Summer's Over??

Awe yes...with gas prices and our current employment situation, trips to San Diego and the beach were few and far between this summer. I'm sad to report that we only made it to the beach like twice this summer. Depressing I know. But with the realization of summer ending and the hot days coming to an end, we decided to pack in some jaunts to visit friends and family and the beach! Here's what we've been up to.

Stop 1:Teddy's house
Teddy was Dan's first partner at his job selling homes in Escondido when we first got married. She is a firecracker. We've missed seeing her and have only been able to get together on rare occasions- the last being Cole's baby blessing. So she invited us and the fam (including the Dixons and Dan's mom--**side note**Teddy was one of Dan's mom's bridesmaids at her wedding---) to her home for a fun day at the pool and what else--eating. Audrey was in heaven--not only did they have a dog AND a pool but the dog went swimming with her IN the pool! Next stop---a night at the beach for mutual. (Yay! My second time this summer at the beach!)I really love my calling as Beehive adviser. I remember clapping my hands--literally--when I was asked to serve in that calling. I was pregnant with Cole at the time. I'll be so sad to leave when the time comes to get released...I'm trying to stay under the radar so they leave me there a while! I drove a car load of girls there (and when I say carload I mean 8 girls besides me) and I happened to have my monster cable in the car and of course they had their iPods so we listened to their music all the way there and back. I'll have to admit the Jonas Brothers were surprisingly a refreshing change from Old MacDonald Had a Farm and Give Said the Little Stream. We watched that movie Camp Rock with Madison a few weeks ago and I think deep down Dan and I really liked it--- I know what you're thinking--but it's kinda like Saved By the Bell--no matter how old you are, you are still entertained by the flirtation between Zach and Kelly even though the acting is so cheesy. So we did a little beach clean up and then indulged in hot dogs and s'mores. Our youth are really a great, fun group of kids and it was fun to be around them.


Next stop, a baby blessing in Oceanside. We might as well have stayed down that way all week! We love being able to be a part of these important days of our friends' lives. While sitting in the pew at church that day, Cole decided to literally DIVE over the back of ours into the lap of our friend Matt. We're lucky he had quick reflexes. We also got to see some of our friends that are visiting home from their current residence in Hong Kong! These boys have been friends for many many years and we new we couldn't just see each other once while everyone was in town so.....

Off to the beach again the next day for some "family night" fun. Dan and his buddies have a tradition of playing sand volleyball which started when his mom lived in this posh condo complex with a tennis court, sand volleyball court, BBQ and pool in Del mar. But since Dan's mom doesn't live there anymore, we decided to hit 15th street in Del Mar instead. I think it was better because I didn't have to worry about the kids by the pool and they LOVE the beach! The water was sooo warm and me and Cole got right in it at 6pm! After some pizza, gourmet salad by who else but Brittany, and some too rich brownies made by yours truly, we headed home.


Later that week...BACK down to San Diego to celebrate my Dad's 63rd birthday. And he treated us to steak! We even sat around their new portable fire pit.It's sad that we live so close and yet I feel like we don't see each other as much as we should. And now my mom's in school so

Next day? Dan and I drove to Palm Desert while Shannon watched the kids...but this wasn't any retreat, Dan was working out the AC issues we had at the models we were cleaning last month while I went to clean the air conditioned models--kid free! When I came back to the models he was at, there was no progress on the AC so I sweat off 5 pounds once again cleaning in 110 degree heat and inhaling fumes. I compare it to giving birth...and then getting pregnant again. It's like while you're going through labor you're thinking...I'm never doing this again, but then you get pregnant and then you go through labor again and you say, I'm never doing this again. Last time I vowed not to come back unless there was air. We figured it would only take an hour to fix the issue so I cleaned the other models first....coming back only to realize that it wasn't fixed which meant cleaning in sweat again. It was really nice however to have a few hours to ourselves to chat and talk about anything without having squealing kids in the car. Oh, but the fun wasn't over yet. After I got home Shannon picked me up to go to the temple.... The boys went earlier in the month so we made it a girl's night and met up with Shannon's mom and then Shannon's best friend from high school, Karina, and her mom (who is also friends with Shannon's mom). Little did Karina know but her mom had planned a surprise birthday dinner for her after the temple at the Macaroni grill at North County so we ate a nice dinner and home-made cake, and then headed home so full.

But that wasn't enough I guess because then we decided to hit the beach again yesterday with the kids. They LOVED it. And now I can't say I've never have been stung by a bee because while I was standing watching Dan with the kids in the waves, I brushed my arms against the side of my suit, I felt this sting and it almost tingled down my whole arm. I lifted up my arm and there was this red dot which over then next ten minutes got all swollen right around it. I realized later when we were leaving, that there were a ton of dead bees--and some alive, along the sand only like 20 feet from where our stuff was. Dang those bees.

Allison kept asking us to built a sand castle so while I proceeded to built a mote first to protect the sand castle I would build next, Dan began digging this huge hole and then a more shallow mote around that, with a bridge to let the water under. I wasn't sure how he thought that was a sand castle since it seemed to be missing the whole castle part but he had fun barking like Tim the tool man Taylor and bragging about the structural soundness of his "water retention basin"--when suddenly, a huge wave came which washed out his bridge and only perfectly filled my mote. He would argue that my mote was dug ten inches further back than his so his was closer to the brunt of the wave, but the fact stands, mine withstood the blow and his didn't. I then strategically filled the bucket with wet sand, then poured a thin layer of water on that, than another layer of wet sand, and then after turning it over and giving the bucket a tap tap tap....perfection. Dan decided his cast...uh, water basin needed a castle too, but after filling it with damp sand and dumping it over, it looked like a sad little mound of sand....no resemblance of a castle. We'll let you be the judge.
Mine
Dan's
This cold didn't stop Cole....don't worry we'll keep him out of nursery tomorrow.

But in all seriousness, it was fun to get on our hands and knees and create some memories with our kids. We had fun doing it too. And to top it off, the kids conked on the way home so we didn't have to hear Cole's high-pitched squeals.

I'm pretty sure we drove over 500 miles in the last few weeks. So much for saving on gas right? But really, I realized, why let gas prices get in the way of our family having a good time and making memories...plus, I think we were all going a little stir crazy and needed out! We're gonna milk this good weather as long as we can...The nice thing about summer being "over" is our next stop...Disneyland!

By the sweat of your brow....

Shannon and I are back at it again....just like the good old days--plus 4 more kids. Shannon and I used to clean model homes in Utah and her two little kids would come with us. Audrey would just sit in the car seat and watch us clean for like 2 hours without a peep. Well, those days are gone.Now we have 6 kids total...and they don't just sit without a peep. Now, Shannon and I got a new little job cleaning model homes in Palm Dessert. A friend of hers had invited her to visit them at the Marriott there with this cool little water slide so instead of leaving the kids behind, we decided to take them along and do some cleaning and swimming...so after a VERY long, winding drive, and squealing coming from Cole the whole way (what's new), making Madison's head hurt in addition to the car sickness... we arrived. But the gates were closed and there was no power for them to open. So we went through this side gate and entered the first model only to discover that there was no air--no power--no electricity. We proceeded to clean--inhaling 409, Windex, and Pledge fumes in the densely humid, HOT air and just dripped with sweat. The kids ran rampant all about as we struggled to figure things out with the air. We brought a portable movie player and a fan for the kids--neither of which would work with no working plugs, and neither would our vacuum. So, after dying from fumes, and dripping with sweat through 4 of 8 units. We decided that for the children's sake--Gavin was as red as a tomato and about as sweaty as it gets....Drew looked like someone had dumped a bucket of water on his head he was so wet and sweaty...we needed to leave. And the text picture we took of us in the car after trying to cool our sweaty bodies just didn't do it justice. So we left and got some lunch and headed over to the pool to cool off!
We had a great time over there and the kids loved running in the spraying water. It was nice to cool down but we still had another set of 3 models left to clean--and we weren't sure if there was air in those or not.

Finally we were off. (Picture it-feeding sweaty kids, (6 of them) getting them out of the car--swimsuits on, lotion on, go swim, swimsuits off, clothes on, drive more....more cleaning.) They were sure troopers but Shannon and I looked at each other and were like--never again are we bringing the kids!
At the other set of models there was air! PHEW! And the plugs worked--well some of them--so we set up the movie. But of course it couldn't be that easy--"I can't see it"--"you're head's in the way." It was nap time. Great. So we ran around the house, cleaning, attending the kids, cleaning some more. Thankfully the houses were already VERY clean so it didn't take too much effort. Audrey had to use the bathroom at one point and we said we'd just be in the next model over. When we hadn't seen her in a little while, Madison went to go find out what she was doing. She came back with a blotchy-eyed Audrey. She got confused on which model we went into and was lost so she crouched down crying and told us she said a little prayer that someone would come find her. Then came Madison looking for her. So cute-- and sad! Phew, ok, got all the kids, keep cleaning. A little later, after moving to the next model, we set up the movie again and told everyone to just lay on the bed and watch. That didn't work either and when I came back in the room a little later, Allison had the strangest look on her face. It almost looked like she was pooping! Of course that was my first frantic question---"Are you pooping??????" Of course she wasn't--she knows better than that. Well, the most I could gather from her was that she fell off the bed. And it was a big drop too. I think she got the wind knocked out of her which I've never had happen to me, but she looked pretty frightened which frightened me. I kept checking her back to see if she was ok. No marks, no nothing. But that was it for me. I looked at Shannon and pretty much said. I'm done, I'll come back another day and finish--WITHOUT the kids. I think by the look on my face she didn't question me one bit and we got the kids gathered up--but while we were doing that, we were taking turns storming though the last house to clean it before we left. We FINALLY headed out with some EXHAUSTED children...and moms!!! We got dinner...Cole conked on the way there, we took a quick potty break, and Cole woke up--and stayed up the rest of the trip home! The rest of them pretty much crashed and we made the dark winding drive home. Hey, at least we got paid-right?