Super catch up- some of our summer 2013

This girl loves to dress up. She does it multiple times a day.

Loving the beach. On rare occasions Scott comes with us.

Those are our favorite beach days.

Went to the Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park.

Ryan won tickets at a drawing at his preschool and treated us to a day at the museum. We tried to watch a 4-D movie. The littlest one was all smiles until her seats started moving. We had to make an early exit.

Ryan and I went on Sea World's new roller coaster- The Manta. I was a little scared. He wasn't at all. It was a pretty good ride.

Emma also spends lots of time rocking, swaddling and feeding her babies. She'll ask you if you want to hold the baby, and then tell you 'Be careful! Two hands!' She is going to be such a good mom. 

Cousins came from Arizona and joined us at the beach.

Scott gave rock skipping lessons.

Ryan and Scott get their hair cut down the street at the $8 barber shop.

Emma likes to go because they give the kids a lollipop.

We tried potty training for one day. Zero sucessful deposits in that potty. Lots of accidents. I am dreading round two. 

We found a snake, YES A SNAKE! in our back yard. Even looking back at this picture freaks me out. Cousins were over so I tried to pretend I was all cool with it and not about to start screaming/crying. I was really proud of Ryan for holding it. He's way braver than his mom. They took it across the street and let it go by the creek. 

We went to Coronado to ride surreys. It was one of my favorite summer afternoons.

Love these people.

Love this pic- I feel like it looks like a good sized family. I can't believe we are about to double the kids. 

Cousins came! Ryan and Josie are such good little friends. Its so fun to see them play together.

Impromptu beach stop. Happened to have Emma's swim suit in the car. Ryan was not so lucky. He didn't seem to mind.

We started going to a rock gym near by. Some nights we would take Ryan. He was so awesome at it. 

Love his little leg muscles in this one. He scampers up those walls like nobody's business.

I finally conquered the bouldering wall- thats climbing with OUT ropes. 

Beach day, again. Del Mar is my favorite place to go. Clean sand and hardly any tourist. Parking is the tricky part.

Sand doesn't seem to bother this one. 

I did the Camp Pendleton Mud Run with these awesome ladies. It was something I've always wanted to do and was so excited when they called me to feel an empty spot on the team. It was such a fun race. The cleaning off part after was not my favorite... outdoor boy/girl showers, luckily most people showered with their clothes on.

We have so many pictures of this girls awesome bed head. She should win a prize.

Emma and her BFF Sadie. These two love each other SO much. It really is the sweetest thing. There's nothing more exciting I can say to Emma than, "You get to play with Sadie today!"

My great big boy snuggled into the couch and fell asleep (apparently while reading Pinkalicious.) There are only a few moments left where he seems little to me. I grab on to those and try to cement them into my memory.

Emma learned how to roll her window down. She loves to hang things out of it. Yesterday it was my sunglasses. We try to keep the window locks on.

Went for a bike ride down at the board walk in Ocean Beach. It was a beautiful day.

Ryan and his buddy Joseph, being goofballs. One of the best things I can say to Ryan is, "You get to play with Joseph today." They wrestle or chase 97% of the time they are together. They love every second.

This man makes me laugh everyday. Washing the car at the coin wash and entertaining us while we waited in the car.

Father's Day 2013

Bonfires at the beach with friends.

I turned around and they were doing this. As much as they tease and push each others buttons, they really do love each other. 

Emma and Sadie at Paint the Walls. It really was more fun than Emma's face shows.

Picking up Dad from work. I love his artwork on the wall. Those are made with lots of love from two very special artists.

For Scott's birthday we blindfolded him, loaded him up into a rented truck and went and picked up his ping pong table. For the rest of the summer our dinning room table sat in the garage while the ping pong table took up the dining room. Oh, and we don't brush Ryan's hair in the summer. He loves it.

Lots of visits from Grandpa and Grandma Possim. Here he is teaching her 'Spotted Cat.'

Scott got a pocket (?) knife from Grandpa Maxwell for his birthday. Someone is going to lose a finger, I just know it.

And with the no hair brushing plus no bathing (hey, if they go swimming thats almost like a bath) we could spin Ryan's hair into some awesome hair do's. 

Our garden did awesome this year, thanks to Scott. Lots of lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, strawberries, cilantro, raspberries, oranges, jalepenos. So delicious. Emma loved to help him.

More cousin visits. We were waiting to eat at The Fish Market, one of Ryan's favorite restuarant. Favorite because of how cool their kids menu is (lots of pages to color) and their delicious (free) bread they bring out before the meal.

One of my favorite summer pictures. We ate lots of otter pops, never brushed hair, the kids hardly wore clothes and if they did it was a bathing suit. My kind of summer!

There is still lots more... hopefully I won't take so long to post it this time!

More fun at the ranch. I was pretty convinced that I could talk Scott into moving to Enoch and living on a ranch by the end of the weekend. I was in love with ranch life- mostly with watching the fun and adventures the kids had from sun up to sun down with OUT watching TV.

This little cow kept squeezing out of the fence and we had to chase him back in.

Despite the smell, I loved all the work we got to do with all the animals.

These two little ranch hands were in heaven.

Wide open spaces, that I loved.

A mama goat gave birth 48 hours before we got there, but didn't survive the delivery. We got to bottle feed these sweet baby goats every few hours. They were so tiny and cried out like little babies. We tried to get other mama goats to nurse them, but instinctively, they would butt them away. 

The neighbors dogs had puppies. We all went over to snuggle them.

This little cowgirl was fearless. She wanted to see everything and be a part of everything.

Redneck waterslide... a giant plastic billboard. 

Emma didn't quite get the sliding aspect.

Ryan made fast friends with Allie. She showed him the ropes around the ranch. I found them chasing chickens, letting out the ponies, and jumping off the barn roof (I put a stop to that one.)

Whining Dog Ranch Rodeo

Games included- 

hula hooping, gunny sack racing, chasing cows with dollar bills taped to them (Ryan got $3!) And its a lot scarier than it seems when an animal twice the size of you is stampeding right at you. He was so brave!

There was also supposed to be a Nordstroms gift card that was tied to a bulls tail for the girls to chase. The bull was so big and mean that while they were trying to attach the gift card, the bull jumped up and over the metal fence and busted the top rail off.  None of the girls thought the gift card was worth it at that point. Plus it started pouring. There's always next year :)

 Then there was the mutton busting. Which was awesome to watch. The kids were so brave. Especially Ryan- who had just seen his cousin get tossed off was so brave and hopped right on. He stayed on for 3.7 seconds (we think). Best little mutton buster around.

These were his battle wounds... after the sheep trampled over the top of him. 

Emma made friends too :) These two would go everywhere together, sometimes holding hands.

Baby goat club.

Pony cart rides... I got to drive the cart around the neighborhood a few times. Loved it.

One adventure after another.

I really wanted to get a couple baby goats after this trip. We live in Poway, "a city in the country," perfect right? 

Scott said no way.

Took a few rides with these crazies on the ranger and again on some quads. It was awesome.

Quad trails... beautiful skies.

Ryan was fearless, again, and kept telling Hannah to be more crazy, glad Uncle Erik kept him safe.

I feel like he really came out of his shell on this trip. He was trying all kinds of new things that I would've thought he'd be scared of. I was pleasantly surprised. 

This little rugrat was in heaven.

She was a natural on the pony, and did NOT want to get off.

Thought she was a master ranger driver.

And she really wanted to take this puppy home. We almost did.

I put on some boots and helped corral/chase the huge dirty manure covered cows through sludge into a shoot to help them get medicine. 

Best day of my life!

Such an awesome trip. I think the draw I had to ranch life was how all the family would work outside together to keep things going. You would feel such a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. And I am a huge believer in the many things that hard work can teach a child. Maybe someday I'll live on a ranch, for now, I'll settle for visits to Whining Dog.