chasing butterflies and championships

 The past few years Bill's team has played a tournament right after xmas in Atascadero.  We were thrilled when he found out about it because it gave us a reason to go back to Cayucos over winter break.  Every time we go back, we find new things about the area that we enjoy.  This year we ate at the Sylvester's in Atascadero.  Right next door they were restoring the old city hall, which reminded me of the one in Back to the Future.  The people at the school are always so welcoming and friendly to all of us.  You get the feeling of a small town atmosphere even though it isn't that small of a town.

There is a park in Morro Bay that my kids refer to as "the park with the three story slide."  From the first day, Luke is always asking to go there.  One day when Bill was busy with his team, Grammy and I took the kids there.  Dylan decided he would rather try a new restaurant with Lori and family, so he isn't in the pictures.  Food appeals quite a bit to an "almost" 12 year old boy it seems.

 Armed with my brand new camera and having just watched the DVD explaining some of the different settings, I was excited to try taking some more outside shots. 

 Emi was going around chasing butterflies so I have about 20 different pictures of her in different stages of running.  I loaded them onto Grammy's Ipad and she loves watching Emi run in slow motion.

 Gracie got to try my camera for the first time as she spotted a butterfly close enough to snap a picture.  She was super excited to get this shot.

 On the day of the finals of the tournament, Bill wanted me to bring the box of new uniforms to him at the school to surprise the team with them right before the game.  I said, no problem, and then proceeded to let Lori take my car with all of the girls up to Cambria to the Tea Cozy for a tea party.  I didn't remember that the uniforms were in the back of the Sequoia until an hour and a half before game time.  Chris jumped in the car, drove me up to Cambria to get the uniforms, and made it to Atascadero with just enough time to get the uniforms to the team. For those of you who don't know the area, that is a lot of mileage to cover in such a short time.  He did some amazing driving (not speeding of course) and I was so thankful! They won the tournament for the second year in a row! At that point in the season they were 13-0, which is the best start to a season that Bill has ever had!

 I ended up getting sick for the second half of the week so I don't have a lot of pictures to share.  The older kids enjoyed going on a hike with Daddy, Uncle Chris and Uncle Bob.  They also were happy getting to go have ice cream and walk on the pier.  On Friday and Saturday I was able to take the kids out to play in the sand for a while because the weather was so nice.  These pictures were just taken with my phone, so I am really looking forward to going back in the summer and taking more ocean pictures of my favorite spot!

 Caleb played in the sand for about two minutes before he wanted snacks!

Aunt Lori helped Gracie and Emi make their own hats during our week in the surf shack.  Gracie was very proud of her work, and so was I! 
Even though I didn't feel good I still got to have my favorite smoked salmon tacos from the smokehouse (thanks to Grammy) and my favorite brown butter sea salt cookies (thanks to Lori).  Plus, Laurie and Clay stopped in Cayucos on their way home and we were able to go to Bible study with them on Wednesday night and introduce them to Woodstocks pizza! Luke was happy that he got to spend most of Thursday afternoon playing with Abby at the surf shack instead of going to the basketball game, thanks to Laurie for watching him.  We also were excited to see Joy and Craig stop on their way up to Reno and watch the championship game with us.  We are so blessed to have a wonderful Church family!