First Day of School!

 Last night was a special evening for us. The night before school Scott gives each of the boys a Father's Blessing. They look forward to this and were excited for their opportunity. We also have to have FHE on Sunday nights because Scott pulls a double on Monday's. Jackson was in charge last night and did a great job. Teaching us about the First Vision. He planned out the whole lesson. I was very proud of him and how mature he introduced the topic and read from the scriptures. After, were the blessings and then family prayer. The boys also picked out their new outfits and packed their backpacks.

 Will is in the 7th grade at Evergreen Jr. High school! He met up with a couple of his friends and they rode their bikes to school. Of course I followed snapping some shots of the first day of this big adventure! I am excited for Will and know he'll make the transition smoothly.

 Jackson is in the 5th grade with Mrs. Rato. Tyler is in the 3rd grade with Mrs. Budge at Rosecrest Elementary school. (Gavin will attend kindergarten next week!)

First Class and Camping

 Last Thursday night Will received his First Class (not really sure what that is or what that means! All this Scouting lingo is so foreign to me!!) Anyways, he is on his way to receive his Eagle on his 13th birthday! It's something he wants to do, so we support him. (Little Scott Junior!)

 All the boys in his troop received an average of 6 awards! It was a great meeting! Will also received 10 other awards that he and Scott has relentlessly been working on. (Scott is the new Scout Master...and LOVES it!!)

 Cute Brig's is wearing the Bishop's cool hat. Brig's and the Bishop have a special relationship. It's adorable to watch them, interact!

 Last week they troop headed out on a long hike and camp out. Will took the small camera so mom could blog about it! Such a good son! Here are a few of the boys fishing. The fished everyday and ate it that night for dinner.

 Here's Brother Aldus teaching Will to fly fish!

Way to go Will!!

Viva La Fiesta!

 There is a holiday/celebration in Santa Barbara every year for the past 100 years. Fiesta. I love, love, love Fiesta time. There are parades, dances, entertainment, games, rides, booths, food....And many other wonderful things to see and do during the first week of August. It's been 4 years since I've been to Fiesta. We all dressed up and headed downtown for lunch.

 Here is one of our favorite taco booths. Their meat is marinated and the tortilla is cooked to order. So good!

 Another fun tradition of Fiesta is to buy eggs that are filled with confetti and crack it on someones head. Four for a dollar, you can't beat that price!

The stage was filled with different age dance groups performing traditional Spanish style routines. Adorable!

Liva La Fiesta!!

Two Peas in a Pod

The title is kinda corny when you find out who I'm talking about...You may have guessed it, it's Scott and I. But really, we are perfect for each other! He is, and always has been, my knight in shining armor. He fills in where I fall short and I fill in for him where he needs it.

Scott has an extremely busy crazy schedule. (Like always!) We ALWAYS talk on the phone, text, IM, send an e-mail several times a day to each other. No MATTER WHAT!

When I need him to help me with something he'll drop whatever he's doing and come to my aid. He is such a great guy and I love him so much. That's why these past 3 days have been VERY hard. He is backpacking with the scouts (his new calling is Scout Master) way up in the mountains where there is NO cell phone coverage. Now, we've been married well over a decade and this is only (thankfully) the second time this has happened. The first was while he was traveling to Johannesburg South Africa.

I miss him.

Then, to top it off Jackson and Tyler are still in California with my mom, and Will is with Scott. It's Gavin, Brig's and Naters here with me. We've had fun but I miss Scott.

Nathan pooped in his swimming suit AFTER we went swimming the other day. I wanted to yell out, "Scott! Nathan needs to be changed!" And he would of done it in a heartbeat. I had to do it. Yuck!

I miss Scott.

While in Santa Barbara I took some photos of a large family at the beach. I'm trying to open them up in Photo Shop Elements and having some minor troubles. "Scott! Can you help me on the computer!" And he would of figured it out in 10 minutes top. I plugged away and finally figured it all out 2 hours and 3 YouTube videos later.

I miss Scott.

Nathan is at that age where he is a little tornado. Right after I clean up a certain area I turn around to find another mess. When I  have completed cleaning that area I'll turn back around and now it's messy over there. My back is starting to hurt from leaning over picking up toys, food, stuff. "Scott can you either play with Nathan or clean this area up for me?" And he would of. He'd probably take Nate to play with and I'd clean up the mess, but later that night while watching tv in bed, he'd rub my back.

I miss Scott.

I do miss all these physical things Scott does for me and the family. But I miss talking with him on the phone. I miss receiving texts from him periodically throughout the day. Nothing major has happened, I just tell him everything.

I miss Scott.

I miss my best friend.

He comes home in 24 hours from now! YEAH!

Jr. High...Say What?!

 My baby Will is 11 years old and heading to JUNIOR HIGH! Wild! He will be attending Evergreen Jr. High, just a couple blocks away from our house. We went the other day to get his class schedule, find his home room, walk around to find all his classes and to find his locker.

Here is his class schedule:
Physical Education
Science GT (Gifted and Talented)
Tenor, Chorus
CTE Intro (Shop, home economics.)
Drama
History GT
Pre Algebra honors
English GT

He has 2 classes up stairs. The stairs are right next to his locker. He plans on riding his bike to school with a few other friends. I know he'll have a great time there. I love Jr. High. I loved high even more. And I especially loved college. I'm not worried about him at all, it just makes me a little sad to see his growing into a young man.


**Side note about Evergreen Jr. High. When my mom was a little girl she lived on Evergreen (the street south of the school). She would cross the street and play in a huge field all the time. Then, they started building on that open play area. They build Evergreen Jr. High. My mom, Will's Nana, watch Evergreen being build. Now her oldest grandson is attending there!!

Sliding at the Zoo!!

The second week of vacation Jackson and Tyker had Zoo camp and the other boys went to different camps around towm. Santa Barbara offers so many wonderful camps for the boys to participate it! We sure loving spending time there!
There is this cool hill in the playground area at the zoo. People bring cardboard and can slide down the hill. Well, it's a lot of fun. We always stay for an hour or so sliding down it. FUN!!

Will is more daring and always rides the hill down while standing. Like he's snow boarding. So I gave it a try. I went very slowy inching myu way down. I do not want to fall and get injured, I have too many children to worry about!

The back side of the hill is much steeper and goes faster. It also goes much faster when you have a lot of people that go at the same time. The extra weight made us fly down! It was fun!

My mom even tried it a few times. That is a different post all in itself. Oh man, those pictures are funny!

Lucky

Look how handsome all these boys are! I am one lucky lady! Each of these magnificent boys are such wonderful blessings in my life.

Hunger Games

Meet the cast of the Hunger Games… The movie is scheduled to release in March of 2012. I am super excited for this movie to come out!!

*Jennifer Lawrence: Katniss Everdeen

*Donald Sutherland: President Snow
*Alexander Ludwig: Cato
*Liam Hemsworth: Gale Hawthorne
*Josh Hutcherson: Peeta Mellark
*Woody Harrelson: Haymitch Abernathy
 
Thanks C4U for this info!!

Boogie Boarding Fun!

 

 All the boys improved so much during our 3 weeks vacation to Southern California. We've always loved the water, but the boys spend most the time playing in the sand. We bought some more boogie boards and a skim board and they had a blast. There was a few days the waves were pretty big (3-4 ft) and they had a blast boogie boarding.

Scott (finally) joined us in Santa Barbara and boogie boarded

with us!

I was so happy to watch my boys and Scott boogie board so well and have so much fun. I taught them all everything they know! :)

Tomato Paste/Sauce

My cousin, Clareesa, taught me this delicious recipe! She makes this unbelievable tomato paste from ingredients in her garden. It's perfect for any Italian or Mexican meal. Clareesa pours the cooled mixture into these freezer pouches, but I decided to bottle mine.
I picked all this out of her garden. Tomatoes, zucchini, onions, garlic and bell peppers. I then cut them up in large chunks and tossed them into a large pot. I stewed it all together for about 30 minutes. I drained about a cup of excess water out of the pot. I then poured it into my blender (my cousin has one of those handy hand blenders and so she didn't have to pour the mixture into the blender and then back into the pot!)

Next, I added salt, pepper, garlic powder, chili powder, cumin...really whatever you can find in your pantry. Even taco seasoning would be great! I made most of the bottles of sauce the same. Then I made a batch that had a bit more Mexican flare on it. I added more chili powder, and a  jalapeno pepper. It came out so good! Then, I made a batch a little bit more with an Italian style. I added more herbs. It too turned out great! I continued to cook the paste/sauce for another 30-60 minutes. ( you can take off more water off the top if want.) I poured the mixture into warmed bottles and placed them in a water bath for 30 minutes. Easy, and so worth it! One of my jars didn't seal properly and so we had spaghetti the next night. It was the best sauce ever. It tasted great. It was all fresh from the garden and I made it!

Overall, I bottled a dozen jars of this delicious sauce/paste. I left some in Santa Barbara with my mom and the rest I brought home for my family. I can't wait my garden is ready to harvest. I plan on making a few more batches soon!

Solvang

Solvang is a cute little quaint town that is filled with small bakeries and many, many tourists. I looked like one while there as I snapped several shots of store fronts. I love going to Solvang because it's so cute. i feel like I was transported to a small village (with many tourists) in the middle of Denmark some where. I love the architect. I love the cute mom and pop stores. I love with pastry shops.  This is my FAVORITE treat. I am not even sure of it's name!

Another great thing to do in Solvang is shop at the fabric store. ALL fabric is a mere .99 cents a yard. There are several rooms with bolts and bolts of different types of fabrics. A lot of it is funky weird fabric, but I always find some material I can use. You cut your own. It's based on the honor system. I always find a few treasures there.