September started off with celebrating Labor Day with a quick trip to
Oceanside to visit Joel and Virginia.
We like having family close enough to take a mini-vacation to see :)
While we were waiting for them to get back from Utah we explored the pier and ate fish tacos.
So nice to escape the Riverside heat.
There is always something going on where there is a lot of people. This guy was blowing large bubbles. I took this picture and then realized it was perfectly timed for ...
bubble pants and bubble head.
We enjoyed a day at the beach with Joel and Virginia and the kids.
We even enjoyed time hanging out at our hotel pool eating snacks and swimming. Looking forward to more get togethers. Card games are always popular with the boys.
Jacob is full swing into his mascot duties.
There is a boy wolf mascot, a girl one and he is the "baby wolf"
He calls them mama, and papa all the time.
I went by myself to Jacob's first game because the rest of the family was either out of town or occupied. He did a good job but we lost pretty bad that night.
Way in the distance you can see Great Oaks high school student section. It's the square of red in the distance on the left. They had a DJ and it was a PARTY over there the whole game. I don't think anyone in that section sat once.
The King mascot from last year was at the game, even though he had already graduated he thought "we need to have a DJ" so since then he's arranged it and now the King games have a DJ too. This last game he was leading the crowd just as much or more than the cheerleaders.
At half time they all went over to meet the cheer squad from the other school. It was funny because they were the wolves too and they had the exact same school colors.
By the end of the game Jacob was sitting on the ground.
I asked him about it later and he said he was exhausted and he said "It's hard to know how to cheer when you're losing"
(Isn't that so much like life)
Well even though he's sitting he's still cheering!
Ashley has dreams to become the next baby wolf when Jacob graduates. This is just the head and gloves on her...she might rethink it when she has to wear the whole thing ;)
Here is a picture of Riverside seen from a hill in Moreno Valley. My visiting teacher likes to hike and run marathons. So for our visit I joined a group of her friends and hiked with them. The hike wasn't too bad and it had a great view but it was really hot that day and I was feeling it by the end. Maybe I'll try again when it's cooler.
So I've had a new change in my life. I was just called to be the Young Women's President in our ward. We found out that the old one was moving out of the state and so a new one was needed right away.
I'm excited for the next challenge even though I'm a little nervous about how busy it will be. Our first mutual night was Kate's birthday and we celebrated with cupcakes and games after our planning meeting. Our numbers are small so we are excited to have some girls coming up.
The next mutual night we planned an end of summer pool party since it was still hot. It happened to be on my Birthday.
Just Ashley and Kate came. I felt bad that every leader showed up but only 2 girls. One of my counselor's had her two daughters swimming so they didn't mind that there was only 2 girls.
Her girls even inspired Ashley to try the waterslide.
This last week was a combined activity and they played human Foosball. Everyone seemed to have fun and there weren't any injuries that I am aware of. I noticed more girls came, maybe having boys there is the key ;)
That weekend I got to celebrate my birthday with family at the Melting Pot.
We tried to find one that was somewhat in the middle of all 3 of us so nobody would have too long of a drive.
This was my first experience of going to a fondue place. It was fun!
The only challenging part was all 6 of us reaching over each other trying to cook our meal in 2 pots.
This was dessert dipped in chocolate.
Happy Birthday to me...
Happy Birthday to Joel.
We are almost birthday twins. 2 days apart and the same age. Funny
It was a fun night celebrating together! Normally Joel is traveling on his birthday.
After we were done we walked along the nearby pier. There was some street evangelists that were doing a demonstration about Christ and how he saves us. I thought the guy did a great job.
I was sad it ended on a negative note. His associate approached us with a pamphlet and asked if we wanted to know more about Christ. We told him that we were Christians as well but when he asked which church we belong to he looked quite disappointed. He tisked tisked and sighed an overdramatic sigh and informed us that "the PROBLEM with YOUR religion is that you aren't biblical Christians..."
Before he told me his laundry list of what was wrong with our beliefs I told him that I've accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior and I consider myself very much a Christian and walked away. It's not the first time I've been told we are wrong, cultlike and not Christians and it won't be the last.
I guess I should work on being Christlike enough not to let it get me defensive.
Our family singing me happy birthday...before the boys went back upstairs. They weren't in the mood for cake they said. Oh well more for us.
This last week was back to school night. Jacob performing some more mascot duties. After it was all said and done back to school night was almost 3 hours. I was tired! I realized that was 1/2 the school day time wise and thought those teachers must be really tired.
This last Friday Ashley's Saturday hang out friends came with us to the football game. We painted their face for the occasion and had fun cheering with the crowds.
We were pretty jammed in the stands so Jeff took a seat by the fence to get pictures and just stayed there the whole game.
He missed Jacob walking right behind him until we called out to him.
We didn't win but it was a good game. We lost by 3 points.
Both sides had a lot of school spirit. During part of the game everyone took out their phones and waved them around. It was funny because the mom next to me didn't know how to make her phone's flashlight work so she had a real flashlight and shined that instead.
Jacob cheered all the way to the end. After 4 hours in the suit everything was wet with sweat! Everything. Nasty.
Jeff is paying to have it dry cleaned before the next game. Ha ha!
Jacob is having a lot of fun with it so thats all that matters. He's more involved at school and he's making a lot of new friends (not that he didn't have a lot already)
I am so glad that he's involved and feeling more school spirit.
