Good Times and Chaos: July 2016

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Boy Scout Family Camp

Pearl and her buddy, fast friends.

The crafting tent kept all participants and nappers safe from yellow jackets.

The boys!

She got super dirty.

I married a lanyard master.

Campfire fun!

Group Shot

Have I mentioned yet that our big camera has bit the dust/taken its last glory shot/no longer lets me capture any moments. It is a HUGE bummer. Urgh! Thankfully, Vera has a camera that I have adopted as the family camera. Unfortunately, I never seem to take the photos off of it. She has most of the photos from the Girl Scout Camping Trip. Here are the images I managed to capture on my phone:

Ha! I did make everyone take a group photo...including siblings and mamas who were not going camping.

Waiting for the bats! I sent this picture to one of the mamas back home who was not camping and she freaked out. I guess bats are likely to carry rabies. Hmmm...learn something new every day. Thankfully no one came home with puncture wounds.

The girls chilling in the morning by the campfire.

Girl Group Shot

Monday, July 25, 2016

Keller's 8th Birthday Party

It turns out that 8 is great! Oh, and 12 eight-year-old boys have a ton of energy. The agenda for Keller's birthday was simple: pizza, ice cream, and an outdoor movie. It was just a tiny bit chaotic. ;)

I made the shirts. Thank you Dollar Store for $1 t-shirts and Michael's for fabric paint.

I bombed the game portion of the party. Should have had more games and more prizes. I was thinking that I just had to fill a tiny bit of time. But, it turns out that to see the movie it had to be really, really dark which means later than I thought. Aka, we had lots of time to kill. Oh, and awkward because Gus won the game. Urgh. Crying 4-year-old as I take the prize away or just move quickly on the from the fiasco. I quickly moved on.

Ahhh...and then there was quiet and some peace.

Basketball Tournament Weekend

J and I spent our birthday weekend shuttling kids to basketball tournaments. Vera (with J) headed to Ventura to play. Keller and I took to the road and traveled to Los Angeles for his 1st basketball tournament as a Viper.

It was a HUGE facility with at least 20 courts of basketball playing. Talk about loud!

Birthday Dinner with Keller! We were a bit out of our element trying to find a place to eat, but finally landed at a Japanese restaurant. Keller kept asking for American Rolls...aka, California Rolls. His eyes were bigger than his stomach as he tried to eat both the rolls and a large bowl of Udon Soup.

Not the best picture, but nice to show that we were both there. ;)

The Dude was pretty stoked staying in a hotel with just mom. Swimming, tv watching, and free breakfast were all on the agenda.

Keller in action. Go #33!

2nd Place! Holy cow, they got a enormous trophy!

...and t-shirts!

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Birthday Morning

Junior Lifeguards

Vera spent 4 weeks this summer participating in Junior Lifeguards at UCSB Campus Point. It is a summer camp that teaches water safety, lifeguarding skills, and a whole slew of other things. These pictures were taken at a local competition between Santa Barbara Junior Lifeguard Programs.

Taken right before the Goleta Beach Pier Jump!

July 4th Beach Bash

This dude turned 8 on July 4th. It is amazing to watch how he has matured in the last year, emotionally, academically, and physically. There have been big changes. 8 is going to be great!!

Mom friends rock! Ha, almost looks like it was my birthday. It was too hard to take pictures of the birthday boy as he spent most of the day in the ocean.