Girl Scout Snow Camp!

What a weekend it was! Zoe, and the girls have been counting down the weeks and days until Snow Camp! Now that they are junior girl scouts, they are finally able to go and be a part of all the fun. We had a couple girls and moms that had to back out at the last minute, so it was 6 of our girls (Zoe, Lacey, Madison, Jaeda, Sydney, and Emilee) plus 3 moms (Brook, Denise, and me).
We headed up to Idyllwild on Friday afternoon right after school. We packed all our stuff in 2 SUV's and off we went. Lacey, Zoe, and Madison had big smiles as we got ready to go.
After stopping for a quick dinner at a pizza place in the village, we got to our camp. It was a bit tricky trying to find it and get to our cabin in the dark, but we finally found it. Actually, I couldn't possibly call the places we slept in cabins, they were more like shelters. In fact, we called it our "cell". Oh, what a home away from home...
The girls couldn't wait to get their pj's on, climb into their bunks and snack on some boxes of girl scout cookies.
After staying up very late laughing and talking, and getting up very early for more of the same, we made it to the flag ceremony and breakfast in the dining hall. Unfortunately, we woke up to rain which we knew would put a slight damper on our day!

Of course the girls didn't care and just had fun playing. They found some rings and rope poles to climb on and had a great time. One of the troops also put on a puppet show for the girls and then brought tons of stuff for everyone to make their own sock puppets.
When we got back to our "cell" we realized we had locked ourselves out. Luckily, Zoe was small enough to get into the window and let us back in. :)
We then decided to take a walk into town to look around and do a little shopping. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures, most likely because it was pure misery (well at least for the moms!) It was cold, rainy, and windy. The girls still managed to have smiles on their faces, found some souvenirs and candy, and made the best of it.
After lunch, we spent some time in our shelter to dry off and try to get warm. The girls did some finger knitting, we played a homemade version of Pictionary, they put on their own puppet show, and we did lots of singing and laughing while we watched the rain fall.
The rain eventually turned to hail and then finally into snow. The girls were ecstatic, a few of them had never seen snow fall before. They couldn't wait to get outside to play and start sledding!

The girls were exhausted and wet after a few fun hours playing in the snow. Our evening consisted of a turkey dinner, girl scout songfest filled with lots of songs,skits, swaps and more late night giggling. By morning, we were all exhausted, but we woke up to a beautiful winter wonderland.
We enjoyed our last meal in the dining hall, and the kids had some last minute fun playing in the snow while we finished cleaning up and packing the car. It took quite a bit of work getting our frozen doors open and scraping all of the snow and ice off the cars!
The weekend wasn't quite what we had planned since we were hoping for earlier snow, but I was so impressed with these girls. We never heard ONE complaint, whine, or disagreement during the entire weekend. They are such a good group of girls and they all get along so well. They made the best of everything and had a ton of fun. I guess that makes it all worth it in the end!

Family Day Out

The weather has been a bit unpredictable lately so we weren't sure what we'd be able to this weekend. The rain decided to give us a breather, so we took advantage of it and headed out to the March Field Air Museum today. Joe had taken his Dad there with Martin and Sonya almost 10 years ago, and he has been wanting to go back with the kids ever since. It turned out to be a really nice day and the kids really enjoyed seeing the different planes and learning a lot about our military history.
They had an amazing "Freedom Shrine" with plaques inscribed with some of the most important historical documents of our country.
They had a great time running around looking at all of the incredible planes.
This was by far our favorite...
All afternoon Cooper kept saying he wanted to go inside one of the planes, and finally at the end of our tour one of the veterans that works there let us in one of their big soldier transport planes (obviously I am not very good at remembering any of the names of the planes!).
The kids thought it was really neat to sit in the seats where the soldiers and/or paratroopers sat!
We had a nice visit to the museum. They had a ton of exhibits inside as well which told about the wars, displayed soldier uniforms, women in the Air Force, etc. It is humbling to read and learn more about the sacrifices that these brave men and women made, and continue to make, for our freedoms.

Baseball Season has begun!

Is it that time already? Yep, it sure is! Cooper got a call from one of his new coaches last week and they got started right away on practices. This season he will be on a machine-pitch Pinto team, the Kansas City Royals. He is so excited to be on a team with some of his best friends, Jakob and Nicholas, but we wish the Bramsways could've gotten on our team too. Well, so far after only 4 practices, Cooper is loving baseball. His coaches are amazing and he has already learned SO MUCH! It is a bit tough juggling the end of basketball season and beginning of baseball, but only one more week of both to go.

It is going to be a long, busy season, but looks like it will be a fun one!

Love, Love, Love...

Lots of love to celebrate our Valentine's Day weekend. Because we were going to spend Valentine's Day dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's house, we had our traditional chocolate fondue dessert on Saturday night instead. We made a yummy milk chocolate fondue and had lots of fun dipping pound cake, strawberries, bananas, and marshmallows!

The next morning the kids woke up to lots of hanging hearts in their doorways, some small gifts, and then we made a great breakfast...french toast with strawberries and powdered sugar.


My sweet Valentines...

Then it was time to head to Grandma and Grandpa's house. The kids got to open a few more gifts (Zoe got some more earrings and a craft, Coop got some skateboard stuff) and then we spent the day hanging out, playing, and eating. It was nice to just relax!

We had a casual dinner, but ran out of room at the big table. So Joe and I had quaint little set up just by ourselves...aahh!

Yesterday, Grandma and Grandpa got a new pet: a dwarf hamster name Tinkerbell. Zoe fell in love with it and spent all day trying to play with her.
Happy Valentine's Day!

Mother/Daughter Cupcake Night

After a few long weeks of planning, our school Mother/Daughter event finally came. We had a cupcake decorating night, along with Valentine's card making and bingo games. We did not anticipate the large number of attendees, but the 400 moms and daughters had a great time!

We started the night with a demonstration of different cake and cupcake decorating techniques. Then the crowd was divided into different stations. Poor Zoe was a bit heartbroken since I couldn't spend the whole night just with her, as I was pretty busy running around trying to make sure things went smoothly. She did get to spend lots of time with one of her best friends, Lacey though. We made the best of it, and she was a happy girl by the end of the evening.


Zoe's creations...

After it was over, we had the daunting task of cleaning everything up. Boy was it a disaster! Luckily we had lots of hands chipping in. I couldn't resist getting this picture of Jenny vacuuming...maybe it's time for a new career!