Cole's 8th Birthday - With FamilyCole's birthday, take two! This was the Boulder Blaster that Cole got from Omi and he loved it! So after this birthday party he now has all of the Power Miner Legos! Below is the birthday cake that Grandma made! Pretty good, considering she knows nothing about Power Miner Legos! I do have to admit I gave her a few ideas! I thought it looked great! The rock monsters are in there and so are the machines that dig and cut through the rock! Great Job, Grandma! Cole had a great time and we enjoyed it all!

Cole's 8th Birthday - With Friends So the first photo is a very manic Cole with his most prized present! He has been talking about it for a long time! It is called the Crystal Sweeper and it does just that, it sweeps up crystals and takes care of the Rock Monsters at the same time! There are gears and everything, so the thing is pretty cool!

Now, because the "Rock Monsters" steal crystals and the Power Miners mine for crystals, Kaleigh came up with a great idea for a cake. She even drew the design! I should have included that too, oops! Maybe in another post.

This is Cole's group of friends from school and they were all really nice kids. This is after the Treasure hunt. We pretended that the kids were Power Miners and they were after the "Treasure Pods" that the Rock Monsters had stolen. Inside each pod was a baggie with rock themed treats. There was a Rock Monster key chain (lego), Pop rocks, rock candy and a ring pop(kind of looks like a crystal). It was a fun idea until the boys decided to open the pods (which were made of paper mache) by slamming them down on the pavers in the backyard! Oh well, the ring pops were dust, but everything else was fine. We also did a relay race where there were crystals inside of dried mud "rocks" that Kaleigh and Cole made. They had to break open the mud balls and then run to the other side of the yard to wash them off then come back to the team and drop the crystal in a bucket, then the next team member went and so on. All in all I think all the kids had a great "old fashioned" time! The moms loved it too!

Easter - 2009 So, here we are on Easter. It was very relaxing actually. We went to church, Sunday school and then to Grandma's house for lunch. Since we all mostly go to Oak Glen before Easter, Carl's mom makes easy lunch like take-out fried chicken and salad, with fruit and rolls and stuff like that. We all just show up, the kids play a bit, we eat, then the Easter Bunny (namely Carl and I this year) hides the eggs and we have dessert, then comes the hunt. This year there were about 106 eggs for 3 kids, two of them mine. Cole and Kaleigh found just as many as their cousin Tyler who is 16. Kaleigh even found the golden egg that was hidden in the house that had $5.00 in it! Tyler was bummed : )

Here Kaleigh found 2 eggs in the same place! Good for you! Grandma's garden is beautiful but pretty small so the eggs are pretty close together! We try hard to hide them well, but usually all are found except maybe 3 eggs and Grandma finds those later as she gardens.

So, it was a nice easy going Easter! The kids are growing fast and it shows in the pictures! Kaleigh is getting quite a bit taller and so is Cole. Kaleigh will most likely pass me up in a few years! Yikes! Cole is going a little slower, like most boys do. But he will pass me up someday too! We are blessed with family and friends around us and we are thankful to be living in a free country, even though it is rapidly getting a little less "free"! Hope everyone had a great Easter!

Oak Glen 2009 Well, for the first time since we have taken our trip to Oak Glen, it snowed while we were there! It was over night but still....pretty cool! It was the first real natural snow the kids had seen. There were a couple times where there were a few patches left on the ground, but this was fresh new snow! Kaleigh also had snow days (where they bring in snow to play in) when she was in preschool but that is different!

Once again they had a ladies craft, this one was a planter that we could paint and I gave this one to my mom-in-law for Easter because she loves sunflowers.

Kaleigh took this photo.

Ok, this one is the real us...hehe. This was actually the second shot. Notice the great difference between this photo and the next? Let's see who can spot the huge similarity!

We had a great time, even though the weather was foggy and misty. We just dressed warmly and enjoyed the cold weather that we don't get too often at home! Good times!

Sacramento - Going Home - The End What? Are we happy to go home? Just look at the faces! Wow, I am just happy to be sitting!

Gee, you think they would have been tired! I had to bribe them to PRETEND to sleep! They were wired the whole way home! I would have liked to have napped but no way. All the kids were wide awake for the trip home! It was an uneventful flight and we were happy about that!

All in all it was a full and fantastic trip!

Sacramento - Miscellaneous - Part 10 This is Judy our tour guide for the whole trip. She was a very nice lady. Friendly and full of energy! I don't know how she did it! She was extremely nice to Kaleigh, when Kaleigh lost her buckskin pouch that she bought at Sutter's Fort, she offered so send her another one! I gave her our address and some money and she promised to send it the next tour she did. I am thankful to her for that because otherwise the drama would have lasted a lot longer!

Ok, the kids weren't the only ones who got a little goofy! We had fun too! I really didn't think she had it in her!

And lastly, this is Alfred the bus driver, who was kind enough to make a couple of extra stops. The governer's mansion wasn't on the itinerary but he drove by anyway, and he also took us over the Sacramento Golden gate bridge! What a guy. The girls gave him hugs goodbye and he was so sweet! He said our group was so well behaved and he enjoyed listening to them talk about what they learned. Kaleigh wanted me to add that he was the best bus driver they have ever had. Of course he probably gets paid better then regular school bus drivers, but she doesn't need to know that!

Sacramento - Sutter's Fort - Part 9 So this was at Sutter's Fort. This is the kids getting a little loopy. The boys were extremely reluctant to get in a photo with the girls so they were a little goofy. Which is fine. It makes for an interesting photo.

Working hard! This is a mill where they apparently ground meal into flour. The kids all thought this was soooo cool. I wonder if they would have thought so if they had to do it for 8 hours a day?

Ok, this one should have been first, but I don't know how to do that so, this is when we first arrived and they kids all gathered around for a photo. This one was the best of the bunch but it is missing one boy and the teacher. Oh well. You wouldn't know to look anyway!

Sacramento - Train Museum - Part 8 Ok, so these are all out of order, but it doesn't really matter. This first photo is of the "golden spike" or "the last spike". This was presented at the ceremony of the railroad completion. There is a lot more to the story but I don't have the time or energy to tell it. If you want to know more post a comment and I will post a photo of the story, 'cause I got a photo of the plaque that tells the story, yay me!

This photo is taken from the second story. It is just a tiny part of the museum. The museum itself consists of 3 acres!!

This is taken in the Pullman car, one of the things the tour guide told the kids to find. The golden spike was one of the things too. This train actually swayed and they turned the lights low to demonstrate what it felt like in those days to travel by train. I would have slept really well!

This is after they found the golden spike. The girls were getting a little tired by now, but they were still all smiles!

Kaleigh in front of a train.

Sacramento - Old Town - School and Covered Wagon Ride - Part 7? Kaleigh and her friend Grace bought rag dolls and bonnets from the School Marm (sp?) and wore them for the rest of the day! Cute huh? This is when we went on the Covered Wagon ride.

Kaleigh and Grace in school. What? I thought this trip meant no school! Wow, the rules here are a lot more strict too! 7 lashes if you play with boys? Wow, that IS harsh!

Kaleigh and Grace with Miss Gadd, their teacher. This is in front of the Pony Express statue.

Sacramento - Old Town - Part 6...I think After our cruise, we had about an hour to ourselves, so the girls wanted to do some shopping. I wanted to get Cole something too so we started looking around. It was a nice time, just a little short, but we did ok.

For some reason there were a lot of sweets shops! Candy Land, Munchies, Candy Heaven, Candy Barrel, and so on. We had a lot of fun deciding what candy to buy! Kaleigh didn't really like salt water taffy, but we were just trying to find a good place for a photo!

We ended up here where they had a bigger selection of other types of candy, like peachy-o's and pop rocks! It was fun! And yummy too!

Sacramento - Old Town - Part 5 We took a river cruise to see the two bridges that cross the Sacramento River, the kids really loved it. It was a bit chilly though!

Grace's Mom and I enjoyed the cruise too, although we were not allowed to take advantage of the full bar! Heehee.

This is the pivoting bridge. We got to see it in action too! I don't think I have ever seen one like it. Pretty cool!

Sacramento - State Capitol - Part 4 Ok, this photo should have been last, but hey, you can tell from the photo that the moms were done for the day! We were pooped! It was a very long day and we were just waiting for the tour guide to finish talking about the seal in the floor. Yawwwwn.

This next photo has a good story! We were supposed to see the Assembly floor from the balcony, but since our district representative was in his office and two of our dads knew him he allowed us to go on the floor and talk about how laws are made! None of the other classes were able to do that and it was a real treat! He was pretty funny too!

This is the dome. Beautiful, isn't it?

Kaleigh's class in front of the capital building.

Sacramento - Downtown - Part 3 This is at the Wells Fargo Museum. The only glitch is that our tour guide for the museum didn't show! Our tour guide was a bit perturbed. It wasn't that big a deal, we all looked around and since hey, we can all read, we were able to make it worth the trip. This photo is the original Stagecoach used by Wells Fargo!

A Wells Fargo Safe! Shhhhh, Kaleigh is trying to crack it!

Sacramento- Coloma - part 2 So our first stop was Coloma, sight of the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill! The kids got to check out some historical stuff like Bark Teepees that the native americans in the area used.

They got to pan for gold in the American River.... like they expected to find anything? Some thought they did, but it was mainly wet rocks. Kaleigh was excited about the tiny vial that they used to put their "gold" in. She found a few little shiny rocks that were pretty so she put them in the vial.

One of the highlights in Coloma was learning about glass bead necklaces that the natives made out of the "Padre" beads which they earned when they learned Bible verses. Everyone who wanted to was able to make one! So Kaleigh made one and I did too! The kids had to give or do something to "barter" for some extra beads by telling a story, giving them some chocolate or singing a song. It was a lot of fun!

The girls with their "pans". You can tell some of them are holding their vials with rocks in them. The other girl in the photo is another friend, Amanda.

Sacramento! 4th Grade Field Trip - Part 1 Here is Kaleigh's class of 4th graders at the Sacramento Airport! We left at 7:10am, so we had to be there at around 6am. Kaleigh loved it! She enjoys getting up really early! Me, not so much anymore, but that is where she gets it from! Carl and Cole dropped us curbside and we met up with all the other kids in Kaleigh's class. We checked in, went through security and made it to the plane in plenty of time!

This is the baggage claim area in the Sacramento Airport. Funny huh? We liked it so much we had the girls pose in front of it!

Here are Kaleigh, Grace (Kaleigh's best friend) and Emma (her other friend), sitting in the airplane. We had pretty much the whole back of the plane. There were two out of four classes (about 27 kids and 27 adults each) so about 54 x 2 on each flight. One went a little earlier and we went a little later (if you call 7am early).

This is Kaleigh and Grace with their principal, (name witheld), before we left for Sacramento. He was a lot of fun and we had him on our bus too!

The flight was fine and it didn't hurt that one of the dads is a Pastor for the church that sponsors the school! Way to go Matthew!