Laguna Beach Vacation

We rented a house in Laguna beach just a few yards from the ocean. This seal rock is one of the cool aspects of this amazing place where we spent a lovely week.

These first 8 shots are from a view point above our neighborhood.

Our house is just to the right of the palm fronts. It is white with a pinkish stripe across it. We stayed in the basement and enjoyed a colorful landlord named Earl.

Crescent Bay is the name of the actual beach we played in that week. The water was freezing for California and the waves were unusually high but the sand was soft and fine.

My birthday boy on his birthday. He was reflecting on what it means to be...

older.

Chloe had so much fun taking pictures this week and loved the combination of AZ and CA depicted in this scene. Beautiful!

Stubborn kids won't turn around for a picture!!

I tried!

At least Russ loves me.

Checking out the beach

Checking out the town. Being thoughtful.

Died laughing when we saw this sign about our favorite loud laughing and silly landlord, Earl!

We went to Knott's Berry Farm on Thurs. and had a blast! This ride takes you from 0 to 82 miles an hour in just 2 seconds and then shoots you straight up in the air a few hundred feet!!

All wet after the log ride. 

If you are wondering where Rustin is, he was back east for the National Boy Scout Jamboree for 3 weeks having the time of his life!

Playing in the cold waves

See how big this is, and it was dying down by this point.

Livvy lovin' it.

When these huge waves would crash it was LOUD and intimidating. If you got caught in it at the wrong time, it would smash you into the sand and then toss you all around for a while. Tess is trying to get out past them to where you can ride them up right before they break.

Like this. There she is! (left)

Tess and Chloe enjoying the surf.

I took the underwater camera out there with us. It was fun!

Underwater and still silly

Enjoying the powder soft sand with my girls.

Chloe and Liv dug 4 tunnels that joined in the middle. Russ and I could hold hands with both girls underground.

Shadows

A new game we invented. You had to keep your hands and feet on the ground and stay there no matter how cold or deep the waves got.

Thanks for a wonderful week Russ and my darling girls!

Tess's Cakes!!!

Tess started making cakes and decorating them with fondant this summer. She has been the creative force behind all of these cakes but has had help from her friend Hailey and sister Chloe. Here are creations, starting with the most recent. 

This one was for her friend Maddy who loves to sing!

She took it to school and gave it to her at lunch. It was a hit and fed a lot of teenagers!!

Tess testing out the microphone made of rice crispie treats and covered with fondant. She dusted the beads and microphone/cord with edible pearl dust.

She did this for Amanda Neiner's little brother Josh. Amanda and Lexi helped her with this one. 8 year old Josh LOVED it!!

Tess made this for her friend, McKaylee who loves photography. Below the cake are pictures of Tess and McKaylee growing up together. Someone at the party thought it was a real camera and tried to pick it up so she could use it!!!

Back side

For Russ's b-day Tess made his a cake modeled after his favorite gun, his Springfield 40 XD. I traced his gun onto paper and then she used the paper to trace the cake. She printed up pictures of the gun from all angles so she could get every detail perfect. Chloe made the magazine for extra ammo and ear plugs!

They love their dad!

What kind of bullets does a cake gun shoot? 

Chloe at Science Camp

This April Chloe went to Science Camp with all the sixth graders from her school. I went as a chaperone and we had a wonderful time in Northern Arizona.

Here Chloe is playing a challenge game where you crisscross arms and grab the person across from you and the entire group tries to stand up together. Not as easy as it looks!

 Here they go!

At this challenge they have to get all members of their group from one deck to another using only these two planks that do not reach by themselves the whole distance. Chloe is so smart and perfect at these kinds of "think outside the box" kind of challenges.

This is Bailey who was in our cabin. One morning I did braids in all the girls hair, mine to. We had tons of fun in our cabin, especially at night when we snuck out to play ninja in a secret room we found or to play games in another cabin. We got busted the first night and had to clear all the tables for the whole camp after breakfast. It was WORTH IT!

We played a lot of super fun games as a whole camp. Here Chloe and our next-door-neighbor, Sam, are the go-to people in a game of scavenger hunt where the kids had to find certain things in the room like, the oldest penny, a bug, chapstick etc. WE WON! Chloe chose the name of our team, 

"Team- Better-Than-The-Other-Team!"

This is the hallway between the different rooms in our cabin. Each room had about 3 sets of bunk beds in it. They were pretty comfy.

In one of our science classes we made Ice Cream in a can. Here Chloe is rolling it back and forth. There is a smaller can inside the big coffee can and then rock salt and ice between them. This class was called "Heat Transfer"

Getting ready to eat our yummy treat with Jordan.

It worked! 

Another class they disected owl pellets (Owl barf) and found bones and other fun things in there. They had to line up the bones on a chart and figure out which part of which kind of little animal they came from. 

YUM!

Chloe and Sweets inside the shelter they made at their survival class. I helped with this class and had fun watching the different personalities of the different kids come out in the kind of shelters they made.

More fun in the hallway!

Playing Ninja in our secret room. This was just before we left and it was SNOWING OUTSIDE!!!

Here are a bunch of the darling 6th grade girls. We had tons of fun. The name of our group was the BEARS and I had fun being "Mamma Bear" to a bunch of cute cubs for four days.