Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend we went to visit my parents in San Diego and we planned to make our one and only trip of the Summer to the beach.  Wouldn't you know it? The marine layer was really thick when we got there at 10am and did NOT wear off AT ALL.  So it was pretty cold, but at least it wasn't crowded!  Russell spent a lot of time with the girls walking into the water

and promptly running back out with the tide

Nathan also spent some time running away from the water.  But he was very cool and collected about it and seemed to be showing everyone that he wasn't really afraid of the water, he just would rather stay dry.

The girls had SOOOO much fun it made me wish we had taken them more this Summer.

Nathan spent most of the time with me . . . up on the blanket. . . out of the cold.  I was trying to protect him from the cold water and it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was feverishly reading The Hunger Games

Nathan thought he was a big help when the girls decided to start collecting rocks.  I thought it was pretty cute.

We had a good time.  Well, at least THEY did.  These faces say it all . . .

After lunch and naps the kids had some fun in the pool with their cousins Sara and Kaleb and their Uncle Matt

A Bit of Summer

I have so much catching up to do to finish posting about our Summer.

We didn't do much swimming this year, but we did hang out with cousins and their water toys.  On this particular day Jessica called and invited us over to play with the slip 'n slide and kiddie pool.  It was bright and sunny out with clouds far off in the distance when I accepted the invitation, but by the time we got ready it looked like this

And then the thunder and lightning started.  We sat out in our lawn chairs with our kids in their bathing suits playing in the water and watched the lightning in the distance (don't worry it was pretty far away).  It was actually pretty fun and we even got sprinkled on a bit, but it was so warm that the kids sure didn't mind. Nathan and Braden had a ball crawling around on the slip 'n slide

Morgan and Madylin played in the wagon a lot with Riley and they all took turns pulling each other around

This summer we've also been working on our back yard.  We got a whole lot a dirt dumped on our driveway which we then had to transfer to the back yard.  The girls were a BIG help, as you can see.