Beach Days

These are some pictures we took while in Santa Cruz with the Lesters and also at a Lake in Livermore with the Jacksons.  Some last days of summer get aways!

Apricot Picking

We have gone cherry, apricot and peach picking this year.  These pictures are of when we went apricot picking with the Lesters.  This particular picture is what happens when you attempt to can apricots and make apricot jam for the first time with your friend and completely ignore 4 boys 6yrs and younger.  I just rolled my eyes when I went outside to see what they had done.  We did have a babysitter who was "watching" them but apparently these boys are not to be trusted for a moment!  Alas my backyard was turned into a mud-pit, there were some good truck noises emitting from these little boys as well as some good laundry.  The hardest part was trying to keep them outside after they were covered in mud!

This is a calmer picture of the 4 girls we took apricot picking.  Kate, Elise Lester, Meg, and Natalie Tarantino.

Sam of course likes to climb the trees to get the best produce!

Meg picking some delicious apricots!

I really didn't know how much I enjoyed apricots until we had so many!!!  We dried them, preserved them, canned them and ate them raw!!!  I am so excited to have yummy canned apricots through the winter!  I think we ended up buying 80 lbs each!  It's so hard to buy them at the store because they are not as good and are more expensive!  We ate so many raw apricots we had the runs for a couple of weeks!  Next year I'm planting some fruit trees!

lemonade stand

Our neighbor Pat holding Alice while she looks at the craziness around her!

Lemonade for Sale!

Sam, Meg and Kate are trying to help our family buy a house in California...they realized that mom and dad needed their help so they decided to pitch in financially by hitting our neighbors up for some cash for their cause.  I hope they are planning to do this for the next 50 years, then we might be able to get into a small little something out here!

Our sweet neighbor actually caught in the act of buying lemonade from Meg.

Daily Life

We run them ragged around here!

Sam must have had a long day.  I found him sleeping in Alice's bouncy chair.

Who loves their big sister?

Summertime fun

Oh what do you do in the summer time when all the world is green?  Do you swim in a pool, to keep yourself cool, or swing in a tree up high?  Is that what you do?  SO DO I!

Do you fish in a stream, or lazily dream on the banks as the clouds go by?

Do you march in parades, or drink lemonades?

Or count all the stars in the sky?  Is that what you do?  SO DO I!

Johnson Summer Fun

Can there be anything better than a Grandpa Ramon hug?  Here is Ramon with Kate, and cousins Charlie and John Caine at Glenwood.

Will on the motorcycle, Charlie driving Sam and Ethan on the 4 wheeler in Glenwood.

Look at my beautiful Meg learning to ride a motorcycle!  Here John is trying to explain the clutch and gas to her.  I guess she could've asked Sam for the same answer, although he would probably want to explain how it all worked too.

A beautiful summer day at Grandma Patsy's with the Caine Cousins.

Meg at Bear Lake.  How we love our memories there!

Of course Sam is creating a sand trail/puddle masterpiece for his trucks.

All the craziness of summer piled into Grandpa Ramon's Pool and Grandma Patsy's tramp!

Alice and her cousin Elizabeth Whitehead watching all the chaos around them.  Elizabeth and Alice are about 2 weeks apart in age.  It is so fun to see their similarities and differences(;

Lehi Friends in Midway

I tried to gather up our old Lehi playmates to have a play time in Midway at our cabin.  I thought that it would be easier with all the kids to be able to run around there.  We had the Masers, Summers and Rex family.  It was too short and I was too deliriously sleep deprived to be much fun I'm afraid.  The kids seemed to have a great time playing together however despite my attempts to sleep through the night with a newborn and play hostess.  Sabrina took the reins in the morning and took them all to the Homestead to see the volcano.  It still makes be tired to remember how tired I was.  It was such a difficult return home for me after visiting.  I missed everything about my old life and was pretty miserable the first month back.  Additionally our house just sold this summer which made the move feel so much more permanent.  That made adjusting back to our life in Pleasanton seem even harder.

Emily, Alice and sleepy me!

Sam and Claire-bear.  Kate keeps telling me that she wants Claire to come to her birthday party.

How silly that I didn't get a group picture of everyone and that this is the only picture I have of Sabrina!  This one really is of silly TJ trying to ruin his mom's pictures and not be in any at the same time.

Meg and Shaylee.

Meg and McKenzie.

Kate, Conner and Brayden Rex.

One of Sam's Creations...a fort swing he figured out how to hang it, knot it and swing!

Sam and Calvin Summers....I still can't believe how much darker Calvin's hair has gotten!  

Below is a picture of Rachel holding Alice.  It was so wonderful to be able to make more memories with such wonderful friends.  How it made us all miss the good of days of running across the street or yards to play together.  Our distance has lengthened but hopefully our friendships will still remain throughout the years!