1st Camping trip of the Season...

This past weekend we headed north to Black Butte Lake and camped at Orland Buttes campground. I would love to rave and say we had a fabulous time, but it just wasn't that great. The drive was good and not too long. But the heat decided to finally come and it was hot the whole time.

We were greeted at our campsite with a couple of these guys.
They were everywhere, which the boys thought was cool.

This little dude was camped out in the bathroom for the first afternoon, he left to never be seen again...

One good thing was our actual campsite, we were able to move from another that wasn't so great. Nice and flat, sturdy table, a nice fire ring, private and shady.

We explored a bit, finding the only water access within walking was the boat ramp, a place you can't play.

We didn't have room to bring any wood, so we roasted marshmallows over the grill. Not quite as fun, but it did the job and they were delicious!

Saturday morning the guys all headed out to walk the one trail that was apart of our campground. They said it was kinda cool, gave a nice look of the lake and some historical info.

A little later in the morning we hopped into the van and drove to the other campground on the other side of the lake. They had a day-use area that we were able to set up at so the boys could swim. We brought our little grill and had hot dogs for lunch. Nice way to salvage the trip.

On the way to the other campground we saw a sign for Farm Sanctuary, saying they give farm tours on Saturdays from 11-3pm. So we made a mental note and stopped on the way back. That was interesting. Not knowing what we were getting ourselves into, we paid for the tour and quickly learned that farm animals are friends, not food and that we should go vegan. We behaved and kept our comments to ourselves while the boys had a good time petting the different animals.

Once we were back to our site we decided that ice cream was in order. So we pulled out the bags and started shaking! That was some gooood ice cream!

After that we realized it was still hot and too early to start cooking dinner, so we hopped back into the van and drove the short jaunt to the one water play area in our site.

Looking up at the hill at the V in the trees is about where our site was.

Cody had his jacket on and was gone. He had a lot of fun swimming this weekend!

Ty did a lot of this, not super confident that his jacket would actually float him. But he stayed cool and seamed to have a good time.

We headed home just after breakfast on Sunday because we had had enough of the heat and didn't really see the need to stay all day. Luckily we were able to hit a Sonic on the way home for some limeaides and the boys slept off the weekend during the afternoon naps.

Next weekend we get to try again, heading up towards Truckee for some cooler, mountain camping. With any luck there will be better trails to explore and some more water to play in, although it will probably be icy cold!

Where did she go?

Most every Mom has heard the term, or uttered it, "the baby ate my brain." Well, that seams to have happened to me, although they haven't been babies for a couple of years now. I used to be quite the schedule keeper, on my game and able to keep up with the world. Over the last couple of years I've fallen off my game, this past school year was not my greatest showing. Slowly, I'm hoping to get back to that place.

In good moments, I find little things like these that give me hope that I can return to my once on the ball self...

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Little magnets that will help to keep our weekly calendar board a bit prettier.

My phone is helping as well. I'm able to keep a calendar with reminders, it's connected to a Google calendar that I can update when I'm on the computer and it will automatically update my phone as well. This has been this weeks calendar.

The weekly schedule has been replaced with the pretty print out of the same calendar above, once school starts it will go back to the hand written weekly schedule.

Then I become anal and this happens...

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A new white board and list of the contents of our freezer. I forget that things are there and they go bad, money down the drain. This gives me hope that I'll get back to a better place.

I'm going through my magazine stash and pulling out the interesting articles and recipes, but then they need to be sorted and filed.

The toy room is on the top of my list as I haven't been able to get myself to even walk in there in weeks.

A cleaning schedule is a must, I've not been able to figure out how to keep a clean house and it's getting old.

So anyway, watch out. I think I'm making a comeback! (If my gym, running and those pesky kids don't get in the way.)

Father's Day Fun...

Last Sunday we headed down to Hagen Park to ride the trains. A couple of times a week the local train club pulls them out for rides on the track that they built at the park. It's pretty cool to see as it's all done by volunteers.

We had some time to kill so we headed down to look around by the river...

playing Joe Cool...

Brrr...

Once they opened we headed over and hopped on.

Here's the engine, 8 horse gas motor.

Along for the ride...

They have a few little buildings and such around...

This cool bridge as well...

The train car garage...

Someone's personal train...

And another...

The other club train that was running...

It's free to ride, but they do ask for donations to help maintain the tracks. Lots of fun!

1st week of summer vacation...

So back in the day when summer time hit, it was time to relax, no? No....

We have been jam packed with things we are doing, a lot of it revolving around my workout schedule, but by Friday, I'm on the verge of exhaustion. I wish I could insert this weeks calendar from Google here because it's nuts!

We've gone on the bike trail two mornings for 3.5 mile runs, the boys ahead on their bikes.
Been to gym for 3 group strength training classes, 3 Zumba classes, one lap swim and a 30 min bike session.
We have done 4 days of swim lessons at 11:20. Here's a couple of more highlights from that:

Tyler and his grin on the kicking board.

Cody taking the big plunge:

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Tyler playing games:

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Tyler jumping in:

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Pictures I take when my mind goes blank while sitting in the sun:

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We've been to our first of many trips to the various public spray yards:

Tyler trying out his new water shooter:

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Cody getting some in as well:

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We had a play date at a friends house with a brief swim for the kids, it was a bit breasy and they were cold.

We hit our first Thursday story time at the library and came home with a bag of books and two new movies.

We have another play date at a different friend's house and a swim.

Then there is the weekend. Who knows what we might do!

Welcome to summer!

And summer has begun....

We had a busy weekend and now we are diving head first into summer! The boys started swim lessons this morning. Cody is starting where he left off last year. He had a great first class, doing what they asked him to do, going under water and he is remembering his strokes.
Tyler had his very 1st lesson today, he was excited and ready to go. I walked him to his instructor and he promptly ignored me and was ready for class. He listened, blew bubbles, floated on this back, kicked around and played games. Can't wait to see where we go this year!

Tyler getting used to the water, he's in between the instructors...
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On the kick board...
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Playing a bubbles game...
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Cody ready for class...
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Back float...


Swimming from the wall...
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More crafty gifts...

Check them out here...

Cody's Last Day of School...

I can not believe that we are already at the end of kindergarten and Cody is now going to be a 1st grader. WOW!

What a difference a school year makes...

Cody had a busy last day. All three kindy classes were mashed together and went around to 10 different stations throughout the classrooms and outside, doing fun activities. Ty and I went to help, he stayed with Cody for most of the time while I was at the face painting station.

Mmm, fudgcicle...

This was the kind of day Ty was having...

Cody with some of his buddies...

Getting his promotion certificate from Mrs. King.

Very happy to look at his report card and see all 3's, +'s and O's (all the equivalent of A's) He's very ready to start 1st grade. We have a stack of workbooks to keep us busy and up to speed over the summer, should be fun to see how he does.

To celebrate the end of the year, we headed over to Chuck E Cheese's for lunch and games.
Cody has decided he likes the action games, like racing and such. So he spent a good portion doing this, putting out the fires of random buildings...

Tyler having a bit of a ride...

and another...

I meant to post this on Ty's last day, but forgot to put them together. So here is his 1st/last day pics together, much change there as well!
Alright summer, we're ready!