Catch-Up

I have a lot of things I want to catch up on so this will be a long one...

First off, we had a great Fourth of July hanging out with my brother and his family. The girls especially enjoyed getting their faces painted (a first) at a BBQ we went to. These are the only pictures I have from the day.

Elizabeth's patriotic rainbow

I was impressed Natalie could hold still long enough to get hers painted.

After a very late night of fireworks, they even went to bed with painted faces. I was just glad that it washed off Sunday morning.

This past week we've enjoyed having Grandma Marsha with us. She just left this morning and the girls were sad to see her go. We packed in a lot of stuff and had a fun week together. This was kind of our family reunion for the summer since we aren't able to go to either one of our family reunions because of my pregnancy issues.

We had a great day on Friday. First we went to one of my favorite beaches in Aptos. It was a perfect day and not too crowded either.

Grandma and Natalie

Lizzie and I had fun swimming out in the ocean

After I came in from swimming, we saw a bunch of dolphins really close to the shore where I had been. I've always wanted to be close to a dolphin. Someday...

Here's us digging in the sand

Elizabeth loved being buried, as you can tell :)

Natalie had to join in the fun

The cool sea cliffs

Some more random pictures

After the beach, we did the 17 mile drive around Pebble Beach. It was fun to stop and see all of the seals and sea lions (maybe if you click on this picture you can see all of them). Natalie loved listening to them bark.

We tried to get the girls to pose for pictures but they wouldn't stop making silly faces.
I must say that the pictures turned out pretty cute, though.
Here's Daddy and Lizzie in front of the "Lone Cypress", the symbol of Pebble Beach. Joe's even wearing his Pebble Beach golf hat with the tree on it.

Here's some more highlights from our time with Grandma.

Enjoying some ice cream cones together

Grandma spent most of her time patiently reading story after story and playing game after game with the girls. Here they are enjoying one of Grandma's favorites Make Way for Ducklings.

We love you, Grandma Marsha!

Thank you for visiting us.

Fourth of July

We had a fun 4th of July yesterday. The day started with a little parade in our area that was only a few blocks from our house. It was fun for the kids, mostly because they got almost as much candy as they would on Halloween. These are some of the highlights:

Walking to the parade

Seeing KJ! He is now running for mayor of Sacramento. Unfortunately, the camera was turned off when I tried to take a picture of him waving at us. So, all I got was his back. It's him--I promise. Joe and I wanted to yell, "We always picked you on NBA Jam!" but alas, we didn't. :) Click here if you have no idea who this is and actually care to know.

Enjoying candy and waving.
The library had this cute float entitled, "Curious George for President".

This band was fun to listen to while the man with the umbrella did a little jig. He was nice enough to pose for me.

We love parades!

This one was taken at home later. Natalie loved the necklaces she got but did NOT want me to take a picture. The sound byte to go along with this picture is her yelling "No!" Isn't she cute when she's mad?

That night, we went with my brother and his family to watch fireworks on a local high school football field. We had a good view and the kids had fun running around and staying up late. These pictures are all blurry due to the lack of light but I think they look kind of cool.

Lighting sparklers and looking like they've been caught.

Holding their glow sticks

I like this picture of our newest niece Lily.
Playing with sparklers!

It was a fun, tiring night. It was worth it, though, to snuggle up with the girls and watch them in awe of the fireworks while trying to explain the purpose of the holiday with Elizabeth tuning me out :). Hope everyone had a Happy Fourth of July! I'm so thankful to be an American and to have the freedoms that I do because of the sacrifices of so many.