First Day of School

Today was the kids' first day of school for the year. They got homemade breakfast cake for breakfast and then our traditional pictures in front of the front door.Parker - 7th Grade @ Sequoia Middle School

Best part of the day - A game in Hands on Technology Class

Worst part of the day - Having homework and finding out he has to go to 8th grade lunch every other day.

Conner - 4th grade Mrs. Johnston & Mrs. Wright @ Monte Gardens
Best part of the day - math because we got to play with some math kits
Worst part of the day - PE at the end of the day

Calissa - 2nd grade Ms. Petty @ Monte Gardens
Best part of the day - all of it ... she loves school!
Worst part of the day - she doesn't have a worst part of the day, but I would have to say getting up this morning!

Mom - Best part of the day ... having lunch with Travis
Worst part of the day ... (can I say when they came home?)
They were pretty cranky about doing their homework, but they came home to homemade chocolate chip cookies and one of their favorites for dinner. They got happy soon enough. Give them a few days and they'll be back in the routine of homework, chores and piano practice.


I will miss them while they are at school ... I think :)

Last Summer Hoorah

We had one last free day before school starts tomorrow and decided to take a day trip. I offered the movies, swimming, the beach, hiking, or the Exploratorium in SF. Parker said he'd like to go back to the Exploratorium in SF (he thought he'd been on a field trip last year). The other kids decided that would be OK, so we packed up and headed out to SF. Now, I hate, hate, HATE driving in SF. I had directions, but we hit traffic, lousy drivers and narrow lanes. We only made two wrong turns, made two illegal u-turns before we made it there safely. Parker said to me as we were driving, "you like to talk to yourself when you drive, huh?" I guess I talk to myself when I'm nervous. Once we pulled into the parking lot, Parker said, "I don't think I've ever been here before." It was a new experience for the kids and I hadn't been in over 20 years.It was a ton of fun!! We stayed five hours and could have easily spent another two. We decided that we need to go back on a day that Travis can come with us (and drive).

Conner and I were moving this big cement pillar with two little bitty magnets.

Here are the kids on a chair that had been doubled in size from the one on the right.

It was huge!!!
Calissa having fun with the air coming out of the traffic cone.

Parker trying to flip his hat onto his head with the air from the cone.

Calissa drinking out of the toilet.

I thought since she was a girl, she wouldn't do things like this!

Parker and I taking a picture of ourselves.

Conner going up in smoke.

Making smoke rings.

The kids outside. The Palace of Fine Arts in the background. It was a beautiful day in the city!

Unfortunately the temperature climbed and climbed as we got closer and closer to home.

Cute kids!

We've had a wonderful summer. I'm a little sad that it's drawing to a close. The kids aren't fighting (at least not all the time) and are at a fun age where we can do some great things together. We'll just have to look forward to next summer!

(Or the cruise which will be here in 74 days ... but who's counting?)

Easiest Birthday Party Ever!

OK, this 10 year old birthday party goes down as one of the cheapest and easiest parties for my kiddo's. Conner decided that he wanted a sports party for his birthday. We were a little slow in planning, so it ended up being a couple of weeks after his "real" birthday, but he was good enough to be OK with that. We did the invites on Evite - love it. All Conner wanted to do was go to the park with his friends and play sports. They got dropped off at our house and we took the kids down to the park. I carried my chair to the shade and sat and watched while Travis supervised (played with) the kids.Miles, Joey, Ryan & James (Isaac came later)
Christian, Kyle, Conner, Parker and Lucas

Cooling off in the shade between games.

They played soccer, baseball and then flag football. Notice the lovely sock tails hanging out of all their pants. That was Trav's idea. It worked really good and I didn't have to use any of my fabric! They got all played out (including Travis) and we herded them back to our house for cake and ice cream and presents.

Conner got them all out on his first try.

(This is the yummiest cake that Sam's club makes and for $6.50 it's well worth it!)

Conner had a ton of fun and loved playing sports with his friends.

I loved that it was cheap, I didn't have to do much and that he had a memorable birthday!

Thanks Conner for being such a great kid!

'Token' Camping Trip

I tried to get Travis to write all our blog posts from now on since he is a better writer than I am and funnier, but he said our blog book would cost hundreds of dollars since he can't write anything short. So ... you're stuck with me and my boring play by play. You can anticipate a post by Travis every now and then.We try to go camping at least once every summer and it usually ends up being only once. We went camping this past Thursday-Saturday at Caswell Memorial Park in Ripon, CA. It was a beautiful park right on the Stanislaus River. One of the best parts of the trip was that it was only 1 hours and 15 minutes away from our house!

We got the best campsite in the park (at least we thought so). The kids enjoy taking their scooters to check out the campground. We can barely fit the scooters, so there is no way that they could take their bikes!
Here are Parker and Calissa wading in the river our first night there. Once we had unpacked and saw the river we decided to head back into town (Manteca) to buy a boat and float for the next day (oh, and some flashlights too because mom forgot to pack those!)

Friday morning we woke up and decided to take a hike. We hiked and explored for about two hours that morning. It was shady and not too hot. We found a day use beach a bit down the river. We had our own beach front right in the campground.

We got a few scrapes on the hike, but nothing serious. As we were hiking back to our campsite, Calissa was in the middle of telling us a story and all of a sudden started screaming and holding the side of her neck. We didn't see anything get her, but as she took her hand away it looked like she had been stung by a bee. She continued to hold her shoulder as we continued back and finally we stopped again and "something" flew out from her shirt. She had gotten stung twice by what we assume was a bee. Poor Calissa. I don't think we even saw a bee the whole time we were there. They probably just bumped into each other and she squashed it in her neck. After getting back to camp we put some ice on it and she was fine 20 minutes later.

After lunch Andrew, Tina and Christopher arrived to camp with us. We helped them set up camp and then headed down to the river for some swimming.

It was a nice sandy beach area that was pretty shallow. There was an occasional submerged log that scratched some skin off, but it was a fun area to play.

You could take your rafts and boats up the river several hundred yards and float down. The current moved you, but not too fast so the kids had fun going up and down.

Travis and Calissa took the boat for a spin.

Calissa floating down. Trust me, it's her!

The boys playing.

Aunt Tina, Christopher, and Uncle Drew

Parker, Travis and Drew played some baseball game in the river. Travis kept having to go in the deeper water and try to swim back up the current. They had fun and it was funny to watch them try and swim against the current. They didn't want to kick too much because there were submerged branches under the water and didn't want to get hurt.

Conner building a cool waterway.

Calissa, Christopher and Conner in the boat.

Tina and I floated down the river to the day use beach area and then hiked back to camp. We only hit one log and Tina only lost her oar one time. We had a fun time trying to maneuver around the trees and branches in the river.

Here we are after dinner getting ready for s'mores. We got pretty dirty, but had a great time. We decided to go swimming once we got home to wash off the first layer of dirt before showering. It worked pretty well. Calissa didn't leave a ring around our tub, but she might have left one around the pool!

Until next year ....

Happy 10th Birthday Conner!!

Conner turned 10 years old last Sunday. I can't believe he's that old already!! He has really grown up and matured a lot in the last year. He is a lot of fun to have around (most of the time, but I guess the same could be said for me too :)

Here he is opening his presents after church. He wanted to have homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast and I forgot to make them on Saturday night. Luckily I woke up in the middle of the night and remembered so I got up at 6:30 to start them so I could put them together before church and we could bake them when we got home. He was a little disappointed, but said he was OK waiting. I think they were worth the wait.
Lego Indiana Jones for the Wii, a new bike, a gift card to Game Stop and a couple of new books. Spoiled kid!!
He got his favorite for Sunday dinner and chose Shells for dinner and Eclair cake for dessert. Grandma and Grandpa, Uncle Drew, Aunt Tina and Christopher came over to help him celebrate. His friend birthday party will be next Saturday. He's having a sports party at the park. Should be lots of fun and pretty easy to do. Travis gets to run this one.

We love you Conner and are so happy that you are a part of our family!

Rock Band Jam

Here are a few pictures from when my brother was here from Utah. They had fun playing rock band one afternoon. They hadn't played before. They thought they were pretty good until they tried it. (They actually did great for their first time :)Here is Parker with a little help from Sam-O on drums.
The band. Here is Kevin singing "Living on a Prayer."

Here's Sam playing the guitar. It's a big as he is.
Wish they lived closer and we could see them more often. It's always fun to get together and the kids love playing with each other. (Abby and Calissa were too busy making messes to play rock band with the rest of us :)

How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?

Time for a raccoon update:

As described in our previous post, the raccoon mom and her 4 kits (or cubs, if you prefer -- apparently, both terms are used -- yes, we've spent way too much time researching raccoons on the internet lately) were extracted from our crawl space last Saturday. We had a few nights of peaceful sleep until Tuesday night/Wednesday morning when it sounded like someone was trying to break into our house at about 2:00 am.

Technically, Jen heard the noise but it didn't take long before she woke me up and we agreed it must be a raccoon trying to rip through one of our vents in the backyard. I put on my glasses (but forgot shoes), turned on the backyard light, and ventured out to, indeed, find a raccoon ripping apart one of our vents with its claws. I asked it politely to leave (well, not that politely but I wasn't yelling like a madman -- yet) and it backed away but just looked at me for a while. I then tried my whisper/yell combination (yisper or whell, maybe) where you don't make lots of noise (so you don't wake up the neighbors), but you let the raccoon know you mean business.

At that point, it did duck under our fence, although I could see its eyes watching me underneath the fence. I hoisted a couple big rocks to block the vent and then went back inside. About 20 minutes later, we heard the same noise (both of us this time since we hadn't been able to fall asleep) and I went out and immediately used the yisper/whell technique. This time, it backed off a few feet and looked at me. I found a small rock (golf ball size) and tossed it in the raccoon's direction. Apparently, all those years of playing softball have finally paid off because it was a direct hit and the raccoon ran off quickly (please note: it wasn't thrown all that hard, so please don't call the PETA people on me -- I was only trying to show the coon our home really isn't the 5-star raccoon hotel that it must be listed as in those raccoon camping guides).

I then examined my clearly-not-heavy-enough rocks and found the raccoon had been able to push them aside. So, I found some cinder blocks and stacked them up and went back inside. As a side note, I recently came across a raccoon article stating that raccoons are among the most intelligent of all wild animals. Well, either ours is the dunce of the litter or they are also the most determined of all wild animals. The raccoon came back twice more that night (the whole ordeal lasted from 2:00 to about 4:00) and I chased it away but it had been unable to make any more headway on the vent (two cinder blocks and a 40-pound rock on top seemed to do the trick).

The next night, I sprinkled some cayenne pepper (more internet research) near the area, hoping to get a good night's sleep. However, about 11:15, the raccoon was back -- still not making much progress but making enough noise to keep me awake. Jen sprinkled some Mr. Clean over the area (more research) and then I stood outside with a flashlight in one hand and a bottle of Wasp Killer in the other. I waited for about 45 minutes for it to come back so I could spray it down (I'm hoping this feller will give our place a really bad review so no future raccoons will even think about staying at our place). But, either the raccoon has grown a brain or perhaps could see/smell me as I sat there waiting to pounce. Eventually, I gave up and went back inside. No additional visits that night.

Jen e-mailed a guy from the paper who had written a raccoon column and he suggested dog repellent, so we bought some of that along with a couple new vents that are designed differently so as to make them more difficult to pry apart. We sprinkled the dog repellent, which consists of 60% dried blood (blood from what? I really have no idea and decided not to ask) and 40% dried chili powder all around the area on Friday night -- no coons all night long. I replaced two of the vents on Saturday just to be safe and, once again, no coons on Saturday night. When taking Conner to soccer practice, I noticed my wrist was burning and eventually realized I got some of the dog repellent on me (chili powder is hot on the skin! either that or dried blood....never mind).

Anyhow, don't be fooled by the subject line -- it's going to take a really long time before I will miss the raccoons. But, hopefully, they are gone for good. And don't worry...we promise not to use the extra dog repellent as a secret spice for future meals...

Where's Davy Crockett When You Need Him?

The picture below is our crawl space -- it's propped open in the picture, but even when it's closed, it isn't exactly air-tight. So, over the years, it's been a haven for various animals -- in fact, you could consider it some type of stray animal birthing center.

We don't have pets (see previous postings for our very short-lived pet experience) but, of course, we're happy to give them a nice place to have their babies. It's the least we can do. A couple years ago, Jen's brother went underneath the house to fix one of our pipes and noticed a skunk pacing back and forth -- since the skunk was pretty good about not spraying, we allowed it to hang out under the house. Besides, I'm told skunks keep the rats and mice away. So, if it doesn't smell up the place, we figured we might as well let it be.

After this week, the Burr Animal Birthing Center is now closed (another victim of a bad economy?). The latest (and final) patron was a raccoon. Over the past couple weeks, we've heard scratching noises under the house. While they've been annoying and a bit frightening, we let them be until two nights ago when there was a raccoon fight in our carport. After the fight, our mother raccoon went under the house and started whimpering (it was worse than that, but that's the best way I can describe it). Jen couldn't get back to sleep, so we decided we'd better do something about it. Below is a picture of momma raccoon herself, safe in the trap.

But that's only a small part of the story. We called "Animal Gidders" - as in "we gid 'em for ya" and along came Bill, with Jose and friend (never got his name since he was on his cell phone half the time). Before leaving for manicures, Jen and Calissa both whispered -- "that guy scares me", speaking of Bill. While I tend to agree with their assessment, Bill is good at his job for that very reason. He went on to describe how you "just gotta show the coons who's the boss!" He sent Jose under the house to do the dirty work and then built a "tunnel" out of our boys' old dresser that created a funnel from the crawl space to the trap. After finishing the tunnel, he told Jose to "go for it!" Jose proceeded to use Conner's T-ball bat and make as much noise as he could to try to get the raccoon to go through the tunnel. After about 20 minutes, Bill said he was going to go in and "show Jose how it's really done." Bill gave me a demonstration of what he does...uh, let's just say if I were a raccoon, I'd be pretty happy about being in the trap and away from Bill as quickly as possible. Bill was convinced there were baby raccoons as well since they "don't go under the house just for fun". Sure enough, here's Bill with 4 baby raccoons that were together in a pile.

He asked if I had kids at home, so I told Parker and Conner to come out (after Bill's "demonstration" I was going to do anything he said). Here's Parker and Conner holding a couple babies -- I'll be honest, I'm not an animal guy, but it just goes to show you that anything small can be pretty cute. Just to drive the small = cute point home, Calissa ended up getting her toes painted for free after her manicure just because the lady "had" to do it since her little toes are so cute!

After extracting (evicting?) all of the coons, Bill also sealed up the crawl space so nothing can get back in there. Burr Animal Birthing Center -- now closed for the foreseeable future. Now, Jen can once again sleep peacefully and you can't put a price on that ... or, if you can, it's at least worth more than the $400 that Bill charged us for his efforts.