Ranch Days

On Saturday we went to Rush Ranch Days. It was an "annual celebration of nature, art, music, dancing, & traditional crafts." It sounded like fun, so we met up with friends and ended up having a good time. There were lots of activities and the weather was very nice.

Part of the activities was a carriage ride. We took a ride out into the field toward the marshes. It was very bumpy, but the girls thought that was fun and wanted the horses to go faster. Afterwards, the driver gave the girls apples to feed the horses.

From the picture you can see Annalise is petting a rather large horse. This is a French draft horse which at one time were used as war horses. Also, this horse is the largest horse of it's kind in the United States and I can believe that. It was a bit intimidating to stand next to him as everything about him was huge!

Giants vs Diamondbacks

Last Friday night, Jeff & Annalise went down to San Francisco to see the Giants played the Diamondbacks. It was a long and fun-filled day. They left around 2:30 so they could get there earlier enough to see the Giants at batting practice as the stadium was letting the fans get in early that day. Robyn and I stayed home -- but that's okay as a night game in San Francisco is tooooo cold for me. Maybe next time we can join them for an afternoon game.

Swim Lessons

Robyn started swimming lessons last week at a local indoor pool. There are two other little girls in her class and they are all having a good time in the pool -- sometimes Robyn is having too much fun that the teacher has to remind her to listen. :) The morning of the first day of lessons, Robyn was so excited that she was ready to go that very minute and she did not want to wait until that evening. I love when my kids are so excited about an activity -- it makes me feel like I'm doing something right.

One of my favorite things

I wish you could smell these blossoms. These pictures were taken of our orange tree in our very own backyard. Oranges are tasty but what I enjoy most is smelling the orange blossoms when they are in full bloom.

Easter 2009

Camping

This past Friday, we went camping with some friends for the night. We stayed in a cabin (I especially enjoyed that) at a YMCA camp only a couple hours away from home. Jeff's school goes there every year for 6th grade science camp and he's been wanting us to go there every year. Well, finally we made it! We were lucky that the weather was nice so we spent a lot of time hiking. We are surrounded by trails that take you through redwood groves and the girls' favorite spot was playing by the creek. Annalise had her two oldest friends there and they had a blast. Since we moved away two years ago they don't get to hang out as much as they used to.

One of the things Jeff showed was how to make "natural" face paint. You rub two wet rocks together and it creates mud which you then rub on your face. We had hiked to the stream where there were tons of rocks to try this with. We were all decorated by the end of the night.



After camping we headed down to the beach. The campground is only a couple miles down the road from the ocean so we didn't have far to travel. The older girls had fun playing in the cold water. Robyn tried it and decided playing in the sand was much better. The rest of us sat on the rocks watched the girls play. We had a great time. I hope we are able to do it again soon.

New Blog

Well, after much coaxing by friends and family here is my attempt at blogging. This is a lot harder than I thought so please bear with me.

Anyway, here are some pictures of when I took the girls minature golfing during one of our weeks of spring break. This was the first time any of the girls had played. A friend of Annalise's came with us and we spent the morning golfing at Scandia. The weather was nice, though rather windy. The older girls were frustrated with Robyn because she kept picking up the ball but everyone had a lot of fun. Even me. :)