For the past few years, a bunch of our friends have been going down to Carmel Valley Ranch for 4th of July. This year we decided to join the fun and we had an absolute blast. There were 9 families in all and 18 kids – all under the age of 8! Having the 4th on a Tuesday made for an awesome long weekend. The kids did a “camp”-type thing each morning until after lunch and then we all had fun together at the pool, playing tennis and running around. On the 4th itself they had a bunch of fun games like the three-legged race, water balloon toss and pie eating contest. We took a ton of pictures, but here are some of the highlights…
CANNONBALL!
Maile doesn't actually like eating s'mores, but she enjoyed making them.
Lauren doing her best attempt to join in on the chubby bunny fun!
Hannah and Maile - they've known each other forever and whenever they get together fall right back into the fun 🙂
Maile and Lauren doing the tube thing...
(Almost) all of the kids - a couple little ones were already asleep...
Younger sister posse - Willa, Kate and Lauren
Pool side snow cones with the crew
Hot tub!
Mommy crushed after dinner Jeopardy with the kids...
Lauren took her first tennis class with her friends...
We are ready for the water balloon toss!
Three-legged race - Lauren and Dexter
A big sister is the absolute best partner in a three-legged race
We got A LOT of swim time in 🙂
Maile Girl taking flight!
Lauren is a little lighter than Maile Girl - Daddy didn't adjust well enough on the first toss 🙁
Love my girls
Mommy and Lauren getting some quality pool time in
And we're done. (Ride home 🙂
In many ways Halloween for us starts way back in June – that’s around the time that Grandma Gail takes requests for the girls costumes. She then works over the summer to create whatever the girls have requested. And the results are always amazing! The girls absolutely love their costumes – it really is a fantastic gift and makes the girls feel so special. So thank you, Grandma Gail, for once again making our Halloween fantastic!
This year, Maile wanted to be a Magenta Crayon and Lauren wanted to be Hello Kitty. And that is exactly what we got 🙂
Meet Magenta Crayon Maile and Hello Kitty Lauren
Look at that Kitty face 🙂
With Halloween on a Monday this year, we had a few different opportunities to head out for candy – we did some warm up runs on Saturday and Sunday before joining our normal Halloween crew, Jake, Sophie and Willa for some serious candy action on Monday night!
Our Halloween crew together again!
Ready to rock some candy collecting!
Hope everyone had an awesome Halloween!
This year we had a couple of princesses on our hands (well, technically Maile was a character from Lalaloopsy). Once again, Grandma Gail outdid herself with a couple amazing costumes that the girls absolutely loved. They got good use out of them too – wearing them to school on Thursday for a Halloween parade and then out and about on Saturday for some serious San Francisco style trick-or-treating on good ol’ Avila Street (fast becoming our traditional spot).
Maile Girl in her Lalaloopsy outfit.
Our Orange Princess, Ms. Lauren
The full crew ready for some trick-or-treating...
And we're off! The parents were playing catch up the rest of the night...
Thank you Grandma Gail! Maile and Lauren are already thinking about what they want to be next year!
Lauren, Maile, Kate, Hannah, Willa and Sophie
We headed down to Hannah’s house for a play date with the girls both older siblings (Maile, Hannah and Sophie) and younger (Lauren, Kate and Willa). We made a good effort a group shot – but not quite there yet 😉
