Yes, it's true! Can you believe it!?!?!?
I just had so much free time on my hands, I decided to add another person to our craziness!
Baby #5 is due November 14 and we are beyond excited- and a little overwhelmed (I must admit!).
Can't wait to start blogging about our little Thanksgiving turkey...
We had SUCH A FUN family night tonight!!!
Since tonight is the anniversary of Paul Revere's famous midnight run, I knew I wanted the lesson and activity to be based around that. I completely LOVE this era in American History and was so excited to teach the children about that famous night in a really fun way.
After reading the story, we picked the houses we wanted to ding dong ditch these packages to.
So I thought it would be fun to drop off English candy to our friends' homes to help celebrate the occasion.
I just added the candy to a cello bag and added a paper topper that read, "THE BRITISH ARE COMING..." and then I printed out the poem, Paul Revere's Ride, rolled it up in patriotic paper and tied it to the back of the bag topper.
Then it was time to hit the road!
Dan and the boys jumped on their skateboards and started ding dong ditching and leaving the treat bags at our friends' houses while Scarlet, KK and I waited in car.
They had SO much fun and were only caught once- and that was just lousy timing-- the Dad opened his front door to go to his car right when the boys stepped onto the porch! I think they scared him to death! lol
I started receiving some texts later on in the night thanking me for the fun treats. I asked Dan how they knew it was us and he said, "Um duh... do you think anyone else out there is celebrating the ride of Paul Revere?" I think the man may have a point!
Here's a clue...
Any guesses?
A few scooters, skateboards, push cars and bikes and we've got ourselves a fun afternoon. We usually head out a few hours before sunset and stay until it starts to get dark.
Sometimes we meet up with friends... other times it's just us. No matter what, it's always a blast and the kids go home hungry and tired- and happy.
So it's 5 o'clock and I haven't even thought about what I'm going to make for dinner. The solution?
Well a backyard weenie roast, of course! So I pick up the phone, call Dan and tell him to stop by the store for some hot dog buns and S'mores ingredients. Dan was on board and the rest is a delicious history!
Note to self: do this again soon!!!
On our way home from the Santa Maria Tournament, we stopped at the Santa Barbara Pier for clam chowder, lobster bisque and fish & chips. OH YUM!!!
They have a little shack on the pier that I once saw on Rachel Ray's show, $40 a Day where they serve the MOST DELICIOUS clam chowder. It's so delicious. SO DELICIOUS!!! It is so fun and relaxing eating clam chowder or crab out on the pier watching all the boats and surfers go by. I LOVE DOING THIS!!!
Afterwards, we headed to the pier's yummy candy store and got our fill of fudge, taffy, caramels, licorice, gummies, and chocolate covered everything! No one loves a candy store like the Gredings! :)
More soccer... honestly... how much more can we take? lol! :)
This tournament is for Patrick's club team. Yes, he's on 2 teams. The high school soccer team and his club soccer team. It's a lot, but it's great for him and he loves it.
He did great at this tournament! He played so well and it was a pleasure to watch.
We drove up to Santa Maria and stayed over night in a hotel. We watched a lot of soccer, swam in the pool, and ate. Not much else to do in Santa Maria, but it was relaxing and that was perfect! While there we ate at Olive Garden (haven't done that in years), In & Out, and Pannera (LOVE Pannera!!!). Again, not the finest dining, but I didn't have to cook it, so it was heaven!
So tonight I decided to break out the ice shaver for this season's first of many snow cones! I have to tell you that I am IN LOVE with this ice shaver. I got it at Target and it was VERY inexpensive, but it is SO fast and easy with no clean up or mess. Snow cones can be made and the mess cleaned up in 2 minutes flat and I am not exaggerating! I also use the ice shaver a lot for parties where I serve fun drinks with sugar topped glasses. It is one of my very fav kitchen appliances and the easiest BY FAR!
The snow cones cups & straws and syrup is from Target. The kids love this brand and every time I'm at Target in the summer I end up throwing both in my cart so I am always ready for a snow cone afternoon!
I was so tempted not to post any pics of today because it was SO non eventful, and we all looked horrible and we literally did nothing all day, but go to church that morning and then chill and play ping pong all day.
I also didn't cook because we had so many leftovers from the night before from Dan's party. Oh yea, we cooked up some burgers and artichokes, but besides that... no cooking was done.
Anyway, a relaxing day, good food, movie line trivia, gifts, cards, Grammy & Pa & Gavin and ping pong games galore... a great low octane Father's Day!
So what did we end up doing on our first full fledge day of summer vacation? We woke up at 5 am and headed out to the Mojave desert to launch rockets with Chandler's cub scout troop. NOT my idea of a blissful summer's day, but that's what the kid wanted to do, so off we headed.
Luckily most of our friends have cubs too, so it turned into a big family adventure. The kids had a blast despite the heat and cold and dirt and wind and ALL of the rockets were successfully launched! I must admit it was fun watching the really huge rockets taking off. I was able to summon my inner nerd for a few hours.
Would I ever want to do it again? No. Am I glad I went. Kind of. Am I happy to have the pics? Definitely. Thanks for the adventure, Chan Chan!
We don't have a Sonic by our house, so anytime we see one on one of our adventures we make sure to stop. I LOVE the cherry limeade and Dan loves the lime slushie. YUM!!!
