Summer time fun?

Oh what do you do in the summer time when all the world is green?  

Well, all the world isn't green in the summer time...at least our part of the world isn't green.  It is brown and very dead looking.  

But still...

We love summer and love packing a lot in to some days and a little into most days.

We toured the Jelly Belly factory while Lorien was at girls camp.  The factory was closed for cleaning...so it was 45 boring minutes.  Not even the free samples of jelly beans handed out during the tour made it tolerable.  But buying a bag of jelly beans at the end was nice.

Will's company launched a new name (Complete Solar...super different) a new logo and new company colors.

The kids spent many "clothing optional" days inside...

Chores were done...

Movies were watched...

Bubbles were blown and popped...

Potty training was started...and stopped...and started again...

And of course swimming was done...

So far...so good.  We love summer.  

Summer time part 2...

Oh and don't forget going to the movies and having tea parties.  Important summer time work...

Utah

I have a super spontaneous husband.  Last weekend, Saturday to be exact, I got a call from my sister, Jennifer.  She lives in Maine but had come out to Utah to visit a friend and was staying for a few weeks.  She was so close!  I was desperate to figure a way out to visit with her, my brother who lives in Utah and another brother who lives in Idaho.  I thought I could make the (almost 11 hour) drive all by myself...with all of the children.  But then my husband said: "Why don't we all just leave right now?"  It was 1:00pm Saturday afternoon.  By 2:30 pm we were in the car and on the road.  

It ended up taking us 12 hours to make the drive...traffic, potty breaks, food...the usual way-lays along the road.  We were pooped.  Chris and Annette opened their home up to our little brood and made us so comfortable.  The kids got to run a muck in the morning while Will and I slept in a little bit.  

"Uncle Chris is awesome!"  "Yhea, he has everything!"  Those were the words of my middle daughters when Will and I woke up.  Uncle Chris had built this super cool fort:

Uncle Chris restores WWII vehicles.  He has a garage full of tools and car parts.  Colter has just started falling in love with cars and he was in heaven in Uncle Chris's garage.  Uncle Chris even let Colter operate the lift.

Uncle Chris's house also had all the electronics a 10 year-old-boy could ever dream of.  Wyatt even had boy cousins to plug in with.

Utah, despite being a desert state, is not under any drought conditions.  So Uncle Chris (and all of his neighbors and the parks and the schools and, and, and...) had sprinklers running every day.  All this water made my children happy.  They ran in the sprinklers just about every night--and I sat there watching the extra water run down the sidewalk wondering: "Would it be weird if I got a bunch of empty milk jugs, filled them with the run-off and took them home to California?"

Uncle Caleb and all of his boys came down from Idaho on Monday and we spent the day visiting and playing with all the cousins.  We ate and talked and sat in the sun.  It was so beautiful and crazy and fun.  I loved every second of it...even the seconds where Colter only ate Oreo cream for dinner.

We took lots of obligatory group photos.  Not very many of them came out on my phone.  There were boatloads of cousins from all over the USA and siblings who don't see each other as often as they ought.  

So, that was going to be our weekend--short but oh so sweet.  After Uncle Caleb and Aunt Jenn left Monday night I worked on packing up our family for the drive home the next morning.  Clare and Adell kept asking why we couldn't stay at Uncle Chris's house for "a little bit longer".  "It could be our summer vacation!" they reasoned.  Chris and Annette assured us we would be welcome to stay--after all the 4th of July was at the end of the week.  Alas, we had to leave.  I stayed up way to late making sure we had all of our gear and we would be ready to leave in the morning.  Will was working while we were in Utah and as I crawled into bed he was still making phone calls and working on his computer.  After a couple of minutes Will said: "I think I am going to have to go down to San Diego tomorrow for the rest of the week."  Well, if he had to go I figured I might as well stay in Utah and spend a couple more days with my brother and his family.  

The next morning we got to tell our generous hosts we were sticking around.  They hid their disappointment well.  Clare and Adell were over the moon--their prayers had been answered!  I took Will to the airport (after having to pick up some emergency work clothes up at the Mall) and the kids and I spent the rest of the day doing laundry and enjoying the idea of sticking around for the rest of the week. 

Turns out front-load washing machines are just as entertaining as television.

The added time to our stay did take a toll on one of our children.  Colter found it difficult to get naps (read: he refused to sleep in a pack n' play as long as the sun was up).  So, by our fourth day in Utah he had a galactic level melt down.  He was throwing stuff around our room, tipping over chairs, pulling apart my purse.  He was in total destruction mode.  

He finally calmed down and ate a sleeve of crackers from kind, sweet, Aunt Annette who was organizing her pantry.  He just sat at her feet holding his hands out and she kept on dropping crackers in his hands.  Things were looking up.

After he ate all of those crackers he disappeared.  I went down to our room to check on him and I found him face down...fast asleep.  He just needed a little food and love from Aunt Annette.  

One day a thunder storm rolled it.  It was awesome.  We never get thunder storms in California--and we never get rain in the summer.  In fact, after running around in the afternoon shower, Clare said in total amazement: "It's raining, in summer!?!"

And then there was the 4th of July.  Will got back from San Diego the day before and we were all happy to have him "home".  Uncle Chris drives his WWII jeep in the town parade with some Veterans.  Lorien, Wyatt, Colter and I got to ride in the parade and throw out candy.  

After the parade we met up with Will's Dad and his new wife and walked around temple square.  

It was hot...and beautiful.

In Utah (I didn't know this...) you can basically set fire to just about anything that will explode right in your drive way.  We sat in the front yard and watched the neighbor's blow stuff up.  I put the little kids to bed and Will took the big kids over to another neighbor's house where they were blowing up really big stuff.  By then we had been in Utah for a week.  It was definitely time to go home.  

It really was such a nice trip.  When I was talking to Will on Saturday afternoon, trying to figure out if I would be crazy to drive across Nevada with all five kids or not one of the reasons I really wanted to go was for my kids to know a bit of my side of the family better.  We are so lucky to have some of Will's siblings living right here in California.  We see them frequently and my kids love them.  On my side of the family we don't have any one who lives near by.  And I am terrible at getting us all out to Maine for visits.  I always wish we saw more of my family.  And I do have a couple of brothers just on the other side of Nevada.  It isn't too far but we don't make the trip often enough.  Anyway, this trip was every thing I wanted it to be.  The kids had so much fun.  They got to know a couple of Aunts and Uncles on my side of the family (and totally fall in love with them).  My kids were loved and supported and shown a fabulous time.  I cried tears of joy leaving Utah after the week.  Not because I was leaving and wanted to be home (although that was nice) because I was so happy for the opportunity my kids got to get to know my siblings.

Thanks you Chris and Annette--for being amazing hosts.  Thank you Jennifer for making the trip west and giving me the kick in the pants I needed to get out to Utah.  And thank you Caleb for coming on down from Idaho to see us--with all of your kids too.  It was beyond lovely.

First Year!

Lorien FINALLY got to go to girls came this year.  She has been waiting patiently for a full year...which seems longer than what other girls have to wait.  She is a fall birthday an in our church the kids are grouped into classes by their birth year.  So most of her classmates at church are a grade ahead of her in school and have birthdays before Girl's Camp.  Making her church classmates eligible for Camp before her.  She has regretted my decision to keep her at home an extra year ever since we moved over to the East Bay.  She has a lot of friends in her church class and is sad, sad, sad that she is not in the same grade as they are.  

Poor baby girl.

Anyway, she got to go to Girl's Camp this year.  We packed her up and sent her off bright and early Monday morning.  And I didn't hear a word from or about her for almost a week--until late Friday night when I picked her up.  

Good bye my darling girl!

She returned home to us, safe and sound (and filthy).  She also came home glowing with love and appreciation for all of God's creations--even her family!  She had adorable stories to share of friendship and support from her fellow campers.  It was lovely.  

Hard work rewarded...

When we set the goal of reading the whole Book of Mormon as a family back in January we decided there would be a fantastic reward for meeting out goal in time (cover to cover by May 19th).  I mean, a reward other than the "increased measure of the spirit" etc. promised by the Prophet.  When we were about 2/3rds of the way through we thought we actually had a shot at success and had better come up with the reward.  After a family discussion we decided that if we finished by May 19th we would take a family vacation up to Glass Beach in Fort Bragg.  We would make it an overnight trip and even stay in a hotel!  

Because of birthday celebrations, end of school madness and other commitments we were not able to make the trip until almost a month later, right after school got out. 

We drove up early Friday morning and went straight to the beach.  For some reason or another it is impossible to get to a beach in Northern California without taking a lengthy drive on windy roads, through redwood forests and over a mountain pass.  The route we took to Glass Beach was particularly windy and we all got carsick.  Poor Colter was doubled over and crying in his car seat.  I finally gave up on law keeping and took him out of his car seat and let him sit in my lap.  

We made it to Glass Beach around 3 in the afternoon.  If you haven't heard, in the early 20th century the residents of Fort Bragg would throw all of their trash over the cliffs into the ocean.  After a while you can imagine the mess this practice made.  There were clean up and restoration efforts made in the 70's and 80's but the broken glass remained.  The sea did its work and turned the broken glass into sea glass.  There is an official Glass Beach in MacKerricher State Park where the actual trash dumping took place.  You are not supposed to collect glass from the state park.  However, thanks to human folly there are plenty of beaches with sea glass shores south of the state park and collecting is A-OK there.  We went to the unofficial Glass Beach--because I knew I wouldn't be able to restrain myself...or my children.  

The beach did not disappoint.  It was so cool!  

The beach we camped out on for the day had the best of all beach worlds: tide pools for checking out ocean life, sea glass for collecting, sandy beaches for playing and gigantic rocks for climbing.

While the big kids were building a sand castle a wave came up and ate Colter.  He was not happy in the least.  It took several "Mom and Colter selfies" to cheer him up.  

On the first day, Wyatt went up to use the port-a-potty up by the parking lot.  He got a little lost on the way back but came across an even cooler glass beach in his search for his family.  The next day we followed Wyatt's lead and checked out this amazing beach.

Will said: "It's not every day you get to bury your daughter in broken glass."

It is beautiful and depressing at the same time.  Can you imagine the amount of trash it took to create this?  And all this glass is here because the dumping happened in an era of glass and metal...instead of today's era of plastic and styrofoam.  Rarely does such gross human error turn into so much beauty.

I loved finding pieces with numbers or letters still visible and pieces that were rounded and threaded.  It was easy to imagine that these little pieces were once part of a large dish or bottle that sat in someone's home.  The milk glass pieces were by far my favorite--they maybe held food for a family dinner or flowers cut from a home garden.  It felt like holding personal history.  Do you think a resident ever imagined (as they flung their trash over the cliff side) "Some day a Mother, Father and their five children will be pawing through my garbage--picking up bits and pieces like they were nuggets of gold."  

What a trip!

Here is a picture taken from the car as we zoomed through roads that were literally curved like snakes.  You can see the road curving off to the left.  This was one of the few straight shots where I could get my phone out and snap a picture before throwing up.

Ugh, I feel sick looking at this picture.

Carsickness aside.  It was so fun and so cool.  Totally worth the drive--and the carsickness.