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!

8-9-10 ...11!

On 8-9-10 Conner turned 11. Pretty cool, huh?

We thought so! Started out the morning by opening his presents before dad went to work, because he couldn't wait until dad got home. Notice that he doesn't look quite awake in the first picture ...
but once he opened his new DS from mom and dad ... he was plenty awake. Calissa bought him a Pokemon book with her own money and made him coupons that say "Leeve (leave) me alone." So cute! Parker made him some coupons as well, but his were more along the lines of playing whatever Conner wanted to play.
The traditional homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

We went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. Of course, where else would Conner (my carnivore) go? Here he is with his cousin Christopher.

Conner had his birthday party the next day at Jump Sky High. He had 5 friends and family join him to celebrate. They all got sweaty and exhausted, but had a great time.

Pizza and water.

Cake! Gotta love the yummy, cheap chocolate cake from Sam's Club that my kids all LOVE!

Here are a couple of videos from Sky High.



Conner doing a flip (Didn't he learn anything from his dad?)



Jumping off the walls

Dodgeball

We're so lucky that Conner is a part of our family. We love him so, so much!

Scout Camp 2010

(Posted by Parker)

On Monday morning at 4:45 AM I was up and ready to go to to the church where me and the rest of the scouts were meeting to go to scout camp. We were all extremely tired as we went on a 3 hour car ride to Camp Wente. After many complaints about how cramped they were and the sound of "Are we there yet?" we finally arrived around 8 :00.

Here we are at the flag ceremony on the first day. As you can see, it is very dusty and dirty. I being Senior Patrol Leader got to stand in the front as a troop would raise the flag.
After a day of merit badges we went to dinner and afterwards got a dessert. Banana Cream pie was the dessert for this night. Yum!

Here is me at my Lifesaving class saving Tyler from drowning. We had many different requirements but swimming 400 yards and retrieving a 10 pound weight in 7 ft deep water was the most difficult for me. I did both though and passed of the merit badge.

Here is my Rowing class where as you can see we were not very good at it. We had trouble capsizing the boat because unfortunately we picked the heaviest rowboat.

This is the Wentathalon which took place on Wednesday night. You had to shoot a target with a rifle, go through an obstacle course, canak (kayak with a canoe paddle) across the lake, tie a knot, run up a hill, shoot a target with a bow and arrow, run back down the hill, canak back across the lake and swim around a buoy. We had to combine with another troop because we didn't have anyone for rifle shooting. We were in first for the whole race until the end where we came in second by about 1 second. We should of came in first though because the other team cheated. For archery if your shooter didn't hit the target in 4 tries you had to wait 30 seconds and the other team didn't wait. So we were the rightful winners.

Here is us with the other troop after the Wentathalon. We were all pretty excited. I was the runner running up and down the hill. It was exhausting!

On Friday night, the night before we left we went to a huge campfire with everyone at camp Wente. WE arrived a little TOO early arriving a half an hour before it started. At least we got great seats! The show was hilarious and we were all laughing as we walked back to camp.

We woke up in the morning and packed and left but first we got a group shot with everyone. Everyone was a little sad but mostly glad to get away from all the dust and filth. Wente was a great experience and I hope to be able to go next year again.

The Joy of Being Bishop

Pictures are worth a thousand words ...