And now we're back

You have a blast in Hawaii for two weeks. Tired and tan, you fly home on a red eye during which neither you nor your children sleep. Your oldest son throws up 7 times over the course of the two flights. After being home for 1 day you leave behind the mountains of laundry and drive to Twain Harte for some quality time with friends at the cabin. While there, your oldest son (poor guy) develops a 103 degree fever, so you pack up and began driving home asap in order to keep your friends' kids away from the germs. What do you do next? Call the doctor perhaps? Decide you have overstressed the kids with all the traveling and take things easy for a while? Or maybe you are like us and make a slightly less logical, though WAY more fun decision: You get a puppy on the drive home. Meet Bentley:

He's an 8 week old Boxer pup and we LOVE him. Also, my husband can NEVER blame me for the fact that we now have 2 dogs, because this was totally his rash decision. My conscience is completely clear. One minute we were driving past a sign saying "boxer pups," and the next minute I had a puppy on my lap and my husband was back on the road with a sheepish grin on his face. Awesome!

In summary, Hawaii was amazing - lots of fun in the sun and ocean with Grandma and Grandpa. Moses is sick, though it is nothing a little Tylenol can't help. And we have a new puppy. The farm just gets bigger and bigger. :)

Packed and Ready to go...

Well, we are finally ready to go on our trip to Hawaii. It has been a crazy few days of cleaning and doing laundry and packing (and getting a pedicure, haircut and spray tan. Let's be honest - it hasn't all been hard work). We'll be up before the sun and off to the airport, so I wanted to say goodbye to you all. I'm not tech-savvy enough to post remotely (laptop? what's that?) so I'll be back with lots of great pictures in a few weeks. Aloha!
(photo from Freckle's Fairy Tales on Etsy ... lots more great photos there! Check her out!)

Picky Eater Solution #1: Sweet Potato Quesadilla

My youngest son is an extremely picky eater. Thankfully, his older brother recently let him in on the wonders of the quesadilla, and this has opened up a whole new world of veggie-sneaking options for me. I mean, you can only sneak so many things into a bowl of oatmeal, but a quesadilla, now that's a different story. Today it was sweet potatoes. Looks like cheese, isn't crunchy (heaven forbid I should serve him anything crunchy!) and tastes wonderful. Why anybody would need to be sneaked sweet potatoes is beyond me ...

I also had big plans for the bag of prunes I bought today, and spent a while scheming on what I could sneak them into. (A lifetime of not eating vegetables can cause a baby to need some prunes in his life, if you know what I mean.) As I was deciding between prune muffins or prune oatmeal, Titus walked up, popped one in his mouth, loved it, and asked for more. That was easy! If any of you bloggy friends have more suggestions on how to get veggies into this boy, let me know! (I have THE BOOK already ... and it's helpful for kids who eat the regular things like cheese and casserole, noodles, etc. but not for the kid who will only eat berries and crackers and would rather starve than take a bite of something new. Hm.) I am actually contemplating making Kale Chips, ala The Smitten Kitchen. Who knows - maybe it will work!

Wait - what time is it?

Moses (as he asks multiple times every day): Mom, can I have a piece of gum?
Me: Sure.
Moses (with a gasp): Is it ONCE-IN-A-WHILE?

Weekend Away

How was your fourth of July? We celebrated by taking a REAL weekend away - as in: we left on Friday morning and got home on Monday night. We spent most of our time with Brett's parents in Twain Harte, and then took a day trip to Kennedy Meadows on Monday. Brett has many fond memories of camping there as a kid wanted me to see the setting to so many of his stories. It was breathtaking! We parked at the "lower meadow" and hiked a short distance to the "upper meadow" and spent the day along the river fishing, eating a picnic lunch, playing in the water, chasing butterflies, and basically marveling in the vastness of God's creation. These pictures don't portray how HUGE everything was - I honestly felt dwarfed.

Brett and Moses took a log ride down the river - definitely a highlight of the excursion!

Titus spent a lot of time playing with the "tiny rocks" along the edge of the river. I thought it was funny that he wasn't very interested in the big rocks but was thrilled by the small ones - the tinier the better.
Here is my father-in-law fishing in the river - this picture sort of captures how small we were in comparison to the mountains, water, trees ... everything. It was awesome! I definitely recommend taking a trip to Kennedy Meadows. It is very doable with kids and well worth the drive. (You can also rent little sleeper cabins at the lower meadow if you want to stay for a few nights. Again - it would be worth the money!) I hope you enjoyed your weekend too!

Speechless (but I won't let that stop me!)

I have tried writing a post to match this picture for a long time now. I type something, delete it, think ... type something else, delete it. Sometimes blogs feel so narcissistic. I wish I had something wonderful to offer you in this post. Maybe a cool craft idea to do with your kids or a great money saving trip you could take or some decorating or fashion advice (snort)... but that is where I am a poor blogger. I don't do my homework and just rely on my life to entertain you. And since I stayed up WAY too late chatting it up with my gals over pie and coffee last night, I can't even think of anything funny or even gross (there's a first) to tell you about. But I did take this picture a few days ago - raspberries picked from our garden in a bowl hand made by our neighbor sitting in the rose bush. The colors and lighting remind me of Bali (and THAT reminds me of a few stories I could tell you ... but I'll save them for a different time). Have a happy summer weekend everybody!

** Addendum: our neighbor wasn't sitting in the rose bush when he made the bowl... the bowl is sitting in the rose bush as it holds the raspberries. Sheesh.