Crawford Beach House Week!

It has been who knows how many years, and John and I have never, NEVER, spent an entire week at my Parent's beach house. I guess with it being so close, we definitely take advantage of the weekends almost every time, but taking time off during the week has never happened. Of course, this would coincide with car weekend in Monterey!

First stop on our list: The Concours d' Elegance along Ocean Ave in Carmel. Ethan thought the cars were far too noisy. He believes the same thing of fireworks, but at least he didn't close his eyes for these beauties.

 Each of the boys were actually quite attentive and ended up being darling little angels throughout the entire event. What? Why are you laughing. They REALLY were this time!

 They watched intently while each of the cars came down the road. Ethan got very excited for the cars with numbers on them.

 See? No fits here. I think I will forever be surrounded by car lovers. If my 16-month old can sit through a car parade, I think I'm toast.

 These Mercedes 300's seem to be the hit this year, they seemed to be everywhere. They had the sweet wing doors -- think the Delorean from Back to the Future.

 Wait, wait, wait! Did you think I was really going to post the 100-thousand pictures I have of all the cars? No, I promise. This isn't John's blog or Ethan's or Lincoln's, so there will be exactly one car photo that does not include people it. Pinky promise.
The boys (all three) got a kick out of this retro firetruck.

 We had at least 5 people stop us and ask to take our picture throughout the weekend. They were simply in love with our stroller and gave us lots of stories of how they were buying their daughter one immediately. Should I be worried about complete strangers taking pictures of my children? No joke, I did have one random lady just take a picture of Lincoln. No stroller story, just a nice, close-up picture of my child. I made sure I held onto him very tightly after that. And I ran away from her.

 These two gents are totally famous. What, you don't know them? One is the owner of Haggerty car insurance, the people that insure classic cars and the other is Wayne Carini, a TV show host for "Chasing Classic Cars." It was actually pretty sweet. They are filming these two talk about the car they are looking at, and Ethan strolls straight up to Wayne and says, "Hey, my daddy watches you on the TV!" Nice. Thankfully, they started laughing and not rolling their eyes or something. They were actually totally nice about the whole thing, and no I wasn't the one letting my child run into the camera shot. Wayne later shook John's hand too and talked to him for a few minutes.

 After two back-to-back car shows, our friends came down for the weekend to stay at the beach house with us. We decided the first stop should undoubtedly be the Dennis the Menace Park. And I also found out that going to the park just before dinnertime is the perfect time to go! There was actually room to run and only a few people at the roller slide. Ethan loves climbing up onto the tippy-top of the train and yelling at the tippy-top of his lungs at everyone around him.

 Lincoln really enjoyed chasing the birds through the park.

 Lincoln eventually realized there was a super-huge and sweet train next to him, and that it was meant for climbing.

 Manning the Engine.

 The two boys are starting to play together so cute now. Ethan especially loves to see pictures of the two of them together and always says, "Aww, soo tute."

 Our friends, the Websters, made a family train of their own. Wait, where is Suzanne!?

 I must really like slide pictures. Or my boys really like the slides. I took a lot of slide pictures.

 But they really do make the best pictures.

 And yes, I did narrow them down.

 See? here's one of the suspension bridge.

 We even had slide races. Oops, back to the slides, sorry.

 John discovered that if you jumped on one side of the bridge, you could launch the people standing in the middle of the bridge. I think other bridge patrons were not as pleased as our bunch at John's discovery.

 Low and behold, the bridge emptied out and just our two family played trampoline on the bridge for a while.

 Lincoln is relaxing in his car seat after a nice hard park time.

 Now, let's get going, I'm HUNGRY.

 Ethan is still amped from the park. He can never get enough outdoor playtime.

 The following day we went to the tide pools! John worked extra hard and found some fabulous crabs there.

 I think the tide pools are just as much fun for adults as they are for kids.

 These tide pools were covered in seaweed though, and were a little rough to navigate.

 But it was beautiful.

 And Ethan found his first sea star. Did I tell you that the Monterey Bay Aquarium will correct you if you call them starfish? They do.

 Here is crab number two that John found. It was even a Dungeness. I think it might have been a keeper, but how far will one crab really go with 10 people?

 I tried really hard to get family pictures of us everywhere we went. I think I was looking for a family picture of us recently and had to go back to last December for one. Hmm. Must change that.

 After the tide pools, we timed it right to arrive at our favorite Monterey Pizzeria, Gianni's. They have the most amazing breadsticks. I usually just eat these when we come here. Pizza Schmizza.

 These cutie patooties had such a fun time hanging out this weekend.

 Even though we were beyond full from all of those breadsticks and a small amount of Pizza, we squeezed in a little gelato between the cracks.

 We took our friends to the real, live car auction next and I found my namesake there, a Mitchell!

 The following day we had a little nature time at Point Lobos. I couldn't believe it, but John had never been there. We got a fantastic group shot of all of us!

 And of course, the family picture.

 We saw some unexpected wildlife. Who knew there would be deer this close to the ocean?

 Here are those cutie-patooties again posing for the camera.

 Look at our view from the hike!

 We found a ton of purple sea urchins. Wait, what are these called again? I can only remember the sushi name for it!

 This was a blow hole coated in mussels.

 You probably can't see it, but that whole middle section is coated in seals.

 We were surrounded by this crazy rock that just looked like someone dropped a bunch of cement onto the beach and stuck all these tiny rocks and sand in it.

 My three boys.

 Who could resist wearing a rock hat?

 We took the boys on a bike ride down to the wharf.

 Spotted about 50 huge sea lions. One of them might have been the huge bull that wanted to kill me when I sailed into his territory on a kayak all those years ago. I think I blocked out the details though, so I'm not sure I could find him in a line up.

 Our boys found a little tractor outside a restaurant at which we ate the most divine eggs benedict.

 We also spent two days at the beach, doing lots of boogie boarding. John wore a hot pink wetsuit. I got a family picture with him in it. You're welcome.

 Ethan even got to do some boogie boarding. We had so much fun! We really need to spend more full weeks at the beach house. It was a dream come true! And thank you, Websters, for coming with us! 

And yes, you did just read a post with 51 pictures in it. May I mention that limiting pictures is not my strong suit?

Random Moments from August 2011

We finally gave Lincoln a "big boy" haircut this month! He has taken to stealing Ethan's bike and pushing (read: NOT pedaling) the bike all around the backyard.

 Doesn't he look so much older with the new 'do? I guess he likes riding anything with wheels around the house. Good thing we have a few options around.

 Another thing Lincoln has taken to is playing Peek-A-Boo from the closet.

 I love his look of surprise as he opens the door.

 He will say "Bee-Boo" over and over again throughout the whole ordeal.

Such a cutie!

 We got the chance to meet up with one of our favorite Elders, Elder Pagaduan! He gave John the discussions right before John got baptized, and did the confirmation. I can't believe it's been almost 7 years now! Wow, and we're up 2 1/2 kids already, crazy!

 Last random moment of the month. Ethan has decided that the area under our stairs, where we store most of the toys is his "house." Too bad his version of "cleaning" HIS house ends up with mine being covered with toys. One afternoon, he decided he should take his nap in his house. And that's just what he did. I got him a blanket and pillow and he went right to sleep. I was shocked. Although, I know how tired I get from cleaning house too...

August Fishing 2011

I've decided to try and post things as they happen, in addition to playing catch-up. Otherwise, I'm going to miss out on all the funny stories that happen along the way and the little things that happen during the day.

This was a quick little fishing trip we decided to have one day to spend a little family time together. Poor John wants to go fishing every minute of his free time -- and I would happy to let him do it. However, the only problem is that he doesn't get a whole lot of free time, so he likes to combine his free time and family free time. Unfortunately, that means that John ends up fishing while I end up chasing children around a dock.

This time, we actually spent some time fishing! Only for about 10 minutes.  But it is official. We fished!

It was a good thing we stopped and got a chocolate milkshake before we went, because I'm not sure we would have lasted as long without it.

That, and the sketchy people next to us, that let Lincoln confiscate their chair. Yikes! He even put his chocolate shake in the cup holder. Make yourself at home, kid.

Good to the last drop.

 Milk mustache, anyone?

 This is what the boys spent the majority of time doing. Looking at the water through the small opening in the dock, and throwing things through the hole.

 Daddy even caught a fish! We had so many bites, and those sneaky fish kept stealing our bait.

 We tossed the lucky fish back into the Delta. Surprisingly, I'm counting this as a successful fishing trip. I'll try to remember that in the future, Babe, and not drag my feet so much.

Girls Camp! August 2011

I love girls camp. I always have! This was my first year they asked me to come as a leader! Wahoo! And I have to say, it was the best place for me to be too. They asked me to be in crafts. Tell me exactly, who doesn't want to spend a week crafting the days away?! Dream come true I tell you! My friend Tammy got asked to be in crafts as well. She is a true crafting genius, so it really was no surprise. Together we crafting this banner. Valerie, who we met for the first time as we began this whole adventure (you plan for months in advance, so we met Valerie at one of our first meetings), began crafting our banner and then needed to leave one of our prep meetings. Tammy and I decided that we needed to "take it home." And, boy oh boy, did we. If you can't tell from the picture, we used all sorts of items from the crafting bins to make a whole camp scene. It includes a teepee, a campfire with someone roasting a s/more and sitting on a bench, a dock, a lake with fish, a person fishing, a bird, the flag circle and flag, and a first aid area.

If you turned around from where this banner was hanging, this would be your view. The craft cabin was located smack dab in the middle of everything. A perfect place for a secretly pregnant lady (only some people at camp knew I was pregnant, evidently they don't want to make it a hard and fast rule that all pregnant ladies can go to camp, it was all touch and go at the last minute if I was going to be able to go right before camp).

The theme for girls camp this year was Heavenly Ever After and involved many of the different Disney princess stories. Of course, we had to make some crowns for the first night, skit night, to show off our princessliness.

 Evidently I have a hard time keeping a straight face for the camera. Oops. This is me coming up with my costume for being Pocahontas.

 Tammy went all out as Ariel. This red wig, which was nothing close to a wig at all, but rather a bunch of curly string, came into great use I think every night of skits during the week of camp.

Valerie is pictured here as Cinderella and Shelisa as Belle. We made up a song using the tune of "Look at this stuff" from the Little Mermaid and talked about all our crafty crap. It was highly clever.

The following morning (ish -- The days all seemed to run together as we spent the entire time either crafting and eating) Valerie and I woke up before six to go do the Polar Bear Swim. Can I just say, it was FANTASTIC! I was much too much of a sissy to do it when I was a young woman at camp, but this year, the water and weather was perfect. It was a little chilly going in, but by the time we got out, it was perfect!

To participate in the Polar Bear Swim, all you have to do is swim to the little dock (pictured at the left) and back, but we decided to go all out and swim to the rock across the lake. All the girls decided to go all the way too, so there ended up being a huge group of us crossing the lake together. Afterwards, the brethren had hot chocolate waiting for us! It was so nice!

That day, I spent some more time doing crafts, and surprise, making unsolicited winks at the camera.

 These girls were youth leaders and were somewhere in between being real leaders and being girls. Basically, they got all the fun of being the girls, but none of the responsibility of being a leader. Sweet gig, eh? Daylene on the left made all the colors of the knit bracelets (there was a color for every value in Young Womens) and their popularity skyrocketed after she was sporting them all around camp.

 This is Brittany, another youth leader, who got to spend a lot of time at crafts with us too.

 Snow White, I mean, Emily Merrill was HI-LARIOUS throughout camp. She was the Assistant Camp Leader and one of the head honchos. Most nights she dressed up as a Disney Princess and talked to the girls in a seriously funny way about the different values they represented. Tammy is of course, laughing her head off at Emily, because that's what he did most of camp. Did I say AT? I meant WITH. We love Emily.

 So, I was the notorious nazi over the rings at camp. It was not my craft, but I totally took it over. Mainly because I was obsessed with making these cute fabric covered rings. I limited myself to making just one a day. But then I was a total hypocrite making sure the girls didn't go over their limit.

 Craft, Eat, Craft, Eat, truly my dream come true! To be fair though, I did spend some time doing crafty humanitarian things too and made a fantastic aqua beanie for a newborn.

 There was a day sometime in the middle of the week where most of the girls were out on hikes. We asked some of the youth leaders to cover the craft area while Tammy and I went out canoeing. We had so much fun! These lake is beautiful!

 The following morning, the crafty ladies all got to go to archery together. Here is Tammy, Marci, and I trying on the equipment.

 Don't we look super scary?

 See? No normal faces from me. Everyone else is smiling and I am freaking out. What, am I four?

 I did get a bulls eye though! And then of course, I made myself a bead to commemorate such a skill.

Remember how I said I was a nazi about the rings? This is me, also being a nazi about the rings. I found the perfect brush to mod podge the rings (to help them stand up a little better, wear and tear, wise) and I totally wouldn't give up the paintbrush. I would simply offer to do it for them instead. I am a super square, aren't I? 

Now, speaking of mod podge. I was wrong almost the entirety of camp calling the substance, "modge podge." Until one day I noticed by looking at the container that it was indeed called "mod podge." I tried to tell everyone about this craziness and Tammy called me out, telling me she had noticed me calling it the wrong name all of camp, and it was driving her crazy, but she was trying to be nice, so she didn't correct me. Uh, who on earth wanted the name to be "mod podge?" I must write a strongly worded letter informing the company of their need to change the name to a more pleasant sounding one, perhaps "modge podge" which springs forth from one's lips with greater ease. They will thank me profusely I'm sure. So watch your crafting aisles for the change. It's only a matter of time.

 Exhibit Z on weird faces. I have issues. But, now I also have headbands for Baby girl when she comes in December.

This is not a weird face, why? I'm simply staking claim on my dessert for the evening. Heaven forbid I miss a dessert.

 On the evening before camp ended, we got together for a Bishops' fireside. These are all of our ward members at camp. I think everyone had such a good time!

 And here are my peeps, the crafting ladies. Love them. We had more fun than anyone else at camp. This was the perfect calling. From the left, Valerie, Tammy, Me, Shelisa, Marci and Heidi.

So the last night, before our skit, we may or may not have thrown all consciousness and rules out the window. We made lots of rings. We made rings to our hearts content. All for the sake of the skit of course. Grand total of rings for me: 14. Shhhh. Don't tell the girls.