Cole's first day of preschool

Cole made it though his first day of preschool!  I didn't cry when dropping him off.  I am proud of myself!!!!  :-)  He ran right in, labeled his cubby and took off for the train table.  He could have cared less if I was there or not, which I suppose is a good thing.

While he was gone for 4 hours, Siena and I had a pretty good time at home.  At first she was still a little pill.  Siena basically spends her entire day whining at your feet to be picked up and carried around.  It can be really draining.  But after about 2 hours, she FINALLY noticed that Cole was not around and suddenly her attitude changed.  She was happy, she gave me tons of attention and hugs and was totally different!

On the way home I asked Cole what he did in preschool.  He told me that he made a "jellobean fish" (jellyfish) and they sang a song about a fish who swims, rides a bike and brushes his teeth.  But then he stops talking and says "Wait and minute!  Fish don't brush their teeth or ride a bike.  Those grills are crazy!"  So Cole thinks his teachers are crazy.  Nice.

When we went to pick him up, he was at the rice table with the other kids.  He did not want to leave!  But luckily for me he walked out with out any MAJOR issues.

Here's to a wonderful first day of school!!!!

Now can some one please explain why kids have such giant back packs???

Can't you see how proud he is!!!

Capitola weekend.

Our weekend in Capitola was a whirlwind trip but it was a lot of fun.  My mom and the kids and I left early friday morning to get down there at decent time.  I had to be at the wedding rehearsal at 3pm and then at the dinner at 6pm.  Everything was going great until we left the condo to go the store a few hours before I had to be at the site and the car started making a horrible screeching noise when we moved.  We called Auburn Honda and asked for a local Honda dealership so we could get the car there.  We got there with a very noisy car ride and luckily for us "Big Steve" found the piece of metal that we collected on the freeway stuck between the roater and caliper (who knows is that is even right) and pulled it out.  We were on our way!!!!!

Sunday morning at 7am, I met the newly married couple at the beach and we spent about an hour taking photos in their wedding attire.  So totally awesome!!  Mike and I spent the day (Saturday) photographing the wedding and got back to the condo around 9pm.  The kids and my parents played at the beach all day.

Sunday we walked around town, had breakfast with a view of the beach and then met up with my mom's best friend and her family for some beach time before we headed back home.

Creativity

She likes to think she is sitting there correctly.  Don't tell her otherwise.

The only vegetable my kids will eat

The Siena shuffle

Siena has this way about her.  She will be walking her normal walk but then all of a sudden she stops and starts taking very short little steps.  I call it the Siena shuffle.

Daddy and me

Cole has his obsession with me and Siena has hers with Mike.  Big time.  She is glued to him when ever he is around.  It is pretty darn cute.

Aligator meat

"This motorcycle guy is feeding Siena alligator meat."  Here he is collecting the alligator meat.  Then while she was eating he kept pretending to feed it to her.

Barefoot

Our kids despise socks.  They do everything in their power to get them off their feet.

Siena is much happier with dirty little feet.  See the sap stuck to hers.  It takes weeks to get that sticky substance off.!

It really doesn't get any better than this.....

7:30am

8:15 am

I love me some clouds!

New Bedtime routine

Siena has decided on a new bedtime routine.  It consists of screams till she chokes or passes out.  It's getting worse.  Last night we stuck Cole in the room with her to see if maybe that would help.  It didn't.  She continued screaming.  About 5 minutes into it Cole started telling her to be quiet.  He was just laying in bed like a good little boy.  He puts up with so much.  I think after about an hour she finally went to sleep.  But then at 12:30 she was up again screaming.  I got up with her, she fell asleep on me on the couch.  Put her back in the crib, she screams for 15 minutes.  Mike gets up with her, does the same thing I did.  She screams for another 20 minutes before falling asleep.  Then at 5 am she is up again.  This time I put her in our bed so we can keep sleeping.

How does a kid who has always gone to bed awake with no problems turn in to this???  We have done everything possible to avoid the mistakes we made with Cole and yet we are still right at the same spot we were in.

This sucks.

Yosemite Day 3

The plan was that we would leave early Sunday morning so we could get a jump start on the drive home.  We had planned a few stops so we wanted to get going.  We ended up sleeping in a bit (if you call 7:30 sleeping in) and so we didn't actually get out the door until 8:30.  A side comment about breakfast.  We offered Cole a donut that Elexis had bought and he totally turned his nose up at it and requested hummus.  Such a strange child.

Ok, so we are out the door.  Mike secretly wiped off the raccoon marks from the day before so we didn't have to listen to Cole ask about it all day.  Little did we know he would notice anyways and then spend his time asking us where they went.

We drove around the valley loop one last time because I really wanted to get photos of some rock climbers on El Cap.  It didn't happen.  But Cole and I did run over to the trail head for Lower Yosemite falls so we could get a few more pictures.

An attempt at a mommy and son photo which resulted in an old man asking if I wanted him to take the photo for us.

It's totally out of focus but all I cared about was getting $3500 worth of equipment of of his shaky hands!

Kermit B. Frog was there as well.

From there we drove up to Crane Flat so we could meet Russell and hike down to the big tree's grove.  We got there at about 10:30 and the hike was only a mile long on a paved road but it was all downhill which meant it was all up hill on the way back!!

Siena was less than thrilled to be in the back pack.

This is the old highway and tree tunnel.

After leaving Russell and heading back towards Tuolumne Meadows the kids passed out and Mike and I enjoyed the peaceful and scenic drive through the park.  I think this part of Yosemite is unknown compared to the valley.  People venture here if they are interested in back country hiking.  It is amazing!

Coming up on Tenaya Lake

Rock climbing!

Tuolumne Meadows

Leaving Yosemite and heading towards Tioga Pass.

This is a picture of the treacherous Tioga Pass.  Yes that thin line is the road.

We stopped off and ate lunch at the Mobil Gas Station in Lee Vining.  I know that sounds weird but if you notice all the cars, they are not there for gas.  Best food that side of Yosemite.

It even has views of Mono Lake

Next we headed on to Bodie State Park.  Cole was so excited all weekend to be going to the ghost town!  He kept asking when we were going and when we finally got there he was so stoked!!  If you want to read a brief history on Bodie you can go to my photography blog and read up on it.

After the HWY ends you have 3 miles on a dirt road.

Looking back at where we came in from.

The final hill before getting to the booth.

The church.

A main street.  Only about 5% of the building are left in Bodie after the town was abandoned and the fires went through.

The mine.

A functioning outhouse.  It was Cole's first experience with one.

Bodie gas station.

An old saloon.

Pretty much what she did the entire time.

Family picture!

As you can probably tell, Cole was being quite the poser this weekend!  Which I of course love!

Using my new (old) Kodak Duraflex camera to shoot though.

Pretty much all you will see driving from Lee Vining to Carson City is fields and fields of cattle.  It's actually pretty nice.  Love the free range cows.