Pier Fishing

One of Trevor's favorite summer activities is fishing. He LOVES to get out there with a fishing pole and wait for a great bite. or a nibble. or anything for that matter. He was fully anticipating our pier fishing experience before we left town last week for our Pismo Beach trip. He had to wait a few days before we actually made it out to the pier, but in the end it was soooo worth it. He caught the first fish of the evening!

Everyone caught a fish! As a right of passage, you must HOLD the fish you caught, nice and firm around it's belly so it doesn't flop away, for the camera. Yeah, Lizzie couldn't do it.

Jordan was an animal fisherman! He caught 2 fish at once! And I just love the look of pure joy on my dad's face as he proudly held his catch (before he tossed it right back into the ocean).

Here's the bucket o' fish at the end of the night. Yummy, right. The fish were only half alive in that bucket. They'd flop around trying to get free - sometimes they would flop out of the bucket, scales flying everywhere, women screaming for dear life, until a manly man would pick up the fish and throw it back in there. Bella had a great time splashing around in that fishy water. Check out Gramma Elizabeth's face as she's holding Bella aka "fish fingers".

Make sure to stay tuned for another story about this bucket o' fish...

Trevor's pier fishing dreams came true once again. And we all enjoyed a nice evening being together. Nice weather. Beautiful sunset. Good company. Great fishing memories.

Family Camp: BEST PHOTOS

Summer Games

Our kids have discovered some new games this summer. It has been fun to see them get excited about new things. It seems like we stick with the same ol' same ol' for so long and it's hard to break away from that. This summer they've all gravitated toward different interests. Here are each of their latest obsessions:

Jackson: CLUB PENGUIN

This little boy can log on to Club Penguin at any time. He has his own penguin, house, puffle, and items he's "purchased" for his living area. He loves playing the games and buying new things for his wardrobe and his igloo.



Logan: FUSION FALL

He is content to spend hours and hours in front of the screen on this game. All I know about this game is that it's made by Cartoon Network and the kids all wanted to try it out after seeing the advertisements between TV shows. He logged on, created a username and password, and hogs the computer all day long




Lizzie: OLD MAID

Lizzie spent some time at Gramma Elizabeth's house this summer. She came home with this "new" card game called Old Maid. (We'd never played this game at our house before and she was sooo excited to teach us something new!) She has taught everyone in the house how to play. She sounds like an expert as she teaches the rules and explains exactly what an old maid is. She looks so cute hiding behind her fan of cards trying NOT to choose the Old Maid from another player's hand.











Trevor: RISK the game of world domination

Trevor discovered this board game at Family Camp this year. All the big boys were playing the game and he got sucked in. He was OBSESSED. They played for hours and hours 2 days in a row trying to conquer the world! When we got home from camp he had to keep playing. We decided it would be a good investment for our family to spend some quality bonding time together so we purchased it from Target. We played 1 game - for 6 HOURS! Oh boy. We had fun, for sure, but wow. It is time consuming! Anyone that will "risk" the time commitment to play this game is welcome to come on over and feed Trevor's need to dominate the world.

Family Camp 2010: Campfires & Treats

Campfire is a well loved tradition at Family Camp. The kids and adults alike look forward to these evening activities. Each family took a turn preparing a treat for the group to eat around the campfire and the kids provided most of the entertainment. Here is a short tour of our fireside moments.

Talent Night
This evening speaks for itself. Whatever the kids wanted to do in front of the crowd - they did it. Check out my short video below for proof that "anything goes" on talent night!

Fireworks Night
Shaver Lake always does a great fireworks show over the lake on the weekend of the 4th of July. They never do the show on the actual holiday, so we were there on 4th of July EVE - or, July 3rd. We always use this fireworks show in place of an actual campfire (less work for the adults and lots more fun for everyone!). The kids always enjoy some glow in the dark dollar store items before the show begins. Jackson held still long enough to get this awesome picture.

My family came up for a couple of days and got to be there for the fireworks show. It was so nice to be together - especially since we got to celebrate Jordan's birthday! He's our Independence Day baby brother - born on the 4th of July!

Patriotic Night
For the evening that actually was the 4th of July we got a tasty treat - a down home All American dessert - Peach Cobbler. It was more of a Peach "Crisp" than a cobbler, but oh, it was so delicious. It was served up hot by the Davey family with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. YES! Ice cream while camping! It. was. amazing.

Skit Night
Smores were on the menu for treats tonight. The kids roasted and ate and roasted and ate marshmallows to their heart's content before the skits began. The kids were stoked to get 'SIX PIECES OF CHOCOLATE' on each smore. Wowza. Who knew that's all it would take to please those little people.

Jeremy was our MC tonight. He (along with his ipod, sound system, and microphone) worked the crowd like no other. He had the sound effects (tooting noises), intro theme music (Indiana Jones for the boys & Miley for the girls), and corny jokes for all to enjoy.

Zachary and his boys did "Dad Impressions" and the Daveys did a cool water trick

Emma and the girls did "American Idol" and Logan did "The Important Papers" with the boys

It's amazing the creativity inside these children. They came up with great skits on the spot. Most were unrehearsed and impromptu. They love being in front of a crowd!


Movie Night
One of the kids favorite nights is Movie Night. They get the ambiance of a movie on the big screen while still enjoying the outdoors. Jeremy hooked up his great sound system to a projector and DVD player and showed a movie on a portable screen.

Notice the absence of parents. Ahhhh.... it was a blissful moment as the children were entranced by 2 episodes of Phineas and Ferb. The adults got in some good conversation time while the kids vegged in front of the screen. See? Campfire is good all the way around. It has benefits for everyone big and small, young and old. Er. We parents are not old. How can I rephrase that? It has benefits for children of all ages! YES! That's it!

Total ECLIPSE of the Heart

About 2 months ago Buffy decided what she wanted on her birthday - a midnight premiere showing of ECLIPSE! All of us mamas (that are usually in bed and sleeping by 10PM) decided to brave the twilight fever crowds and do this crazy thing! It was a late night for sure, but so much fun. We rarely get out with just the girls, but all of our hubbies and babies were at home sleeping so we felt no guilt staying out late just enjoying our time together!

We've all read (and re-read) the Twilight books. Some of us are Team Edward and some are Team Jacob. Some are both. But we all agree that the books are so much better than the movies. It has been fun to see our favorite characters come to life on the big screen. And we all agreed that this movie was the best so far of the 3.

The acting was better. The hair was better. The fight scenes were better. It was all around better than the first 2 movies. And that tent scene was great. When the 2 guys finally hash out their feelings for Ms. Bella. Oh, it was classic. My favorite line of the show: "Let's face it... I am hotter than you."

If you like the books then see the movie. You'll love it. If you can't stand vampires or are repulsed by this twilight phenomenon then it's not for you. I give it 4 hand carved wooden wolf bracelets out of 5. Or is that 4 heart shaped diamond bracelets out of 5? Either way, it was almost perfect.

Here's the trailer just in case you haven't seen it yet.

Summer Fishin'

Jeremy took the boys up to Pineflat the week after school got out for their first fishing trip of the summer season. They didn't come home with a single fish. Not even a bite. But they did come home with high spirits from a fun outing together. These boys are fishin' fools. No worries, they will have many more opportunities to get that "fish story" this summer.