Family Visit

The same day as day camp started Grandma and Grandpa Smith arrived for a weekend visit.  Although we had a lot going on with camp, Kelsey working, and end of season baseball party we tried to give them a fun vacation.  They had mentioned they had never been to Tahoe...I have no idea how they have missed it in all the times they have been out here.  We decided to take them to the south shore where we could visit the Tallac museum which is right on the edge of the Lake. 

The last time we were here everything was boarded up, but to our surprise all the cabins were open and we were able to walk through a few of them and even stopped to watch a short movie about the history of the lake and those who settled here.  I especially liked this kitchen which had it's own separate butlers kitchen. 

We ran into a familiar face who Sadi was to afraid to sit by so I made Kelsey smile with the big guy.

Sadi was excited to make a wish outside in this very old stone wishing well.  She did tell me after "those wishes never come true".   I wonder what she's wising for?

After browsing the grounds we took the steps down to the beach to relax and have a picnic.  It was a gorgeous day!

 I snuck in on one of Kelsey's many "selfies" she takes with her new phone.

Besides being Grandma and Grandpas first visit to the lake it was also someone else's..Sadi's favorite dog Ruff Ruff.  She is so used to having Chase to play with all the time and since he was at camp I let her take her puppy.  He is no longer allowed to go with us as he did a hiding act on the way home in the car which had her in hysterics and almost made us turn around and go back.

We had fun playing in the water collecting rocks, sticks, and pine cones. We cut the day a bit earlier than I like too but we had to get back to pick up Chase from camp.

Kelsey had to work most of the rest of the time they were here so they got a lot of Chase and Sadi time...sorry Grandma and Grandpa.  They were here over our anniversary and offered to watch them while Matt and I went to lunch and celebrated (woo hoo 11 years!).  We spent a night having dinner up at the park in Virginia City where Kelsey met us after work.

We watched quite a few movies while they were here, and the kids challenged Grandpa to a game or two.

 I think we successfully tired them out!

Boy Scout Day Camp

Last week Chase attended 3 full days of Boy Scout day camp in Genoa.  I was able to attend the first day as our den walker.  Our troop is fairly small with only 6 boys attending camp this year.  There were troops from different areas in Nevada making the total count like 250.  It was fun for them to meet so many new friends and interact with other boy scout troops.

The theme for this year was "Joust for Fun".  They were divided up into different groups with Chase put in the crusaders.   We had 11 boys in our group which was the perfect amount I think.

After opening ceremonies it was time to start our scheduled rotation.  Our first part of the day was a big section of time (like 2 plus hours).  We hopped on a bus that took us to River Fork Ranch for a conservation project.

There wasn't much direction once we got there,  we were basically told to just let them explore for almost 2 hours..get them off the trails, let them destroy things (really they said that).  You don't need much encouragement for boys to do this.  They did give us a scavenger hunt paper of sorts to help us out.  I thought this was going to be so much fun when they told us they had 200 plus kinds of birds, frogs, fish, etc. to see.  An hour into it...we saw NO wildlife...I mean not even a bug.  We just seemed to be wandering in hills of sagebrush.  The most exciting thing they found was a dead fish carcass.  Oddly enough it was still fun (although a bit long ).

Things picked up when they did give the boys an actual activity to participate in.  They had them cut down willows tied them up in bundles that they then used a pick axe to plant down in the creek bed that would then grow more when the river rose.  That was pretty cool.  After our conservation project was completed we headed back to the park to eat lunch with all the scouts.  They had hired jugglers and magicians to entertain the boys during lunch and also gave them snow cones.  The boys loved it!

After lunch we had a full day of stations to get too.  The boys built catapults and then got to try to shoot a dragon with them.  These were very cool.

They made swords, and got to design and build their own shields.  Of course there was lots of battling going on.

Our last station of the day was making solar ovens.  These were pretty cool too.  They got to make sausages and also make s'mores in these.  We ended the day with skits and closing ceremonies.  It was a jam packed day of fun.

I wish I had gotten to attend every day with the boys, it was so much fun.  Day 2 and 3 Chase got to learn jousting,  make bows and arrows, build a chess board and made chess pieces, spent time at the BB gun range where Chase hit a bulls eye in both and won a medal, along with so many other fun things.  He had the best time and earned quite a few belt loops.  He is so excited to go back next year...as am I.

You say 18...I say baby

The day after Father's day was Kelsey's 18th birthday...what!?  I know an adult most would say...I still say she is a baby.  She wasn't really sure what she wanted to do for her birthday and couldn't really tell me anything she wanted.  So rather than try to guess what to buy her she decided a trip to the mall would be fun.  After a whole day at the mall she did settle on a very few things we could buy her.

Matt had to work but after finishing up at the mall we headed back from Reno to meet him for dinner at Kelsey's choice for dinner, Olive Garden.

We realized how little we actually take our kids out to dinner as we had to hush them when they were amazed at how "fancy" this place was giving them 2 forks, and cloth napkins!  It was a bit humorous. 

After dinner Matt took the little kids home and Kelsey and I headed to the movies.  We had both read the book The fault in our stars, and were excited to see the movie.  Although this is the first time I have seen the movie and wished I hadn't read the book...kinda ruined it for me knowing everything that was going to happen, although it still made me shed a few tears.

The movie ended pretty late and so we rushed home to a house of anxiously awaiting kids ready for singing and cake.  Kelsey had asked me make an ice-cream cake again this year.  It never looks as pretty as I would like, but the taste makes up for it...yummmm!

Happy Birthday to our adult legal aged baby.

Father's Day

This year for Father's Day we had planned to take Matt hiking (something we really enjoyed  last year).  However...Kelsey got asked the night before to come in to work a mid shift that day so hiking was out.  Most of our Father's day gifts were geared towards hiking..oh well.

The kids showered him with their cute hand made gifts.  Chase had made a coupon book at school for him.  Dad asked if he had used some already because there was a page with a few missing.  Chase admitted he cut out a few he didn't want to do (yard work and wash the car).  He made sure to keep in the home made cookies though :)

We had a very chill day and Matt got to relax and even take a nap in his new hammock he got for Father's day which I neglected to get a picture of.   We ended the day with some steaks on the BBQ...they were delish!

We sure are lucky to have such a hard working, fun Dad.  Love you Matt!

Time to get a J-O-B

A few days after Kelsey graduated I woke her up and said "Let's go look for a job!".  Now she has been looking, and applying, and calling jobs since February and nothing...I mean NOTHING.  I decided I would drive her up to Virginia City to look for something.   As mid June was approaching I was beyond discouraged and we decided to give up...that day she got a call from Grandma's Fudge (in VC).  I took her up for an interview which they didn't even do they just hired her!  She started the next day.

She cuts and packages fudge and brittle, scoops ice-cream, runs the cash register, and helps clean up and close.  They make the fudge right there in the window where you can watch, it smells sooo good in there.  It's one of my favorite shops up there.  I did wait a few weeks before I took a peek at her at work (didn't want to make her nervous, or be that weird lurking Mom...ok this is taken through the window without her knowing so I guess I am).  She must be doing pretty well, she got more hours and a pay raise already.

I think she enjoys it for the most part, and it has been good for her to learn what the cost of working really pays.  Funny when she got her first check she thought there might be a mistake..."Do I really need Medicaid Mom?"  Ahh...welcome to the real world!

Frequent Flyer Miles

This summer the tooth fairy is racking up some frequent flyer miles visiting our house dropping dollars, and fairy dust all over.  Sadi lost 2 teeth in less than a weeks time on opposite sides of her mouth.  Chase has some loose teeth that are sure to follow soon.  Looks like we will have some jack-o-lantern mouths this summer!

Baseball, Birthday's, and End of year Bash!

Besides having two kids graduating the last week of May it was also the last week of school for the little kids, the last week of regular season baseball, Matt was working graveyard, and we had family on town.  To say it was a busy week would be an understatement. Before the week got too crazy Grandma and Grandpa took us all to a movie. 

We started out the week watching Chase perform magic at the talent show in front of the entire school.  I was nervous for him, but the show was pretty magical.

We had two baseball games this week.  It was nice that the grandparents were able to be there to see Chase have his best game of the season, and even won the game ball! 

I did my best to make it to most of the end of year parties, but there were a lot!  Chase had his first dance, which I thought as third graders was way to young. I was right.  I'm not sure 6th graders were really into it either.  Chase did bust a move on the dance floor for a few minutes.

I spent one entire day at the school for fun in the sun day.  I was in charge of the bounce house/cupcake station all day.  The kids had a blast bouncing for the short time alloted before they were shuffled to the next fun station.

The kids love the cupcake decorating station.  It makes me want to gag.  Every 10 minutes a new class comes in to slather and top a cupcake with the wildest colors and a bazillion toppings and scarf it down.  I had about 30 seconds between each class to clean up before the next group. They all share the same supplies...ew. 

Lunch was served outside this day so I did make it outside for a few minutes to eat lunch with this cutie and one of her friends.

Besides being fun in the sun day it was also Grandpa's birthday.  Matt took his parents to a baseball game while we were at school, and we gave him a little gift wishing him a "Grill-y" good birthday.

After spending the day cleaning up cupcakes I had no desire to see another cupcake(still don't), sorry Grandpa.  We were going to be having cake the next day for the graduation so I didn't want to overload us on sweets.  He had mentioned growing up his favorite was the hostess cupcakes...so I bought a box of hostess and we lit a candle and sang.

The day between graduations was the last day of school for Chase and Sadi.  They were headed out for the last bus ride with a little something for the best bus driver ever and a gift for their teacher.

Normally I like to put a lot of thought into our teacher's gifts and personalize them but with it being such a busy week we kept it simple with a s'more package.

 Sadi said goodbye to the best first grade teacher, Miss Pluta.

 And Chase said goodbye to third grade teacher Ms. Yentzen.

 Whew!  It was quite a week, and we are really glad summer is finally here!

Time to Party!

After Kyle's graduation it was time to get our party on!  We headed back home with family to celebrate.  I decided to go with a theme, although I'm not sure anyone got it.  This was the inspiration:  "Picture your future".  It was suppose to look like Polaroids hanging up.  It was so hard to get a good picture of it :(

 Matt's job was to man the grill and cook up burgers and chicken.

 Then it was time to "Develop your burger".  Please someone tell me they get the whole theme.

 We were all ready to dig in!

 I got the main idea from pinterest, but added some of my own ideas to it.

There was a "sweet memories" wall that had pictures of both of them through the years and some of those moments they shared together.

To go along with the sweet memories, we had many sweets to enjoy.  Grandma Denning made these cute grad caps with each of the kids school colors, and I made some diplomas to go with them.  A big hit with the kids.

I had also set up a table that had pictures of them in their Letterman jackets and a note telling all of our guests to "snap" a picture with each of the grads and leave them a piece of advice for the future.  There was some awesome advice given.  I plan to put all of them in a book for them to be able to read.

We I had made each of them a going away gift.  Since Kyle has been on the fence a bit of where he wants to go to college I went with a more generic gift that he could use when he moves out.  A laundry basket full of towels, soap, iron,  etc.  I am so mad that I didn't get any other pictures of this.  I had also made a frame with quarters inside that was labeled "In case of laundry emergency break glass".  I also made up my own Laundry 101 label that was pretty funny.  A few of the instructions read:

If it smells...wash it.

Not all colors can be washed together..unless you like pink underwear

The dryer isn't and extra drawer.  When it's dry hang it up

If you picked it up off the floor odds are it isn't clean.



For Kelsey I made a gift geared more toward UNR.  I put in a wolf pack sweatshirt, wolf pack lanyard, Wolfie water bottle, a book about F in exams (pretty funny actually), and a Wolfie hat and pom poms to cheer on the pack at the home games.

 It was a fun day of celebrating and it really took it out of some of us...

 Seriously we partied till they started to drop.

So happy to have such great kids, and glad we were able to celebrate both of their accomplishments with family.

TWO DOWN, TWO TO GO....