Raingutter Regatta 09

The Ship


The Captain

First race. Second place.

Second Race- Blow!

Smooth sailin' here. Well done, guys!

Get a load of these mateys. Arghhhh!

Jake, you did AWESOME! We love you!

Legally Blonde

My favorite kind of date night!

The girls are already making plans for Mary Poppins. Talk of Season Tickets even went down.

Seriously Jer! Did I mention we're at a Broadway show? Paige made a desperate attempt to save the situation by claiming that the back of the tickets said, "No Nike flip flops allowed inside". Somehow the swoosh got past security. Ah, I do love him though!

Strange Happenings

Luke has an obsession with this owee. He keeps pointing at it and telling me he got it on the slide with Carter. He also keeps begging me to take him back to the slide with Carter.

I went upstairs about 11:30 p.m. to find Breanna fast asleep on the floor at the bathroom door. This is actually not that strange for her. The night we moved into this house, Breanna woke up, walked into our closet, turned on the light, dropped her drawers and went pee on the carpet. She had no idea where she was or what she was doing. She sleepwalks a lot. We have hidden the car keys.
Her reaction when I woke her up.


Luke pillaging again. Not so strange either. I can only imagine what the teenage version of Luke will do with access to this quantity of TP.

All you food bloggers, have a seat. This is Jake's signature triple layered chicken salad, ketchup, hot sauce sandwich. Strange indeed.

Completely adorable.

(He would be mortified if he knew I described him as such.

At least he would pretend to be mortified.)

Mmmm Good!

The Princess, The Pillager and Picasso

The Princess Ball was last weekend and Bree couldn't wait! She was so excited to go out with Jer and it also just happened to be the day she got to take her earrings out for the first time. What a day! She wanted to wear her baptism dress, and I admit, I saw red punch when she asked. But she came home nice and clean! Isn't she the perfect princess?

And here is her handsome prince. They had a delicious dinner at Olive Garden and then went to the ball where they danced and made wands, crowns and corsages. Breanna would like the Princess Ball to be every weekend.

The next day, we found The Pillager. He didn't get very far. He just parked himself on the kitchen floor with his loot.

Don't need a spoon, my finger works just fine.

My tongue works pretty good too. This lid is scrumptious!

Nice breakfast, Luke! We need a Luke Lock for our fridge!

And finally, Picasso. The other night, Luke and I were drawing and he started naming everything as he drew it. It was so cute. He made the yellow mark and said, "chick", and then drew a dot and said, "eye". He's completely brilliant.

Trying out Jackson Pollock's technique.

And good looks to boot! Sorry ladies. We asked him today if he had a crush on Brittany M. (older woman....she's 11) and he emphatically said, "YES!" This boy is taken.

Just Us!

Last night, we snuck away with the kids to a resort less than an hour away from home. This is the first time we've ever done anything like this, and I tell you, we have been missing out!

We had the BEST time!!

Our suite was amazing...the kids didn't want to leave it. But when we mentioned the pools.....

I think there were 8 different pools.

It was so fun to just hang out with each other and not have any distractions.

This is where the kids came barreling out of the water slide. I tried to get a picture of them in action, but it didn't happen.

This place was so great. Every 30 minutes or so, someone from the resort would come out with an activity for the kids to do. One activity was a slide race.

Jake enjoying one of his prizes from the slide race.

Bree fiercely competes in the toy dive.

Jake and all of his loot.

TheTreasure Hunt

Luke on the hunt.

After swimming, we went back to the room ordered pizza, and stayed up late playing games (Carcassone, Puerto Rico and Ticket to Ride - whew!) and watching football. Then we swam all day the next day. This is definitely a new family tradition except next year we'll stay even longer!

Chicks Retreat

This year, we had a ball in San Diego! We were just a bunch of silly, giggly girls the whole weekend and it was so fun!

Taking the ferry across the bay to Coronado. We missed Dee and Ere this year and thought about them lots!

After pedis, manis and massages (thank you mom!!), we decided to take the Surrey around the bay. It was oh so fun. We managed to ring our bell at everyone we passed, do Chinese fire drills with the Surrey in motion, and even get stuck right in front of a Quinceinera photo shoot. Mom got so tired out doing all that pedaling in the back. Ha! One passerby ratted her out right away.

Beautiful day on the bay!

Cute sisters!

That night, we went to a movie and then to Ghiradelli's for ice cream (hot chocolate for me and Spinder!!) Yummy!!

Me and Nat

San Diego night life is hoppin! We had fun walking around downtown.

We met up with Dad on Saturday for a day at the races. Mindi and I popped out of the sun roof to get his attention and he came a runnin'! I bet all the people in front of us were locking their doors. (He was actually trying to get to us before the light turned green.) Nice form, Dad!

Here we are at the races. Dad gave us a few bucks to play with and everyone won but me! I think I've learned my lesson - ha ha!

We ate at the most yummy Mexican place, but they messed up our bean burritos twice and it took over an hour for us to get our food. You would think a bean burrito wouldn't be that hard! Spinder made good use of the extra time we had by filling out the comment card. She had a thing or 2 to say. You go Spinder!

And of course, there would be no retreat without these two who made it all happen! We love you mom and dad!!! Thanks for treating us to an amazing weekend!!