Oh, What Do You Do in the Summertime???

Do you sit by a stream, and lazily dreem on the banks as the clouds go by??? Is that what you do?? So do I! Only we do it mostly at the beach here! And we swim in the pool to keep ourselves cool... does anyone recognize the song I'm sing-typing??

These are the Braeden's! Mine is on the left. They were digging quite the hole.

This is Lexi on the left and her friend, Emma. Emma and Braeden are siblings. We had taken their family and checked them in at the beach camping site on Camp Pendleton. They stayed for 5 days!!! In the SAND!!! That's even more than I can do. And they have 7 kiddos! So we went several times to hang out with them for a while.

She's much more worried about the sand on her hands than the picture being taken!

And I'm not sure if you can see it, so click on this and blow it up... she's got sand on more than just her hands.
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One day... I can't even really remember when... a week and a half ago, I guess, Vinny came over and wanted to play. His grandma was here, so he wasn't at daycare. And he brought a sprinkler ball. The kids had a great time, and we decided that the car in the driveway REALLY needed to be washed, so we washed Daddy's car in honor of his upcoming birthday!

But... as you'll see, that's apparently not all we did. It turned into MUCH more than that!

This is sidewalk chalk. Vinny and Lexi decorated Braeden with it. Lovely, eh?

Even his back.

And Lexi is having fun getting ready to dowse him in water to wash it all off. Might I just say that even though it just washes off the driveway VERY easily... it does NOT come off skin as well. Why is that?

This has got to be one of my FAVORITE summertime pictures!

Lexi has NO mercy. I'm not sure how many breaths he got in, but he ended up running away from her.

And this is how they do it. They draw on the sidewalk, get it wet, and then SMEAR it on!

And yes... Braeden is just hanging out in the gutter. Lovely.

And Lexi painted herself like a LION!

And Ella dumped out all the pea seeds. So there are probably sprouts at the end of the culdesac somewhere! I found bean sprouts in the grass all over in the backyard... Hmmm.... I wonder how they got there!!

Yikes!

Is that kid STILL in the gutter?? Eeewww, GROSS!!

And after a while, Ella follows suit... in painting herself. Nice.

And then she just sat in the smearing puddles of chalk. It doesn't come out of clothes very easily, either. Pink/red especially.

The finished, SHINY product! Braeden commented that it was the shiniest he had ever seen Daddy's car. Probably not far from the truth! Ha!
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2 Wednesday's ago, we went to the beach with Vinny and his family, too.

Yes, that's Vicky on her Blackberry... at the BEACH! Silly girl! And Vinny's gma is on the right.

Vicky and Alex, with Braeden in the front. Vinny was not too excited about the beach water that day. So he and Ella spent a lot of time up under the umbrella admiring the view, and the wildlife... squirrels and lizards!

Then Ella started collecting rocks and shells out of Lexi's stash!

And Braeden was such a good helper... he was the seaweed patrol, so that we didn't catch as much while boogie boarding! (FYI, I finally caved and bought 3 kid boogie boards... because we are always just borrowing others... and Vicky let them use her's this particular day!)

Notice the long strand of seaweed?

Alex and Ella... who finally got totally into the beach! Yay! She even stood IN the water by herself without freaking out and started jumping little waves! A major MILESTONE, for sure! And I don't have pictures because I still had to be right there!

Alex is working very hard with this shovel! Reminds me of the DOT workers! J/K

And somehow I ended up with a "TAIL"... thanks to Lexi! She said that next time we could use a couple of bobbypins and make doggy ears out of them for me! How nice of her! (And sorry about the indecent exposure... )

We built a smashing castle with a mote around it... bridges and everything! Lexi, Braeden, and Vinny did the decorating!

Ella's checking out Braeden's pile of seaweed.

Uh-oh... it's coming down! And fast!

Ella loves the baby powder that I bring to the beach. A friend clued me in on one of the best things... baby powder makes the sand just fall right off!

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Vicky and I have been hanging out a lot! We have such a good time. We took Braeden and Vinny to a Storm baseball game. They had a Mom & Son event sponsored by the city of Temecula. It was a blast. We left Alex, Ella, and Lexi with Vicky's mother-in-law. She was sooo nice about it, but just imagine the WORST possible experience, and then times it by at least 10... and you'll have somewhat of an idea of the fun she had with Ella and Lexi. I felt so bad, but I have to say that I did have a lot of fun! Thanks, Cathy!

After a picnic on the terrace before the game started, we got to enjoy JUMBO, warm chocolate chip cookies! Mmmmm... yummy!

We're not really this great of fans! But they were throwing out frisbees, so I put Braeden up here to get their attention! And they actually threw one to us, but before I could let go of Braeden and grab it, a middle-aged NASTY, trouble-maker of a man... who had already been rude to other people, ran right in front of us and grabbed it... and then had a nasty Wicked Witch of the West laugh about it. Oh... can I just say how much self-restraint I had to have!???????
And then to top it off, his nasty little daughter, ran over and grabbed a baseball out of another kids hands... and he had almost broke his finger trying to catch it and hang onto it. Ooooohhhh! People like that need to be throttled!!!!!!!!!! (AND then he and his wife kept turning around and giving ME dirty looks... I couldn't hold back... I gave them the stink-eye, too! It would rival one of Ella's!)

After the game, the kids got to run the bases! Fun stuff!

All in all... we had a great time!

You have to look close, but there's a wire-net statue of a baseball player in the background!

And there you have it!!! I am FINALLY all caught up! Yay for ME!!!!!