4th of July and Roadtrip #2...Santa Cruz camping

Yep, still behind....so for the 4th of July the crew was in the parade again spraying people with water.  Carlos sat in the truck with the twins to make sure they didn't jump out and I walked behind the lines of people along the parade route with the stroller to meet them at the end.  It was funny to hear all the things people said as they were getting sprayed with water.  Most of them thought it was funny, but hearing the few nasty comments from the grumps made me have to hold in my laughter.  We did the 5k that morning too along the waterfront.

Carlos was the master of ceremonies for our home fireworks show.  Wowee, look at that exciting smoke.

Sienna's facial expression with each firework...love it.

The audience

...and more audience.

I was in the barn for maybe 2 minutes helping Rivers with her sheep and came out and the twins had stripped down and jumped in to swim in the watering trough.  Good thing it was freshly filled.

Rivers and Madison worked soooo long and hard with these sheep to get them ready for fair.  Here are the freshly washed sheep taking a walk.  

The little guys loved to get in on the action too.

Oh yes....berry time in the Northwest again.....and it is amazing how many and how fast my kids can shove em down.

So, trip #2 was a great one down to camp near Santa Cruz, CA right by the beach.  It is a Nuno tradition and one that I love.  We took our mammoth yurt like tent and set up for a week with the Nuno bunch.  I love this pic I caught of Dre opening the tent in the morning (in his stylin PJs).

We always spend a day at the boardwalk. 

More stylin PJ's in this pic.  I will have to do another beach post with Carlos' phone pics because my phone died and I didn't get many.  So, roadtrip #2 blog will have to be.. continued. 

Rivers making jam with her 4-H teacher.  She entered a bunch of stuff she made into the county fair and her art won grand champion, her skirt was selected for the state fair, her bracelet won champion, her rasperry streusel muffins were reserve champion....and I think I'm forgetting something, but she totally got into the whole fair thing and talking to the judges, etc.

playing on the locomotive at Avery Park...

Outdoor I-pad viewing fort they made.

Could there be a cuter karate dude?  He had fun with it for 6 months, but started getting bored and we kept not wanting to pay the extra $60 for him to test and get his next colored belt, so Carlos said "he'll just be the awesomest white belt ever" and we're done with karate for now.  Too much other stuff to do. 

Rivers is such a cute little farmgirl

My boy Dreyton is such a lovie...

...and Reagan usually does this (flings her head away) if you go in for a kiss.

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Utah trip

We are going on 4 road trips this summer, starting with the longest one to Utah.    The day after school got out we picked Carlos up in Portland at the airport on his way back from China and drove to Utah so he could help coach at the BYU football camps and we could all see family and friends.  Here is a stop along the way at Big Buns burgers.  Grease fest, but pretty good.

We made it to Christina's (Carlos' sister) house in time for church the next day.

Since we were there over Rivers' real birthday, we went to Flowrider and did some indoor boogie boarding and surfing.  That's CD on the left and Rivers on the right.  I tried surfing again and again had a sore neck the next day from falling so hard.

Reagan, our surprising little dare devil talked us into letting her go.  The lady helping kept letting her lay on the boogie board like this while she moved it back and forth, but Reagan kept yelling "let go!", so finally Carlos went to the back of the wave and the lady let go and Reagan just held on and shot back over the wave where Carlos caught her in midair.  She looked scared, so we thought that would be it, but she kept asking to do it again.  We got Dreyton to try it too at the very end. 

We weren't used to the heat and the dryness in Utah so the water bottles were a hot commodity.

The kids got to have lots of good cousin time.  CD and Salesi were pretty much inseparable.  They even had to sleep by eachother. 

Here's Rivers' requested turtle cake for her birthday.  It's crazy that my little sweetpea is 10 years old!

We used her birthday as an excuse to do lots of fun stuff, so we also went to an indoor trampoline house and got nice and sweaty.

This part of the trampoline place was pretty cool - you jump into a pit of foam and a camera films you, then replays it on the screen in front of you, so you can check out how ridiculous you look trying to do a flip.

CD went to a couple days of basketball camp with cousins...and then a couple days of BYU football camp at the nice indoor facility (so he wasn't out in the heat). 

It made Carlos more than a little excited to see CD playing football at BYU.  He was the youngest kid there but totally got into all the drills.  There's no place quite like BYU.

The rest of the kids and I hung out and watched him for a while, then walked over to the indoor track to relive some glory days...actually I didn't have much glory on that track.  I just remember a lot of hard practices where I wanted to puke or my chest burned from sucking in the cold, dry air so hard.


We also got to visit best friends Lucy, Stephanie, and swim in Cristy's pool. 

And we even got to spend two nights with my best bud/cousin DeEtte and her fun family. 

Rivers has been asking for years to hike to the "Y", so we picked a cooler morning and finally did it.  Unfortunately the twins didn't feel like walking much past the first 50 meters so I always had someone in my arms.  Made for a good calf workout.



Sitting at the top..success.

Maddie and her new fiance drove down from Idaho so we got to spend some time with them too!

Lito and the kids

Rivers got to dress like a pioneer and work at "This is the Place" with her friend forever Lucy.  Love how they just seem to pick up right where they left off 8 months ago laughing and playing.

Day at the pool with the gang

And what would a trip to Ogden be without going to the Nickelcade?  (better if you ask me:)

We stopped for a dip in the mighty Columbia on the way home.  Trip number 1 done without too many tears or 'how much longers'.