Sweet Summer.

I hate watermelon. But my kids love it. I do love to see the juice running down their chins though.



Summer seems to be in full swing around here. We've been going and going for just about 2 weeks straight. Of course we went to Hartland 2 weekends ago and just had a blast. Jake LOVED it. It was kind of weird letting him go and do his own thing. I'm used to having a tight rope on my kids...knowing exactly where they are at all times. But there were tons of older kids and adults all around fully willing to look after him. So I felt ok about letting him do what he wanted. It was also neat to see him be such a good helper and be so responsible for the younger pre-school age kids and at the same time very eager to be with the big kids. He's a pretty good kid, I must say. Pete and I also enjoyed just being together as a family and bonding with friends we don't get to see all that often.
As soon as we got back home and had just finished up all the laundry, we headed out for a field trip with our young children's church/Sunday School group to the Jelly Belly Factory. It was pretty neat for a free tour and I didn't realize just how crowded it would be. I was teensy bit disappointed that we weren't able to take pictures in the factory--I mean, that was the most interesting part! But it was fun anyway. The kids really enjoyed it. Oh and of course they give you a bag of Jelly Bellies at the end of the tour. They LOVED that part! What kid wouldn't?
So Jelly Belly was on Thursday and then Saturday, the kids and I packed up the car and drove to Groveland. Which is about 25 minutes from Yosemite National Park. My mom and Mike were camping there for the weekend so we decided since it's just about an hour and a half from here, why not drive up and stay a night with them? My mom also have friends that live in Groveland so we got to visit with them too. Saturday when we got up there, it was super duper hot. Like upper 90's. So we packed up and headed over to the swimming pool in the community that the friends live in. It was great. Beautiful view of the mountains and golf course...the water was heated to the perfect temp. Jake got right in and didn't even whine one bit. My mom actually got him to swim to the deep end of the pool with a floaty! Amazing. The kid has literally done a 180 when it comes to the pool. So anyway...we'd been at the pool for an hour or so when all of a sudden all these clouds move in. It looked like it was going to rain. I even saw a few lightning bolts over the mountains. A few minutes later, the pool lady comes over the loud speaker and tells us all the pool is now closed for 'chemical treatment'. Huh? yeah right. We'd just packed up our stuff and got in the car when KA-BOOM!!! The loudest slap of thunder/lightning bolt crashed ohhh....about 2 hundred yards from us. Yeah. Scared the crap out of all of us! But somehow funny and exciting all at the same time! There's just something about a thunder storm.
Unfortunately, that crazy weather we had over the weekend sparked up over 800 grass fires in California. You read that right. 800. It's incredibly smokey here. We literally have not seen blue sky, or any sky for that matter, in about 5 days. You can smell and taste the smoke as soon as you walk outside. So we're just praying for the fire fighters to be safe and praying for the peoples homes that are in danger. We're expecting the air to clear out by the weekend...but we're also expecting more thunderstorms in the mountains.
So anyway, this week we're just trying to catch up with laundry and groceries and all that other fun home stuff. I'm hoping to do nothing this weekend but I'm sure that won't happen! As soon as Megan wakes up from her nap, we're headed to the pool!