First Day of School! - August 19

Here we go!

Emma and Kaitlyn

Andrew and Ella with the principal

Andrew at his new desk
(I had to stop him from starting his worksheet to take this picture-he's ready for school!)

Ella at her new desk

Kaitlyn is in the 7th grade and will be at Ramona Middle School.  Ella and Andrew are at Oak Mesa Elementary School and this will be Ella's last year there  :(  Andrew has two teachers who do a job share, both of which were Ella's previous teachers, Mrs. Logan and Mrs. Krausfeldt.  Ella has Mrs. Hernholm, who Kaitlyn had for 4th grade when we first moved here.  Funny, how time flies.

Bowling - August 17

Crazy Kids!

Andrew had been asking to go bowling for a long time now.  So we decided to spend our last Saturday evening before school starts at the bowling alley.  The kids had a blast!  Ella was in the lead the whole game until the very end.  Kaitlyn had been trailing everyone and ended up winning the game!  We went out afterwards and used some coupons/gift card to Cold Stone and paid zip for all our ice-cream!

Foodie Fest - August 17

Ella at the dunk tank

Andrew aiming for the target

Using all her strength

Andrew using all his force

I was planning on going to the grocery store today to stock up on lunch stuff for school.  The whole shopping area was having a carnival.  There was a dunk tank, face painting, balloons, music and all the stores were giving out samples of things to eat.  We had noodles, egg rolls, pizza, soft serve ice-cream, snow cones, jamba juice, gum and cookies.  That ended up being our lunch.  Since it was super hot, there wasn't a whole lot of people, so there wasn't a crowd of people.  There was a scavenger hunt that the kids did and they earned a free kids meal at The Habit!  Not a bad way to spend the afternoon and we finished up in the air conditioned Vons store!

Junior Golf Program - Aug 12-16

The Junior Golf Program at Marshall Canyon Golf Course

Ella making a shot

Andrew making a shot

Andrew winning 3rd place!

Ella winning 4th place!

Los Angeles County has a free week-long golf program for kids. My kids participated last year, and this year Ella and Andrew were able to participate again.  Kaitlyn had dance so it didn't work out for her.  They had a lot of fun!  Once again, the week we were scheduled for the golf course was the hottest weeks of the summer so far!  We had such pleasant weather up until now, and it's in the high 90's and they are getting a lot of sun!  Doesn't help that golf was from 2:30 to 4:30 in the afternoon.  Next year, I will try for the 9-11am time slot, when it's cooler...If only the kids would get up early in the summer to enjoy the cooler weather...

Missing Tooth - August 15/16

Andrew has had a wiggly tooth for awhile... 

He pulled it out late Thursday night and this is his new smile!

Andrew had a lot of time this evening, waiting for Kaitlyn's flash mob, and sitting through Ella's karate test to wiggle his front tooth.  It finally came out!  He will have a fun school picture!

Karate Test for Blue Belt - August 15

The family after Ella's karate class

Right after the flash mob, we went to Ella's karate class.  My parents have never seen Ella do any karate things before, so they were lucky to be able to sit in on part 1 of her 3 part testing process for her blue belt. She is on track to earn it in one week!  She has really put in a lot of time and practice this summer to earn her blue belt.  She worked on showcasing her fundamentals tonight, then part 2 is performing 3 kata's and then part 3 is showcasing the fundamentals and the 3 kata's by herself.  Then she will find out if she passed. We are so excited for her to achieve her karate goals!

Ella in her karate clothes

Flash Mob - August 15

Kaitlyn in her "tornado" costume!

In the beginning of the dance, she was a tornado-looks scary to me!

They did this cool part where they dance around some young ballerinas.

Now she is in a gold tank

Spinning and dancing are hard to take pictures of...

Then this guy cut in and I got a lot of his arm and watch...:(

My parents and my kiddos!

Kaitlyn worked all summer on a dance routine with her studio that performed a "flash mob" in Glendora tonight.  They sure worked hard and it paid off.  They did an amazing job!  My parents were fortunate enough to come down for a quick visit and come see it.  I know that it meant the world to Kaitlyn to have family in the audience supporting her!

Dorothy and Kaitlyn

Amber and Kaitlyn

Circus Time! - August 3

Hailey, Kaitlyn and Ella

Andrew and Nicholas

The Elephants!

All the kiddos in our box suite!

A family friend of ours invited us to go to the circus with them.  They were given a bunch of tickets from work and we were happy to go with them.  They not only had free parking passes (which saved us $15) but preferred box seat tickets!  I can only imagine how much tickets to the circus would have cost had we just gone ourselves....It was a fun night.  Kaitlyn is the only one who has ever gone to a circus and she was just a toddler, so this was all new to them.  They kinda thought it was a lot like America's Got Talent TV show, so they really enjoyed seeing so many fascinating acts live.  It was a really fun night with friends!

Girl's Camp - July 30 thru August 2

First year's in their camp shirts.

Packing up and getting ready to head out!

All the girls in the Stake attending girls camp

The girls in our ward.

Kaitlyn and some of her friends

Kaitlyn, Emily and Emma

Kaitlyn attended girl's camp in San Pedro at Cabrillo beach.  She was able to go to the aquarium there too. They went as a Stake and camped in tents near the beach.  She didn't take too many pictures, but at least she took some of her friends and she is in the photos too.  She was gone Tuesday thru Friday.  She had a lot of fun.  It's nice to know we have a great group of girls and leaders!

Basketball Champions and Andrew Alva's Bday Party - July 27

Some of Andrew's basketball team - the Stingrays

Kaitlyn, Ella and Isabella

The team accepting their trophies for first place!

Party time at Jumping Jack's

All the kiddos at Andrew Alva's birthday party.

Andrew's basketball team won the championship game on Saturday.  They had gone undefeated all season and then they lost their second to last game against the team that was in second place.  But they came back strong and won the same team they lost to the week before in a very close and exciting game.  The score was 32 to 30.  Andrew had some great coaches and he really enjoyed learning many new skills.  Andrew's friend, Andrew, had a birthday party and all the kids had a blast jumping on a bunch of things at a place called Jumping Jack's. This has been a great weekend for Andrew!

Ella Pulling out a Tooth - July 23

Ella had a tooth that was taking a long time to come out.  This is how she multi-tasked watching t.v. and working on pulling out her tooth.  The little green thing she propped up on the pillow was a travel mirror.  It did end up coming out that day!