Road Trip to the OC

I get to see one of my best friends from college annually at the Girls Weekend we attend with our moms but every time we've planned for our families to get together over the last couple of years something has happened and one of us has had to cancel (broken arm, changing schools, horrible flu, and change of jobs to name a few of the reasons). Finally after almost two years of our kids not seeing each other we managed to find a weekend that the boys and I could drive down and visit them. Sarah's husband Dan was out of town for work for most of our time there but we did get to see him for the last day at least. The kids had a blast together. Walker introduced the boys to his favorite show Fireman Sam, we went to the beach, turned their backyard into a water play area, had bike races, played at an amazing park, and on the last night Kieran and Alyson even had a slumber party together. Sarah is a dietician so she's always really understood the hurdles of Reed's food allergies and she even managed to find a couple places to eat out which was amazing!!! We loved our time in Orange County and can't wait to get together again.

Third and Fourth of July 2017

Once again Fourth of July was a two day event for us. The boys had school on the third and the theme for the day was red, white, and blue so they were excited to wear the shirts they had made in class the week earlier. That evening we went to the Parkinsons for swimming, pizza, dessert, and fireworks. The boys loved every part of the evening but the fireworks were definitely the highlight. Kieran was so into them that he was shouting with excitement describing almost every single explosion - it was hilarious!!! The next afternoon we went to the Suemotos for hot dogs and more swimming. After such a late night the evening before and with school the next day we left pretty early but the boys still had a great time spending more time with their friends.

June 2017 Happenings

We managed to fit in quite a few activities in the month of June. First up was a visit out to the ranch and tractor rides with Tio. Of course the boys had a blast and have decided they want to drive tractor for Tio when they are older.

Aunt Di Di and TJ came to town and we were able to celebrate Diana's Birthday with a nice dinner. Of course since it was a party Reed insisted on taking pictures. Most of the below are his. The highlight of the night was the kids trying to help Di Di blow out her Birthday candles and ending up getting spit everywhere. Luckily Diana was a good sport about it and just cracked up.

Kieran had his end of the year music class performance. His class sang three songs and he did a pretty good job of singing all of the songs and doing all of the hand motions. The kids are still not old enough to be up on stage by themselves which means the moms (aka a bunch of my friends) get to stand awkwardly on stage with them.

Reed's preschool has a Summer day care program that Kieran started in. This means three days a week the boys (and Lyla) go to school. They have lots of fun activities, a little bit of classwork, and a bunch of time to socialize. It is the perfect introduction to school and Kier has loved it so far. It's also awesome for me to have one place for the boys to be dropped off in the morning and picked up in the afternoon.

Great Papa Dean hadn't been feeling well and missed our annual Father's Day get together so I took the boys up for a visit. Grandpa joined us as well. I only managed to take one picture, but at least it was a pretty cute one of the three of them!

It wouldn't be summer without swimming at our house. The boys swim teacher was gone on vacation so we tried getting in the pool with them as much as possible to practice the skills they learned last year and work on a few new tricks to impress her when she returned. Both boys have done great. Kieran still has a lot of fear but is a good sport about trying things and trusting us. Reed is a little fish! He can float on his back forever, dive to the bottom of the middle of the pool for toys, do freestyle across the pool, and would spend all day in the pool if we let him. I can't wait to see what he is able to learn from Morgan when she returns.