Today

Today, we hung bells and let the fairies know they were welcome in our yard.





















Aubrey built a fairy house and planned to spend the entire day outside, except for when she came in to make brownies and collect donuts (cheerios) for the fairies.











Brennen made two small houses.

















Logan and I made a snail out of beeswax and a snail shell.






Then a giant game of building houses overtook the whole yard.

Summer Project

One of our summer projects this year is to walk all of the trails in our city. Because a creek system sprawls through it, there are a lot of trails. We drive to where we left off last time walk a mile of two and then walk back to pick it up at the end of where we walked previously. A lot of the trails run into parks and then we stop and play. We are trying to go really early in the morning, taking picnic breakfasts, so that if we spend three hours out we are still out before it gets too hot. The children have caught fish and taken them home to put in our kiddie pool to watch before releasing them again. They have also caught a snake, which took the place of the lizard we just let go. We also saw a beaver leave its den and return. Such fun rambling summer days.

Monterey

Kevin and I went to Monterey for two days. We were supposed to be gone four, but our poor baby caught pneumonia and we came home early. We had fund though. We walked on the shore for a couple hours the first night and saw little, dark dolphins for over an hour, jumping and playing. They looked like they were herding fish with birds following them and diving into the center of their circle. At one point one came within 20 feet from shore. It was so awesome.

County Fair

We went the first day when it was almost empty. It was great. I really want to have my children enter something next year. Four of the kids did the tractor pull. When Seth went he was soo excited. Everyone laughed and said that is what it is all about.

How to Get Kids to Clean the Car

This time I had no complaints, because I bribed with a secret project-hidden crayon rubbings. They loved finding the hidden objects.

Camping

My sister-in-law came out from Georgia the beginning of May and stayed for three weeks with her little one, Braden. We went camping at Folsom Lake, which is only a half hour from home. S'mores were delicious. The most precious was that Milly was scared and wanted to sleep on me with her arms wrapped tightly around my neck. I didn't get much sleep, but it is worth it just to hug that precious girl for hours on end.

Memorial Trip to the Beach

We have decided to start summer with a bang around here. My sister and her husband and their 5 little ones stayed with us for a week. We went to the beach on the most perfect day.




The water was cold, but the sand and air were warm. Jenna and Seth played and ran in the waves and then made sand angels, then would act surprised to see themselves covered with sand and they would then jump in the water only to repeat it all over again as a great game.

















Here I am being mother hen and calling my little ones, plus a half dozen and more cousins to stay together where I could watch them better.







Milly was very scared of both the sand and the water. She sat on my lap, Nanny's lap or Aunt Helen's lap or held in arms the entire seven hours. Helen got her to touch the sand with a big toe a few times, but she wanted nothing to do with standing on it.








Helen and I.





There was a lot of buried treasures in the sand.










Brennen and Andrew caught sand crabs.





All of the children played in the sand for hours. I didn't get many pictures of them in the waves, but the older ones were up to their chest for a couple hours also. This was the perfect beach day--so fun.