School Starts

The first day of school... I can't believe my baby is a freshman in high school.. I was so nervous for him, but he was soooo ready. After his last day in 8th grade, he didn't even want summer break, he wanted to be in high school. Hopefully he keeps that excited attitude.

4th of July - Boulder City

This year we decided to do something different and go to Boulder City for the Fourth of July - luckily Jakes parents live there, so we had a place to stay:) They had a weekend full of things to do. The morning of the 4th, there was a pancake breakfast at the park, and boy was it yummy... I think we all o.d'd on pancakes and sausage...But our favorite was the parade.... I am normally not a parade person, especially in the summer when it is so flippin hot. But this one was different. For the first half of the parade it was a nice normal parade with all the normal floats.. But then the second half of the parade, they were all armed with water guns, hoses, etc. and it turned into a full fledged water fight, Jacob had a blast... Lindsay and I were sitting on the side lines, and we couldn't stay out of the line of fire. Luckily we were right by people who came prepared with guns and even extra water so Jacob was able to refill, and really join in the fun. We all had a blast, I think we will definitely be doing this again next year.

Bulgaria

I didn't think I would survive!! I can't believe they don't have Diet Coke in Europe... Coke light didn't taste too bad:)

Zurich Switzerland, so pretty, and so much to see.

Jake and I in Serbia in front of the building that has Skull Tower inside.

Skull Tower, we were so shocked to see that the tower wasn't protected at all, you could actually reach in and touch them.....

Our first night in Bulgaria, we ate at the most wonderful restaurant, dinner lasted over 2 hours, we had 5 courses, we were stuffed.

I know I haven't blogged in awhile, so I thought I would start slowly filling in what has gone on so far this year... We did find a house, thank goodness, so we weren't homeless. We are renting until we find the one we will hopefully stay in:) In May Lindsay finished her first year at college on the Deans List, we were so proud of her, and Jake finished up his last year at the junior high, he is now a high school er, he is so happy, he loves it. In June, Jake had to go on a trip for work and he took me along, we went to Bulgaria.... Never thought I would go there, didn't even know where it was. But we had a lot of fun. We rented a car so that we could do some sight seeing, we even drove across the border to Serbia, Jake had me drive there - just so I can say I did. That was the first time out of the country, if you don't count Canada and Mexico, it was so eye opening to see how other people live, and surprisingly once you get out of the city, it is beautiful and green in the country. One day while Jake was at work I ventured out on my own. I went and got some lunch, then to the movies (which were in English, with Bulgarian subtitles) and then I got a taxi and went downtown to shop for souvenirs-as you all know, that is definitely not something I would normally do, but I figured I would try to venture out of my comfort zone. Walking around the business park and then a park downtown we noticed there were ping pong tables in a lot of places, they are bolted down and there to play whenever you want-there were always people playing on their lunch breaks. After a week, we were ready to get back to the United States. On the flight back home we had a day lay-over in Switzerland, so we were able to sight see there too. We took the train into town where all the wonderful shops are. I loved all of the old buildings. It was so pretty there too. Lots of green. I'm so glad I was able to go on this trip with Jake, hopefully there will be more.

Getting Rid of Everything???

Ok, so this last month has been a little crazy. We decided that since Lindsay moved out our house was way too big and since we only had one kid at home we didn't need an SUV anymore, and while we were at it why not sell Jakes boat, our trailer, a quad and a motorcycle, and essentially anything not hammered down:) yes we went a little crazy, but that is how we have always been. So we sold our house 10 days ago, and now we have no where to live:) and on Friday we sold my car so I was stranded at home for 4 days!!!! UGH.... Not that I had anywhere I had to be, but when you know you CANT go anywhere and its not your choice, you go a little stir crazy..

I loved my house, I finally had it mostly done, but we really didn't need 5 bedrooms.

I loved my car too, but to drive one kid around it was a little too much of a gas hog.

But thankfully today I got a car. Hallelujah!! Nothing great, but its a nice Honda Accord that gets double the gas mileage of my last Honda. And it is pretty fun to drive a small car again. We are suppose to be moving out in 2 weeks, so hopefully we will find somewhere to live real soon-in state of course:)

Easter

I put it off every year thinking that the kids wouldn't want to do it any more, but the day before Easter both of the kids asked when we would color Easter eggs... So I went and bought the kit, and they took a lot of care trying to out do the other:) They all turned out so nice, jake made a great half and half egg, and Lindsay made a cute bunny on one of her eggs-they were so proud...

I don't think I have done this for a couple of years, but this year for fun I thought I would hide the eggs:) I woke up pretty early to get their baskets ready ( or to help the Easter Bunny) and decided to hide them all over the back yard. They were actually pretty excited and got a little silly collecting them - racing each other. For some reason Jake had trouble finding them but Lindsay was an old pro.. He only found 10 and she found 13 (the last one got smashed)... You can see how sad Jake was that Lindsay beat him. Its so fun that even tho my kids are getting older, they are still silly kids at heart...

Look how happy Lindsay is and how sad Jake is, it was so funny..
We all went to breakfast at Crackers (our favorite place). Then later in the afternoon, we met up with my dad and brothers and mom and kids and went to see The Clash of The Titans in 3-D which was a lot of fun. Afterwards we went to my dads where Charles BBQd burgers and my dad did everything else (so lucky all I did was dessert). It was a great day spent with family.

Spring Break

This year for spring break we started out in San Diego. We got in at 12:45am, so when we finally got up the next day it was lunch time and we found Phils BBQ which was ok, nothing great, except for their dessert, which hands down was worth it to go they had the best Whoopie Pies. Next time we will skip the food and just get dessert:)

After lunch we went to Sea World - my favorite place in California. I love Disneyland, but my favorite is Sea World.

First stop was the seals. We bought some gross fish so that Jake could feed them. He fed a couple of them, but he also fed a bird when he snatched one out of Jakes hand - so cool....

This was the cutest seal, it just kept begging for fish.

The shark tunnel is always kind of creepy ... Sharks swimming over you and hoping the glass doesn't break:)

We had the most amaing seats for the Shamu show, Big Jake was the second one into the stadium and got the seats right at the kick out where the whales come out of the water. It was so funny, even though Jake knew the whales came out right in front of us he was watching the television screen so when the whale came out in front of us, he jumped a mile:) Jacob and I couldn't stop laughing...

After seeing the Shamu show countless times over the years, it is still an amazing show and we all love it.

After leaving Sea World, we drove down by the beach trying to find someplace to eat and we saw a line in front of this little hole in the wall, so we stood with them:) and we were glad we did. They had the best burgers and fries ever, and so many options, it was a tiny and a little rough, but sooo worth it.

The next day, we were off to the zoo... Always love the zoo, but we did walk what seemed like for miles.

It was another fun day in California, the weather was perfect we were able to see all the animals, and we survived all the tourists:)

After a couple of days in San Diego we were on to Newport beach where we stayed in a beach house with Jakes sister and her family and his mom and dad....

This is the best way to do California, never realized how much I love the beach till we stayed in a beach house.....

We had such a great trip, loved the beach, zoo and Sea World and spent a lot of time with Jakes family, watching our Neice Jenny play in her vollyball tournaments, where her team took gold-I never realized how much fun vollyball is to watch till we watched her play, it was so cool. Jacob never wanted to leave, any second we were home he was out on the beach looking for whatever he could find, and that was a lot of jelly fish and shells. Cant wait to go back.

My Birthday

This year my birthday fell on a Wednesday, so it was a normal day. Got a few things done, went to lunch with Tammie at El Charro like we do every Wednesday, and got a little bit of cleaning done. Then Jake came home from work because we were suppose to go to dinner with the kids. He asked me if I would go upstairs so that he could wrap my present. So I did, and when I was allowed downstairs again, the house smelled wonderful and I asked Jake what he was cooking. But getting down the stairs, I saw that there was food, all over the counters-he had picked up Texas Roadhouse (my favorite)..

I was shocked:) I couldn't figure out what it was all for, then the doorbell rang and in came the cutest cake, made by my friend Mandy-I was so excited, I love her cakes.... Jake had invited all my family and our friends the Clarks over for a party for me! He had thought of everything. It was so fun and thoughtful, he had been planning this for weeks:) And on top of all that, he got me exactly what I had been wanting, a new Coach purse, and some new sunglasses. He is so sweet to go to all that trouble for my birthday. It was a great day:)