My great idea

I was so proud of myself last weekend. I came up with a great idea, if I do say so myself. We were out on a date night and had a girl babysitting who had only babysat for us a couple times before. Our regular babysitter from the past 5 years just left for college :-(
She mentioned when I took her home that L and M were a little wild. An understatment I'm sure. They admitted to me the next morning that they were indeed VERY wild. So, my punishment to them was they had to help pay the babysitting fee! There eyes were very big and full of remorse as I took money out of their banks and put it in my wallet. I just may have good children next time we have a babysitter! :-)

Yearly Playgroup Camping Trip

Almost every year for the past 6 years, Lucas and Marisa's playgroup has done a weekend camping trip in the area. It's always a fun, chaotic messy time. Here are the highlights! Let's start at the end. Dirty feet. They were actually pretty clean every where else, but those feet ...

LUcas and Marisa love to sleep in a tent. We're the only tent campers in the group, everyone else has nice trailers ... someday. Until then, we're building tent memories. :-)

Some of the moms relaxing while the dads took the kids "fishing" to a nearby creek. Lucas actually caught a fish with a stick and a hook and worm!

And the dads playing horseshoes ... or is it a new dance they're practicing?

Camp food! BBQed hotdogs, watermelon, corn on the cob - what more could a kid want?

They also want s'mores of course!! The best camp dessert.

The moms agree. ALthough I did see some of them just taking the chocolate ...

After smores it's time to "plug the kids in" and put on a movie shown on a white sheet on the back of one of the trailers.

ONe of the evenings we had glow sticks too. There were not enough glow stick necklaces to go around, so Lucas very kindly gave up his and said he'd rather have the earrings anyway. So, should I be proud of his unselfishness or worried about his interest in earrings?

We had plenty of bubbles ...

Plenty of playdough ...

Plenty of children riding on bikes ... (and also dads doing wheelies on bikes trying to teach Lucas to do wheelies on his bike ... thank you very much Jim!)

We took a side trip on Sunday afternoon to Julian to pick apples hoping to escape the heat in Ramona. But it wasn't meant to be. (Escaping the heat that is.) But we did find a nice airconditioned restaurant to eat delicious Julian apple pie.

A great weekend! Now to the laundry and those feet!!

My babies are gone!!

The first day of school! Wow!! Marisa has been beside herself with excitement waiting for her first day of Kindergarten. It was really quite cute. Lucas did not even mind putting on a long sleeve dress shirt, tie and vest in the heat! (This is their "dress uniform" for special occasions. For regular days, they have shorts and polo shirts.) We weren't sure about traffic this morning so we left with lots of time and got to school 35 minutes early! :-) We will have fun with teacher names this year. Lucas' teacher's name is Ms Kang and Marisa's teachers name is Ms Chang!! I'm very excited about the school year and I'm thankful to God that the transition to a new school has been relatively painless. I'm very excited about the 7 hours of free time I will have each day. But I know it will get filled up quickly! So far I have 4 Spanish classes I"m teaching, so I"m looking forward to building that up and hopefully providing a small amount of money for "extras" - like a vacation to see the great wall of China or the pyramids or the Taj Mahal. Unfortunately Victor wants to buy groceries with my money. Can you believe it??
And here are Lucas and Marisa waiting to go into the chapel for opening ceremonies. They were greeted by the Headmaster who welcomed each one by name, and they were to respond "Good Morning Mrs Kim" (and she made a point of making sure each child looked her in the eye as they addressed her. I love it! I'll let the school teach my children all their manners and I can sit around and eat bon bons all day.)

Last Minute Summer Fun!

One day last week when they were bored, they were going through old Halloween costumes. Marisa came out in this 18 month size giraffe costume that Lucas wore when he was 15 months old. I knew Marisa was petite but THAT PETITE??!! She obviously does not take after either parent.
Today was the last day of summer vacation for us! Tommorrow is back to early mornings out the door! So we went to Wild Rivers and got in for free with our Legoland passes. We had a great 2 hours going down water slides and swimming.

Last week L and M decided they wanted to do a lemonade stand. :-) So we hand squeezed lemons and made lemonade to sell. We went down to the end of our street where more people pass by and they actually made over $7.00 in an hour. Our neighbors are very good tippers.

And of course the beach! It's so nice being only about 15 minutes from the beach. We tried to go almost every week this summer. Very relaxing. And of course very sandy when you get home ...

It's been a good summer - and now school begins. I will probably drop Marisa off at the Kindergarten door with some tears - tears of joy that after 7 years I have a good chunk of time every day to get something done, and tears of sadness that my baby girl is all grown up and going to school! I can't believe she's 5 already.