::vacation shenanigans::

When we were in San Diego last week for our big family vacation we stayed at this really cute little house. One of the biggest perks of the house as far as the boys were concerned was the fenced backyard--with GRASS!

They were rolling in it and playing in it and just generally glorying in it.







They were inspired to many goofy activities and spent lots of time out there, which was great. All the screaming and the running stayed outside, which was also great.

Time for massages. Max says, in all seriousness, "Sandy gives the best massages!!"


He certainly gives FUNNY massages.




Hilarious massages actually.




Fun stuff.

::flood part 2::

Seriously? I'm finally writing part 2? I'm finally writing something--anything at all? Mind blowing I know. Anyway, let's just pretend this post was prompt and move on. The view of the flood from my bedroom window--or shall we just call it our river?

Note the other river in the background. The other side of the arroyo's river just wasn't nearly as robust and interesting as ours. Sandy was disturbed by the whole thing. Things like this just aren't supposed to happen in his book.



Max, on the other hand, was psyched out of his mind. He couldn't believe we suddenly had our own river in our backyard. He was really truly hoping it was here to stay. He kept making Sandy so nervous by roaming too far. "MAX!!! COME BAAAAAACK!!!"

This is just right behind the house--down at the bottom of the driveway.


The little waterfall under that tree was especially cool. It was fun to hear the roaring of the river from inside the house.

Sandy's concerned hollering finally convinces Max to return to the fold.

The backside of our front yard. After checking out the driveway river we headed around back to the road to see how that was going.

View of the street from the living room window. Can you even tell that was ever a road?!

This was after it had dried out a bit. This was mid afternoon when this all went down, and by about 6PM the road was dry of all but just a small snake of water. The lakes on either side stayed for a few days.

Sandy came to terms with it all and cheered up a bit.
And last picture--poor dumb Sultan is not smart enough to stay under the myriad awnings, patio covers and porches that we have, and was soaked through. I mean, SOAKED. So he had to stay out until the road was about dry. He hates it when that happens.

I wish I had an audio picture of that night. Kris and I were in bed when suddenly we started hearing these strange noises that we totally couldn't place. Turned out they were toads! There is this special kind of desert toad that lives in the mud, hibernating forever or until it gets wet enough for them to spawn. They quickly spawn and the tadpoles turn into frogs quick quick I guess and they are suddenly there! They were only out there for about 3 nights and then were all buried back in the mud again until next time. It was all kind of miraculous. Like being a personal witness to a nature show phenomenon. Our own little desert miracle! And since our house stayed dry we could really appreciate it. There you go. Finally.

::intermission::

As a quick intermission before part two of the flood, I have the following:

This guy, on the way to the grocery store yesterday, informed me that his friend was coming along. This friend is imaginary. I was told he is two years old and that his name is Scrutty-Scrut-Scrut. That certainly caught me by surprise to say the least. Scrutty hasn't been around a lot since, but he's come up in conversation several times today.

Today I was poking him in the tummy with my finger and singing a little song. He said, "Am I a piano??" He's a joy to have around. I don't ever want to forget his cuteness.

::flood part 1::

We see this sign every time we drive down out street--so usually multiple times a day. Every time we actually notice it we scoff a little bit--like there would EVER be water on our road. Well, the other day I took the kids to a movie and when we got out there was a pretty big rainstorm in town. We headed home and the rain had stopped by the time we reached our neighborhood. Max and I were talking about how we always wish for more rain, and it seems like we never get enough at our house. He said "It would be awesome if there were water in our dip! I hope it'll happen!" We drove up our street and then suddenly I saw cars parked by the side of the road. Oh dear, uh oh, we thought. And sure enough, there was water in our dip. And boy was there ever water. It was wide, fast and deep--probably about three feet.




We couldn't get across to our house. We could see our house--we could see it, and we could see it wasn't flooded, so that was good. WE couldn't get to it though. Max and I both thought it was pretty exciting. So crazy and unusual. Sandy, however, was very distraught by the whole situation. It was cold and windy and the river was loud and he just didn't want to be washed away in the flood. He just really wanted to go home and take a nap. (Hilarious, he never wants to take a nap). We decided we'd go back to the office and wait it out until evening, but on our way out of the neighborhood, Max and I were smart enough to decide to try a back way--one of the other streets has a bit of a bridge instead of a dip. It worked--barely. We made it home. So we have more pictures from later in the afternoon--from the other side of the rushing river. That will be part 2. And they're much nicer pictures too. See you then.

::may in phone photos::

I hate how little I've posted so now I'm just grasping at straws trying to remember all that's been going on. The days just zip by because we're so busy with work and all the other stuff that's been going on.

Monkey picture face is important of course. He thinks he's sooooo funny.

A pretty goofy picture of Max's class that his teacher sent me one day. I think it's really fun that they have such a big age range. On any given day he could play or work with kids from 5 to 12. That's much more like real life than being with kids all the same age. I definitely don't work with people that are all my same age--at work or church!

Sandy watching Max fill up the car for me. This was so nice until somebody told me it's "illegal". Argh.

A classic nighttime scene in Sandy's room. I'm not sure why Max is reading to Sandy while both perched on Kris's lap, but Kris looks longsuffering. And I'm pretty sure he's checking his phone.


Me, on the way to a leadership seminar in Phoenix. I flew there and back the same day. It was an interesting experience. Pretty exhausting but cool that I could do it!

This is some homework where the spelling just slayed me. Woflefls.

Here's Max at the Wild West 12 hr bike race with Kris. He had a blast, met up with kids that he played with last year and just loved hanging out and riding his bike around. It doesn't get much better than that really.
And last of all for today:

Bright and cheery morning Sandy in my bed. He's a sweetie.

::disneyland for mom's bday::

My dad and I planned a surprise trip to Disneyland for my mom's birthday in early May. My kiddos were more than happy to help out by going along.

I hardly have any photos from this trip, I tried to pack pretty light so I didn't bring a big camera. It was a very quick trip too, just two days, so we were pretty busy playing and not so busy documenting, though I think my mom has some pretty great photos.
Here we are on the new Cars ride. This is how I always end up looking in ride photos.

It wasn't even that scary.

Not a lot to say about the above. We were having fun I guess.

An ele-bee from the Pooh ride. Sandy loves the Pooh ride, in fact he just looked at that picture and told me so.

Baby on carousel pictures are my favorites. But really he's not a baby. I have to keep reminding myself of that.


This is the face Sandy kept making anytime somebody tried to take his picture:

Charming, right?
I'm going to have to go and find the pictures my mom gave me because my line up here is pretty pitiful. I don't even have a group photo. Murphy and Laura came with us, and it was fun to spend some time with them.
All in all it was a fun trip and I think it was a really fun surprise for mom--right mom? I'm glad we got to do it.

And last but not least here's Sandy fuzzing Grandpa's beard. It was the funniest thing--we flew out from the LA airport at the same time as my parents. Our flight was lining up first, so we said our goodbyes to my folks and went to line up. Suddenly I realized that Sandy (who was on my back in a backpack) is yelling "WAIT!! WAIT Grandpa, WAIT! I need to fuzz your beard!!" We had to call them back over for a quick beard fuzz. Some ladies that were on our flight saw the whole thing and nearly swooned. One of them told me later how cute Sandy was with the beard fuzzing. I had to agree of course.