Thursday, July 31, 2008

Trip to California
Dennis just got back from a trip to California to go riding (Harley's) with his brothers, Kevin & Mike. Needless to say he enjoyed himself thoroughly. They rode from the L.A. area up north to Morro Bay, then back down south again along the coast, through Santa Barbara and back to Kevin's house. They spent the most time in Morro Bay, pictured below. He saw sea lions all over the place, jumping onto the piers. The weather was gorgeous, of course. While riding along the coast he saw whales and some pretty amazing mountains.
They rode out on the pier in Santa Barbara, here he is on Kevin's bike.
We're glad to have him back home, and he's happy to be home too. Great experience, something he's always wanted to do!

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Back in the posting world again!
I'm not sure if I remember how to do this!!! Just kidding. It has been a very busy 2 months and I certainly will not bore you with all of the details, though most of them were the same from day to day. I am glad to be in August, and am proud to say that today was the first day in 2 months I stayed in my pj's past 6:30 am.
We started out June with a quick weekend trip to Ohio to visit Heather's dad's side of the family...the kids' great-grandmother, Heather's uncles/aunts/cousins. We enjoyed catching up with everyone (though it was terribly hot). That's Eric behind the giant orange frisbee!
This picture is out of order, but when we got back we celebrated Dennis' mom's birthday. I put fresh flowers on her cake, you can see it in the foreground. Fun.
Now back to Ohio. We stayed at a quaint cottage on Lake Eerie. It was simple, small and fabulous. They had a beach with toys, playground and volleyball for the kids. Yard games, picnic tables and a beautifully manicured community lawn area. We could have stayed there the whole time and enjoyed ourselves, but we tried to spend some time with family too!!!
As soon as we got back, swim team and swim lessons started. Swim team is every week day morning from 9:30-11:30 (Heather helped out with coaching both practices). Then we came home to have lunch. Most days Heather taught about 1 1/2 hours of swim lessons at our house, either group or private. Then, if it wasnt' a swim meet night, we had some time at home together. If there was a swim meet, we were out the door around 4ish to set up and run the swim meet. BUSY is the only word I can say to describe the past 7 weeks. I can honestly say that the kids were never bored for 1 second, and they had a great time...swimming lots, seeing friends lots (Eric craves that friend time)...and sleeping when they could!
Here's Bay all ready for a race in his green goggles. He swam REALLY well this summer, a huge improvement over last year. He learned to swim backstroke as well as freestyle, and if you get the chance to ask me, i can tell you a funny story about one of his races!
Eric and one of his swim team buddies, Tommy. Eric also made lots of improvements this summer, earned several heat winners and took lots of time off many of his strokes.
Now we are done with swim team (except the banquet) and enjoying our mornings at home, getting things done around the house. I am started cleaning out and doing my annual reorganization of the school room. It seems every year i have new ideas about how to make the school room work better. Maybe by the time Eric graduates, i will have it all figured out!