Welcome to Our Pool!

We needed a little backyard summer entertainment for our new "Lake House." We decided to buy an above-ground pool to enjoy for the summer. And we have REALLY been enjoying it! Chris prepped the ground, we pulled it out of the box, set it all up, and started the lengthy filling process. I took a dip at 8pm the other evening, after the boys were in bed, and the water was SO nice and refreshing. The weather has been around 85 for the past week; just perfect. We get wonderful breezes coming up the hill, off the lake. Come and visit us!! :-)

Pool Time

We had friends over both days this weekend to come swim in our pool with us. We are enjoying it SO much! I'm getting the hang of the chemical side of it all, and the water is beautiful, clear, and refreshing.

Our First Beautiful Backyard Sunset

Hummingbirds

We have the cutest little hummingbirds that have adopted our back yard. I have two feeders out there, and they drain them fairly regularly. One stands guard over "his territory" on a branch near the porch, and just sits and hangs out. The minute another comes swooping in, they start chittering and chirping, and he chases the others away. Or, he'll "yell" at us if his feeder is getting too low... or if we are out on the patio, and he'd like us to please leave. They are so darn cute. You can see by the pictures how quickly they swoop in, and how quickly they buzz off!

Garden

You'll have to scroll down (or look at an older post along the right) to see older pictures of the garden-- even from last month! Everything is growing so fast. The sunflowers have probably hit 7 feet-- and I can just now see the flower part starting to grow from the center of the tallest ones. No yellow showing yet, but they are coming, I can tell. For whatever reason, the little birds (finches maybe?) LOVE eating the leaves of the sunflowers. They are horrible. They will sit there and eat them while I'm standing right there watering the garden! There must be about 50 tomatoes, and I am NOT exaggerating! The pumpkins are vining all over the place, with beautiful flowers blooming, but no baby pumpkins yet. Fingers crossed.

4th of July- Reptile Show

We spent 4th of July at the Yacht Club with Nonny and Pop. The club hired a reptile guy (for lack of a better term), who brought all kinds of slimy, scaley, wiggly critters. Needless to say, the boys loved it (quite a bit more than mommy did)! Snakes, lizards, Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, etc....

Setting up the Picnic

Nonny put up a really cool "sun" shade... which was actually a wind-blocker for a while. It was chilly and the wind was a-blowin'! But we had a very yummy picnic, complete with fried chicken, potato salad, and watermelon. THANK YOU!

La Playa Cove

The boys had fun crab-hunting. One kid at the beach had a really big one in a bucket, which was pretty cool to see.

Sprinkle Cookies (in the cold)

4th of July in San Dieg-- who would have thought it would be COLD!! But it was. We were bundled up for a while there in the morning!

Del Mar Fair x 2

Yep-- we got to go to the fair again-- with Nana & Papa this time! The boys rode some more rides... but they no longer had the one-price wrist band (unlimited ride) deal, so we had to buy ride tickets. AND, they went VERY quickly! So, we were able to do a lot more exploring of different areas around the fair. Keegan got to see how fast his $5 bill disappeared by plyaing carnival games. Although they did win cute little puppies at one of the games that Papa paid for them to play. We saw the cute magic show in the infield that we've seen the last couple of years. He's really good-- and the boys really get a kick out of it. It was another beautiful day. A little overcast, which is always nice, to beat the heat!

Ropin'

Papa taught the boys how to do a little ropin'! Keegan got pretty good at it and roped the steer three times in a row I think!

Fair Fun

The boys spent the entire time at the fair last time riding all the rides. This time we did a little investigating. There was SO much to do. Giant Chess games, Tom the Turkey racing (Keegan entered into a gobble contest, and won a pirate scarf!), and we even did the Zip Line across the infield. It was SO much fun! One picture here is the tower where you start, and the other picture shows across the lake, where you finish. I will try to upload the video some time. We had a wonderful day cruising around.

Storm Trooper Olympics

Tustin wanted to participate in the Storm Trooper Olympics at the fair. He had to go through an obstacle course, while racing against a storm trooper. If the kids win, they get a certificate-- which, of course, Tustin won! The storm trooper even got upset and threw a nerf ball at Tustin during the course, because he was doing so well! And of course-- ICE CREAM! Always our last stop of the day at the fiar. Farrells for all!