Summer Recap

Well, I just realized that I have not updated anything on here since June!  You know what they say, "No news is good news".   So, you can take the lack of update on my part as good news because we had such a fun filled summer!  We were able to spend the 4th of July at the coast this year and had a fun time celebrating with my Uncle Mike and Aunt Lori and their family.  There were a lot of other events too but I'll just tell you about them in the pictures below.  Enjoy!

When we go to the coast the kids love to go to Moonstone Beach in Cambria and look for cool rocks
and sea glass, or "Pirate Glass" as they like to call it.  

Happy 4th of July!

Enjoying the parade in Cayucos.

Jace's favorite part of the parade: collecting candy and
coins that the adults threw out.

                                                     

                       The kids loved playing with all of their cousins at the 4th of July party.

Orange and lemon fights with the cousins and dads.  Jace was in heaven!

Sweet Girl :)

Our sweet new nephew.  Congrats Lucas and Natalie!

Happy 4th Birthday Stet!

I think Stet could use a few more friends :)  We had such a fun time celebrating
at Wild Water Adventures.  No one wanted to leave!

Summer fun at Hume Lake (this is usually how it goes trying to get a picture of all three).

One of the kids favorite thing at Hume is the kids program.  They take them on hikes,
play games, tell them about Jesus, and just have a lot of fun together.  The last night of
the program they have a dress up parade where they take them on a scavenger hunt all
through the camp.  Here is Bailey leading the group as Snow White.

Brody took the oldest two on a hike and swimming in the lake.

Brody is a little more daring with the kids than I am, which they love :)

The river dropped early again this year but we had fun playing in the shallow water.

Jace became the king of polliwog catching.

 It's safe to say that Brooklyn loved the water too :)

Jace and one of the many polliwogs that he caught.  Unfortunately the river was only
this height for about a week and now it is completely dry again.  Praying for lots of
rain this winter!

Bailey got to come to her first Dove Hunt this year.  She was soooo excited to come and help bird dog for us.

It's so much fun to bring the kids hunting with us.  I grew up dove hunting every year with my dad and sisters and have so many fun memories of that time.  I can't wait for the kids to have fun memories of dove hunting too!

Bailey and Aunt Heidi after the hunt.

Jace, Stet and Bailey showing off the birds they helped get.

Papa and the oldest three grandkids.  They love their Papa, or "Pa" as Bailey likes to call him.

Brooklyn didn't get in on the hunting this year but she made it to the waffle breakfast at Cody and Brittany's.

Getting the birds ready for dinner.  Everyone had to do at least one, except Bailey :)

Thanks for hosting the first annual "Lehman Dove Opener" Cody and Brittany.  And also for the cool hats. :)

Life Lately

We are getting into the full swing of summer around here.  Swim lessons are half way over and Brody is super busy at the ranch.  Here are some pictures of what we have been up to lately...

This is Bailey's "new" silly face.  She decided that she no longer likes her
old one.

This is how taking a family picture usually goes around here.  I don't know
what is going on.

This is the best one we got.

When the river was dry Brody took the kids on horse rides.  Bailey had to
wear her pink cowgirl clothes :)

Jace's turn and he didn't want to get off.

Towards the end of May, Jace and I ran in the Dala Horse Trot in Kingsburg.
It's a 2 mile race and Jace almost ran the whole way!  He placed 7th in the 5-6 year old category!

We have had baby quail hatching like crazy!  Brody and the kids collect eggs from the quail
at my parents house and then we hatch them in an incubator in our garage.  Our third hatch just
started hatching this morning (70 chicks with 20 eggs left) and the other two hatches are at my parents
house until Brody can finish building some quail pens at the ranch.  In the meantime, the kids have
loved having them here.

Summer is here and so is all the fresh fruit that we can eat!  The kids have started
having "Nectarine Time" whenever Brody brings fruit home.

It didn't take Brooklyn too long to figure out that she LOVES nectarines.

At the end of May, Brody and I got to get away for four days to the Napa & Sonoma
areas.  This is one of the wineries that we visited.

This is the wine cellar at the beautiful winery "Castello di Amorosa".
It was a giant castle with most of the rock and iron fixtures brought
over from Europe.  It took 12 or so years to build it!

This is the bridge going over the mote of the castle.

Since the river was completely dry this year it was really fun to watch when they started
letting water out.  The kids had fun making trails for the water to follow and catching the fish
and crawdads the made it through the drought.

Not all of the fish lived through the drought and it smelled soooo bad!  Stetson kept saying,
"Dead fish coming through!  Another dead fish coming through!"  

Jace, Bailey and Stetson watching the water come in.

The boys had fun chasing and catching some of the fish that did live.

Jace and a bass that they caught with their hands.

And it's starting to look like a river.

Pool days!  Jace is now swimming all on his own and Bailey is in the
process of learning but she still likes to wear her pink floatie.

Brooklyn LOVES the water!  We will have to keep a close eye on
her this summer.

The first week of June we got to go to Hume Lake for close to a week.
Jace loved going to the kids program (Huckleberry House) but Bailey
didn't like it too much.  She got to have lots of one on one time with
Brody and I instead.  We took her fishing one morning but didn't
catch anything.

We had a lot of cousins up there at the same time as us and they all had so
much fun playing together.  One of the daily activities was catching frogs,
fish and polliwogs.

Stetson and the giant frog that Brody and Cody caught.

We celebrated Father's Day early this year so that we could all be together.
It was delicious!

The last day some of our friends brought up a little raft for the kids to play in.
Bailey would sit in the raft and feed the ducks while Jace made sure that she
didn't float away.