What's taking you so long?

I haven't blogged for a long time and I could waste a bunch of time here telling you why, but instead of make you listen to that, I have decided to treat you to pictures of my beautiful kids!

Our family vacation in August was a whirlwind of Oregon activites, we spent time in Medford visiting Grandma and Grandpa Noble and I got to go to a Dirtclod reunion. It was so neat to hang out with some of those old friends again...Thanks again Craig, Jeanette and Darelyn for all your hard working planning it.
In Portland we got to visit the Markers, our old couple friends from BYU. It was so much fun because all our kids are almost exactly the same age and play really well together. Hoever, I suppose that Kelly's kids play well with just about everyone. We got to go to Dallin's soccer practice with him and Nate got to kick the ball around with the other kids, even though he wasn't part of the team. He had a really good time, but he got frustruated because he wanted to be great at it without any practive. He's a perfectionist in some areas for sure.

Jeff and Kelly were nice enough to take us out on their boat for some waterskiing...however, the kids tried to ride the tubes, but ended up getting dunked on the first time out, and Nate was so traumatized that he refused to try again. Too bad, maybe next time things will go better.

Then we went to Redmond to visit the Sean and Amanda Cowley family and the cousins had an awesome time camping in the tent in the back yard and making smores. Jared and Sean got treated to a round of golf by Uncle Cliff and got schooled! Then it was off to Myrtle Point for some river camping with the Hyrum and Tiana Johnson family. The trip was awesome, we love reconnecting with family and great friends, and we had a ton of fun.

One of our favorite family traditions!

Okay, so prepare yourselves for a lot of pictures. Last week the Cowley family participated in one of our favorite family traditions. We spent a day at the Sonoma County Fair. They have so much neat stuff, and each year they have a day where the ride tickets are only $1, and each ride is only 1 ticket, so we go. We can make a great day out of it and everyone in the family gets their fill of rides for under $60!

This year they had this amazing real life garden display that filled a whole barn, but it also had miniature models too. The models aren't really miniature, just scaled down, but it was really fun and the kids couldn't believe how good it smelled in there. The new family picture at the top of the blog was taken here in front of the model of the lighthouse. In the picture below, you can kind of see the model of the old Mill and the wheel. I love this picture, the girls look so sweet, but Nate was too worried that Kimmy was going to fall off the ledge, that we couldn't catch him looking at the camera.

Every year the giant slide is one of our favorite rides. You can really get moving with that burlap sack under you!

Dana and I had a great time going down while holding hands. She needed a little reassurance the first time, but she went on it alone the next 3 times!

This is actuallythe first ride that Nate and Dana went on, and it was really tame compared to some of the others. The picture is a little small, but you can actually see how they both look bored.
This was my personal favorite ride. Nate and I went on it together. It's called the Cliff Hanger, and you lay down flat and soar through the air like you are attached to a hang glider, but we both felt more like Superman! It was awesome. We went almost as high as the top of the huge tree in the background.

I have to be honest, when we go to the Fair, I kind of always expect there to be some sort of meltdown with at least one of the kids. This ride actually triggered the only meltdown of the day, and it was Dana who had it. It wasn't really her fault though. This ride was called the Super Shot, and we had all gone on a smaller version of it earlier in the day, several times in fact. It would take us up about 15 feet and then drop us 10 feet really fast and repeat that about six times. Dana LOVED it! When Nate and Jared saw the big one, that took you up about 100 feet and dropped you 90 feet really fast, Dana couldn't decide if she wanted to go on it. I told her she didn't have to go on it. After getting in and out of line 3 times, at the last second she decided she really did want to go, so I let her, since she was sitting right next to Jared. Well, that turned out to be a mistake, because by the time the drop was finished, she was crying hysterically! It was just too high and scared her too much. However, 10 minutes, a merry-go-round, and some cotton candy later she had forgotten the whole incident!

Here the big kids are again waiting for and then going on the Bumblebee ride. I think you can see the boredom better in this picture.

Kimmy was a great sport about the whole day. She only got to go on the Ferris Wheel with the whole family, but she happily and patiently hung out in her stroller all afternoon, giggling at the big kids having fun on their rides. She is such a sweetie!

The theme of this year's Fair was something along the lines of revisiting our patriotic heritage...So here are Nate and Dana as Paul Revere warning the colonists that the British are coming!

We even got to teach them about our country's early prison system by putting them both in the stockades!

Here's Nate popping a wheelie on one of the rides, while Kimmy (below) is smiling and loving the show!


One of the last rides the kids went on was the Raging River canoe ride. They thought it was awesome that they got to captain the canoe all by themselvese. It was only in about 10 inches of water, but it was cool, it was pushed by jets around a little obstacle course.
They even got to get a little wet.

It was such an amazing day. The weather was nice and there was a cool breeze. There was no arguing, and when it was time to go, everyone happily trotted out to the parking lot without a single complaint! I love my family! One of the things that I always really admired about Jared's family while we were dating, and even now, is that his siblings all got along so well. They rarely fought or said unkind things to each other. I feel proud that our own little family is following in their footsteps as well. It brings me so much joy to see Nate and Dana prefer to spend time with each other most of the time than with their friends. Nate always allows Dana to participate in his games, and vice versa. I love to hear Dana say to him in her make-believe play, "Come on Nate, I made it a two player game just for you!" They are even sweet and mindful of Kimmy, even though she can't quite play in the same way yet.
This picture is from last November, but I wanted to post it here because Kimmy didn't get enough face time in this post, and I think she looks so beautiful in this picture!

Kimmy's Walking Everywhere!

So, our little baby girl is finally walking. Kim actually started walking several weeks ago, but she is finally stable enough to catch on camera. She is so good that she is not scared of walking out on our new patio which is made of pebbled concrete, so it's not the softest.

She even goes so fast that I had a hard time getting far enough in front of her to get a picture of her face. She is always smiling and laughing so big because she is so proud of what she is doing!

I love this one because you can see her mid step, even if it is from behind.

This is what our new patio looks like. Mom and Dad, doesn't it look so much better? As you can tell the kids LOVE it because they can ride their bikes all around now, and I have a place to sit and read while I watch them, or while I watch Jared barbecue! YUM!

This is Dana with our little neighbor boy, Lulu. He is Native American and has the most beautiful features!

I love this picture. Nate decided to take Kimmy on a ride on the little blue truck that used to belong to him when he was her age. I have a picture of Nate riding this with Dana when they were both in diapers! (I can't find it though, or I would post it here).

I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but Kimmy is actually LOVING playing with Nate right here. They get along so good! It makes me so happy!

See how Nate has grown. The distance from his hips to his knees is long enough for his knees to drag on the ground when scooting on the blue truck.

This is Dana and her sweet little friend next door, Sylvanna. She is almost exactly one year older than Dana, but they get along really good and love to play together.
Here they are riding the bikes while Lulu is getting into mischief on the stairs.
We love our new patio! Thanks to Felicia who made it happen, you are awesome!

Oh, I wish I were an Ocsar Meyer Weiner!

So, I was out and about the other day, and what did I run into but the Oscar Meyer Weiner-Moblie! I thought the kids would find it funny, so I took a few pictures.

Nate seriously laughed for almost 5 minutes when he saw the picture of me looking like a hot dog! They were so jealous they didn't get to see it too! Maybe next time....

My Current Favorite Picture of Jared

This picture was taken by Dana. Enough said.

So, since our 4th of July outing was so successful, I decided to take the kids the next night up to Monte Rio, a little town in the Redwoods a few miles from the beach, the next night. It's right on the Russian River, and they were having their annual celebration on the 5th. It consisted of a "River Parade," which was a parade done at night on the river where the boats are decorated like parade floats and are decked out with all kinds of lights. After the parade, which was kind of more like a flotilla, they did a water curtain from the bridge, where they showed all kinds of patriotic images to music. Then they had a small fireworks show to cap it all of. It was cool because the picture above is of the hotel on the opposite bank of the river from where we were sitting. I tried to take the pictures of it at night, but they turned out terrible, so we went back on Monday, when Jared didn't have to work, on our way to the beach. Anyway, right there where they do the "river parade" the river is really calm and shallow and on the beach there is a concession stand, some other flea market/craft fair type of stands, and a place to rent canoes or kayaks or rafts for the afternoon. We are definitely going back next year and spending the day it was so much fun!
This is Kim feeling patriotic in the car on the way up.
One of our favorite things to do as a family since we moved to California is go to the beach together. We totally lucked out when we went on Monday because we found this little secluded beach that was down the cliff in a cove that was only occupied by 2 couples at each end of the beach. Since it was sort of in a cove, we were protected from the wind and it was actually pretty warm for once! Jared took Nate and Dana out to chase the waves while I held Kimmy in the Snuggli and we looked for treasures in the sand.

Nate and Dana both loved the seaweed that was washed up on the beach because it has these huge bulbs that are like full of air that enable it to float on the surface of the water. They love to squish them. Plus, since Nate got his Indiana Jones Legos video game, he loved to pretend it was a whip.
Dana was busy digging for treasures too. She found several half shells she liked, plus a penny.
Dad to a break from all the wave chasing to snuggle with Kimmy, and it was the highlight of her afternoon.
I don't know what is up with the kids doing all kinds of weird poses when I try to take pictures of them together...I think they think it is cute.
It was an awesome day!