my sister drove him down from lake Isabella after she got off work, so they didn't get here until that evening. i had just gotten back from the water park ( it was $10 for me and Aiden was free, couldn't pass it up) and thought that kyle would REALLY love to go. it was being built when he was here last year, and i told him last year "oh, well maybe next year". so this was "next year" and he doesn't forget anything. so we HAD to go, i couldn't get around it. when he finally gets to my house, i let him know that we will go sometime during the week, probably Monday or Tuesday. that was my first mistake. all day Sunday he kept asking me how many more days till we go to the water park. or the one that drove me crazy, he would say " i wish we were( insert something OTHER than what were are doing here)". FINALLY the day comes. he is excited beyond belief. i guess if i were 7 and got to go to the water park all day, i would be excited too!
excited!
too bad you cant really see kyle's face
smiley guy
......bottom of the slides.the rest of the week i ended up watching my friends kids while she was at work. so he had a 4 year old boy(Ryin) to play with and Aiden had a little girl(Ellie) 2 months younger than him to play with. the boys had a water gun fight, made a huge mural with chalk on the back porch and watched a ton of movies. and of course, i have NO pictures. way to go auntie!
on to the weekend! we originally were supposed to go up to Etna for Noah's grandparents 50Th wedding anniversary/ family reunion, but money was tight so we had to change our plans and tell everybody we weren't going to make it. that's why i took kyle for the week cause i thought that we weren't going to drive all the way up there. well Noah's mom calls and gives us gas money to make it up there. this was mid week AFTER i already had taken kyle. kind of short notice. i was stressing out about the drive. 535 miles & 9 hours in a car with a crazy toddler and a 7 year old boy with A.D.D. , not my idea of fun . plus i knew i was going to have to be the one sitting in back with them both. Mitch and Noah in the front cause they were switching off driving. lucky for me, my car has a DVD player in the back so that was one crisis averted. whenever we stopped to get gas i would let them out so that they could run around and get some energy out.
that would be the sun. it was so smokey on the way up
if you can see through all of the smoke, that is lake Shasta. which looked REALLY low.
black butte summit
Mt. Shasta through all of the smoke
almost there and he is getting restless.FINALLY we get there, its about 9:30 pm. we, like everybody else, are sleeping in tents. luckily Noah's mom already set ours up so we didn't have to set up tents in the dark. she also set up an air mattress for me and Noah . score! his grandparents have ten acres up in Etna. 2 huge grassy pastures, everybody camped on one with tents and motor homes. the other pasture was for games. they have horseshoe pits and boccie ball to keep us busy. they also have a projector and screen for movies once it gets dark. that was really cool. and to help me keep kyle busy there was a swimming pool, and 10 mules. Noah's grandpa runs a mule pack/trail riding business. i think that explains it right. oh and to keep the grown ups busy after all the kiddies went to bed the was PLENTY of alcohol.
mule rides to keep him busy.
2 of many tables for the party
playing in the tent.we spent a short weekend up there. i wish we could have stayed longer, just so i could get to see what all it has to offer. the ride home was a little more pleasant than the ride up, thank god.
on to the next week! we started off this week with the fair. it comes to town for about 2 weeks and has a day where the kids are free. can you guess which day we went? kids day! they have all kinds of stuff on kids day.home depot does some thing every year. last year the kids got to choose out of about 5 things to build Alexis (who was here last year) and kyle chose to build a wooden boat. this year they got to choose to decorate a kids size home depot smock or to decorate a piece of tile. kyle want to do the tile. he painted it to look like the American flag. the tile was shaped that way so it worked out perfect. i did get a picture of it... but its on my phone. next we saw my friend Brian at the fireman's booth. he showed the kids around the fire engine. kyle got to sit in the drivers seat.
Aiden got to meet Smokey the bear. i used to work for the Forest Service in high school so Smokey will always hold a special place in my heart.every year they always have some kind of eating contest. last year it was a hot dog, kyle placed 3rd! this year it was an ice cream eating contest. we looked everywhere to find it. even ask the information booth. we couldn't find it. but we did find the face painters!
kyle got his face painted with an awesome looking spider!last year they had a cake decorating thing for the kids and i told kyle that we could do that again. too bad we wandered around for ever looking for the ice cream thing and we missed it! arrgh. but we had fun while we were there. though i didn't get to eat any of the yummy fair food i normally get. i only got a corn dog that i had to share with a starving toddler, so not much for me. i wish i could have had a funnel cake or maybe even one of those yummy cinnamon rolls with the cream cheese frosting. looks like we will just have to go to the fair when its in Bakersfield.
for the rest of the week we pretty much stayed home but did a lot of fun things. we had a water balloon fight 2 days in a row. Noah even got to join in on one of those days. we let the dog out to play in the front yard,let her chase a football while Mitch, Michelle, Noah, Kyle, Aiden and myself were all playing out front. Michelle's 18Th birthday was the week before and i promised her a cake so kyle got to help me with that. she loves pink and she loves zebra so this cake was perfect for her.
homemade butter cream icing and cake recipe you can find here. incase you are wondering, that is strawberries and whipped cream in between each layer.on to the second weekend! finally my sister gets here on saturday, again after work so she didnt get here till the evening. i made her dinner so that we would have to go out to eat and haul all of the kids around. the next morning she had promised kyle that we would go to the beach, so after a yummy breakfast of pancakes, eggs, bacon and 2 kinds of muffins( blueberry and lemon poppyseed) we loaded everyone up and headed down to pismo. while we were there we saw 3 DOLPHINS!!!! i was so excited to see them, that of course i didnt get any pictures of them playing in the surf and doing tricks.but i did bring my camera. now for some pictures of pismo fun!
Noah and Aiden
Aiden being silly
Kyle
so thats how i spent a good chunk of july. what did you do?
2 comments:
Holy cow! Looks like you had quite the busy couple of weeks! Sounded like a lot of fun though! And that cake looks delicious!!
maybe i should have broken this up into 4 different posts. maybe that would have been easier to read.
Post a Comment