Locks of Love

Guess who got her hair cut?! She had been asking me for many weeks if she could "cut all her hair off!" I was a little sad to see the long hair go, but it really is so much nicer short, easy for her to take care of herself (which she wanted!) and it seems much thicker which is nice too. She was just about a half an inch too short to have her hair used for "Locks of Love" to make a wig for a child with cancer, but we can still send the hair in and they will sell it to offset costs of the wig making, so still a great donation!

Mr. Hans got to spend the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa O all by himself!! A first for him. I can't even believe how much I missed him :( When he returned I asked him if he missed mama and he said "NO! I want to go back to Grandpa's!" Boo for me but good, I'm glad he had so much fun and can have fun without us! The three of them got to have a little birthday party for Hans while he was there, here's what the truck looks like all put together Grandma and Grandpa! THANK YOU for everything!!

Miss Gracia has been getting a taste of what will come in a month, a lot of alone time with mom! The big kids had VBS this past week at one church and may go again to another church next week! We are official VBS hoppers! :) The kids have SO MUCH FUN, this last week was just such a great program and the church running it does a fabulous job! Gracia doesn't seem to mind alone time with mom either ;) She loves to play beauty shop and cook for me! She particularly loves when she gets alone time with DAD! The smile never leaves her face!

Last Sunday when my parents dropped Hans off we snapped a picture, didn't turn out too bad!

Jeremy has front yard pictures that I couldn't find tonight but here is the side-yard out our patio door. My rhubarb is actually coming back, ha! I have 4 red tomatoes so far and Damaris is a big help in taking care of the strawberries in this raised garden. They really like it in our nice "Trask :)" dirt. By next year we should have some good sized strawberries. Yum.

Happy Fourth of July!

This actually looks a lot better in person :/  The kids love it!

Waiting for the parade to start with a good book!

  

It's been a fun, tiring day!

Supper

Mom, I wish you were here for supper, I think you may have appreciated this:

more than my dinner companions!  I thought it was terrific myself, jury is still out for Jeremy, he's not home yet.  

UCSB Grad!

Extremely proud of you Kayla, way to go!

Happy Birthday Blaire!

Hans would like to wish his godfather a very happy birthday!  And thanks for the sweet SWAT team garb!

Mint anyone?

Gretchen, these are for you, look how well my Mint is doing?!!  I had Gretchen cut off some of her mint plant when we were in CA, not thinking that I would be able to get it through security first of all, not to mention getting it to grow!!  But it's doing great!  Notice the pic of Hans and I in the background! :)  That frame was his Christmas gift to me, he picked it out at the school "Christmas shopping" event, the kids get to shop through donations that parents bring in, everything costs between 25 cents and $4.  I'd say he did pretty good!

Gretchen and I also picked out these frames in CA for our 2008 Christmas in CA.  I took each kids' picture under Brian and Gretchen's palm tree in their front yard, unfortunately you can't see the tree, they even had huge Christmas ornaments in it!  And of course the kids are wearing their Christmas in CA tees!

Thursday Thrills

I just got a FULL tank of gas (my empty light had been flashing for two days!) for $3.13!!  No joke!  It pays to collect the stamps they give you at the grocery store and spend the time pasting them onto the little sheets, that's $30.00 of FREE GAS!!  Whoo hoo!

A fine Friday morning

I think I'm starting to get some Spring fever with these gorgeous two days we've had, I am SO THANKFUL for the warm up, (even if it's just to 35!!)  Only in this territory would you see kids coming to school in shorts and without jackets/hats/mittens when your car thermometer reads 31 degrees at 8 am.  Seriously, I saw it this morning.  Anyway spring fever or just because I have to, we are cleaning this morning.  Hans asked for my "duster" (that I don't really care for, but the kids like to use it to "clean") and he asked for the MP3 player, I had to snap a picture of this, it is totally not posed.

Gracia's busy with "letters."

Last week Damaris sewed a pillow for her new Webkinz, it turned out so cute.  Hans decided he wanted one too so here he is sewing!  He will be as well rounded as his dad I hope.

It's a froggy pattern inside.

And poor Damaris is at school taking a spelling test and a math test today.  It's hard to get old! :)

At the Beach

Ahhhh... look at these pictures and think warm, happy thoughts!  I'm actually off to the pool right now with Gracia (I WISH it was the beach...)  so it's just pictures for now, enjoy!

Cousins

This picture made me so nervous, it's better if I'm not around when they do stuff like this.

The Cousins plus two, Maile and Chrysa.

And the cousin, plus wife and child that we SO missed!  We were all so bummed not to have you there, Aric, Danielle and Christian.  Next time.

Hair and Makeup

Is this not precious!!  This is Jeremy's oldest brother Eden, he's helping Gracia out with her makeup application!

Gretchen is amazing at so many things, one of her talents being hair cutting, she really should be a beautician.  She cut Gracia's hair, Brady's, mine, colored Jessie's and Zack's and gave Jess some great new bangs.  If she would have been paid for these services, she would have raked it in!  Too bad we're family...  By the way, I love my haircut Gretchen, I'll need another one in a month or two, just to let you know... should I come to your shop, or will you come to mine?  ;)

Like mother, like daughter!

LA Zoo

The Zoo Crew!

Zack is the sweetest "older than Hans" boy I know!  Hans LOVED having him around and loved that Zack paid such great attention to him.  Thanks Zack!

Flamingos, do you know why they are pink?

Flamingos??

These giraffe were so close, they literally could have reached over and pecked Jessie and Maile on the head!

Not sure if I have ever seen a rhino before, they look so rough and ugly, and are huge!