Family Camping Trip

Last weekend we went camping down in Santa Cruz with some of our friends. We had a great time and it was so nice to escape the triple digit heat in Sacramento. The highs where we were were in the 60s. It actually got kind of cold at night and I wished that I had packed jackets! We spent our days at the beach just soaking up the sun and playing in the sand--it was a little too cold to actually go swimming. The kids got so dirty playing around the campsite, but did great. We enjoyed smores every night, and when we got home I found myself craving them in the evenings! Dan, who is not a huge fan of camping, even enjoyed himself! I think we should make it a yearly tradition!

Here are a bunch of photos from our trip:

Ava and Keilani sitting in the kids chairs

Sweet baby Meigan (she was a bit of a trouble maker!)

The ladies on our first night at the beach--a little chilly!

Drew and Jacob making smores

Drew and Ava enjoying their treats

Keilani sitting so pretty in the tree

Faye with Meigan trying to eat dirt!

Ava enjoying the beach

Drew building sand castles

Me, Rose and Jen enjoying the sunshine

Dan and me by the campfire

Pete and Jen

Eric and Rose

Ava "climbing" the tree

Drew and Eben in the tree

A Little Friendly Competition

You know what one of my favorite things to do on a Saturday when it's 105 degrees outside is? Going outside and playing volleyball! Well, not exactly my favorite thing to do, but it's what we did today. Our life group was challenged by another life group to a volleyball tournament. Since we at TNLG (thursday night life group-yes, we're very creative) are up for any challenge, we accepted!

It was super hot, the court was muddy and there was lots of slipping and sliding. We also had some fabulous spectators, including members of our group who kept us cool with spray bottles. We had a great time and won all three games we played, earning us the Golden Spatula and the title of Life Group Champions! Great job team!

Our team accepting the Golden Spatula

Top-Justin, Rob, Andrea, Dan, Andrew
Bottom-Tony and Pete with our ribbons

Second place is good too!

A weekend in Murphys

This weekend we were lucky enough to go visit some of our favorite people, Kevin and Linda, at their new home in Murphys, CA. Murphys is a small mountain town about an hour past Jackson on Highway 49. It is absolutely beautiful! And as an added bonus, our former associate pastor and his amazing wife live there and invited us to stay with them this weekend. They both have very special places in our hearts, they were with us through Drew's last heart surgery, were great friends to us and our kids love them and have adopted them as surrogate grandparents. After this weekend I miss them even more!

Anyway, we started our visit with a picnic lunch that we brought to White Pines Lake. We ate in a park near a playground and the kids had fun swinging and climbing and occasionally eating. After lunch we took the canoe out on the lake. Dan and Kevin bravely took both kids with them on the first trip out. Then Linda and I went by ourselves, to make sure we could handle it before bringing any kids with us. We decided to only take one at a time! It was a lot of fun and we found a little family of Canadian geese to go visit.







After we had enough canoeing, we visited Big Trees State Park, only about a ten minute drive from the lake. The giant sequoias in the park are thought to be as old as 2000 years! They are huge! There are various trails in the park and we choose to do the shortest and easiest, about 1.5 miles. Somewhere along the way, I was struck by the fact that Drew was walking the trail by himself. Something he could not have done when we first met Kevin and Linda, before he had his surgery. He amazes me! It started to rain on us about halfway through the trail, but there was nothing to do but keep going. It was actually kind of fun!

When we got back to the cars we headed home to Kevin & Linda's house and everyone got cleaned up. We had a yummy dinner of bbq chicken, corn and salad with peach pie for dessert, of course! Then we took a long walk through the golf course that they live on (and I forgot to tell Dan to bring his clubs!). The kids looked for abandoned golf balls and found lots of them! We also found a lot of baby frogs and Ava loved having me catch them for her so she could hold them. After all that walking and playing we were exhausted! We all slept well that night!










The next morning we got to join Kevin and Linda at Sierra Bible Church, where he is the interim pastor. The church is totally different from our church, with mostly older people and hardly any families with young children. But everyone was so friendly, introducing themselves and chatting with us. It was a very nice church. Afterwards we had lunch with Linda at a nearby diner (Kevin had a meeting) and the food was great! We headed home to Sacramento with full tummies and hearts. Thank you Kevin and Linda for hosting us. We love you guys!

The Drive-In

Ready for the movie to start!

Earlier this week we thought it would be fun to take the kids to a drive-in movie. Ava's only been to one movie so far and I thought this would be a good way to see a movie and not worry that the kids were moving around and talking too loudly. Drew's been wanting to see Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs so we decided to go for it! Wednesday night we packed up the kids in their jammies, a bunch of blankets and pillows for the back of the van, lots of snacks and a cooler for the adults. :)

The movie started at nine (it's got to be dark to see the screen), so both kids had naps that day. They did pretty good and really liked watching the movie from the back of our car. We enjoyed popcorn, starbursts and junior mints while we watched. Both kids watched the whole thing and I am the only one who feel asleep! And it was super cheap! Only $6.75 for adults, $1 for kids 5-11 and Ava was free. I totally recommend bringing the family to the drive-in this summer!

Ava excited on the way there!

Drew and his doggy on the way to the movie

Cozy in the back of the van

Drew took this close up of us

Happy Fourth of July!

We had the best Fourth of July weekend in a long time!

It started out on Wednesday, when we got to visit the TNT Fireworks warehouse and pick up our free fireworks! These awesome folks have agreed to donate fireworks to our family every year until the kids are grown up. And they add another heart family each year! Valerie set it up for us and while we there we were totally spoiled with T-shirts, hats, and pins for the whole family, plus flags and candy for the kids. We are so grateful to them! You should definitely buy your fireworks from TNT every year!

Drew at the warehouse, with his flag, pin, shirt and visor!

Thank you TNT for all of these awesome fireworks!

Then on Friday we enjoyed a pre-holiday bbq with lots of our church friends at the Krengel's clubhouse. Everyone brought a dish to share and there was plenty of food! The kids enjoyed swimming and the parents enjoyed visiting. We even stayed for the fireworks show, which was good practice for the kids for the next night.

Some of the moms, watching the kids swim

Some of the kids in the kiddie pool

Saturday morning we went to the Carmichael parade, just down the street from our friends the Quayles' house. We walked from their house to the parade route and had great seats! All of the kids enjoyed watching the parade and it was a great start to our Fourth!

Keilani and Ava waiting for the parade to start

Jacob, Eben and Drew eating popsicles while they wait

Mommy and Drew

All the kids

We all went home and had naps in anticipation of staying up late to watch fireworks. Well, Dan and the kids took naps. My aunt and uncle came over for a bbq and while everyone else was sleeping we made a peach pie and batch of peach jam. Both turned out delicious and I'm excited to try and make some more peach jam all by myself.

Mmm, peach pie!

For dinner we had a yummy tri-tip, some corn on the cob, watermelon, asparagus, leftover red white and blue cake, and of course, peach pie! The weather was not too hot, so we ate outside and the kids got to run around and play until it was dark.

Eating outside with Aunt Marie and Uncle Terry

Me and Dan, enjoying the evening

Ava with the red, white and blue cake

Drew with the red, white and blue cake

Then it was fireworks time! I got earplugs for the kids to try this year, since neither one of them likes loud noises. They worked great! They were both able to stay and watch the fireworks and ENJOY them this year, which was nice! Our neighbors had some fireworks too, so we took turns lighting them off and even took a break to watch the ones we could see from our backyard at the Sunrise Mall. We all stayed up too late and had so much fun! It really was an awesome weekend!

Oh yeah, we had to crate and medicate the dogs this year so they could survive the loud fireworks. They stayed inside and listened to the weather channel.

Drew doing a sparkler

Ava and a sparkler (As a side note, I find it interesting that we tell kids all year long not to play with fire, and then on the 4th of July we hand them an exploding stick and tell them to wave it around in the air)

Watching the show!

Family Fun in the Backyard

The hot summer days have us swimming the afternoons away, then coming home and enjoying dinner outside in the back yard. A new favorite of the kids is corn on the cob. Here are some pics of us a couple of weeks ago just being silly together. Ava started trying to wink, then we all started trying it! Being terrible winkers must run in the family!

Ava eating her corn

Drew attacking his corn!

Wink!

Kind of a wink!

Ah! Too much winking!

Daddy's winking!

Mommy's winking!

Our First Slumber Party

Drew in his VBS shirt

Drew had another week of VBS at First Covenant, where he attended preschool. It was another fun week with friends and learning about Jesus. At the end of the week they have a family fun night, with bbq, bounce houses and water slides. It also happened to be our friends the Quayles' tenth anniversary. So we took their two older kids to the bbq and then back to our house for a sleep over, so mom and dad could enjoy a date night (their grandparents watched the baby).

Drew climbing up the big slide (He was too fast on the way down for me to get a picture!)

Ava coming down the slide

The kids enjoyed some time at the bbq, but we didn't stay too long, it was one of the hotter days this month, about 105 I believe. We picked up some A & W on the way home and ate our meal inside where it was cool! Then we put on a movie for the kids, Veggie Tales The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. I told them they could stay up and watch the movie as long as they were quiet. They did well for about a half hour, then the girls couldn't stay quiet any longer! I put them to bed in Ava's room and they acted just like teenagers. They were talking and giggling and NOT sleeping! After about an hour I finally separated them (I didn't want Keilani to go home in the morning with NO sleep!) and they went to sleep. I guess at 3 they are a little young for sleepovers!

The boys did great though. They watched the movie quietly, then got ready for bed and went right to sleep. Everyone was up by about 6:30 though. We made a pancake breakfast for them and let them play for a little while before mom came and got them. Overall I think it went very well and am looking forward to more sleep overs in the future!

Everyone watching the movie

Jacob and Drew relaxing and sharing a blanket during the movie

Summer So Far

Phew! We've had a really busy and really fun summer so far! What a difference from last year, when we spent all of June inside the walls of a hospital.

We've been enjoying the beautiful, cooler than normal, weather! We've taken a couple of family bike rides down to the park and brought a picnic dinner with us.

Drew riding his bike

Ava got tired of riding her tricycle and pulled it in the wagon instead

The first three weeks of summer Drew was attending summer preschool and loved playing with his friends! Then I had him signed up for two weeks of VBS at two different churches. The first week he was at Arcade Church and Ava was old enough to go too! Which meant that I had three free hours each day that week! I mostly went to the gym, so it wasn't too exciting, but I did get a pedicure in with a friend too.

Drew and Jacob at Crocodile Dock

Ava and Keilani at the park after VBS one afternoon

Drew also took two weeks of swim lessons so far this summer. He's a little fish and is doing great! He's working on learning how to take a side breath and has made huge improvements since last year! Ava told me she didn't want to take swim lessons, so she and I have been swimming together during Drew's lessons. It was a lot of fun to swim every afternoon for two weeks, and we are all turning a nice shade of brown!

Drew practicing his big arms

practicing his back float-he tends to sink!

Kicking with the kickboard

Ava, my bathing beauty!

The River Cats were generous enough to donate tickets to our HOH support group and our family enjoyed a fun night at Raley Field. We had great seats right next to the River Cats dugout. Drew watched the game for a while, then became obsessed with all the vendors walking up and down the aisles. We indulged him and after the kids ate their hotdogs, we let Drew buy ice cream (a hit!) and cotton candy (a miss!). We also visited the kids area, which was surprisingly affordable. The weather was perfect too, and was even a little on the cool side for the end of the game.

Our family watching the game and enjoying their dogs

Raley Field with the beautiful tower bridge in the background

This post just about covers June, we've got more fun coming up! I still need to write about the kids first sleepover and the Fourth of July! I hope everyone is having lots of fun this summer!

Blood Drive

A few weeks ago I organized a blood drive for our Hearts of Hope support group. Since every child who has undergone open-heart surgery has received blood, I thought it was appropriate that we help to replenish the blood supply. We had a center drive, which means that everyone makes appointments at a specific Blood Source location and donates there. I got about ten people signed up to donate and was pleased with the turnout, especially of my non-HOH friends who came out and donated blood to support me!




I encourage everyone to donate if you are eligible and you can even use our donor number, 925, to credit the Hearts of Hope group.

Here are some facts from Blood Source:

The need for blood

The need for blood donation continues to increase. Today, more than one in seven people entering a hospital for care will need blood. Other people receive blood transfusions to fight life-threatening disease.

By the time you reach age 72, you could be one of 95 percent of all Americans who will have been treated with blood or a blood component. Here are just a few examples of those who need blood:

• Accident or burn patients
• Premature infants
• Heart surgery patients
• Organ transplant recipients
• Individuals fighting cancer, leukemia or blood disorders

As the primary regional blood center in Northern and Central California, BloodSource must collect 700 units of blood each day to supply the needs of nearly 40 hospitals in our local area alone.

Helping neighbors in need

On any given day, tens of thousands of units of blood are needed in the U.S. After meeting our local needs, BloodSource also provides blood to hospitals in other parts of the U.S. that cannot go it alone. This is done through a national network of blood centers whenever there are shortages elsewhere. For example, BloodSource provided blood components to New Orleans for months after Hurricane Katrina and, more recently, to Southern California in response to a train collision.

Quick facts:

• Three teaspoons of blood can save a baby's life
• One donation has the potential to save as many as three lives
• If 50 people donate, they could provide enough blood to take care of victims of a major car accident
• If 20 people donate, they could help one burn victim
• Whole blood donors can give every eight weeks
• Today, fewer than four of every ten people in the U.S. are eligible to give blood. Fewer than one in ten actually donate
• Approximately one out of every seven people entering the hospital needs blood
• Plasma donors can give as often as every three days
• Blood lasts only 42 days
• Platelets last only five days
• Approximately 40,000 pints of blood are used each day in the United States.