A final desicion

Two Christmas's ago we threw out our old recliner that had been in my family since I was little. It was my Dad's favorite sleeping chair, so comfortable and it had held up well. They passed it to Jamie and she had it until she moved and then I took it.  Anyway, it had started to break apart and when the Christmas tree came in that year, the chair went out and to the dumpster.
Since then we have been on the look out for another chair. I had put our old glider rocker out in it's place so there was somewhere else to sit in the living room besides the couch.  That glider has been there ever since but I never liked it to much. It is super dirty and the bottom cushion never stayed put. Anyways, when I was at Costco a couple weeks ago I saw this recliner, swivel, glider chair! A great neutral color and not super big. We need more compact size furniture in our little home so it doesn't take over the space :) I bought it and brought it home and it fits and looks great in the room.
So, next time you are here for a visit (Grandma ;) this chair is calling your name.

Truckee Time

We finally made a trip to Truckee during the 4th of July weekend and Billy's 6 day off. It had been over 2 years since we had been up there so we were well over due for a trip.
Truckee is a very crowded place during the 4th of July.... but we were able to enjoy being there none the less. We played at Donner Lake on Saturday, Monday & Tuesday. Sunday we made it down to North Lake Tahoe for church and ran into some long time friends of Billy. Really, we ran into long time friends of Billy everywhere we went, but that's to be expected in a smaller town.
We supported the Truckee fire department's 4th of July pancake breakfast and watched some of the parade afterwards. We spent time with all of Billy's brothers and family. We enjoyed a walk by the Truckee river and I even got a run around Donner Lake in. (7 miles I think)
The boys played baseball in Billy's old back yard, just like he used to do with his brothers. I think it brought back memories for them all.
The firework show over Donner Lake was amazing, one of the most epic firework shows I have ever seen. We sat on the West end beach and were pretty much right underneath them! Leila wasn't too thrilled with the loudness and neither were the boys at first. But the boys eventually calmed down and enjoyed the show as well.
All in all it was a great trip up north. We all had a nice time visiting with family and enjoying the beauty of being in green mountains and lots of flowing water!

Kindergarten Grad!

Another Kindergarten graduate in the house :) Zachary completed his first year of school with flying colors. He was so excited for school almost every morning of the entire school year. Sometimes we would start school at like 6:45am because he was ready to turn on his computer and learn. There were even a few days that he would complete just about all his lessons for the day before William or Jameson even got out of bed! Zachary is a little math whiz. He was able to do most of his addition and subtraction in his head without using his fingers or making sketches. He also did amazing in Phonics and is now able to read simple books.
I am so very proud of this little boy and all that he accomplished this year in school. I'm looking forward to first grade with this star student of mine :)

Congratulations Zachary!!

GVSLL 7U All star Champs

The 6/7 GVSLL all star team pulled it off on Saturday! They went undefeated in the tournament to win the championship! The final game was fun, exciting, and a nail biter. To start off they had an announcer, who was awesome, who introduced each player before the game. The national anthem was sung and music was played between all the innings. It made it a really fun game to have all that. William and all the boys played great, had fun, and in the end came through for the win.  William had some awesome at bats, at least 2 doubles. He had some key plays at 3rd base, tagging up for some forced outs and a couple huge throws to first base to throw out the batter.
I really loved watching William play and practice with this team for the past 3 weeks. It went by quick, but he sure made huge improvements and was trained well by his coaches. What an experience for us all :)

This is where the brothers posted up for the games. As close as possible! They loved watching.

This picture made the local evening news :)

Coming out on the field to congratulate the team.

2 championship metals in one baseball season. Not bad for his first year in competitive baseball!

GV All Stars- making it happen!

William is part of a 6/7 all star baseball team which is playing a 1 week tournament in Montalvo (Ventura). They had their first game Sunday and won 26-10. The boys all played awesome and are SO FUN to watch! That win kept them in the winners bracket and they played again yesterday, same field in Ventura. It was another exciting and fun game, and in the end, they won 26-10. What!? Crazy. William hit a triple and has been playing awesome at 3rd base!! We play Saturday for the final games of the tournament and I can't wait. I'm excited that William has had this opportunity to play baseball a little longer past the season, experience a different coach, and get more infield play time. He is doing so well and really stepped up to this opportunity to blossom and develop his skills.
Way to play, William!! We are so proud of you :)

     Just look at that concentration and form. And look at those muscles! ;)

                 Running hard, starting his slide......

                SAFE!

Capturing cuteness

Yesterday at baseball, one of the moms said, "I sure hope you are taking tons of pictures of your kids right now, they are so adorable!" So, I thought I would take her wise advise and snap some photos today. I tried to use that "magic hour" light this evening around 7:30. They humored me :)

Back yard camping

We finally bought our first family tent :) Billy picked one from REI, it's the REI kingdom 6. We figured we better set it up and see how we fit, so the boys set it up yesterday evening and we had a family campout in the back yard.
Our queen blowup mattress just fits on one half of the tent (wall to wall) and two sleeping bags cover the ground on the other half. A third sleeping bag can lay across the feet of those two bags. I'm thinking we will outgrow this tent pretty quick, but for now it works. The boys enjoyed their night under the stars. Leila slept great on the floor with the boys and Billy & I enjoyed the air mattress.
Now that is some easy camping!