School Days

The kids on their first days of school. Dylan is in 1st grade at Ripon Christian and Dayna and David just started 2 days a week at Children's Christian Preschool here in Escalon. All of them were super excited to start school.

Koolhaas Weekend

This past week/weekend we got to spend time with all of Dave's siblings. We spent a lot of time swimming, hearing all of the details of the upcoming weddings and meeting the newest family member Andrew (Jay and Melanie's youngest). We had a great time together and it was a lot of fun to watch the kids interact with eachother. On Thursday we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The kids were just amazed with the fish and David keeps asking when we can go back! If you notice that Dylan is not in any of the pics that is because he had school that day. Don't feel too sorry for him, he got to get off the bus with his friends and go out for dinner with Uncle Kenny. He too keeps asking when he can do that again!! This is us eating lunch at the FishHopper. Dave, David, Dad and Dayna looking out over the bay.

Everyone taking in the fish.

Summer Fun

Sorry it has taken me so long to post a new update!! I have honestly tried many times, but kept getting kicked out. The end of June we went to the Colorado River for almost a week. We enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere and spending time with family (my family was ALL there). The kids were excited Uncle Jason even came especially after knocking his knee out in softball a few days before! Dylan mastered waterskiing and found out just how much fun it is. Now we can't go to my parent's house without him asking if we can go to the lake to go skiing! We've created a monster! David and Dayna LOVED the tube rides. The first ride or so they were so bored on. Little did we realize early on that the faster we went and the more waves we hit the more fun they thought it was! They actually scared me! They would really bounce and get air, I would think they were crying, but they would just be laughing. We could hardly get them to get off when their turn was over! Don't worry, Dylan put a lifejacket on before we actually pulled them.

After a few days at Bransons Resort we moved to the Blue Water Resort and Casino near the dam. They had a waterslide inside which all the kids loved! It was a good thing we did not start off there because the kids would not have left!! This week we went up to Pollock Pines to visit a high school friend of mine. We had a great time at the lake that is near her house! The kids had fun playing in the water, chasing the ducks and riding the "boat" or "jet ski." Kelly and I had a nice time talking and constantly counting to eight. Eight was the number of kids between the two of us that we had to keep track of, it was scary thinking that next year that number would grow to 10! Thanks Kelly for a wonderful time!

Kindergarten Graduation

Today was Dylan's Kindergarten Graduation!! I still can't believe that he is that old already (and I know he's not really all that old)!! It was a cute program with a few songs and they had little sayings for all the letters of the alphabet. He was the letter Z. "Z is for zoom, this year has flown by. My brain is packed full, now I am quite a smart guy." He was perfectly understood which was a concern of ours. He remembered to say is slowly AND clearly. It looked like he was having a really good time up there.

Afterward, we had everyone who was able to make it over to our house for lunch and dessert. Dylan loved the gifts that he got and having everyone over to "his" house. This is Dylan opening his gift from Dave and I. It was a junior set of golf clubs. He just happened to tell us last night how he wishes he had golf clubs so he could go golfing with dad. It was the perfect gift at the perfect time! Now we just have to get him to understand that he doesn't get to go everytime Dave goes and not to get too frustrated when he can't hit it all the way to the flag on just a couple of swings.

Look at that look of complete surprise and excitement! And that was when he just thought it was a golf bag without clubs! The eyes and mouth continued to enlarge when he realized clubs were included!

Stockton Ports

Last night we took the kids to a minor league baseball game in Stockton. As you can see it was very empty there, which made it very nice for the kids! They were able to run around in the aisles and climb over the seats without making anyone upset. You can tell the boys enjoyed it a tad bit more than Dayna. The weather was perfect! We had 90-some degree heat that day and I was didn't know whether it was going to be hot or cold (because of it being so close to the Delta) in the stadium. We really lucked out!! The kids were in shorts, and we brought sweatshirts but did not need to use them. Each of the boys caught a baseball in their gloves thrown to them by a player. Dylan had caught his first so of course the little brother was extremely jealous. David was mad for about the next twenty minutes, hitting the seat with his glove and telling us that this baseball game was "no fun."

I don't think Dayna even knew the boys caught the balls. She was totally wrapped up in the peanuts! She kept saying, "These are good peanuts. I never had peanuts like this before."

Dayna also kept on eye on "Splash" She knew where he was at all times. Anyone who knows her knows she LOVES animals and to her this was just one giant animal to love. The kids were thrilled to be able to take a picture with him and as you can tell Dayna couldn't stop moving while we were by him. Apparently I should have switched to a higher shutter speed!!

The kids' favorite parts of the night were:

Dylan--When the Modesto Nuts won and catching the ball

David--I like my baseball

Dayna--Splash

Easter and Oakie-fun

We went down to my parent's house for Easter this year. The kids almost enjoyed the egg hunting as much as eating the candy inside the eggs. Dylan really enjoyed playing shuffleboard with Great Grandma VT and is wondering when we can go back to her house to play it again!



Jason, my brother, does some sort of racing with this jeep that he has. Dylan thought he was sooo cool getting a ride in it and going over a jump. Something that David and Dayna were too little to do. Yes, he is seat-belted in with a 5-point harness!
These past few days have been sooo hot. The pool is still too cold to swim in and the kids were getting bored with the sprinklers and trampoline. Apparently, Dave had said at some point something along the lines of boogie-boarding in the barn, so that had been all that the kids talked about for days. So, the otherday we took them to the barn to attempt it. They were able to go about 5-10feet depending on the weight of the kid. They really enjoyed it despite it not really working. David's turn on the board turned him immediately so I didn't get any pics of him. After that fun Dave turned on the wash sprinklers and the were able to really run through sprinklers!

After all this fun in the barn, the kids were put to work. They had to help clean out the water troughs ??sp?? that are in the barn. But, since that involved water as well they had fun doing that also!

Finally, another post!!

Well, I finally got the computer to post a couple of pics again. I will admit it took me a long time before I was even willing to try again. We started this spring with an attempt at a garden. Dave made us a raised bed which in clay dirt ended up taking almost one whole afternoon. The kids and I tried jumping on the shovels, but were only able to get about an inch of dirt onto the shovel. The next day Dylan and Dayna helped me plant the plants. David was sick in the house for that whole day. We tried our hands at tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, squash, zucchini, and a couple of cucumbers. Unfortunately, they were in the ground about 2-3 days before we had about 3 days of some strong wind. Looking at it now, they almost all look dead! Dave refuses to give up hope, I am thinking that is because he put the most work into it. We will find out in the next day or two if any of them are going to come back. It is probably early enough that we could try to replant a few of them. We will see what happens. The first week in April, Dylan had his first elementry school program. It was really cute with songs sung in many languages. He seemed to have a really good time doing it. Before the program, he was able to show us around his classroom and the workbooks/projects/papers he has been doing. He was really excited to show us everything and David/Dayna enjoyed playing on the toys at "Dylan's school."

I decided to have the kids decorate cupcakes for Easter today. It is one of Dylan's days off so I thought this would be fun entertainment indoors, especially when it looks like it could rain any minute outside. The kids enjoyed choosing the cupcakes and then putting whatever on it and as much on it as they could. Needless to say, they enjoyed quite the sugar high for the next hour or so. I was not surprised at all when no one would eat their lunches!
That is Dayna's new way of posing for pictures. All the latest pics I have of her, she is tilting her head this way. I have no idea where she got this from or why it started. It has produced a couple of cute, almost innocent pictures of her!