Huntington Beach

Thursday, July 17th

Our family headed down to Huntington Beach for the weekend for a little camping. We got there Thursday evening and got the trailer all set up. Then we headed over to the pool and spa and spent some time there before heading in for the night.

Friday, July 18th

We got all of our stuff packed up in the bike trailer and rode our bikes across the street to the beach and got our space all reserved for our friends.

Waiting....

Finally our friends arrived and we all had a lot of fun, boogie boarding, digging, swimming, and sunning...

Later that night we gathered around the fire pit and had foil dinners and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for smores.

Saturday, July 19th

We packed up our camp and headed over to the beach for one last day there. Chris' brother Travis and his girls met us there and we went for a bike ride to Newport for Frozen Banana's and Balboa Bars. On our way back from Newport we actually ran into Uncle Art and Uncle Bruce. They were cruising the boardwalk and heading over to the US Open Surf Competition. I think they were going more to check out the girls than the surfing... We hung out on the beach for awhile and packed it up. We didn't think much about getting out of the parking space that the trailer was in until it was time to pull out. That was the most stressful part of the weekend, Chris of course managed to get it out but I think we may think twice about parking that rig in the parking lot again...

Uncle Duncan

This post is actually three days late. I had wanted to post on Sunday July 13th, but I couldn't figure out how to get a picture... but I now have it.

July 13th 1955

Today is my Uncle Duncan's birthday. He left his earthly family and returned to his heavenly family June 6, 2007. This past year was a hard year for his family. So many firsts to have to overcome, we did we survived, with a little bumps along the way.

I have so many fond memories of my Uncle Duncan...

When I was 12 my first babysitting experiences was with Duncan's family. I would get to spend the night all weekend. I would watch (the boys) Ryan & Kenny at night but I always remember the daytimes. We would ALWAYS get Weinerschneitzel for lunch while Duncan did the yard work. I think that's the only time I ever ate Weinerschneitzel...

Going back to Jr High School... He was the highlight of all our family parties always trying to make us laugh. He thought it would be a good idea to swim in the pool with his pants down showing his butt and swimming like a dolphin so his bare butt would be exposed. I can remember sitting at the lunch table after our parties and telling my friends what crazy things he did.

There was the Christmas that my mom gave Uncle Duncan this hideous looking PLEATHER jacket (as a joke). He really played it up. He put it on and was strutting his stuff and told my Aunt Janine that he was going to wear it everywhere, she was not going to have that!! Janine made sure to put it back in my mom's car. Every year my mom would add things to it and re-gift it to Uncle Duncan. When the jacket was finally retired it had a Zebra print collar and cuffs and tiny Christmas lights on it.

As I had children he loved them and treated them like his grandchildren. When CJ was little he punched Duncan jokingly and Duncan said "Hey! Your a Rude Dude!" That then became their little joke. He would jokingly call CJ "Rude Dude" and we started calling Duncan "Uncle Rude Dude". I always thought he should change his company name from "Gordon Construction" to "Rude Dude Construction". He thought that he might not get that many bids with that kind of name.

Aunt Janine and Uncle Duncan would babysit the boys and spoiled them, they took them to Johns Incredible Pizza. When we went to pick them up they were still busy playing. The boys had a blast and loved the fact that Duncan kept giving them credits on their playing cards. They had so many goodies from those times.

Uncle Duncan passed early in life, but the life he lived was full of purpose and kindness. He was a wonderful uncle, brother, father, husband, builder and friend to name a few. Not a day goes by that I don't miss him and long to hear his laugh. I know that is happy and well rested where he is and is looking over all of us. I know that he is extremely proud of his family. Janine was in the process of getting hired on with Montclair Police Dept when he passed, she is currently working there in the Records Dept. We got a chance to visit her new building and met her supervisor's. They couldn't express enough how highly they think of her abilities and personality. Ryan finished up the jobs that Gordon Construction had and is now currently working as a foreman in a construction company. Kenny just finished boot camp and tech school with the United States Airforce. I know that Duncan is proud of his family, because they astonish me with the obstacles that they have had to overcome this past year. I am proud of them and love them dearly.

Chris & I took our boys to the cemetery on Sunday to celebrate Duncan's birthday. We sang Happy Birthday to him (of course in the Gordon howl...) and told him how much we love and miss him. As we were talking with our boys it was decided that we need to have a party next year on his birthday.

Happy Birthday Uncle Rude Dude, We Love You and Miss You!!

Corona Del Mar

Friday was our first beach trip for the summer. We rode down there with Amber, Zach, Kenzie, Brittany & Dylan and our friends Jessica, Tanner, Logan, Paige, Stacy, Kenzie, Tyler and Morgan met us there. Amber's favorite beach is Corona Del Mar so we thought we would give it a try. We loved the parking and the walk down to the water. Much better than Huntington's mile walk to the water.... We got set up and were acted by a ton of tiny flies. We think they were attracted to the seaweed. People down the way from us covered it up with sand and it seemed to help out way better. The kids had a blast playing in the sand and waves and us moms enjoyed the fact that all 12 kids were playing nicely together and there was no fighting. What a perfect day...

Kenzie, Brittany, Paige & Logan

Stacy & Missy

Logan, CJ, Justin & Tyler

Amber, Dylan &Missy

Morgan enjoying the shade

Zach getting ready to catch some waves

Jessica & Paige

Amber, Dylan & Zach

CJ, Brittany, Justin & Tyler

Kenzie, Brittany, Tanner & Sand Crabs

A couple of beach babes....

Happy 4th of July

We celebrated 4th of July with the Best's, Gordon's & Hampton's. Nana & Papa worked their tails off to get ready for the party. They added more landscaping and an addition to the play area. Kenny arrived home on the 4th from Tech School with the Airforce and surprised Nana. She thought that he was coming home next week and in he walked, she started screaming and jumping up and down. Amber and I decided that she needs to greet us all that way when we come over. We are all excited to have him home!! All of the kids had a blast swimming, jumping on the trampoline, playing tether ball, swinging and playing on the airplane. Papa and Uncle Jim manned the bbq, we thought we were going to have to call in the fire dept at one point, they had the fire going pretty good. After the bbq we headed over to Phelan High School for the Grand Finale Fireworks show. They were pretty amazing!! We ended the night by searching for Bentley (Nana & Papa's dog). They thought he got out and started searching for him. Papa, Jeff, & Chris were all out searching the roads for him, and he came wandering out from a bush in the backyard. Of course everyone had their cell phones except for Papa, so we had to man a search for Papa. We were driving the roads now yelling for Papa, Dad, John, Old Coot, anything we thought he would answer to. Papa finally wandered home and was so excited to see that Bentley had returned. He is no longer allowed to leave their sides. Everyone had a great time and of course looking forward to next years party.

Road Trip

Last Wednesday, June 25th my sister-in-law Amber and I headed out to Utah with our kids, minus my nephew Zach (he was at Scout Camp). Amber went to visit her mom and her friend Jodi (Melton) Christensen and I went to visit my friend Nicole (Dupre) Daniel. We had a BLAST driving there, we laughed the entire 9 1/2 hours of our trip. The kids were great during the trip, they never asked to stop and didn't start asking "Are we there yet?" until 7 1/2 hours into the trip. I was quite surprised at how fast the time went by and how quickly we got there. I figured that with 5 kids under the age of 10 we were doomed to stop at least 4 times.

Thursday we met up with Jodi and headed over to Hogle Zoo. That was a lot of fun as we had never been there. Here are a couple of pictures....

After the zoo we went back to Jodi's house and hung out there until it was time for Amber to take me to Nicole's house for the night. It was great seeing Nicole, as the last time we had seen each other was over 2 1/2 years ago. The kids hung out and we got to talk, hang out and go for a nice run together.

Friday we ventured out to the movies and saw Wall E. Amber and I weren't too into the movie but the kids enjoyed it and had a great time, isn't that all that matters?? After the movie we went over to a park near Jodi's and the kids had some fun playing in the water.

Later that night the girls got to go out thanks to Amber's mom watching her kids and Jodi's husband Rob and daughter Lexie watched my boys. The girls (Amber, Jodi, Nicole and I) went to Texas Roadhouse and had a great time laughing over past memories growing up in Arcadia Stake. The waiters and busboys got tired of waiting for our table and eventually gave up, sitting at a nearby table.

Saturday Amber hung out with her mom and kids and my boys and I hung out with Nicole's family. We had a lot of fun and got to have Cafe Rio, which I heard so much about. They have a great Taco Salad there.

Sunday we got a little bit of a late start. We wanted to leave at 7am but didn't wake up in time. So we finally headed out at 8:30am.

Going home was not so much fun as we were all tired and definitely ready to be home with our husbands and Zach (my other nephew). The drive seemed to take forever and all of the kids were ornery with each other. Dylan kept wanting to "Fight Club" with Justin, Justin kept crying because Britney & Dylan, thought he was a pillow and he was "not a pillow", Britney kept crying because nobody would share their Gameboy with her, Kenzie kept crying because she had sweaty hands and couldn't open the Goldfish packages and CJ kept crying because he was tired of passing snacks back to the little kids. Amber & I just kept crying because we weren't home yet. We did find a couple of ways to amuse ourselves of course, it seems as though we don't have any troubles doing that.

The big question is where are we going next year?? Last year we road tripped it to San Diego and had a blast. So we figure we have to make this a tradition. We'll see what next year brings us....