Mother's Day 2013

When I posted about May I hadn't uploaded any Mother's Day pics. Here are the photos from our relaxing, beautiful Mother's Day at Benbow Inn. Going to Benbow Inn is a tradition my family started when mom was pregnant with me 34 years ago and has continued throughout the years. The weather was perfect...I honestly have a hard time remembering a Mother's Day when it wasn't gorgeous there. It's amazing how you can drive such a short distance from Fortuna/Eureka and immediately find weather that is soooo much nicer! Visits to Humboldt (80% of the year) make me appreciate the great (season appropriate) weather we are accustomed to in Sonoma County. :)

Jordyn chatting with Nonni

Hannah excited for Nonni to read the "singing" card she picked out

enjoying the sun with my girls

Jordyn tasting the grass :)

she loves her Auntie

 The following are a series of attempts at a picture of the 3 girls, none of which resulted in all three of them looking at the camera smiling, however I love the sweet expressions these photos captured.  I just love these three girls!!

Hannah admiring her flower  :)

the little ones escaping as Hannah shows off her flower

Like father like daughter :)

Nonni and her girls

Love my sweet 4 year old

Hannah smelling the flowers

Jordyn tasting the flowers

 Words cannot describe how much I love my mom. She is such a nurturing Nonni to our girls & a supportive and loving mother to Nicole and me. Our girls adore her! Her playfulness, the way she makes the smallest task seem adventurous to them, her creativity, generosity, gentle ways and never ending love. She has always been there for Nicole and I, always making sure that our happiness is her utmost priority. She is so selfless....I strive to be as great of a mother and (someday) grandmother as she is!

Summertime!!

Summer's here and we couldn't be more excited!!I've said it before and I'll say it again, we are SO FORTUNATE to both be teachers and have the same wonderful work schedule. I can't imagine it any other way, sometimes I just have to stop and reflect on how lucky we really are. We've started off summer with a mix of both fun and productivity, two birthday parties, cleaning out the garage followed by a trip to Good Will, getting caught up on laundry, twice swimming in our next door neighbor's pool and once in our friend's pool, the girls have slept in til 7:45 every day and 8:15 today. I love feeling so rested, productive and full of happiness because I'm able to spend so much quality time with my family. Despite all of the fun busyness that we have planned into our summer, having lazy mornings with all 4 of us is my absolute favorite thing about summer. It's also so nice to actually have time to go to the gym (Hannah loved riding her bike to the gym along side of me while I ran the other day).  I love not knowing what day it is because EVERY day feels like Saturday!

This summer we have many fun things planned as a family: 

~June~

• visit to Fortuna (just the girls and & me Josh is working at the Bohemian Grove)
• daytime date just the two of us ziplining through the redwoods
•  camping trip to Lake Trinity with our friends from Sonoma County
• Petaluma Fair (one of our favs)
• family trip (Just the 4 of us) to Monterey 
•   camping trip to Ruth Lake (with our Humboldt friends & family). 

We are excited to get our boat out on two new lakes this summer. This will be Josh's first time on both of these lakes as well. Crazy to think we are home a total of 11 days this month! Love our ability to travel so much, yet I know we'll love just as equally those 11 days at home relaxing. :)

~July~ 

• Spa Day for Karina's Bachelorette Party @ Golden Haven Spa
• 4th of July with my family coming here for a visit
• Karina and Mike's wedding = night out for Josh and I
• Nicole & I taking our parents to Fleetwood Mac (SO excited to finally check this off my Bucket List)
• "Tuesday game nights" in the park with our Sonoma County friends...games, dinner, drinks and lots of fun with friends...each week it ranges from 15-30 of us (because so many of us are teachers, years back we started a tradition during summer that starts in June & ends once school starts back up at the end of August)
• trip to the Discovery Museum in Sausalito
• Rodeo weekend in Humboldt....missing Josh :(
 

~August~

• 6 Flags/Discovery Kingdom
• Annual Union Valley camping trip
• San Francisco Zoo with Nicole, Sean and Lilly
• Weekend away with my softball gals to Beach House in Bodega Bay

• Hannah begins soccer practice for her first soccer league :) 

 I hope the next 70 days go by soooo slowly! We look forward to many fun & busy days AND many slow & relaxing days with our girls this summer. Have I mentioned how much WE LOVE SUMMER?!?  :)

swimming with Melinda our neighbor

admiring her shoes at a BBQ with friend's

Her first pigtails (per her big sister's request) ha ha!

when in town we'll have many days like this over the summer

May

During the Month of May we traveled to Fortuna twice (my sis Nicole's bday/Mother's Day weekend and for my friend Lindsey's wedding). The pics from Mother's Day weekend are on my video camera which I haven't uploaded yet, so I'll post those later. I snapped a couple pics at Lindsey and Ryan's wedding, but wished I had taken more. We had a great time catching up with some of my closest high school friends (Pictured below we're just  missing Amber to make our group of 7 complete). I can't wait until October when we all travel to Santa Cruz together to stay in a beach house with our husbands and kiddos for a long weekend. Love these girls!

best attempt at a family pic...Jordyn really wanted to get down and explore :)

On the dance floor with our littlest munchkin

Hannah on double duty...pushing both little ones and loving it

my sweet girl

Our amazing travelers!!

Josh and I ran in our first race together in years. He loves to run...me not so much! However lately I've found that if I'm running outdoors, I despise it much less and am so glad I did it by the time I'm done. Josh is so encouraging which makes it even better! We had a fun time spending the morning together (kid free), enjoying the beautiful sun, exercising and getting "colorful".  Next up we'd like to do a Mud Run.  :)

before the race

After finishing he came back to find me so that we could finish together, as a result he got extra colorful :)

 

Before the race with Amy and Ang

Afterwards with the girls

Hannah and Jordyn enjoyed some fun in the sun with Grandma while we were gone

During the first weekend in May, my parents came down to stay with the girls so that Josh and I could get away for the weekend together and head to Chico for Jim and Sarah's wedding.  It felt really strange to take a road trip without the girls. No jabbering in the back seat made for a peaceful drive, during which we were able to enjoy conversation with no interruptions  :)  We enjoyed lunch and a few beers at the Sierra Nevada Brewery. Our hotel had a shuttle that took us and some friends to and from the wedding. We had a great evening eating, drinking, catching up with friends and dancing the night away!

The wedding site was gorgeous!!

enjoying their first ride together...they were too cute!!!

Out for Nicole's birthday...drinks at the VI in Ferndale

Our little preschool graduate showing off her life cycle project...can't believe she's going on to Pre-K next year....I don't even want to think about Kindergarten!!!

showing mom and dad her work

thinking she's hot stuff behind the steering wheel  :)  Love my sweet pea!