Santa Cruz...round 2

Almost a family photo...
Emily and Landon by a fallen redwood tree.
Emily reading her "Marley and Me" book by the stream.  
We ate in downtown Santa Cruz at Zach's.  Emily was thrilled, just because of the name!
Yep, that's a BIG leaf.

Camping in Santa Cruz

Some of the pics we took on a hike around our campsite!

My babies
Duane and the kids
A boy and his dog!
Little Miss Emily
Mr. Landon

More HSM

Emily and her true love, Troy!  Lord help me!
Here Kelly and Dana and I had to take the chance to pose with our favorite "Wildcats!"
Kelly, Damon, and Dana.  We laughed more at the movie, I think, than the rest of the audience.  I'm sure the people behind us hated us.  But, it was fun!
Dalton and Hannah...."Friends." :-)

HSM 3 Mania

For my niece Hannah's 10th birthday, a group of us (21 people!) went to see "High School Musical 3."  We had pizza and then went to the mall to wait...and wait....in fact, these pictures are all taken while we were waiting in the line to get in.  We'd had the tickets for weeks, but had to wait off to the side to get in.

Landon and his buddies, Tyler and Cole.
Dana, goes with Tyler and Madison, Diane, Me, and Kelly, who goes with Haylie and Cole.
Emily, mini Troy, and Haylie
Grandma and Grandpa and some of the kids.  Birthday girl is the blonde on the right!

Pumpkin Patch in Ramona

We had to drive for an hour, but we were able to find a pumpkin patch in Ramona.  Even though it was a trek from our campsite, it was a fun afternoon full of pumpkins, corn shooting, petting animals, a corn maze, and food!

They thought they had found "The Great Pumpkin!"
The kids in the corn maze.
Landon and me shooting corn.  I won't go into details...let's just say we hit a scarecrow and knocked him around a bit.  And yes...we were the ONLY one's to do that!  :-)
Lorenzo and Duane and the kids.
Monica and I and the random Chevy!

Camping with the Villafrancos

A couple of weeks ago, we did something we have wanted to do for a long time...went camping with our friends Monica and Lorenzo and their kids. The campsite, although technicially in Julian, was nowhere near Julian and left a little, OK A LOT to be desired, but we had a great time.  We laughed a lot and made great memories with our kids, which is what camping is about.  Hope we can go again soon... and this trip will be without a 2nd degree burn or naked strangers in the spa!!!!

The kids by the campfire...it was actually cold!!!
The beginnings of Emily's blister.  She got a 2nd degree burn on her hand which resulted in a week and a half of gauze and blisters and ouchiness!
Duane and Emily
The crew: Landon and Joshua, the little brothers, Emily and Alycia, the big sisters.
Emily- doing a little reader in the Villafranco's tent.  Our kids wanted to play in their tent, and theirs wanted to be in our trailer....we are never happy with what we have, are we???

More Fresno pictures

Landon, Aunt Sheri, and Emily

Landon and his buddy, Uncle Steve.
Duane and Christine.
Steve and I.
Hitchin a ride...

Family wedding in Fresno...no Selma...no Madera...I have no idea where we were!

McDonald Family - October 2008
Landon, me, and Emily
My little man and I....I'm so in love with that one!
My little girl is growing up so fast.....sigh
Kickin it in the hotel room.  Always fun to stay in a hotel.

Duane's cousin Jeremy got married somewhere near Fresno.  We drove all over the area and hit 4 or 5 different cities, but we had a good time with his family.  Here we are getting reading for the wedding.

WICKED!

WICKED!

For my birthday, Duane took me to see Wicked.  I was so excited because we ended up going with a big group.  So, my college roommate Jessica, her husband Kevin, my mom and dad, Jeff, Diane, Hannah, and Duane and Emily and I went.  Not only was the musical AMAZING, Emily and Hannah were so darling.  Emily kept saying, "I can't believe I'm in Hollywood, California."  It was a fun night and we have fallen in love with the musical.  In fact, Emily will be Elfaba for Halloween.  Stay tuned for those pictures.
Mom and I
Duane, Emily, and I on Hollywood Blvd.  Yes, in Hollywood, California.
Emily and Hannah
Emily on a star....just waiting for her name to be added :-)
At Ruby's before we went.

More retreat pictures

2008 Retreat team... Susan, Diane, Me, Heather, Monica, and Dana.
"Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!"  Can't believe we actually did that in front of EVERYONE!

Our speaker, Amberly Neese, and I.

Women's retreat!

At the Mineral Springs...a bunch of us de-toxing!
My sister and I.
My life-long friend, Heather and I.
My girls...in our annual Charlie's Angels pose.

OK, so fast-forwarding through the first full month of school, past my 33rd birthday, and to the end of September takes us to the Women's Retreat at my church.  This is the 2nd year I have been on the retreat planning team and led worship.  This year was especially fun because the retreat team are my closest friends, and our speaker was one of my mentors and friends.  I schlepped the keyboard, cord, amp, and mics to the retreat and we had a great weekend...being kid free, not cooking or cleaning, laying out, cause it was in the 90's, laughing, being stupid, staying up too late, and just...being girls.  Here is the first batch of pics.