Back at home in Vegas we kicked summer into high gear with some good friends and some good tunes. The Walder family drove out from California to join ours for the Iron Maiden concert (Bryce Walder was one of the individuals that introduced Mom to good metal music almost 20 years ago)!
No one was excited at all...
All of enjoyed getting dressed up for the occasion. Mom joked that the 5 of us were the big hit of the night. Everywhere we turned people were high fiving us and stopping us for photo ops!
Both Mom and Dad were stoked to see the band, but they were most excited to share the experience with all of us.
Macie settled right in and found her happy place.
The show was amazing and Mom and Dad didn't stop smiling (or singing) the whole time. It was fun getting to know the Walder kids and spending time with a pretty RAD family.
Before heading back to San Diego Dad made sure to spend lots of time hanging out with us!
We each got to have some special time with Dad, and all of us chose very different activities. For my afternoon, Dad and I went book shopping around town and had lunch. I found tons of great books; some classics, some how to's, and even some books to help me improve my snarky one liners...
At one of the stores we stopped at Dad and I found a cool glider bike for Nixon. We couldn't wait to get home and show it to him.
On Macie's day with Dad they went racing at Pole Position.
Dad said Macie dominated the track!
After racing they drove down to the strip to eat snacks, walk around,
take photo ops,
and buy stuff that Mom would never say yes to!!!
Presley and Nixon both insisted that they wanted to spend their day with Dad at their friend's pool. Since Gunnar and Gage have a super cool family Dad was more than happy to oblige.
Dad left for California the following day, and the rest of us stayed through the week. Even though we were only home for about 10 days this summer we managed to squeeze in all those activities in addition to soccer camp, VBS, and a few trips to the museum.
Playing dress up and making arts and crafts takes up most of our museum time these days.
While we were home we celebrated a VERY special birthday... my 10th birthday!!!!!!!!
That morning I woke up to decorations, balloons, and the fantastic smell of BACON! Our family enjoyed some birthday pancakes and a song before heading out to soccer camp (yes, Mom made me go on my birthday).
After camp Mom took us to Caines for lunch before we came home to open presents and relax before going to VBS in the evening (again, yes, she made me go).
I had a nice birthday this year, but couldn't wait to celebrate it with my entire family when we returned to San Diego. I was grateful to everyone who sent me birthday cards and special gifts. I sure have an awesome family!
After a whole week of soccer camp in the morning and bible camp in the eveing Mom packed up the car and we headed back to San Diego for the second half of our summer at the beach.
First thing in the morning I woke to find birthday balloons and floating rafts lining the pool area. Grandma Jean knew I really wanted to swim with the dolphins and came through with an awesome surprise!!!
We spent the next week swimming in the pool, going to the beach, and taking trips to Sea World- it was pretty awesome. Towards the end of July we drove back home to help Dad pack up his office and music gear before driving back down for one last week at the beach. While we were in Las Vegas we adopted (we are looking into cloning her so that the adoption can be official) Cari for a week and brought her along for our final summer adventure.
We spent our first day riding the waves in the ocean for hours.
Presley and Nixon were more comfortable than they had ever been, and spent lots of time playing at the shore.
According to Presley, she "learned how to body surf like Grandma and the big girls"...
It really was a fantastic beach day and was a great way to start off our week!
The next day we spent our time at Sea World. It was Cari's first time and she was "so excited that she thought she might puke"!
Dad took Cari, Macie, and I on the thrill rides while Mom took the little ones to the new Ocean Explorer attractions.
Presley and Nixon loved the new rides and Mom loved hearing their laughter...
They left in the evening and the rest of us stayed and shut down the park- it was awesome!
The next morning we woke ready for some more fun. We swam in the pool until noon and then Dad took Cari, Macie, and I down to the beach area to say hi to Paul and shop at Soul Grind Skate Shop.
We all got to pick out a skate hat and some stickers!
After leaving Soul Grind we made our way down to Belmont Park in Mission Beach for some fun on the boardwalk.
That evening we joined Grandma Judy's family (her brother & 2 sisters) for a "Thanksgiving" reunion dinner at Uncle Peter's house on Sunset Cliffs in Ocean Beach. We were all mesmerized by the amazing view and insisted on taking every photo op we could...
If you look closely at our picture you will see that Mom isn't as thrilled as the rest of us to be riding the water rides at night...
Exhausted from the previous day we all slept in Sunday morning. After a relaxing breakfast at the house we got dressed for a hike to the cross on the top of Mt.Helix.
It was a pretty tough walk, but definitely rewarding- the 360 degree view of San Diego was amazing as always!
In the evening we had a cook out and roasted marshmallows with Pa's family. We loved introducing Cari to all our favorite people!!! That night, when everyone had gone home, we went night swimming under the lights.
Monday morning we were back at the beach enjoying the warm weather.
We decided to spend our last full day in San Diego at Sea World. Macie and I wanted Cari to see some of the shows and Cari wanted to face her fear of sharks head on...
The morning before we drove back to Las Vegas we had batting practice at the local field.
Sweaty and tired we enjoyed slurpees and an afternoon of swimming while Mom packed up the car.
Before we drove off we had dinner in front of the TV. If you couldn't tell by looking at us, we were all exhausted from a BUSY week of FUN!
We arrived at home around midnight and poor Nixon was so tired that he laid right down on the garage floor while Mom helped us out of the car.
With only a few days left before the start of the school year Mom let us lounge around the house while she unpacked and organized. To her surprise we spent most of our time playing dress up...
Poor Nixon didn't have much of a say when it came to attire.
Or makeup for that matter. Presley tried to turn him into a bat...
She tried to turn herself into Uma (the new villain in Descendants 2). She actually looks quite villain like.
Eventually Macie stepped in and helped Nixon into his racing costume. Poor kid is a pawn in all of our games.
We were glad to be back home with our neighborhood friends. It's awesome opening the front door and having them all flood in! Mom loves a full house and always find ways to entertain everyone.
Our summer vacation was pretty amazing, but the two month break flew by WAY TOO FAST. None of us are ready to get back to schedules, timelines, etc., but as they say, "its par for the course."
Spending time in San Diego with Dad made us all realize that being away from him in the fall was going to be harder than anyone anticipated. Because of that big changes are coming for our family...
