car which took up the entire trunk of Jon's car - the kids' eyes were bulging out of their sockets when I went to pick them up from school.
We also had 100 boxes of pizza delivered for the picnic. Glad I didn't have to pick those up, too! It's hard to gage exactly how much food to buy when you don't know if there will be 325 or 499 people attending, but we did it perfectly as there was only one slice of pizza left when everyone was gone and the stadium was cleaned up, and only about a dozen or so of the oatmeal raisin cookies. Phew!

My cute niece Domonique and her friend came to town from college for a quick little summer vacation visit so we all got to go out to lunch at the Islands. It's totally awesome that Grandma Carol is in town for it, too.

Ashlyn had her last dance class

and Christian had his last baseball game. They made it to game #5 in the playoffs before they lost. One more and it would have been for the Championship game. Go Dodgers!

Look at that teeny tiny cuteness.

Next up, preschool graduation (I mean Pre-K! She always corrects me).

Happy Mother's Day and Track Highlights

Ashlyn's preschool always puts on a lovely Mother's Day lunch. I think this is my 6th time going to it! Ashlyn introduced the song, "You are my sunshine" and they sang so sweetly.

These pictures of her jumping off the jungle gym at the park crack her up so much I had to include them.

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

Yesterday was the JV Finals Track Meet in Moorpark.

It was a beautiful, cool day and the kids did great in all their events. I think this was Christian's first meet in which he was able to be there the whole day since his baseball game wasn't until later in the afternoon.

Madison got some serious air on her long jump

and Brooke did really well in the 200. I think it was the socks. :-)

Next week is the Varsity Finals and Brooke made a 4x100 team which should be very quick. Other than that, we are done with track! Now onto the Club Picnic.

A Party for 500 Kids Makes a Busy Week and Other Happenings

Shopping, shopping, and more shopping!

Planning an event for 500 kids takes some prep work, especially if you are the one who gets put in charge of the Snack Shack. Ashlyn was a good sport and rode around Costco like a queen.

On our walk with Cole, we found little snakey in the field.

I'm not a big fan but it's a fun discovery for the kids. Ash named him Twinkle.

The sunset was spectacular from our balcony. Christian noticed it when I was putting the kids to bed. Gorgeous!

Running back and forth from track practice to baseball practice and baseball games makes for a busy after-school week. Homework, piano lessons, dinner? Ashlyn's birthday? John out of town all week? What else?

Christian is too cute in his little uniform.

And the kids like exploring during the games. Today they found this little guy and named it Thumbelina .

Poor Cole!

He has a "hot spot" which is a common occurrence in Goldens, we are finding, and it's disgusting. His neck is skinned bare and looks so gross.

He spent the day at the Vet to be cleaned, disinfected, tranquilized, shot with cortisone and antibiotics, and any other thing to rack up a bill. Then they told me to watch him and not let him scratch.

HUH?

Um, not let him scratch? Am I supposed to hold him all day? Am I supposed to stand watch all night? You've got to be kidding me. So they sent me home with a cone, which when it's on him, he doesn't move.

At all.

He stayed in the same position all night.

All day.

He does not like the cone.

It's Track Meet time!

Brooke is in lane 7 and came in 1st place for the 200m dash! Go Brooke!

This is our 3rd track meet of the season, but our first at home. A home meet means that we are very busy since we 'host' and in John's case means that he runs the whole show.

Basically a party for 500 kids and their parents. That's a lot of organizing to do!

Christian's first year running and he is loving it!

Now we are ever so grateful for Conference Sunday to relax, be refreshed, rejuvenated and spiritually fed, and physically fed (yum!). These are the only 2 days out of the whole year when John is home. We can have even have breakfast so we look forward to Conference for more than its original intent!

Cinnamon rolls with vanilla cream cheese frosting, breakfast pizza, fresh fruit. It was breakfast, brunch, and lunch. PERFECT!