Father's Day

Today is a day where we are able to celebrate our fathers. I do have an awesome dad but today I would like to pay tribute to the father of our children. I am so grateful for him because he does take good care of our family. He is adventurous - that is why we do so many hikes and other things. Most of all I am grateful that I am able to stay home and take care of our kids while he fulfills his duty of providing for us. We love the daddy of our home very much! For his special day we got him a Kindle and made him a candy bar poster. He really liked both.

Family came to visit us - we were amazed!

We received a call on June 12th from Justin's twin brother saying he was going to come and visit us the next day. Sure enough on the 13th Josh his wife Kristin and their 5 kids showed up at our house at around 3 pm. Justin got off a little early and we took a trip to the museum and looked at some airplanes. They thought it was super hot here since they haven't gotten to warm yet where they live. We had a great time visiting with them until they left to go and visit more family the next day. Hooray for family visits even if they are super short.

Backpacking at Big Pine

The day after school got out (June 10), we packed up our van with our backpacks and drove to the Cannon's home to meet up with them and half of the Kimbler family to make our way north to big pine for our first adventure of backpacking as a family. We arrived at our destination at around 11 am ate some lunch stored gear in the bear boxes and then hiked a mile into our camp ground. I was grateful it was just a mile to carry a not so good backpack. We unloaded our gear and set up tents and then took off on another hike below the Palisades. It was a nice little hike. Just long enough for the kids not to get too tired. We had a little encounter with a snake that luckily I didn't see but others heard hiss at them. The kids had so much fun playing together and loved the stream and the rocks that were in our camp area. We made our backpacking style dinner of spaghetti cooked over a little backpacking stove. We also roasted marshmallows thanks to the cannons for bringing them. We ended up turning in at around 9ish because it was dark and cold. We were up fairly early and started the day with a nice bowl of hot oatmeal and a steaming cup of hot chocolate. We cleaned up and headed out on a hike which included part of the John Muir trail. We hiked up past a waterfall and then on to the rangers station where many ate lunch and we played in the pond there and the kids pretend to fish. It was so beautiful up there and a really good hike for us and the kids. We were down and back to camp and then back down to our cars by 2 pm. We then decided to drive into Bishop and eat lunch at Jack's and then got some things at the bakery there. It was then home to get cleaned up.

End of Year Parties...

On June 1st Tyler's class went to the Bowling Alley as their final and I think only field trip that they had this year. The kids on the lane that I was in charge of did pretty good bowling considering they didn't have the bumpers on their lane. Most of the kids got bored after awhile but a good deal of them stuck it out until the game was over. I myself found it rather entertaining watching these little second graders bowling. Most of them would throw the ball in the air and it would drop and slowly make its way to its target which was mainly the gutter. We would still cheer and give high fives and tell them they were doing a good job.

Mackay's class also did an end of school year party at the park, but alas I forgot to bring the camera. They had a water fight with squirt bottles and ate pizza, chips, and soda. It was a good time.

Laws Train Museum in Bishop, CA

Towards the end of May, Mackay's class took a trip up to Bishop to look around The Laws Train Museum. They have taken several buildings and trains that were around the valley and placed them at this museum. I was able to tag along as a chaperon. The kids had a good time but weren't to anxious to learn about all the things that were there. I found it interesting, but will have to take a trip back up there so that I can read and look and soak in all that you can learn from this museum.

May Happenings

For mother's day I decided that I wanted to go for a hike so Justin took us up Owen's Canyon and we went on a short hike to find some Indian writings or pictographs. We didn't find them on the 7th but had a great time with great weather. We even stopped by the Indian Wells Valley Brewery and picked up some soda's. They were really good. On the 14th we decided to try again and this time we found the pictographs. They are actually hidden a little but very impressive. On this day the wind was really blowing, but it was warm so the hike wasn't too bad. The kids were even able to play by a stream for a little while which they really enjoyed. Our kids love water. We were just happy to get out of the house for a little while and even get a little exercise.

We made it to the pictographs - May 14
Indian pictographs up Owen's Canyon

This little guys loves to get dirty...

Me and the love of my life

Happy Mother's Day to me!

Easter

Well Easter is tomorrow but we always celebrate some on the Saturday before. This year we decided to attend the Easter Egg Hunt on base. It is more of an Easter Egg gather as Tyler calls it because you really don't hunt for eggs because they are all just thrown all over the field and the kids go and grab as many as they can. In some of the shells they get candy and in others a paper to go and redeem a prize. We got some of both. We then did a cake walk and scored a carrot cake. It was a fun little outing. We also did a little Easter Egg decorating in the afternoon. We tried the Tye Dye kit they made cute eggs but in the process we also decorated our hands. Silly me, we should have worn gloves. Tomorrow we will do baskets and get our new church clothes for Easter.