First Day of Summer

 Technically, there’s still a few days until it’s officially summer,

but school’s out,

sun’s shining

and the water toys are in full use. 

Sure looks like real summer to me. 

Father’s Day

 Burgers and bunnies,

watermelon and big boys at Matt’s…

Flowers from Gary …

and lots of silly selfies with cute kids.

Such a nice day. 

Reading With OwlBob

I knew there was trouble when Pop texted me this, with no explanation …

Once we got home, it took Jac and Donovan about thirty seconds to spot the new addition to our front yard. 

My idea to name him Owlbert (Albert…) was immediately overruled - Jackie declared him OwlBob and OwlBob he remains. 

Also Jackie: “Grandma, PopPop found where you hid the credit card!”* 

We have the craziest front yard but OwlBob is a keeper. We loooove him - and his cousin, Hopscotch. 

* Last time she told me I should take away his credit card HERE. 😂😂😂

Entertaining Jackie

Entertaining Jac at dinner tonight, Pop told her if she pulled on her ponytail, her nose would grow. She laughed, but I looked over a couple minutes later and she was testing it out… 😂😂🤥

Overload

Look at this handsomeness overload!

Travis graduated to middle school this month (he’s 11 months younger than Leanne and Isaac is 4 months younger than Jaclyn.)

Garrett, Travis, Isaac and Breanne

Check out the matching shoes. Too cute!

Ups and Downs

This African Iris is one of my favorite yard treasures and it’s really outdone itself this year.

Yesterday it looked like a giant blossom snowball. Of course, I forgot to take a pic.

The bonus for waiting til today is raindrop sparklies. So beautiful. 

Procrastination (or forgetfulness) does (sometimes) pay off. 

Spent the weekend moving and sorting my friend Karen’s fabric stash, 

Preteen for size comparison 

then taking it to Carpinteria for pricing ahead of the quilt guild’s upcoming sale. (June 24! Santa Barbara! Great stuff, fabulous prices!) Which is also the day her yarn stash will be for sale at the spinning guild meeting in Camarillo. She wanted her treasures to go to people who would use them and that’s exactly what’s happening. She’d be so pleased.

Discovering Gravity

Donovan threw a bucket of water* into the air and was STUNNED when it landed back on him. “I was not expecting that.”

I was dying. Jac and Donovan both hate being wet or having water on their faces. Poor Donovan was drenched! My sides still hurt from laughing 😂😂. 

* just the 💦 went into the air, thank goodness. Having the bucket land on him would have been very not good.

This and That

We did our second escape room today - still didn’t beat the clock but we had a lot of fun. I think I’m done for awhile . . . or at least until Karina comes back out to visit her grandma again. 

I’ve been taking Donovan and Jackie to the park to run out some energy before taekwondo (the teacher expects them to be able stand still in class . . .) They get to run and jump and slide, while I can walk laps around the play area. Win, win, win! This week, the bigger kids were playing too rough, running over the littles (not maliciously, just careless) so we had to make do with the pretty trees. 

Remember the robot snakes? I had to do surgery on them . . . first time out, they ran under the couch and got cat hair wrapped around the wheel mechanisms. They’re back in action - and still very popular with the littles. 

My reward for not pressing the panic button during my shoulder MRI. I earned every.bite. So awful. 

Prison Escape

Did my first ever escape room today and it was so much fun!

We came sooooooo close to solving the puzzle.

Red Door Escapes in The Collection gets highest marks for clever, well run fun. We’ve already signed up for another round on Friday…

Compliments

Jac: Grandma, that lizard’s as beautiful as you are. 

Me: awwwwwww 😍😂

Tiny girl does love her reptiles. 

I Love You To My Heart

Donovan made me a card for (grand)Mother’s Day, 

with just a little help from his dad. 

Didn’t he do a nice job?

Such a sweetie!

Flashback

Way back when youngest son was in high school, we spent almost every weekend on the soccer field. And took a trip to Hawaii so his team could play in a tournament. 

So it was a blast from the past to sit on the sidelines and watch Breanne’s oldest son play in the Camarillo Strawberry Tournament (same tournament, very nice new fields!) Icing on the cake that they won first place in their division. Go, Travis!

Problems and a Test

I'm still having problems with photos disappearing days after they are posted . . . one blog post at a time. So frustrating. I'm writing this on the computer, rather than iPad; using Blogger, rather than my favorite app; to see if the problem still occurs. 

The Grand Master* visited our taekwando studio and offered to write Jac's and Donovan's names on their uniforms in Korean. So cool!! (*He's also known as "Dad" to their teacher.)

Remember that first marriage record I ordered from England for the Wales bride? It finally showed up, almost 6 weeks to the day from when it was shipped. Air mail is a wonderful, FAST thing, yeah? /sarcasm/ lol

 

Curve Ball!

Side note - my blog host has started eating photos (look back at April 7 and the following 5 or so posts; it eats a new post almost every day) so I’m going to limit photos until I figure out what’s going on. So annoying. 

Remember the brick wall I hit with hubby’s Wales line? I ordered an official marriage certificate from England for the Wales’ bride and after much drama and $$$  - the first one still hasn’t arrived after 4+ weeks (sent “air mail” which must mean they are walking it across the ocean…) and the second one cost $$ for “next day delivery” that took a week. 

But! It arrived today and boy oh boy was it a curve ball. Yes, it had the bride’s father’s name (John Jones) and profession (carpenter - hooray for something a bit uncommon!) so I can start researching that. It also had the groom’s father’s name and profession … and it was NOT the one I’ve been researching and writing up in hubby’s book (6 generations worth ☹️). In my defense, the groom’s name and age are the same in both families, they’re from the same area and … yeah. The worst of it is I was pretty attached to some of the people in the ‘other family’ - I’m really going to miss them. 😂 Now it’s back to the drawing board census files for me. 

Strawberries

Not sure if this is “teaching life skills”

or “violating child labor laws”

but it sure was fun. 

Jac trimmed and cut almost 3 baskets of berries, 

feeding the “mushy” ones to her big sister 

(who took to standing in the kitchen, in hopes another berry would be “bad”. 😂)

Kick And Yell Day

Taekwondo day again with the littles,

practicing combination kicks.

And don’t forget to yell at the end!