Dinkey 2013

It was a great week at Dinkey Creek this summer with the boys, despite Billy not coming with us. Being with Grandma & Grandpa, Aunt Tracy and Aunt Kristy & cousins helped to fill the void. What a different experience for me at Dinkey Creek this year being the adult instead of the kid! I was always on the go helping, cleaning, chasing down or carrying a kid with not a lot of relax time... but it was so nice to be there. Felt like home sitting in the middle of camp each day.
The boys LOVED crafts each day! I need to start doing more of that at home.
 It was especially fun to watch them play up above camp in the rocks & boulders where I spent a ton of time as a kid. It was also really nice that the water was low and the weather was really warm. Made for a less stressful and whiney week. Polywog Pond was the perfect destination for us most days, easy and low key.

We did a trip up to the giant redwoods, McKinley Grove, it's such a neat place. And it's only 5 miles up the road! As a kid I thought that place was SO FAR AWAY! :) Probably the windy road and my week stomach....
Shaver Lake was a nice mid week fun day. The boys LOVED the boat rides :) Thanks Grandpa!

Jameson was not quite walking yet, so he really covered himself in dirt everyday. He was in heaven! He even rolled in it on several occasions, I thought it was great. Plus that, I had no choice but to put him in the dirt! That boy is 23 pounds and packing him around everywhere gave me a workout each day. (I guess I get that workout everyday at home too..)

Roasting marshmallows was a fun treat a few of the nights around the campfire.

Spending time with the cousins was awesome! It brought a smile to my face every day to see Reanne, Sierra, Grant, William and Zachary (and Jameson) playing together :) They all got along great all week and balanced each other out in playtime with different cousin combos. A couple days we got out the bat and woofle ball and William and Zachary showed the camp how hard they could smack a ball. It was fun to play ball with the boys up there. The campers were impressed too.

I was so glad that Kristy and Tracy decided to come. It was nice to spend time with my sisters, even if it wasn't the most relaxing time because of solo mom duty.

I am looking forward to going back in 2015. We are going to try and make it an every other year trip. And next time... Billy does not get the option to stay behind! :)

 

PS- Of coarse I forgot my camera for this trip (gotta forget something right) So thank you to Tracy, Kristy, Dad and Bob Oliver for taking so many for me :)!!

Gone

I got a couple text messages this last week informing me that my old home was driving down the road. It left the canyon the day before the 4th of July. I was sad that we were not here to see it drive off, but maybe it was for the best. Today, the boys and I took a drive over to see the site and snap a picture. We have a lot of clean up to do.... looks like a dump site right now.
Maybe in a month we will take a drive to see it all set up in it's new home in Goleta :)

Good Bye Mobile Home

The time has finally come for our mobile home of almost 5 years to leave Paradise.(It's been on Paradise since 1974) We moved about 7 weeks ago into our new home on the ranch and left the Forest Service trailer park. Our 5 year contract was coming to an end and we no longer wanted to be tied down to a job dependent housing situation. The rental on the San Fernando Rey Ranch came along toward the end of last year and we decided to go for it. This meant that we would have to deal with finding a buyer and new home for our trailer or else demolish it.
Luckily we found a nice young family who will be benefitting from all our hard work, time and love that we put into our mobile home. It's also going to Goleta! So, I suppose I could go visit from time to time if I wanted to see it :)
Anyway, the work is far from over to get the lot cleaned up once the house it gone. There are still two sheds full of stuff, junk to sift through everywhere as well as all the wood that came from the screened porch removal. We plan on reusing the fence around our new house. We also plan on using all the lumber that we were able to salvage and building a new screened porch at our new home! Who knows when all this might happen, but I feel good about reusing as much as we can.
I hope the movers will let us know when they are ready to drive off with the house... I want to get some pictures of that too! (hopefully we are not at Dinkey when this happens, kinda think we will be)
Good bye Mobile home, you were a great home!

Blueberry Picking

It has now become a summer tradition that we meet up with friends and go pick blueberries just south of Buellton at the U-pick blueberry farm. We went last Friday, the weather was warm but not too hot and the blueberries delicious as always! The boys ate their little hearts out as they tried to fill their pails and we ended up with a little over half a pail between the 3 of us :) $8 and we were on our way home. I sure love our trips to the blueberry farm.

Swim Lessons!

William and Zachary finished their first week of swim lessons today. They have 4 more classes next week as well. They are swimming at the DP pool :) and both having a blast. Luckily it's been an absolute gorgeous week, so sunny and warm, I've really wished I could be in the pool with them! William is now comfortable swimming/ gliding from the "sunken pirate ship" to the side of the pool. Head in the water, arms out in front. Zachary is following right behind him too. Today they each took a turn jumping off the side of the pool and then turning and swimming back to the wall. It's been really fun to watch them learn and have fun.  Looking forward to another week!

 

Calf sitting

I just finished a long weekend of calf sitting! My neighbors down the street have 4 (well, actually 3 now) 1 month old calves that are currently being bottle fed. They went up north for a grandparent 90th birthday and asked if I could help out with the calves. SURE! I had the morning shift. It was a tricky and dirty job to keep them all in line and on their own bottles. My feet got stepped on a lot and my clothes got poop smeared on them and the calves pushed me around a little too. But I had a great time :) It's not to often you get the chance to bottle feed a cow!
There were also 4 baby chickens to look after on top of all the other animals they have. 4 dogs, 2 cats, a couple fish and about 26 chickens. Good times living on the ranch!
I was so busy juggling the bottles and clean up on top of my own kids & our busy days, that I didn't take the time to  snap any pictures. I will try to go back over there, when it's not my responsibility to do anything, and take a few photos.
The boys thought the baby calves and tiny chickens were pretty fun. They held the baby chicks and of course I have no pictures to show for it either. We'll see if I can't fix that as well :)

Trampoline on the ranch

Since we moved and left our swing set at the trailer park (for the time being), I thought it would be fun to get the boys a trampoline! I have been watching craigslist and found one for $40. The boys and I drove down, took it all apart, fit it all in the back of the 4runner and brought it home. We set it up the next morning with the help of a neighbor, it was super easy. Then I ended up ordering a new pad for it since the one it had was pretty much trash.
The plan is to dig a hole and put it in the ground... but for now, the boys are sure enjoying it everyday. Even Jameson knows just what to do. He gets on there and starts throwing his body up and down to "jump". I will have to take some video of it :)
Trampolines are the best!