July 4th in CA

This is the first time since I've lived in CA that we haven't traveled back to Minnesota for the 4th of July. I kept asking everyone what people in CA do for the 4th of July? Well, we did what we usually do on summer weekends... hung out in the beautiful sunshine and swam in the pool at Grandma's house!

It really was a gorgeous day and Maddie enjoyed not 1 lime popsicle... but 2... thanks to Grandpa!

My silly kids hanging out with their Aunt "Soosa". Sonja is 6 months pregnant with, who will soon be Maddie and William's newest cousin, Lucas. We are thrilled and can't wait to meet baby Lucas. It will be so nice for the kids to have a cousin close by and so close in age.

Grandma made some cool patriot hats out of newspapers.

Although I was a bit homesick, all and all, it was a very nice July 4th weekend. We spent lots of good, quality time with family and friends and that is what is most important of all. Later in the week, I booked our flight back for vacation time in Minnesota in August. I just can't spend a summer without time up north at the Lake. It just wouldn't be right!

Pre 4th bbq

The Friday before the 4th of July we headed up to Northridge for a bbq with our good friends Sarah and Tony and Erin and Simon (and all little people associated with them!). Sarah's parents were out of town and graciously offered up their beautiful home for us to enjoy. They have an awesome pool that we had so much fun swimming in ALL afternoon and a great backyard where the kids ran around and William played a little ball.

Maddie loves her role as "big sister" of the group. Here she is with Fallon, Lucy and of course William.

Lucy is the baby of the group... for now! Her mommy Erin is pregnant with her little brother. We can't wait to meet him.

The "men" of the group Fletch and William are bound to be good buds as they grow up. We had such a nice time hanging out and catching up with our friends. We couldn't have asked for a better way to spend part of our July 4th weekend.

Happy 4th of July!

We kicked off the long July 4th weekend by taking in an Angels game on Thursday night. They were giving away patriotic rally monkey beanie babies. One per ticket! Maddie and Wil of course loved them. I had Thursday off as usual and Friday off for the July 4th holiday so it was a nice, relaxing weekend of fun with family and friends.

Happy Father's Day

We had a very kick back and relaxing Father's Day. Mike and Lynda's kitchen is gutted right now as they are in the middle of a remodel so we bbq'd up some delicious carne asada and chicken and spent the afternoon by the pool.

It was a beautiful day and the kids had so much fun swimming with their dad. We were so happy to finally get a sunny, warm day. The entire month of June we've had serious June Gloom.

Summer is finally here! Now we are looking forward to a 4th of July BBQ by the pool. Hopefully we get just as great of a day and maybe the pool will have warmed up just a bit by Saturday.

The Chile Pepper

Papa has a tiny "garden" planted alongside his house and Maddie loves it. She's had so much fun watching the veggies grow and making sure the catapillars aren't eating them. Everytime we go to Papa's house, she runs out to check on the status of the tomatoes and chile peppers. She finally got to pick this big, ripe, green chile pepper on Father's Day. This was a real highlight of the day. She is patiently waiting for one particularly large tomatoe to turn red. Papa told her it'd be red and ready for pickin' on 4th of July. We will see. Maddie will definitely not let him forget that he told her this and imagine the disappointment if it's still green.

Andew's Graduation

I uploaded this picture from Snapfish. Me and the kids headed back to Minnesota the first weekend in June to attend and celebrate Andrew's graduation from High School. It was a great weekend. I'm hoping to post more photos but thought I'd play around with this option on Snapfish.

Angels Baseball

Since I'm still playing catch up, I'm not even sure when we went to this game but it's one of the first Angels games we've taken the kids to this season. It was a Saturday evening- a little chilly but lots of fun!