Good Times

Am I the only one who thought the dog video was funny? I thought it was hilarious!! Even remembering it in my head makes me laugh. Ah well.


Anyway, this is a catch up post, but full of lovely good things, so I get to title it "Good Times" instead of some lame variation of "Catch-Up Post" which I've done far too frequently.


ANYWAY...



Several weeks ago, the Woods invited us over for FHE. We just love that family, so we had a really good time with them. We got to ride horses, cook hot dogs over a fire, ooh and aah at the marvels of a potato gun (loaded with rolled up socks), and in general enjoy the company. :)

A few weeks ago, several of us took Lisa out for her birthday. We saw "New in Town" which I have a feeling is a lot more fun when you're with a group. Also more fun with a group is stumbling upon a kiddie play area (minus the kiddies).

A couple Saturdays ago (hmm, all of these were a few weeks ago or more, which makes me wonder what we've been up to lately - nothing interesting apparently) ... as I was saying... A couple of Saturdays ago I woke up thinking we needed to do something fun after a rather grueling week, so we packed a lunch and headed up to the river. Despite it being a Saturday full of glorious weather and lots of people with the exact same idea we had, we didn't have a hard time finding a nice secluded spot to relax for a few hours.

John actually found some shells.

Ben had fun throwing great big rocks in the water...

Since this was an impromptu activity, I didn't think to bring a change of clothes for the boys. So I told them to keep their clothes dry and not go in past their knees.

.

Are you snickering at me yet?

.

Even as I said it, I had a funny feeling I was fighting a losing battle. I mean, we were at the river. What was I thinking?

.

But I had hope because they were pretty good at first...

Ben was the first to "accidentally" lose his balance and get more or less soaked down his front.

You can see he's very upset about it.

John managed it too, not long after...

Chris was a little too timid for this, but it didn't matter. At this point I didn't care how wet they got. I know defeat when I see it.

Good thing.

(Note to self: next time, just bring some towels.)

Daddy tried getting Chris to go in past his knees, but he wanted nothing of it...

But he had fun anyway...

At one point (despite what Mom and Dad said) John was convinced he had a fish caught at the end of his stick...

... but no.

From where we were sitting, we could see a strip of land just under the water. Brian decided to see if he could walk to it, or if the water was too deep:

Ta-da!

This is another view from where we were sitting:

It was too enticing not to follow...

There's something comforting about walking a path like this barefoot.

It was a great day.

And on our way back to the car, guess what we saw?

Wild horses.

Gee, all three of these events involved horses (if you count the picture of Nylene that makes me want to say "Ride 'em cowboy!"). Perhaps this post should've been titled "Happy Trails" instead. :)

Hilarious

Oh man, this is too funny...

Everything is Amazing, Nobody is Happy

VA-ROOOOM!!!!

It's Blue and Gold time again, and our fabulous scout leaders pulled out all the stops as usual.

The theme this year was Route 66, which I thought was so fun. The boys were supposed to decorate a Route 66 cake to bring, so this is what we spent the morning making:

John did just about everything, from helping with the batter to putting on the frosting. But he did let his little brothers help put on the candies.

And here's what everyone else brought:

I love the one with the road on it. We almost did something like that, but I couldn't resist the lure of cupcakes. Cakes intimidate me, but cupcakes are easy!

The tables were decorated with Route 66 placemats, and these cool centerpieces. Chris W. made them of course. :)

They had plenty for the kids to do, including this bean bag toss. There was candy in each bucket and if you got a ball in, you got to take out a piece of candy. The furthest bucket had full-sized candy bars in it! Ben did pretty good at this - I think he walked away with three prizes.

There were also plasma car races:

Fun!

This Blue and Gold was special because both of John's Grandmas were able to come. Kathy had to leave before I could get her picture taken (I know she's just heartbroken about that) but I got one of the boys with my mom:

But the true highlight of the day (no offense Mom) was this:

No, not the hauler, what's inside the hauler.

Oh yeah...

Oh baby...

See all the grown-ups hanging around the car? That's what it was like the whole time. I just don't think the kids appreciated it the way we did. Although they did "ooooooh" appreciatively when Bro. Foster told them how much the car was worth (a half a million dollars, in case you're wondering). Anyway, my kids looked at it and were gone so fast, I didn't even see them. I had to bring them back to get pictures of them inside:

Then it was MY turn:

Man I wish I could've taken it for a spin!

Take a look at the engine on this thing:

I was going to make a crack about there not being much room for groceries, but I'm not sure these guys would've thought that was funny.

After awhile, the crew turned it on, warmed it up, and revved the engine. (Turn your sound up to get the full effect.)

It was totally awesome.

After I'd had my fill of the car, I gathered the lady folks for a couple of races:

Apparently I thought leaning forward would make me go faster...

It didn't work. What you need to go faster is...

A push.

My mom gave me a push at the end and I was so glad! My arms were getting tired!!


The photographer of the day must've thought I'd like this for some reason:

Dear hubby's foot! :)

Oh yeah, I guess the whole reason for this is to present awards to the boys. John was able to earn his rank advancement in time for the Blue and Gold (just barely!). It's kind of a neat pack meeting to get that kind of award.

This picture cracks me up because John looks mad, but it was just the timing of the camera. I think he's just thinking. :)

Nylene, being the awesome cub committee chair that she is, arranged for the boys to give their parents a thank you note, along with a flashlight for the dads (for lighting the way through scouts) and a flower for the moms (for helping to plant their cub scouts seeds, even though everyone knows it's really because moms love to get flowers for any reason).

It was another great cub scout activity. And just for fun, here's a little Ferrari tribute, courtesy of Ferris Bueller's Day Off:

Okay, maybe I got a little carried away

It's not everyday I get to take a picture of my feet in California. I knew just the shot I wanted too. I wanted my feet on the beach with a line of foamy surf at the top. Like this:





Easy right?

Well, it would've been easy, but you see that water just never seems to sit still, and it moves fast too. In my quest for the perfect picture, I ended up with a lot of pics that looked something like this:

Or these:

This wasn't what I was going for, but I still think it's cool.

You know, even after I got the shot I wanted, I just kept right on going:

No reason to stop there.

Bird feet:

Surfer feet:

Friendly feet:

Yeah, I was having fun.

Snow on the Superstitions

Gorgeous.