a tea party and some basketball

We had a fun August!  We got to watch Owen for the first time, went  hiking, fixed a tea party for Grammy and went to more basketball games!

We surprised Grammy with a tea
party for her birthday!  Gracie
helped make the entire menu of 
cucumber sandwiches, baked
yellow squash, and 
banana chocolate chip muffins
with cream cheese frosting.

Thanks to Vanessa, I found out about a fun and quick hike that is only a couple of miles from our house.  I talked Dylan and Gracie into getting up early on a hot Saturday morning and hiking up the Etiwanda Creek preserve to a waterfall.  They doubted me a few times about whether all of the climbing would be worth it, but they agreed that it was!  Gracie and I took our shoes off and enjoyed the cold water for a while.  Dylan thought we were a little crazy.

Dylan wanted to play in two basketball leagues this past summer and here the Blades brothers are in their Montclair gear, watching Dylan and Delaney play in the championship game for the Upland YMCA league they were in together.

Caleb loves hanging out with Aunt Lori  at the games.  She always lets him play on her phone!

They didn't win the championship but enjoyed playing together.  Their coach was one of Chris' former football players and is now Delaney's coach on her freshman basketball team at Chaffey High School.

I think they both look a little too grown up in this picture...

It was a great summer, but it's hard to even think that summer is over around here when it is still 100 degrees outside.  Next up... Luke has a birthday!

watch those days melt away

We are a few hours away from the first day of October, and I still haven't finished my pictures from the month of July.  We got up really early one July morning (5:30 am!) to get to California Adventure and enter right at 7:00 am.  We found ourselves in a mass of people all running to the same ride in the new Cars Land, Radiator Springs Racers!  There was even a girl running next to us in a leg cast who was running faster than anyone else in her family.  The ride was not working when we finally got to the start of the line, so off we went to try Luigi's Flying Tires.

 I have to say that I didn't expect very much from this ride, but it was more fun than I thought.  The strangest part is that there aren't any controls or steering wheel, you are just supposed to move your body to one side or the other to make it move, while you are tossing beach balls around.

 There's Bill with Caleb and Gracie trying to grab one of the beach balls.  That was probably the hardest part of the ride!

 After the Luigi ride we were excited to see that the Racers were open once again, and after an hour wait, we finally made it! It is a perfect ride for our family of six, because six people fit in each car.  It was definitely worth the wait, although Caleb wasn't sure about how fast it went in the last twenty seconds!

Then it was time to check out the new Mater ride. We all liked it, although it didn't seem nearly as fun as the Racers.

 After getting up so early, we only stayed until lunch time and went home and took a nap!  We have loved having passes this year (thanks again to grammy) and are planning to use them as much as possible before they expire in January.  We are looking forward to taking Bill's mom and dad and Uncle Bob next week!

 We also had fun this summer playing basketball in the youth league in Montclair.  It was especially fun having Anthony help coach Luke and Wade's team.

 Gracie decided to play basketball for the first time this summer and loved it!  She was the youngest out there, but that didn't stop her from playing great defense and really improving her skills.  She made a few new friends, and is looking forward to playing again this winter.

 We had  one last week to enjoy having Bill home with us, and then it was time to start school again...

 Here are Luke and Caleb working on an alphabet puzzle together on their first day of school.  Only homeschool kids can wear Luigi and Mario hats while doing their work!

 Here is Gracie starting her first day of sixth grade.   She was very excited to start learning Spanish.

 This is Dylan's first day of seventh grade.  Not sure what he was really excited about, probably just trying to finish his schoolwork by noon!

Here is some of the summer harvest from our garden!  We really enjoyed the cucumbers and the yellow squash.  I even made yellow squash muffins for the first time and we all loved them. Stay tuned for more August memories!