July Gaps

August has begun! School starts this month! Summer is more than half over! I did not do a good job of blogging in June and July. Here are some of my favorite summer moments not previously posted:
Water Balloon Party - Sierra invited her entire class over the last day of school and with some of our other great friends, we had a blast. I filled hundreds of water balloons. It's amazing how that doesn't last very long!

Sunset Beach Camping - Marianna and I loaded up the kids and went to the beach for three nights and four days. This whole trip was awesome and definitely needs a post of it's own, but alas, I think this picture sums it all up: Yummy smores!

*Sierra joing Girl Scouts

*Karsten has perfected his "scootering"

*Skyla has been reading non-stop. Every day she wants to go to the library because she's finished all her books.

*David has won the "ultimate husband" award by bringing me home Specialty bakery cookies from the city a couple of times a week for the past couple of weeks. I'm in heaven. And it's a good thing I've been running 18 - 20 miles on the weekends. :)

*Fourth of July with the Dullum's. We took a ferry to Angel Island and spent the day eating a yummy picnic and making ice cream with that cool ice cream ball.

*Me and two wonderful girlfriends hiked the Dipsea Trail - 8 miles of hills and woods ending up at Stinson Beach. It was awesome!

King Karsten

Karsten's reign of the household has ended... The girls are home today! Karsten and I have had a wonderful time doing "boy" things these past two weeks... including but not limited to riding the BART, riding the Tilden steam train, going to the train park (Aquotic Park), visiting friends, bike riding, playdates, Studio Grow, and playing lots and lots of cars. We've tossed a few water balloons, painted our toes (yes, that's a boy activity), taken Aspen on many walks, hung out at the skate park, treated ourselves to Jamba Juice AND Teacake (not in the same day), painted the girls room, shopped, and taken naps together. Karsten has thrown way more tantrums than I thought possible these last couple of weeks. He would not make a good only child. But I've loved my time with him as intensely as I've missed my girls. I'm so happy the girls had such a wonderful time visiting both sides of our families. They have been talking non-stop about all the fun things they did. I'm surprised they agreed to come home! The lady that sat next to them on the plane came to tell me what good manners and how delightful they were to sit by. Wow! The stewardess (although it was a guy - don't they have a different title?) said they were perfect angels. I'm so proud of them! They'll have to do a post next!

*Are those not the grubbiest, dirtiest feet you've ever seen with painted toes??

Morning Miracle

This morning I got out of the shower to this scene:
Conversation that followed:


K. "Mom, I made my bed!"

Me "Wow Karsten! That looks so great! I bet that was hard work!"

K. "Yeah. It was. I'm a little bit sweaty."


Can you believe Karsten made his own bed all on his own?! And I LOVE the fact that he loves to have a clean room. He cleans it all the time.

Binky Baby

I don't think my little nephew Max will be wanting his binky back...

Sorry Max! I owe you one!

Berkeley Kite Festival

Let's go fly a kite! Driving home yesterday there was a not-so-subtle reminder that it was the kite festival - the sky was covered in kites. We grabbed our own kite and bikes and headed out to the pier. It was amazing with hundreds of kites being flown. They even had a kite contest just like in the book The Kite Runner. (This is where that part of the movie was filmed!)

Happiness is kayaking in Monterey

Seven years ago when David was a summer intern at his current firm, they took him kayaking in the Monterey Bay. I so desparately wanted to go but alas, I had just had a baby the week before. (I went into labor with Skyla on his first day at work. He had to leave his lunch before dessert was served which is still a sore spot with him...) Kayaking in Monterey Bay?! What could be cooler? Well, this year David has been working with the summer program so he has some pull and he had them go kayaking in Monterey - just so I could have a chance to do it! That's the kind of guy I married. :) Not only that, but we got to have dinner at the Monterey Aquarium and stay at the Hyatt that night. At dinner we sat by the octopus tank. Turns out octopuses are noctural so instead of him hiding in the corner like we've seen in the past, we had quite a show.

We had perfect weather for our kayaking day. It was so great. There were several rafts of sea otters and we even had a few harbor seals poke their head out at us. One was sleeping wrapped up in seaweek and we almost ran into it! It was so amazing. Kayaking is my new favorite hobby that I never get to do. :) I wish I had a picture of us, but I didn't dare bring my camera because I just knew I'd tip my kayak and my camera would end up on the bottem of the bay... This picture is actually of us last year at Sausalito.

So this perfect weekend could not have happened without two great friends who took Karsten for me. Thanks Karen and Kendra! I owe you big time!!!

Curious Puppy

This is why you should put your dog outside if you're going to paint...

Slightly reminiscent of a few years ago when Karsten was unsupervised for just a moment...

My Pity Party

That cute little widget keeps counting down the days to my marathon - 10 days left! And here I am with a hurt knee and a cough that won't go away. I'm trying to stay positive and refuse to be defeated by my own body, but it just feels like 26.2 miles is plenty hard to run without these other obstacles...

I'm not one to dwell on the negative. Tomorrow I'll be strong. But for today, thanks for coming to my pity party.

My guy

It's just me and this little guy for the next couple of weeks! Here are some pictures I found when downloading my camera. Hmmm, I wonder who took these???

Tears of Joy and Tears of Sorrow

My mom, sister, and two nephews have been in town this last week (as you can see by new and updated blog... Thanks JaNece!). It was so wonderful seeing them and spending time with them (JOY!) and now they are gone (sorrow.) Last night I told Karsten to say good-bye to Nana because she would be gone in the morning when he woke up. He paused for a moment then said, "But I love her!" Not only that, but they took Sierra and Skyla with them so they could have some bonding time in Utah. Initially I was so excited for a little break from the chaos of three kids (although the child still at home is the one causing all the chaos so I'm not sure why I thought I was going to get a break from that...) however it lasted maybe two hours and now I miss them terribly.

But onto the tears of joy... I've missed my mom and sister so much! It was so much fun having them here. We went to the chilly northern California beach, hiked at Point Reyes, explored San Francisco, played at parks, went crabbing in Sausalito (this sounds fancy but actually it was a hot dog on a stick with string and a nail and these little crabs would grab onto the hot dog), watched Stardust, cooked together, laughed together, ate yummy food, and just hung out! JaNece and I went to the Twilight book group so of course we couldn't stop talking about the books the entire week. It doesn't take much to get those books back into your head! Ugh. 13 more days until the conclusion can be known.

Lukas getting a drink?!?

My little nephews are the cutest. Lukas is just three months older than Karsten. He says the funniest things. He was constantly saying, "Hey Aunt Mindy..." in his cute little voice and I loved it! Max is 20 months and he loves to make people laugh. He'll do something, look around at the reaction, and then open his mouth as wide as it can go in the biggest smile when we are indeed laughing at him. Why didn't I get a picture of that!?!

Sierra teaching JaNece to play the violin!

Thank you guys for making the LONG drive to come and visit! I'm so grateful for the memories we made this week!!!

7/11 Day

Today is one of our favorite unofficial holidays - 7/11 Day!

Free slurpees all day long.

Joy!

Sierra, Isabel, Sky, Naomi, and Karsten

What the...

Where is all my time going? Why am I no longer able to blog?? If I don't blog it, does it mean it never happened???

So as you can tell by my non-blogging, I'm adjusting to having three kids at home again. The girls are out of school and it has been non-stop! Non-stop activities, non-stop friends, non-stop noise, and non-stop action. I'm not complaining because it's a good non-stop. I love that I get to have more time with my cute girls that are getting way too old! We are enjoying summer to the fullest!

But I am having a hard time (not) blogging. I miss it!