Summers End

 Summer break has come to an end. I think we wrapped it up well by swimming every day the last week and just playing.

 

As nice as summer was, with our vacations and activities, beginning a new school year has been pretty great and unexpected. We had been planning all summer on Sammy staying home this next year. I enrolled him in a charter school, spent hours researching curriculum options, and stressed about it all summer long. The day before school started I took Andi to meet her teacher and noticed Sammy had been assigned a class.  Oops, I forgot to notify the school. I told him he had a teacher and he said, "I could go to school".  Just like that. So all the stress and turmoil was for naught and he's had a great first week and a half.

And Peter has had an amazing week and a half as well. For 6 hours the house is eerily quiet. We build blocks, and play playdoh, and paint, and do puzzles. And no one screams or fights or gets loud. It's pretty great, and he's peaceful and happy.

Soccer is also in full swing. Andi is the only one playing this year and had her first game this weekend. Her Purple Cosmos won and Andi is becoming quite a good goalie and defender.

Some of the team

Santa Cruz 2016

 The Ray Family beach trip happened in Santa Cruz this year and it was a fantastic week of cool weather, beach time, pokemon walks, and hanging out. Sam and Peter spent most of their time digging in the sand.

 

But Andi spent most of her time boogie boarding. The little cove we were in was perfect for the kids. The waves were just their size.

  And I spent my time supervising the fun.

The pokemon walks were mostly done late at night, by the dads. But occasionally they'd let the older kids come along, or they'd be hatching eggs as we explored the area together. It got a little ridiculous, and the guys kept referring to things from a pokemon perspective.  Down the road from our houses was a great walking/biking path that ran along the cliffs, and a butterfly sanctuary, where we didn't actually see any butterflies.

 The best part about Santa Cruz is that 10 minutes from the beach and you are in the redwoods. One morning we took a steam engine ride through the forest and it was beautiful.

This place was fun and I think we could have spent the whole day there on the hiking trails. But there was a beach to get to, so we only stayed half the day.

 We also drove over the the Monterey Bay aquarium one day. That place was huge, and packed, so we really don't have any pictures from there. I spent the day following Peter around because he wouldn't look at a tank for more than 30 seconds. He did love the escalator and elevator though, and we rode those over and over again.

The dads took the oldest four kids to the boardwalk one night and rode rollercoasters till they were sick. Or pretty close to it. Andi has been talking about going to Magic Mountain for her birthday, but after a few crazy rides she's rethinking that plan.

But mostly we just enjoyed hanging out together for a week and eating way too much.

We attempted a family picture in our matchy t shirts, but it didn't turn out. Here's what we got instead.

It was a fabulous week, can't wait to do it again.

Big 4 Fun

 July has been a busy month. But the daily staple of activities have included making forts, in every room of the house.

And Pokemon go as soon as Dad hands over the phone. It's ridiculously hot every day, but these two will walk around the neighborhood for hours with their water bottles and catch pokemon.

We had a quick little day trip to Santa Monica one afternoon when Thad had a meeting down there.

Andi was too busy in the water for pictures. I think spontaneous trips like this are a lot of fun. No time to plan means no time to worry or over plan and a lot less stuff to drag out to the beach because I left most of the gear at home.
Peter turned 4! And to celebrate we took him and 2 of his cute buddies to the kids museum and rosemary's.  They were so cute and Peter had a blast.

Peter has been arguing with me about turning 4. He was very excited for the birthday party part, but kept telling me that he was going to stay 3, and wasn't getting bigger. Apparently he doesn't like when I tell him I won't carry him because he's getting too big. And he thought he had a way around that. He's very animated and energetic, and tried to negotiate his way into or out of everything.
Thad and I spent a week at our stake girls camp and led the 3rd year hike again. It was a great, but exhausting week. This is our ward group that went up. We left at 5 am and I feel like I spent the whole week trying to recover from that. Our girls were amazing all week and were completely drama free.

We also had a lot of family at camp with us this year. Thad's parents came on the hike with us, had 3 nieces were on the 4th year hike. Tara and Jacob ran the YCL group. We were all busy, but camp is totally worth it.

Tomorrow we head out for our Ray family beach trip and then school starts when we get back. The Summer really went by quickly, but we've enjoyed it!