My trip to the "Old side", Peaches, a wedding and Labor Day

A quote from my birthday card from Jeff..."It's better now that I've joined him on the "OLD" side"

 

I turned 40 on Monday.

 

Crazy to think when my mom was turning 40 I was getting married and now I'm there.

 

(no need to get any ideas Taylor).

 

 

 

 

I was asked if it was a hard birthday.

 

Well it wasn't thanks to the fact that I had a good friend to celebrate it with! Mary Ann and I went to Kelley's Spa at Mission Inn and hung out at the pool and had lunch and was pampered...before we had to pick up kids from school of course.

 

The secret is if you schedule any service you can hang out at the spa and the pool the rest of the day for free ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Mary Ann you made my day...and I didn't have to sit at home stewing about turning 40 as I folded laundry.

 

 

 

That night Jeff came home and helped prepare dinner, got me a cake and bought presents and had the kids sign a card for me. He was very thoughtful this year and I appreciated it.

 

One of my favorite parts was having the kids each tell me something that they appreciated about me (and they couldn't repeat what the other person said so I didn't get a bunch of "you cook me food")

 

 

Here are some selfies of the kids as they took the camera.

 

 

 

 

Despite the pictures they all had heartwarming things to say...

 

 

 

That made my day...

 

 

 

 

 

Counting backwards...some of the highlights in our home....

 

 

Ashley's praying mantis pet for the day. Kept her occupied on a Sunday afternoon, she did research and found out this was a female because it was brown and didn't have wings and saw what to feed it and how to give it water...

 

"Mom it eats live crickets..we could keep it"

 

I settled for keeping it for a day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Last weekend I took Ashley and her friend Soli to the King High school performance of Comedy Sports (think whose line is it anyways).

 

Taylor and Kelzey were there too (but not sitting with us). I didn't have to worry about spying on them because Ashley was over with them every chance she got :)

 

Comedy Sports is an improv battle between two teams of students with a moderator that was pretty funny himself. They play various games using the audience for ideas, trying to get as many laughs as possible. I was a little worried if it would stay family friendly the whole time but it did and the kids had a lot of fun.  

 

Jeff was in New York at the time so I'm looking forward to taking him next time.

I guess for the first time ever they were sold out. Here is everyone dancing in the aisles during intermission.

 

 

Soli thought it was going to be people just standing up and telling jokes. She ended up really liking it.

 

The only down side was the air conditioning wasn't working very well and we were all dying of heat at the end, so I took them all to frozen yogurt after.

 

 

 

 

This weekend I got my lug of peaches that I ordered...and forgot was coming...so not wanting them to rot on the counter I got to canning.

 

 

It's been awhile since I canned peaches but luckily I have a walking partner who is a pro at it. She sent me some instructions and her recipe for light syrup.

 

 

Here is my canning cliff notes so I can remember it for next year.

 

Blanch the peaches for 30 seconds in boiling water to slide the skins off. After skinned put them in water with lemon to keep from browning before they are cut up.

 

After they are sliced put them in the jars with the syrup.

 

 

Light Syrup

5 1/4 cups water

2 14 cups sugar

heat until sugar is dissolved and keep hot

 

Keep 1/2 inch headspace in the jars and then process them for 30 minutes in a water back.

 

Voila!

 

The peaches that were too soft I put in the freezer for smoothies.

 

 

 

 

Saturday I got to go out and see a friend that moved to Oregon and now is back. Sharla and her kids used to be in the neighborhood and my kids knew them for years.

 

We had a hard time getting Ashley and Chloe together in the summer and since Jeff was in New York and her husband was working we found that a Saturday get together would be the best.

 

Since it was blazing hot outside we came up with hanging out at her house. I brought video games for the boys and crafts for the girls.

 

The crafts ended up being a big hit.

 

The favorite was the little beads that you make patterns with and then iron together. Even Clark was coming up with creations (even though his were things like bows and arrows).

 

 

 

 

The boys ended up on the computer...typical.

 

We took advantage of happy hour at Sonic and filled the kids up on drinks and slushies too. It was fun to catch up with Sharla while keeping the kids occupied at the same time.

 

Labor Day weekend  we self invited our family to the waterpark where the Cowdens were hanging for the day. They all have passes this year and we haven't been once so we thought it would be a good hang out place for the day. We ended up picking a good day to go. The Cowden's got us all in for 1/2 price since they had passes and the place was pretty wide open. It still plenty hot in Palm Spring to enjoy the water and the lines were short.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way home the kids were happy that we hit BJ's. 

 

 It was a nice way to say goodbye to summer. 

 

 

 

 

 

Earlier that weekend we got to go up to Palmdale to Jarek and Katelyn's open house.

 

 

They are such a cute couple! Since I missed the wedding it was good to see them at the open house.

 

 

 

The family enjoying a walk down memory lane with the photo albums.

 

 

 

The cousins always have fun together. This was Caden's idea. Taylor walked in with a box and told Jenise he had a present for her.

 

She was a little jumpy wondering what was inside.

 

She said "Is it alive!?"

 

 

 

 

 

Why yes.

 

Yes it was.

 

It shocked and surprised us when Caden popped out, hilarious1

 

 

 

Backing up to the first week of school. We are jumping right into our sales and fundraising for 6th grade science camp.

 

Back to school night was the 4th day of school and we were right there selling pizza and waters.

 

This time we sold out of everything which was nice. It will be a fun busy year with lots of big things to plan for.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh and on the first day of school we had Angela, Robert and Ian over for dinner.

They were coming back from San Diego and had time for a visit.

 

Ian is funny and we enjoyed having him.

 

We heard him crying upstairs with Ashley playing with him at one point and were worried. We thought he was hurt. We run up to see what was wrong and Ashley said he found candy in one of the rooms and wanted it. When Ashley said "Lets go ask your mom" He started bawling. I guess he knew that Angela wouldn't let him have it.

 

Later on it was quiet. Knowing that Ian had a habit of getting into people's toothbrushes and doing all kinds of things to them and putting all kinds of things on them for "toothpaste" we thought we'd better investigate.

 

Ashley found him first in her room. He threw his hands up and had a really surprised look on his face as he was caught red handed...literally. He was in the middle of eating 4 cough drops and there was red everywhere. I guess cough drops were close enough to candy for him.

 

I'm sure his dinner tasted odd that night with the cough drop flavor in his mouth.

 

 

 

 

 

That night after they left Jacob couldn't find his toothbrush. Anywhere.

 

 I got him a temporary throw away one for that night.

 

We still haven't found it.

 

Ha ha ha.