First Day

                                                                            First Day of School.

Ash started Kindergarten and Rayah 2nd- both thrilled with their teachers and excited about the new year.  Rayah was a little bummed about not having her buds in class but you can be sure during lunch they all hooked up again at their "special" table.

Ash was super excited to start K and wished it was all day like the older grades.  We are still in a major copy cat season right now but at least the one she is copying behaves herself most of the time:).  Ellie also thought that she should go to class but after a trip to gym for donuts from the Parent's Club she was satisfied with school and off to errands we went.

Ash and one of her buds, Hannah, who is in the same class with her.

Wedding Weekend

 
Jeff had the privilege of preforming 2 weddings in the same weekend which the girls thought was the greatest ever.  They were able to attend both weddings, dress up, eat yummy food, dance all night long, have cake, bring home a treat and go to bed late...what more could you ask for.  Then the next weekend we had my sister-in-law's reception and we got to party all over again.  WOOHOO!  Mommy's feet are tired:)

Cat Drama

So the other day as we were getting out of the pool from swim lessons we had a visitor checking out our backyard.  The cats have finally been let out after Poppy's last deathscapade and have been doing well staying outdoors during the day and not visiting the german shepherd next door.  Apparantely our cats looked good or a neighbor had something dead in it's backyard 'cause all I know is this fine feathered friend decided to have flying lessons over our dirt for about 10 minutes.  After the first 2 flyovers I quickly grabbed the cats and quarantined them to the garage for the rest of the day....maybe our friend Steve was right when we told him Pete (our first kitty) was gone he rose his arms and started saying "brrraaaaawwk, braaaawwccck".  Turkey vultures!
  (Random trivia:  my 6th grade teacher's husband had something to do with the development Blackhawk (for you non-bay are residents Blackhawk is for the rich and richer) and she told us that they named it that because of the black "hawks" that flew over ...in actuality they were turkey vultures which kinda changes the prestige of such a community don'tcha think?:))

If death by vulture wasn't bad enough our sweet Poppy decided to go tree climbing the other day.  At first it was innocent and fine 10' and back down and then back up....and then Callie (the shepherd next door) decided to stop by the fence for some neighborly greeting time and up, up, up went Poppy.  At 20 feet Jeff tried to coax her down gently with the pool skimmer, she went higher.  As evening came I started having visions of the poor old lady who called the fire department to come get her kitty out of the tree and I was going to be the poor old lady.  Isn't that like an urban legend or something?  I mean if a cat can get up a tree, can't it in theory be able to get back down....well finally at 8o'clock as twilight was setting in we decided the theory was still a theory and in practicality the dumb cat needed to get down or face death by falling or death by raccoons.  She by this point has climbed to the top of our small Redwood (praise God she went for the runt tree like herself) and she had perched herself between a couple branches and had started serenading the court with a pathetic cry for help meanwhile Callie was running the length of the fence barking happily and waiting for it to rain cats. Poppy wasn't coming down.
I humbled myself to begging and calling her "sweetie" and "honey" and telling her what a good idea it would be to come down and that I was there to catch her and bring her back to safety. I bribed her with food, with her brother who was safely in the garage (to which she could have cared less) and anything and everything I could think of.  She looked as if she wanted to come down and tried to climb out to get thru some of the branches but the minute she felt a bit unsafe it was back to the middle she went.  So after 10 minutes of coaxing we got the pool skimmer out again and attached another pole to it with a bungee cord and painters tape- you use whatcha got and up, up, up it went.  Jeff stood on the top tower of the girls' play structure and I gave him directions as the poor guy couldn't see anything from his vantage point.  All to say after 20 minutes we got her head into the skimmer which forced her to fall, uuuhhummm I mean float to a few "soft" branches below, or fall about 6feet and get stuck by her hind legs to have us try and grab her again to which she "floated" another few feet to some more branches and then finally ended up feet first on the pool deck.  Cats are pretty amazing.  Nothing hurt, scooped up, loved on and quickly shut into the garage for the night and hopefully for some teasing from her brother and time to think about her actions so SHE NEVER DOES THAT AGAIN!

Sam safely in the garage while sis is out for an adventure

Girls and dirt

I love that my girls can spend all day in the backyard. I love that after only a couple minutes outside they can come running into the garage to get something and look like this...It is amazing at how quickly a face can go from clean to dirty and back to clean again but always cute:)

Millers and Mexico

3 years ago Jeff's parents mentioned that they would like to take the family on a vacation to their timeshare and we thought what a great idea but kinda forgot about it until the end of last year when it became a reality. This past June, after saving points for 3 years, Jeff's parents took us all to Puerto Vallarta, MX. We had a blast! We each had our own rooms, and we met for dinner a couple of times and then went to Walmart and stocked up for individual family meals. The resort was beautiful, the weather was great (a bit hot if you left the ocean breeze), the whole week was a vacation and much needed in looking back over our last 2 months.

Ellie being a big girl on the plane- decided against napping even with some Benadryl for encouragement. Ash and Tia Colie were the best of friends- Ash got nicknamed "shadow"

Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta and Dad truly living the word, VACATION

We had a couple fun things planned throughout the week and one was to go out into the Bay with a Marine Biologist who would track down dolphin pods and then we got to get in the water and swim around them. They were a little shy because of their babies but Erik got bumped into by one and Jeff had them right below him. We were so close so even if you were in the boat you had a fabulous time. The babies were so much fun to see and it was just a great trip!

"Papa La Bamba" and Eliana-- a love /leave me alone relationship

This is her reply to Papa La Bamba wanting her to come in the water....gotta love the belly.

Rayah and Ash became fish this trip and it was so nice to have a warm pool and warm weather after our foggy summer.

The obligatory "white & beach" pictures- we had fun with them:)

The girls got their hair braided the last day while Jeff, Erik,Jon, Colie and I went on an adventure tour ( 6 hours of a speed boat, jeep ride, mule and zip lines in the Sierra Madres...awesome!). I was thinking it would stay in for 2 weeks ....Rayah and Eliana's started coming out within 1 1/2 weeks-- rubberbands popping open. Ashlyn on the other hand (I think the bangs helped) stayed in for 1 1/2 months. It was great - brush and go!

Give the girl a cookie and she will do almost anything:)