First day of School

Jaedyn started PEPP last week. PEPP is pretty much the same thing as Pre-K on the east coast. A half a day every day. Jaedyn is slowly getting used to his new schedule, his GIGANTIC (900 kids Pepp-5th grade) school and huge class (last year he had 2 teachers, 8 kids...this year he has 1 teacher, 24 kids). Today was the first day that I dropped him off with a smile on his face which was SUPER exciting. Every other day he's tried with every ounce of effort to not have a total breakdown. Lots of huge deep breaths, watery eyes, and a very forced smile on the verge of tears. :0( So yay for a good smiley drop off!!! :0)

Our traditional first day of school picture on the step....

The Big Bear Departure

We decided to extend our stay at Big Bear and before driving home we spent the day frolicking around seeing that it's soooo beautiful! We took the kids up a chairlift and came down on an Alpine slide. Super duper fun, but I'm so bummed....I thought I had video taped the entire ride w/ Ashlyn and I, but I didn't. :( After that Jaedyn decided he wanted to try the water slide which was fairly traumatic the first ride down (the 3rd picture...no life jacket). After being tossed around on the side and then dumped into the pool he was totally discombobulated. The lifeguard offered him a life jacket for his 2nd ride down and Jaedyn took up that offer in a heart beat. He was much happier. And lastly we took a short hike up a nice little kid friendly trail.

THE BIG BEAR ADVENTURE: Don't forget your chapstick

My best friend Allison's Dad has a house on Big Bear Lake so the Gharst family and the Crockett family vacationed last weekend at this AMAZING house. We got totally lost on the way which doubled our driving time (this was after I just spent 6 hours driving the day before), but I can say it was totally worth it. This place was HEAVEN. The smell of the lake, the smell of the pine trees, that glistening water, the dry mountain air...everything. Amazing. (well...except for the GIANT animal heads mounted all over the inside of the house). We had a blast as you can see by the pictures...ping pong, air hockey, boating, fishing, hot tubbing, and my very first attempt at paddle boarding. Allison video'd me on the paddle board...it will make you laugh for sure. Allison posted it on her blog (see below). Thank you Craig and Karen for sharing your beautiful home with us and thank you again Gharsts for a super fun weekend!

www.http://lilliannoel.blogspot.com/2011/08/big-bear-bliss.html

Arizona on a whim

I took a super duper last minute trip to Arizona last week (many thanks to Rob for taking the kids for a few days all by himself) to visit my brother Greg and sister in-law Amy and my new cute little nephew, Silas. I fully enjoyed myself although I'm pretty sure I'll never return to Arizona during the summer unless there's another birth in the family. We didn't go outside other than to get into the car or there was one night where the sunset was beautiful to the west and lightning was striking to the east so I couldn't resist heading out for a nice sweaty picture taking adventure. More pictures from our photo session on my photo. blog.



This first picture was a small tornado next to the road..totally nuts. I held on for dear life as I drove passed it!