Star

So, this is what happens when you leave the camera sitting on the couch on top of their scout uniforms and head to another child's soccer game. (And tell them to not forget to take the camera.) They forget to take it to the court of honor and you get a lousy picture in the dark with your cell phone. (And then you hear ... "Oh that's why it was sitting there!")Oh well! Parker received 7 merit badges and advanced in rank to a Star Scout.

We're pretty proud of him and all of his hard work!

What Travis does at work ...

In case any of you were wondering what Travis does at work ...

Dunk Tank!

Silly me ... I thought he was really working!

Labor Day

We had a great Labor Day! We didn't do a whole lot of work, but we sure had a whole lot of fun!

Parker and Travis started the day off golfing with Uncle Drew for his birthday. Once they got home, we went to Scandia for some miniature golf.We didn't keep score, but we sure laughed a lot. We got several holes-in-one, but lots of funny shots as well!
After a round of golf (in which I won a free game of laser tag for getting a hole-in-one on the last hole) the kids decided to play some arcade games. We bought $10 worth of tokens and gave the kids 15 each. I was following Calissa around and she came upon the game Big Bass Fishing ( I think that was what it was called). Anyway, it was four tokens and you spun the wheel to get tickets. I told her it was a lot of her tokens for one game and she said, "Mom ... I could win 1000 tickets!"

Well, sure enough ... she did!! Notice that you have to get it right on the bright green spot or else you only win 4 tickets. (I must take some credit since I did help her spin it!) It took about 10 minutes for those 1000 tickets to print out. She loved all the attention she got as they came out of the machine!

Next, she moved on to Deal or no Deal! Notice how it says you can win 200 tickets. Well ... she did! It was crazy. We were laughing so hard that she managed to pick the briefcase with the winning amount of tickets and turned down their final offer of 101 tickets. She could have ended up with only 6 tickets. If we were gamblers we would have gone and bought a lottery ticket! (I have to say that I was apart of this one as well, since she picked briefcase 11 in honor of my birthday! - Maybe it was me that was lucky all along ...)


Needless to say, we ended up with almost 1300 tickets. The kids split them and Calissa bought a purple hippo and some cheap-o stuff and the boys bought all candy!


After that we played another round of miniature golf and then decided to end the day at laser tag. Travis decided to show off his skills with the wall sit. (You know where you lean against the wall with your knees bent to 90 degrees?) Well ... he went a little too long and had a hard time walking after showing off. It was impressive though and his two minutes was longer than I would want to do!


On our way home we stopped at In-n-Out Burger. Once home we mowed our neighbors lawn, played with their dogs and then went swimming at Gehringer for an hour or so. After showers, dinner and FHE, we went over to my parents house for milkshakes and to wish Uncle Drew a happy birthday. It was a fun and carefree day and just what our family needed!

Great Grandparents!

My grandparents were in town this week and I started thinking about how lucky my kids are to still have Great Grandparents. They have none on Trav's side of the family, but have three on my side. Calissa has really been interested lately about how my dad is her grandpa and when she has kids I'll be her kids' grandma. She also talking about how her brothers will be her kids' uncles. It's fun when they finally figure all of that out!The kids with Grandma and Grandpa Romer and Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Romer.

Calissa and friends

This was taken on the first day of school before class started. Here is Calissa with her two best friends who showed up the first day in the same outfit!Kyrsten, Calissa and Kaitlyn

First day of school!

Today was the first day of school.

Summer FLEW by this year!

The kids got to have their favorite breakfast this morning, Roll-Up Pancakes!Calissa - 3rd grade Mrs. Urias @ Monte Gardens

Best part of the day - the morning schedule

Worst part of the day - the end of the day

Conner - 5th grade Mrs. Fischer @ Monte Gardens

Best part of the day - the end of the day ... it was all kind of boring

Worst part of the day - recess, because we had to wait in line for 10 minutes in the hot sun

Parker - 8th grade @ Sequoia Middle School

Best part of the day - finding out we get to play mud football, soccer and Frisbee in PE Sports

Worst part of the day - being in Spanish with all the bad kids

Camping Adventures!

We went camping last weekend at Caswell Memorial State Park in Ripon, CA. We had gone last year and enjoyed ourselves and decided to go again. It has water (the Stanislas River), shade and is only an hour and 15 minutes from home!

We even got our same campsite from last year! Thursday when we arrived, we set up camp and then got our swim suits on, inflated the rafts and tubes and headed down to the river. The river is only about 2-3 feet deep in most places and has a gentle current. It took us about an hour to float down to the day use area and then hiked back about 20 minutes to our campsite. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures since we were in the water ... but it was fun and we looked great! Calissa floated down on her pink tube (on her stomach) with her goggles on and head in the water informing us about the fish and logs on the bottom! Thursday night we had foil dinners and s'mores and played some Apples to Apples. It was not very crowded in the campground and nice and quiet. The boys were in their own tent and I told them to turn off the light at 10 PM. I guess I wasn't specific enough because they didn't turn on their DS's until 1 AM! At that point Parker had to go to the bathroom (thank goodness for boys)! Conner then got up at 2 AM (not sure if he had been asleep yet or not) and had to go to the bathroom. Unfortunately that one required a walk down to the bathrooms. Travis staggered down the street with Conner and surprised some animal in the bushes!

Friday, after breakfast we went on a hike (with cranky, tired children)! On the way we saw a big cow drinking in the river. We had heard some cows the day before as we floated down the river.

My kind of hiking ... lots of shade!!

After the hike taking a break on the grass.

Happier kids?

Resting before we went down the river again. Friday afternoon we went down to the river again. We started off, a little more confident this time since we had done it yesterday and knew how deep the water was and what to expect. After about 15 minutes we went around a bend in the river and there were about 10 cows at the edge and in the middle of the river. We yelled at Parker to grab a hold of Calissa so she wouldn't float right into the cows and hung out for a few minutes wondering what we should do. I wish I had had the camera to take a picture!! Eventually the cows moved to the edge of the river and we hurried on by them laughing all the way! A little farther down the river we came upon the rope swing that we had discovered the day before. Parker was the only one to try it on Thursday, but Conner, Calissa and Travis tried it on Friday. Parker kept trying to climb higher on the hillside and was grabbing a root when all of a sudden he awoke about 30 daddy longlegs. He decided to swing from a little farther down after that. Travis went a few times and then landed in the river and pulled up his shoe that had fallen off. Unfortunately the straps were still connected to his leg! He had a rough walk back to our campsite with a broken shoe!

Friday night we had dinner, played Five Crowns, had S'mores and read a few chapters of Catching Fire. We all slept better on Friday night!

Saturday, we had breakfast and then packed up camp. We had a great time, but it's always wonderful to come back home, take and shower and get to sleep in our own beds!