Camping with the cousins

My sister in law, Mandy thought it would be fun to have a family camping trip. So we took advantage of the fact that we all currently live in California and planned a trip. We decided on a spot halfway between San Jose and Los Angeles - Morro Bay. Last weekend we ventured down and set up camp - 10 adults, 8 kids, 5 tents, 1 large canopy, lots of chairs, and one cool wagon.

My brother Erik has been working on customizing his daughter Taylor's red wagon for about a year - and he is still tweaking it! The wagon was the hit of the weekend. All of the adults got to take turns pulling various loads of kids. Here, Pete is pulling the youngest six cousins.

I believe the favorite meal was smores. The kids loved roasting (and burning) marshmallows. They each had at least 3 or 4.

Since we were camping at Morro Bay State Park, we had to visit Morro Bay. Behind Andrew, Isabel and Landon is Morro Rock. They had a cute Natural History Museum right on the bay that the kids enjoyed.

We also went to Montana del Oro State Park about 10 miles away. There was a beautiful cove with rocks and of course water. The kids really wanted to go in, but it was the end of the day. There were a couple of kids that ended up going in a shallow area sans clothes! Andrew and Landon climbed up a large rock. Danny decided to climb the same rock that Andrew and Landon started up.

Claire was intent to throw rock in the water and refused to let anyone brush her hair. Oh, well that is what camping is for - right?

Claire was "watching" Mia and Taylor. Right behind our campsite were some large piles of wood chips which the kids loved! They would ride bikes and run up and down the hills.

Andrew and Landon. They have so much fun when they are together. Whenever we leave after seeing him, Andrew always wants to know when we will see him again.

My mom carried on the Larsen family tradition of making cinnamon rolls while camping. Yes, she does the whole thing from scratch. In years past my dad made an oven that they used. But this year they bought a cool "camping oven" that worked really well.

Here is the parting group shot. We are all a bit dirty, but fun was had by all. It is time to plan another one!

Claire's birthday

Claire turned 3 last week and it almost snuck up on us too fast. Instead of a party with just 3 year olds we decided to have a BBQ and invite family and some friends. I think we had 24 people here. It turned out great, so great, in fact, that I only took a few pictures. Looking back, I feel bad because Claire and everyone else was having a really fun time and would love to have pictures for her to remember that.

Claire is really into princesses right now, so I searched the Internet for ideas on a castle cake. This cake is a take on one that I found. I asked my mom if she could just bake the cakes and I would assemble and frost it. She said that she could do more and would do the whole cake. I sent her the link to the picture I found, but it looked nothing like this! This is SO much better than I could have done. Claire loved it! It was a pink masterpiece complete with sparkly pink sugar and jelly beans.

Even though it was a bit cold outside people sat out there. We served hot dogs for the kids, shish-ka-bobs for the adults and fruit and salad for everyone.

We put lots of extra candles on the cake so that all of the kids could help blowing out the candles. After cake Claire literally tore through all of her presents. Lots of fun princess things were received. It was hard to decide what to play with first.

After church on Sunday Claire wanted to wear her new Tinkerbell costume. She promptly fell asleep on the chair with her blanket. She was all tuckered out after all of the birthday fun. We were at a store later in the week and she told me that she wanted to get something because it was her birthday. Apparently when you are three your birthday lasts all year long.

Easter

Here is a recap our our fun Easter weekend:

Claire got to dye eggs for the first time. She was very interested in doing this and probably would have done hundreds of eggs if we had them. She would dunk one after another. Andrew tried really hard to do multi color designs and use the crayon to draw designs. He had a lot of fun, but the eggs ran out too soon.

Here are the completed masterpieces but they are a bit hard to see. I'll definitely have to come up with some creative ideas for decorating next year.

Andrew came in our room at 7:30 Easter morning to say that he thought that Easter bunny had been at our house. He said that he saw eggs in the hallway. So we got Claire up and went to see what the Easter bunny had left at our house. They were both thrilled with their baskets and couldn't wait to open everything up. Andrew was more excited about the egg hunt than Claire was, but I think that she didn't get it at first. We hunted for eggs inside first and then headed outside before the rain started.

Here Claire is concerned that her egg has dirt on it. Andrew was really good to share his eggs with Claire.

Much to their surprise many of the eggs had money in them. The piggy banks had to immediately come out to make deposits.

Here is Claire's bowl of candy from her eggs. She is sampling some of the contents which was supposed to only be two or three pieces. Apparently we weren't paying close enough attention because she ended up eating a lot more than that and wouldn't eat breakfast. Needless to say she was wired by lunch time.

We went to Danny's parent's house for Easter dinner and they got to do another egg hunt. Lots more candy and more money! This time the bunny left paper money - yeah!

Although Andrew doesn't look happy here, Claire's face says it all. She was so excited to try the egg and bunny cakes. She really wanted to sample each of them. All in all we had a great Easter.

Sprinklers

Last Saturday the weather was really nice and Danny mowed and watered the lawn. The kids just couldn't resist the sprinkler, so after much coercion, I got them to change into swimsuits rather than their regular clothes. They had so much fun running back and forth and throwing balls into the water.

The kids can't wait for summer. They love to play in the backyard with the bubbles and the cheap blow up swimming pool. The weather turned rainy and cold this week, so they couldn't go outside much. Hurry up summer!