10 days of long summer days and fun nights

I got to take our four kiddos to California to see family about a week ago and keep thinking I better hurry and post it before it gets trumped by back to school stuff! My kids are exhausted from all the fun and sun. We swam nearly every day...nice to get a few days off. (It's hard to watch that many kids around water) Grandma was so generous and every night she would indulge the kids by honoring their requests for dessert. I have to admit, I didn't mind. I have such a stinkin' sweet tooth! We got ice cream, ice cream with cones, s'mores, rice krispy treats, some caramel shortbread brownie bars that Gma Larkin made, and we couldn't help but go for the gusto and make the Pillsbury Caramel brownies that Grandma used to show up with when she'd visit. It was a pretty funny sight to see the adults (used to be Faylor kids) sit and pick right out of the pan. Pulling a pan of these out of the refrigerator is like moths to a flame. I almost forgot that we even got birthday cake...thanks Porter! So I just had a moment to read this and realized I better hit the gym hard starting Monday. There may be calories hiding out in my body still.

Some of our favorite activities this trip were:

• Just hanging out with family and talking (always a favorite!)
• Playing Scum and Spoons
• Huddling around the oscillating fan to stay cool
• sleepovers at the Heywoods' house (thanks Mike and Amy!)
• Swimming: Doing head stands and somersaults in the pool with Aubree and watching Bryan teach Amy "special" dives...life guard dives (how to jump into the water without your head going under-Amy has great form. Maybe it's not too late for her to make the diving team for the Olympics.), the correct way to do a belly flop, and cannon balls.
• More swimming: crazy, made up games like "let's throw the aqua skimmers and try to hit each other in the face and no one's allowed to dodge the skimmers".
• duck... duck... goose(!) (Dad...picking multiple geese and no one realizing)
• Red light, Green light
• What time is it Mr. Fox? and Freeze tag
• Three legged races with the adults only. (Too bad none of the kids took pictures. Use your imagination I guess)
• Dessert EVERY night!!!!! Yummm.
• Our late night run to Nubi's with Mom, Dad, Amy, Shannon, Kaeleigh and Aubree
• Water fights
• Our Friday night camp out with tents in the backyard, s'mores included (Listening to Mike was priceless...he had "100 kids" in his tent and couldn't go to sleep, poor guy! Who knew Faylor's could reproduce so fast? It's hard when you have the coolest tent Mike. Naturally the kids are going to choose your tent...sorry!)
• The winner...Brent riding Deegan's scooter at inappropriate speeds and doing what we told every child NOT to do and watching him fly over the handle bars of a kiddie scooter to pay the price
• No wait...the real winner...watching Brent re-enact his near-death flight for everyone in slow motion! Thanks for the laughs and good times Brent.

Mike and Amy put together a slide show to music with a lot of the great pictures. Here's the link:

To see a fun slide show CLICK HERE