I'm probably going to make this sound bad...

but we really DID have fun despite it all.
We went on our first official camping trip this weekend. What a great way to start off the summer! I say first official, because yeah the kids and I went with my mom in April, but this time didn't include trailers with beds and satellite TV's and heaters. :) This was camping in tents, with snow on the ground and vault toilets and no water and outdoor cooking and marshmallows. Oh, and dirt. (and puke...but I'll get to that later) It was awesome.
I started to get a little nervous Thursday afternoon. We were supposed to leave the next morning after Jake got out of school and head up to meet our friends. I decided to go online just to make sure I had the directions right to the campground. Well, everywhere I looked--every website said the campgrounds didn't open until late JUNE. Uhhh...that could really suck. Since our friends were going up a day before us, I figured if there was anything wrong they would call and let us know. I waited all night for the phone to ring and it never did. *whew* We picked Jake up from school at 11:30 and off we went.
We got to the campground around 2:30 and were relieved to see it open and our friends tent trailer all set up and waiting. They'd gone off for the day so we headed down to the lake after setting up camp. Oh and I should mention a bit about the tent...First we love camping. And we have a lot of camping gear. Good camping gear. However, at this moment most of it is in a crate, on a boat, on it's way to Alaska. Yeah. (another story for another time) So we had to borrow Pete's mom and dad's tent. It's a nice big tent, but this thing is about 20 years old I'm sure. Anyway, his sister dropped it off at our house Thursday and said "it's funky." Yeah. I don't know what happened to that thing, but we rolled it out and it smelled like death. Funky was an understatement! We let it air out and went down to the lake.
See all the snow on the mountain above the lake? There was still quite a bit of snow all over.






After wondering around a bit, we ran into our friends who had returned from their day trip. It was back to camp to start dinner.
We ate so good on this trip. Way better than we ever eat at home! LOL! Friday night was rib-eye steaks and potatoes...YUM! All cooked over the fire too. :) My friend Erin and I are all about cooking outdoors and making good stuff while we're camping. I picked up a Pie Iron at the WalMart last week. This thing was so cool. We made apple pies and cinnamon rolls...you can do just about anything in this sucker! And they were goooood! If you camp or spend any time near a camp fire, you gotta get one of these.





Anyway, Friday night we sat around the campfire for a while and then hit the sack. It was pretty cold that night. I was so thankful I threw in our big Mexican blanket just in case. I think I might have died if I didn't have that thing! But Saturday night....Saturday night is when the S hit the fan. I thought it was cold Friday night...I was wrong. Saturday night was FREEZING. Literally. We woke up the next morning with ice on the trucks. It was the coldest I ever remember being while camping. (no wonder there is still snow on the ground!) The Mexican blanket was no use with the frigid temps. I lay there for at least 2 hours just shivering. I couldn't get warm and I could not sleep. I was miserable and to top it off I had to pee. I layed there forever trying to will it away, but it was no use. I finally got up. When I came back to the tent Megan was awake. I tried to cover her up some more, but I could hardly move besides the shivering of my entire body. She said "i don't feel good mommy". I told her to lay down and go back to sleep. She whimpered a little and then.......BLAHP. Uh huh. Throw up, all over her pillow and in the tent. Lovely. Out of my sleeping bag once again. I have to say though....Pete is awesome. He hates puke almost as much as I do, but he got up (in his underwear mind you) and cleaned it up, cleaned Megan up, got a bucket, and then made sure we were all bundled back up each time we had to get out of bed. It was a total of about 6 times of getting up, cleaning up, going potty etc... Finally she stopped and fell asleep and I just layed there shivering and prayed for the sun to come up so we could go home. Megan got right up the next morning and was so much better. She recovered quickly. But as we were cleaning up camp I could tell Jake was next. The poor kid didn't make it 15 minutes in the truck. :( He pretty much slept for 2 whole days after that. He's better now though.

Anyway, so yeah, the ending sucked big time, but the time leading up to it was great. I can't wait to go again!






*Two more days of Kindergarten!*

Ok, so I got my camera out today :) I finally took Jake to get his hair cut. I always, always wait until it looks so bad, that we come out of there with a brand new kid. He hardly looks like Shaggy from Scooby Doo anymore! He's already getting so tan. That kid browns up like a cocoa bean every summer. Megan is getting there too. Jake has taken to taking his shirt off pretty much ALL THE TIME unless we're in a store. He says it's because he's a man and that's what mans do. You got a long way to go, bro.

I still can not believe that school is out in 6 days. It's crazy. How can that be? I never really thought that Kindergarten was a big deal. But it is SO a big deal. And he has done incredibly well, I am just beaming with pride for him. To think he barley knew the alphabet when he started and now he's reading and sounding out words and writing. The boy can write really well. He has great handwriting for a boy. He can add and subtract and tell time and not just by the hour either.

He's such a cool kid. I was having sort of a mommy moment last night watching him play with Pete before bed time. He was telling some story he made up about robots and lasers and I just sat there thinking...how did this happen? He's my baby, but he's totally this big kid. This smart, imaginative, creative kid.

And then there's Megan. Oh Megan. When she wants to be, she is THE sweetest little thing. I adore her. He gives the best hugs. She holds on tight and she means it. And when she kisses me, she holds my cheeks in her hands. Man, I love that. At night when I'm tucking her in, she looks at me lovingly and brushes my hair out of my face...just like I do to her. She is also extremely sassy. She's 2 going on 12. She wants to change her clothes every 5 minutes. And she pretty much argues with me about every single thing I want her to wear. A 2 year old is not supposed to be this opinionated! She takes after Pete's sisters for sure! The one thing I sort of worry about with her is that she is SO outgoing. Which I mean, is good. But it could be kind of scary. The girl has never met a stranger. She talks to everyone we encounter. She waves at everyone in the store, she says "hi" to everyone, she tells everyone her name. I worry that if there really were someone that tried to lure her, she'd go in a heartbeat. The other thing is, she LOVES men. She likes all of Pete's friends and wants them to hold her etc... Like I said, she's never met a stranger. When we were at the pool the other day there was this big dude hanging out with his kids by us. He was a dad and totally nice...don't get me wrong, but she just started talking to him and playing with him and we we didn't even know him. I don't want her to not be outgoing, but I'm not sure how to make her more aware of well...not being so friendly with everyone she meets. I think it makes me more nervous because she's a girl.

We're getting ready to go camping again this weekend! I love camping. I'm so excited! We definitely won't go hungry, that's for sure. What is it about camping where you always take enough food to feed an army for a month?! I actually think that's the best part :) We're going with our friends that have 4 kids so I'm sure we'll look like we're running a small daycare at our campsite! It'll be fun though, the kids are going to have a great time.

Well, I guess that's it for now. Pete is on his way home from work and I need to get the kitchen cleaned up. Fun stuff.

I've been sort of taking a break from my camera lately, so there are no pictures with this post :(
Anyway, we've been busy around here. Just seems like there has been tons of stuff to do lately. We had Open House and the music program at school, then a wedding, and then mothers day, then paperwork and more paperwork for our house, then I designed another brochure for the ranch. I think this is brochure #3. We've now graduated to a tri-fold. You wouldn't think it would be that difficult, but it kind of is. And very time consuming.
Mothers day was pretty ok. I can't complain. We rushed home from the wedding Saturday afternoon, changed clothes and headed out to the ranch. We had kind of a family weekend up there with all the wives and kids. (our family and then Pete's partner Johnny and his family) We took the kids to the pond to fish and then had a BBQ, watched a movie and then went to bed, got up the next morning and did more of the same. It was relaxing and fun to just hang out. Monday my mom came down for the afternoon and that was fun too.
One day during the week I got this wild hair to get all the kids toys out of the living room/dining room and put them upstairs in their rooms. They had about 90% of their toys down here. I'm really not even sure why I even started doing that now that I think about it. In our old house we had a formal living room and then separate a family room so I kept all of Jake's toys in there. And he was a baby then so it was just easier to have all the toys in the same room we were all in. I guess I just did the same thing when we moved here. Jake was still only 18 months old when we moved in. And then when Megan came along, all of her toys were added to the pile. It's not like they were all over the place...I did have two toy boxes and I got it so everything could be put away tidy. But I was just sick of looking at them. It was time to reclaim my own space. So I spent the better part of an afternoon cleaning out Jake's closet to make room for the downstairs toys. Boy, was that ever a chore. I won't even tell you how much junk I pulled out of there and how many bags of trash/donations I got from just one room. Where did this stuff come from??! Pete helped me bring the heavy stuff upstairs that night and immediately it was like -WHOA -so much nicer down here! Why did I wait so long to do this? the only thing is...the kids seem to be somewhat confused by it. Jake was like, "so...we're not allowed to play down here anymore? if we want to play with toys we have to play in our rooms?" Which is not at all what I was going for. They can play down here all they want...just put the toys back in their rooms when they're done. I explained that to him, but so far there has been very little playing down here and slightly more arguing between the two of them because they just tend to roll around on the floor like monkeys a lot more now.
We had our first trip to the community pool this weekend. It's been smokin hot again. I'm so proud of Jake. Remember last year, I could hardly get the boy in the pool? And then when I did he'd pitch a fit? or cry? or just sit on the side and pout? It's such a difference this year. He's much more confident, less scared, less worried about being cold, more into having fun. He's still sporting the arm floaties, but that's ok. What ever makes him get in and have fun, right? I mean, he'll even jump in from the side. Megan is like a little fish. I just stick her in a little floatie ring and she just kicks her little feet and keeps right up with me. She did kind of go under the water one time and came right back up and said, "I'm ok! I'm fine! I'm ok Mommy!" After we'd had our fun in the big pool, I decided to let the kids go over to the baby pool area. I've pretty much kept that off limits for Jake because 1: he's just too big, and 2: I want to encourage his confidence in the big pool/deeper water...but there was only one or two kids over there (left all alone by their parents) so I said ok. Plus, I just could not leave those babies unattended. These kids were 3 years old and left alone. I don't care if the water is only a foot deep. I don't care if your kid knows how to swim. It's never ok to leave a kid that little all by themselves around water. And it wasn't even like the parents were just on the other side of the fence. No, they were all the way down at the other end of the big pool (which is a Jr. Olympic size). So they wouldn't have even been able to hear if anything was going on in the baby pool. What is up with parents these days? Maybe I'm overprotective?? I kinda don't think so. Anyway, that's all I have to say about that.
It's 10am and already 78* so I think we'll be heading out to the pool again pretty soon.
Happy Sunday.

April 23rd was the last time I posted?? !!
I didn't think it had been that long. Woops!!
We've been busy doing all kinds of normal stuff and some not so normal. There are only a few weeks of school left so it's been major crunch time around here to get the last few things in. We had a field trip last week, Open House and the music program this week, it's also teacher appreciation week. Jakes school is very heavily parent involved so once they find out you're willing to help on one thing, you get ropped into everything else too. Which is fine. I like it. But it sure keeps us busy! We've also got an end of the year party/BBQ to plan, kindergarten graduation and a gift for the teacher. And I have no idea what to do for the gift. Some other parents have thought of doing the whole apron thing with all the kids hands prints on it. Which I guess is fine, but seems so outplayed. Doesn't it? I don't know, I was hoping for something a little more original, but are there anymore original ideas?? Who knows.
The 25th was Pete's birthday. He actually planned a day for us to all hang out together. We woke up, had breakfast, got in the car, stopped at Walmart, picked up some sand toys and headed out to the beach. It's about a 2 hour drive from here. It was so much fun. Total cheap entertainment for all of us! We need more days like that.

Last week I was feeling pretty crappy. I've had this real heavy, tightness in my chest. Kind of like when you're getting a cold....Only I didn't have any other cold symptoms. No coughing, runny nose or anything like that. I finally got into see the doctor yesterday and he thinks it's asthma or something. I've never had anything like that in my life. It's so weird. He prescribed me an inhaler, but I'm just not conviced this is the right diagnosis. I'm not sure what it is, but i just wish this feeling would go away.
Well I guess that's it for now. I've got to run and do some work for Pete, clean up the kitchen and hop in the shower before open house tonight. Here's some scrapbook pages I've been working on just because I think maybe I should post them here more often as a friend suggested :)
Oh one more thing! Nacho the dog, ripped out my bean plants! The ones I had just grown and planted outside. He didn't touch anything else, just the beans. Dang that little dog!