Family Camping Trip

I wish I could have captured this boy in all his glory literally bathing in dirt. Yes, his face is coated in dirt. His clothes are filled with dirt. His feet were black.. literally black. We called him blackfoot for those two days. So gross! But hey.. he had a good time. That's what counts ;-)


That dirt was dusty dirt. And he just sat and rolled around in it, aerating the dirt..I used maybe 20 baby wipes on his arms and feet just so he could eat and put socks on. He did well on his own which was great for us. He didn't run away too often, and he got to see a campfire and sleep in a tent. I wish I had pictures of Jonah.. jonah got to go on the raft trip with the older kids and grandma. It took him some convincing but he got in -with a life jacket- into a river after rafting down it for a couple hours. Lucky..


This is Sam's cousin Clover. Clover is 8 months old and doesn't like strangers :-( My sister in law has video of me making her cry.. I swear, I was only trying to play peek-a-boo. She just wasn't into it I guess.

Again, the happy baby. And this is the way you go camping with a baby. Sam was so good the entire trip! He was completely content being penned. I kinda wish he were walking so he could go exporing a bit. I wasn't about to let him crawl in that dirt though. Who knows what chipmunks would nibble on him! Yes, we were invaded by chipmunks.. every day. They came out and I was beating them off for an hour before I called it quits and Tyler and Sam and I all went back to the tent where I took a nap.. and the kids.. again, content. I couldn't have asked for more from them.


Tyler wtih bed-head the last morning. Ha ha.. :-) We were all happy to go home, although the boys would rather have gone to Silly Grandmas. They wouldn't stop talking about it, all the way home. Argh. We may have to take another trip to Oroville before the summer's out. They absolutely love it there.

Final Swim Meet

Jonah is quite the swimmer, and we suspect he'll have earned the award for most improved swimmer at awards night sometime at either the end of the month or in September. At any rate, CCSL (Contra Costa Swim League) was last weekend and I am so glad it's over. Swim meets -although enjoyable from a get-to-know the swim families event- are a pain! You drag your family and a camp load of stuff to the meet and wait 5 hours to swim in 2, maybe 3 events. Okay, okay... I am griping. Having a baby at the meets wasn't fun, and giving up all my Saturdays in the summertime along with the prime time afternoons (every M,Tu,Th,F) for practice and Wednesday nights for meets was a big deal for me. If we do it again.. which we probably will.. the chillens will be older and more.. practical I think. Tyler, our runaway, will acually be swimming in events instead of running away from us.. which I hope will help. He's warming up for his second event above: breast stroke. I-Y-SCOOP-SHOOT! LOL

I'd like to think Jonah enjoyed himself. He still doesn't realize the importance of meets and racing, but that's totally okay for now. I'm just happy he's completely water-safe, especially in deep water. He made some friends, too. We all did. He has two little friends Madison and Kelsey. Kelsey is A team, Madison is with Jonah on the B team. They both trained with Coach Carol on diving during the last week.


Jonah got to be in the medly relay at the end of the day, so he did 3 events: free, breast, and back. Here he's showing us the stroke. We do this before every race to get him focused on what he needs to remember. Back is his favorite stroke.. maybe because it's Coach Beth's favorite? He's on his back doing the stroke without anyone holding him up this year. Good enough for me!


Here Jonah is trying to show me I-Y-SCOOP-SHOOT! It's the movement and reminder for breast stroke. And a fun way to remember how it goes.. also, you have to shout it. If you can't swim and smile, why swim?



These are Jonah's coaches. Coach Beth -the coach, and Coach Sofia our other favorite. Sofia has babysat for us and loves all three of my guys. She swears she's gonna kidnap Sam and take him home. They are both sweethearts and I'll miss having them as coaches next year.


Sam at the meet. Everyone loves Sam. He's the happiest baby you'll ever meet. He's almost never grumpy especially after hours of having to be practically penned.. or at least just severly contained. We are thinking about getting a baby corral for next year.. that way he can get around hopefully without getting away... like Tyler, that sly guy. Tyler ran away 3 times where we couldn't find him. At this meet there were 5 teams total, and it looks like a circus on the middle school's baseball field. Imagine losing a child in all that.. everyone's moving and kids are everywhere. It's worse than Disneyland. Thankfully it's over, and we're enjoying being lazy. Or at least I am. Next week we'll visit the pool. I love summer :-) I love it even more when I have no where to go and nothing to do. But I think I will miss swimming. I made some friends. I really am just a gripe. Deep down I know we're in it for the long haul. It's in our blood. We'll see how far we go.