I Left My Heart in San Francisco

Again, that box with all the memories...

I was actually looking for all of the large envelopes that Great Aunt Laura gave my grandma. Before Grandma passed away, nearly every time we would visit she would hand me another envelope that her sister had sent from California that held family history stuff. Grandma didn't have much use for it, so she just put it in the bag of things she was sending my way. She always seemed so annoyed about Laura spending her money on postage like that.

Now Laura's daughter, who seems to be the self-appointed keeper of all things family history (at least that generation), has asked me to write Grandma's history! Grandma would be so annoyed...

But that doesn't actually have anything to do with the picture I want to show you. When the kids were younger, we didn't travel much, partly because of the cost, and partly because we were nervous. One of the very first trips we ever took out of state was to San Francisco. We loved it so much that we also planned a second trip there a few years later!

This pic is from the first trip. Bossy and The Beast had already grown up and moved on by 2005. I'm sure you have this down already, but let's start with the back row. Reading from left to right, we have Teach, my Sweetie, Dog Walker, Drama Queen with Princess in front of her, and me.

On the second row, Sport is the cute baby in the stroller, then Crafty and Prima Donna. Just to put this in perspective, Drama Queen graduated from high school in 2007, so she would have been about 16, Teach 14, and so on down about every two years, which makes it convenient when you are counting.

We loved the trip out on the Bay in the cruise boat. Other than the prices, we loved pretty much everything about that beautiful old city.

Happy Anniversary!

Bossy and Gamer celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary a few days ago, and it slipped right past this crazy life, but I wanted to give them a moment. Lots of marriages don't last long in this day and age and although they have definitely had their rough spots, I am pleased with their "love conquers all" attitude.

I was sorting through some scrapbook boxes looking for something else when I came across a couple of pics from their wedding that I really want to share. Should we make it a game? See if you can figure out who they are.

 I don't know what in the world prompted them to sit on the cake stand, but both girls did it. It's amazing that they kept it upright!

Did you guess Princess in the first one?

And Prima Donna and Crafty in the second one? That little cutie sleeping on the cake stand was only 3 years old! Maybe that is why Prima Donna is looking so concerned... or maybe she is just watching to see just how soon Crafty will fall off so she can have a turn!

Happy Anniversary, Bossy and Gamer!
... and many more.

Our Little Skittles is Turning One!

I know it is a couple of days early, but we got the family together tonight and celebrated Skittles' first birthday. We kept it pretty easy, serving chili dogs or just plain chili or just plain dogs. It was hot enough outside that we mostly kept indoors, but that made us so crowded!

Skittles did a great job with his smash cake!!

 Little Warrior has a birthday next month, so he watched intently so he would know what to do.

 There were lots of presents!

 Happy Birthday, Skittles!

Backyard Campout

I'm pretty sure I told you that I have a much younger group of Girl Scouts this year and because of that, we decided not to make our annual pilgrimage to Tuacahn. I was afraid the parents would not want them to come, so we tried something else. We opted for a backyard campout.

We had our campout on Friday night and 9 of our 12 girls were able to attend. We grilled hot dogs, roasted Starburst, and made s'mores. Scout was in charge of night games and she did a great job keeping the girls entertained with relay games and chase-around-the-yard-until-you-get-tired games.

The kids put up the big tent and as it began to get dark, Drama Queen and my sweetie set up an outdoor movie. The girls loved watching Cinderella (the live version) on the big screen. As we settled for the evening, most of the girls were picked up by their parents, but not all. The All-Nighters enjoyed playing cards and telling stories until Scout sung them all to sleep. Twizlet slept with me on the air mattress which was somewhat comfortable except when she couldn't find her binky...

I woke up around 6:00 AM for obvious reasons and when I went back outside it had begun to sprinkle, so after I dragged all of the important things that couldn't get wet inside the house, I gathered up Twizlet and we spent the rest of the morning on my nice soft bed.

The girls all had so much fun! My only regret is that we didn't take more pictures.