International Surfing Museum

At the International Surfing Museum in Huntington Beach we learned a little history.

Some of the first surfboards were these monsters.  Nine to ten feet long.  Made from Redwood trees.  They were so heavy they couldn't even transport them off the beach.  They just buried them in the sand and dug it up the next time they went out to ride!

Of course, we think we all would make pretty sweet surfers.

Check out these sweet surfers...

Sunset Beach

I love going, doing, and seeing new things and places and our family had some great adventures over spring break.  So much so that by the end of it Abby was begging for a "lazy day".   But our favorite part of the week by far was hanging with our friends.

These peeps.

They took us over to

SUNSET BEACH

for some sand and surf!

Heather took a quick pic of the fam.

Joe's brother from a different mother photo bombed us. :)

Things we saw...
kite surfers

pelicans

I love the beach.

Angels in the Outfield

One of our spring break adventures was going to the kids' first major league baseball game.

Angels vs. Royals

First, a little pre-game tailgate.

Walking to our sky box.

(If sky box means the highest seats in the stadium)

First view of the field.

The dugout.

Albert PUJOLS!!!

Dylan--ready to catch a pop fly or a foul ball.

Top row of the upper deck.  It could happen.

After the game, the kids were able to go down on the field and run the bases.  Pretty cool.

It was a bit of a learning experience for me.

The Angels are not the A's despite the fact that all of their paraphernalia has a giant A on it.

You can lead off of any base.  I thought it was only first.

Major league pitchers do walk people. 

Also, balking was explained to me and why the batter can run sometimes on a third strike.

Oh, baseball, you have so much to teach me.

Carrots + Juicer

A friend passed on a juicer to us. 

I was thrilled!

Joe was thrilled.(?)

Maybe he'll have a future in the food industry.

Hmm.  Or maybe he just likes to mash things to a pulp.

So I whipped out the few carrots I had in my veggie drawer and we went to town.  We had one cup of marvelous carrot juice!  To share between all 6 of us.  One cup of juice and one bear of a clean up.

It was decided that the next time the juicer came out it better be for a good deal more than 1 measly cup of juice.

Enter the 25 pound bag of carrots.

Abby spotted it in the grocery store.

Perfect!  That definitely merits getting the juicer out!

And we juiced us some carrots!

Joe was tired of it after about 5 pounds.  But we went through the ranks, everyone got a turn to throw the carrots in and shove them down to their juicy end.

I poured the juice into my muffing tins and froze them.

I quit measuring after a while but we got at least a gallon of carrot juice.

Each carrot cube equals about 1/3 cup of juice.

They are great for adding to...

smoothies

orange juice

pancakes

muffins

zucchini bread

soup

chili

spaghetti

and on and on!



I'm so glad to have another sneaky way to get veggies into my kids' diets.

What else do you think I should do with all this carrot juice?

Bang-a-rang

So, Joe has been letting his hair grow out.  Which is fine.  I like long hair on guys (obviously since I haven't made Jono cut his yet).  However, I rarely see Joe's face.  He refuses to tuck it behind his ears and his bangs have grown so far out I don't think it's right to even call them bangs.

We started doing a little Google research on boys with long hair and bangs.

This one was nixed immediately

because (sorry) it's Bieber

This one got cut for a similar reason.

High school musical just doesn't scream "cool in a tough way" to an eight year old.

 We tried to find some styles on people he didn't know.

This one almost made it. 

Until he saw Jaden.

What about that doesn't say "cool in a tough way"?!

 I agreed to give it a try.

What do you think?

I think he has gorgeous eyes (even though he likes to scowl most of the time in an effort to appear cool in a tough sort of way).  It's been so long since I have seen all of his face at one time I almost forgot what he looked like under all that hair!  We finished it Wednesday night. 

By Monday it was majorly fuzzified.

Strands of hair were leaking out everywhere.

It had to come out.

I hope you got a laugh out of that one.

We sure did.

Not sure he can work the cool-tough facade with that do!

And we are back to square one.  Either find a haircut we can agree on or find some kind of product that will make those braids last longer that a few days.

Any suggestions?

Sugar Bowl Birthday

We were able to take the fam up to Soda Springs for Joe's birthday!  The conditions were finally right.  Enough of a base but not too frigid.  The big kids have only been one other time but they picked it back up pretty quick.  Jono took them out in the morning and they totally conquered the bunny slopes.

I got to come out with them in the afternoon.  And since they were doing so well I decided we should step it up to the next level.  The Jerome Hill Express.  It took us up a little higher but it still had a green trail we could take all the way down.  Problem was you could only see blue and black slopes from the lift.

Abby was freaking out.  Just a bit.

Here's her "mom, i'm cute but you can't be serious" look

They did well

for the moment.

Joe's reaction to skiing and crashing was "this is awesome!"  Abby's was "help!!! i'm going to die!" which she said while laughing hysterically.  I guess laughter is her coping mechanism.  Good to know.  After almost skiing onto a black trail and almost giving herself a heart attack, she resorted to sliding down the rest of the way on her boodie.  Laughing and making pathetic jokes the whole time.

She was beyond relieved to get back to the good ol' White Pine lift.

For the last run of the day I challenged Joe to a race.  Somehow he jumped on the lift ahead of me. 

Not only did he have that little bit of head start but the lift mysteriously slowed down right before I got off.  That's my story anyway.  And I'm sticking to it.  Because he was down the mountain before I had even turned around.

While the big kids were skiing, the littles got to sled their hearts out at the lodge.

Sled.  Roll around in the snow.

Same kind of thing.

Fun times were had by all!

got crackerjack?!

Little League Opening Ceremonies

oh yeah.

this is it, people.

the official start of baseball season.

all the teams line up around the "dirt line" (somebody knows the real name for this.  i will do my best as a baseball mom but i have a lot to learn).  then each team's coach calls out the name of every player on his/her team.  that's right.  every player on every team in the league.  when your name is called you run as fast as you can to home plate.

 then the whole team runs back all together.

as fast as they can.

the coaches try to keep up.

 abs is excited to be a part of a softball team this year.

i mean, they have cuter socks.

she is also learning to pitch!

she did FABulous!

no kidding, struck people out and stuff.

 joe worked on intimidating the opposing team with his tough guy stances.

and by hitting the ball way over their heads.

look out MLB and WMLS,

here come the gardners!