Akira's & Bowling w/ the Neighbors

In honor of Eddie's B'day, the neighbors went out to celebrate. First eating at Akira's and then bowling & yes I am about 7 months pregnant, but was still able to eat AND bowl. The food and the company was great. Steve wants to take the kids here next. We had some yummy plum ice cream.

The Birthday Boy and Dina!

Robert & Lisa

Allison & Bryan

Tim & Allison

Eric & Melissa joined us later for bowling.

The Monarch Gang!

Girls Only!

Bowling got a little tense as it was boys against girls. So the girls lost, but it wasn't without a fight and three strikes in a row from Melissa Syme.

AYSO Game #1 Photo of the Week

Lauren

Rachel

Matthew

Ethan

First Day of School 2010

The time has finally arrived, whether with excitement or not. School started for us August 23. I have all my elementary kids in the same school this year. And Ethan has moved on to middle school.


We had our special family night before school started and enjoyed listening to what the kids were excited for or nervous about. What stands out the most was when Ethan said he wanted help with not be tempted and with being organized.



Ethan 7th grade-4 feet 10 1/2 inches

Matthew 4th grade-4 feet 10 inches

Rachel 4th grade-4 feet 11 1/2 inches

Lauren 1st grade-3 feet 10 inches

Here they all are. It is always interesting to me to see what they pick out to wear the first day of school. You can't see very well in this picture, but there were lots of puffy eyes this morning.

I just loved to see this excitement. It wasn't there her first day of Kindergarten.

With this school being a 1/3 the size of their school in Texas, we didn't have to park too far away on the first day of school to take our kids to their new classes.

Rachel's new teacher Mrs. Tindell
Lauren in her new class with Mrs. Given. We missed our photo opportunity with Matthew and his new teacher Mrs. McFee.

For some reason elementary school starts earlier this year, like at 7:55. Which also means that if they want to ride the bus they have to be at the bus stop at 7:14. Way to early for this family. However, Ethan doesn't have to be at school until 8:25. So after we took the others to school we came home to say good-bye to Ethan. He didn't need us to take him to school and always loves to ride his bike.

Have a Great Day Ethan in Middle School!!

Oh Middle school please be good to my little boy.

Last Weekend of Summer

Friday Night- We had a few coupons for John's Incredible Pizza the kids had earned from school last year and we were saving them for a special night like tonight. Should have known I saved them for too long and they were all expired. Oh well, we still had fun and stuffed our faces with all you can eat grease.

THEN we hit the geniusly engineered games. I am still not sure why kids think this is sooooo fun. It seems like we always leave with someone in tears or extremely sad. But we did have a few exciting moments.

Ethan enjoyed the go carts. Matthew wasn't quite tall enough so of course that was a little upsetting. But Matthew then hit the jackpot when he won 1000 tickets on one game. That game was the hit of the night. Rachel later won 100 tickets on it.

So when all the tokens were gone it came time for the big decision. What prize to get with all the tickets won? It took them at least 45 minutes. Decisions! Decisions! But it was their fun night and we patiently waited while letting them decide all on their own what to do. Rachel ended up giving all her tickets to Lauren because she realized there wasn't anything worth getting. Matthew & Ethan were working on trying to combine their tickets for one big prize but ended up with their own.

Thanks John's Incredible Pizza for a great Family Night.

Saturday: Being the last Saturday before school started, I only had one more mandatory thing to do and that was get Rachel's haircut. I also took her into the Emergency Care because she was complaining of a sore throat and a earache and I wanted to make sure she was all good to start school.

So as soon as those errands were done we all headed to Avila Beach. I think to get anywhere from here you have to drive through the mountains and sometimes take the winding roads. Poor little Lauren didn't make it again. We also didn't really know what kind of road we were going to be on and the route we decided to take seemed extra long. But we made it and really had a nice relaxing day at the beach. The weather was even perfect.

Ethan gettin' pretty good on his skim board. He loves it. The pictures show him doing a 360.

We thought it was little weird to be having a wedding on a beach that was so crowded. I am sure it made for fabulous wedding pictures.

Matthew decided he was going to catch a few birds. He dug a hole, placed a towel on top and then made a trail of food to the towel so the birds would step on the towel and fall in and then Bamm!!! They would catch them. It was hilarious to watch all this happen. They came pretty close a few times.

Just some cute pictures of the girls.

Steve took all the kids for a walk down the beach and took some nice pictures for me while they where exploring.


Matthew on his own island.
Matthew skipping rocks.
All the boys played frisbee for a while.

Matthew and Ethan were catching some pretty good waves and were getting good at it. I am not sure Matthew liked it, what do ya think?!

This is Lauren's sand castle.
It finally came time to leave-our farewell to the beach and to summer picture.