Santa Cruz

After the family reunion, we stayed at Ken's mom's house so that we would have a short drive to Santa Cruz on Sunday! When we got there it was very overcast and cold and windy, to be expected on the central coast. Fortunately, the fog burned off about noon and we had a great sunny afternoon.

Checking out the waves

Sand Angels!Building sandcastles with Daddy

and destroying sand castlesDaddy was a great sport and went in the water with him. I think this face is saying, "crap, that's cold!" The lifeguard stand said the water was 58 degrees. I didn't even feel the need to put my swimsuit on!

Ayden loved running in the waves and would have done it for hours. Ken decided he was done when his feet went numb.I think this is one of the reasons my car is filled with sandOn the wharf before we ate a yummy dinner of clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl and fish & chips - one of my favorite parts of going to the ocean! It was a wonderful day!

Newton Family Reunion

Saturday we went to a Newton Family reunion at the Stockton KOA. We had a great time visiting with family and eating some great food!

The playground had a bouncing pillow thing that Ayden loved!

Taking a walk with Grandma Newton

Our kind of camping

Last weekend, we went camping with most of my side of the family for the weekend. We went to Camp DeSabla, which is a place that we all went to frequently as I was growing up, but hadn't been in about 15 years. The camp is cabins (with kitchens and bathrooms!), with a volleyball court, horseshoe pit, pool, and a lake with little fishing boats...Ken took my aunt & cousin out of the lake

My brother was the master fire maker Ayden liked roasting marshmallows for about a minute, then wanted me to do it for him, but he was all ready when it was time to eat!

Ayden and his Papa (my grandpa)

The pool was heated and always the perfect temperature!

We used a trick we saw at swimming lessons - a noodle tied around his waist. It worked great, he had all the independence he wanted, but still had to "swim" to move around. He even jumped in without anyone "catching" him!

Tripoly is a staple at family events!My cousin's (relatively new) boyfriend is a firefighter for Cal Fire. They just came up for the day two of the days and on the second day Christopher brought up his coat and a couple fire hats for Ayden to see and try on. It was so nice of him, especially since this was the first time we had met him...Ayden was so excited and on our last day there asked, "When's Melissa and her firefighter coming back?" I think that's Ayden's way of telling her that he's a keeper!

We also had the excitement of seeing a bear (digging through a trash can just after dark) and a small fire in one of the ovens - neither of which we got pictures of. We had a wonderful weekend and hopefully we've resurrected this family tradition!

Friday cooking days

Friday is Ayden's favorite day at school, largely because they do a cooking project every Friday. Well, for the month of June, he is only going Mon-Thurs and his biggest complaint is that he was going to miss cooking. So, I decided we could do a "cooking project" and we would make ice cream. We have an ice cream maker, but that wouldn't be as much fun, so we did the shaken baggie homemade ice cream.

Pouring in the half & half.

Measuring the sugar.

Salt to mix with the ice.

Ice

Shake, Shake, Shake!

Tasty! And because he's my child, chocolate syrup is a must!!

Tatoo'd boy!

So, there should be a warning at the front of Wal Mart that says that there is an entire aisle of Toy Story 3 merchandise not in the toy section. I tend to purposely avoid the toy aisles at Wal Mart when Ayden is with me, for obvious reasons. Imagine my surprise (and Ayden's excitement) when I was browsing the 4th of July stuff that we happened upon a sea of Toy Story 3 Toys. After he checked out all of them (they're all NEW, you know), I caved and bought him this... (it was, of course, bribery for being a "good boy" for the rest of our time in the store)

I think if I would have let him, he would have used all 60 tatoos in the first 5 minutes we were home, but I was able to talk him into just 5 to start with.

He told me he had to have Woody & Jessie first because "You know I'm going to be a cowboy when I grow up, mom"

Spring Pictures...belated

Here's Ayden's Spring Picture from school. He was just over 3 1/2 when they were taken, so it is serving as his 3 1/2 year picture too :) He has quite the cheezy grin, but I can't believe how grown-up he looks.

Funny Boy!

I've been writing down some of the funny things that Ayden has said over the last couple months....here's a sample

We were in the car on our way to school...
A: It's library day today
Me: No, today is Friday, library is on Tuesdays
A: But today is Tuesday
Me: Nope, it's Friday, sharing day
A: Mom, just trust me!



At dinner one night....
A: "bladel"
Ken: What's a bladel?
A: It's when you are at the store and you are buying something and they don't have any more, that's bladel.

After school....
A: Mommy, I'm almost four
Me: In a couple months
A: But I don't want to be four
Me: Why not?
A: Because I want to be three forever

Getting ready for bed...
A: Daddy, are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Ken: I don't know, what are you thinking?
A: I'm thinking about getting a big red fire engine to put in the house.
Ken: What would you do with it?
A: I would drive it all over the house. I would drive it on the stairs, "bumpity-bump, bumpity-bump". I would drive it on my bed and your bed. And then I would drive it to grandma's house and I would get to Grandmas house and drive it around and they would say "where's sugar dugar?" and I would say right here in the fire engine. I would ask if grandma would like to ride in the back of the fire engine and then I would ask Grandpa Frank and he would say no. I would say "who wants to climb the ladder.

In the car...
When I sleep a lot of time at at home and at school, I'm going to wish I'm going to be Batman when I grow up. And I won't have to go to work because my work will be saving people. Or maybe I'll be Superman

Zoo

I realized I forgot to post pictures from our trip to the Sacramento zoo a few weeks ago. We bought "memberships" this year, so hopefully we'll be making quite a few trips there this summer.

One of the best things about the Sacramento Zoo is that they put animals out on the grass (with zookeepers) for the kids to touch. Ayden knows to only use two fingers to touch the animals