UPDATE:

Remember this, only 2 posts and 2 short months ago?.........

"We celebrated Mason's Birthday last month as well, he is officially 6 and scored himself a pretty sweet big kid bike. One that I have been told will be awesome for going off ramps, jumps and bike courses. Greeeaaat, I can hardly wait."

Apparently it was awesome for all of those things and also only a matter of time before this.......

Mad Mullets and Moody Mohawks

In this short post, before I get into more of the goings on around here, I pose a question....

Why, as a parent, is it so much fun to **(harmlessly!)** torture your children?

Why? It's because you are the parent and are obligated too, otherwise what will they have to complain to their therapists about.

So in the sport of good parenting we decided, after both boys came home within a week of each other having scissored into their own hair at school, that it was time to chop the mops. But before we shaved it all off we decided to have a little fun, and give them a few fine choices in hairstyles. And as you can clearly see, they enjoyed it at least as much as we did, and thought their parents are the funniest people ever. We couldn't agree more!

Spencer sporting a striking mullet (no need for a scarf this winter)

Mason modeling his masterful mohawk (Rock on!)

We did try and convince them to keep the hairstyles for a few days, Spencer wasn't having anything to do with that, and Mason did keep the mohawk for soccer but found it difficult to head the ball, so we shaved it off that afternoon. But lucky for them these locks of love will live on forever in pictures.

"In a little while Ill be there"

Ah, the U2 concert. It was awesome and amazing and so much fun, and did I mention incredibly awesome. Paul, David, Adam and Larry put on a great show for us that lovely night in Vegas and we had such a great time with the Parkinsons that we are already looking into buying tickets for when they come to Anaheim next year. (tickets go on sale tomorrow) Count me in, I am ready to go!! They really do put on a fantastic show and they sound as good as ever, if not better, live. So if your up for a night of great entertainment, in the form of watching Laura make a fool of herself, and seeing U2, give us a holler. It will surely be a night you are not soon to forget.

And for you enthusiasts out there, a challenge. 10 points for those of you who can tell me how many U2 songs I have in this next paragraph, 20 if you can name them all. WITHOUT the use of a search engine! Good luck!

You know we'll go crazy if we don't go crazy tonight but I was of a feeling it was out of control, so you never felt alive until you almost wasted away but only love, only love can heal such a scar. You don't have to be shy about it, Im only asking, but I, I want the lot of what you got. It frightens me, you know, I don't know how to say what's got to be said. You say you dont want my help, I know its not cheap and I know it aches. Nothing much to say I guess but things like that drive me out of my mind, oh, thats something. Tonight the city belongs to me but the traffic is stuck so Im coming home late at night, I just watch the tail lights glowing.

And although I dont get the answers right, Ill leave that to you.

I am what I am

Thats it, I am tired of feeling guilt-ridden for being a shamefully inadequate blogger. I have always been terrible at journaling, have never had the slightest interest in scrapbooking, which translates into an even lesser interest in digital scrapbooking, and really have never even been all that exceptional at photo documentation in general. So, as it is with most things and me, you get what you get.

But I did finally get the pictures from the excursions during our Cabo trip. This first one is our America's Cup Race as the crew of the New Zealand boat facing off against the Australians. We lost, but in looks and style we most definitely came away victorious!

Then while the guys went out and speared their fish, we girls went out to make friends with ours......

And no, it didnt feed us that evening, but it sure was fun!


Speaking of fun! Next up is the first day of school. Mason started 1st grade this year, he has graduated to a full day of school this year. (the first week consisted of him falling asleep in the car the two minutes it took us to get from the school, home. There must have been some earnest education going on)
Spencer is thoroughly enjoying 2nd grade and loves to tell every listening (and even non-listening) ears that he is so excited to get baptized this coming year. Its must be just as great to be almost 8.
We celebrated Mason's Birthday last month as well, he is officially 6 and scored himself a pretty sweet big kid bike. One that I have been told will be awesome for going off ramps, jumps and bike courses. Greeeaaat, I can hardly wait. But all the same, happy late birthday to my little Mason man, who is getting too big too darn fast. Love you so much buddy, thanks for being such an incredible kid and blessing our lives every single day!
And if all of that wasn't excitement itself, we also started soccer this fall. The boys are on the same team which is pretty much the only way to go for the practices and games that occupy 2 days out of your week instead of 4. I wont tell you our teams record this year so far because here in the U8 division we are all winners.

Then last but certainly not least, just in time for Christmas (and school pictures) Spencer gave us his shopping list in the form of his two front teeth. And how does a toothless grin get any more priceless than that, I ask you?!

A decade in pictures

We are living proof that time really and truly does fly when you are having fun. It is still amazing and a bit surreal that Darren and I are celebrating our 10th Anniversary today. It seems like none of these pictures could possibly be more than 2 years ago, and yet here we are a decade later as happy this year as we have been the last 10.

Happy Anniversary Darren, thank you for the best, most incredible marriage, the most amazing life, and easily the best 1/3 of my life. I love you so much and am, without a doubt, the luckiest woman in the world to have you. Here's to these 10 and the many more to follow.

Year 0

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Year 6

Year 7

Year 8

Year 9

Year 10

Year sometime-down-the-road-but-not-in-the-too-near-future (we hope)

Swimwear required, sombrero's..... optional

This summer has been some serious fun in the sun around here. It started out with a great trip to Cabo and from there has evolved into trips to the beach, Hurricane Harbor (the Six Flags water park in Valencia) and many, many trips to the pool. Riley has taken to living in her swimming suit, and must have it on within seconds of getting out of bed. Isn't that what summers all about anyway? 

Our trip to Cabo was so much fun. We headed down with some great friends and had a fantastic trip. We spent a lot of time lounging on the beach, shopping, drinking Pina Coladas, (virgin of course) eating, eating and more eating. The guys did some golfing and fishing, the girls did the spa and swam with the dolphins and we did an America's Cup race together (Ill post about our excursions later) It was a great success of a trip and Cabo, as usual, did not disappoint. 

You can tell the next few pictures are not Cabo because the kids were not invited on that trip. This is us at Hurricane Harbor (giving my underwater camera its first initial test run). By the way, I love Hurricane Harbor, I can let the kids run around, get wet, cruise the lazy river and theres no sand to clean up or get in my food. Its a win-win for all!

Last but not least, our first trip to the beach so far this summer. Mason doesnt even need a shovel to do some heavy digging. 

This is how we do it

This is how we shake our groove thing.......

This is how we entertain ourselves at church.......

This is how we teach our kids to stay our of jail under the guise of a "field trip"......

This is how we show them the wrong end of a cop car to ride in.......

And this is how we show them what cop car they really want to hold out for......

"At all times, and in all things, and in all places"

And with lots of pictures! The activities we have 

been involved in with our Young Women as of late, 

have been wide, varying and quite numerous. 

So in an effort to consolidate all that excitement 

into one manageable blog size post I have created

 a tidy little slideshow for you. Enjoy. 

Happiness.......GDC

Do you ever find that you have to be in a certain mood to get that perfect blog post from the confines of your brain through to your fingertips and on to your computer where it will be saved and archived and read by possible generations of people? Me neither. Ok, I do, and Im sad to say to the throngs of readers out there, past, present and future, today is not one of those days. However, since its been a month and the pictures are continuing to pile up, Im posting them now. Even if Im not so good with the saying of the things with the words right now. 

First and foremost, the title of this post and the following two pictures: our Ginger run. A group of family and friends of Ginger Dee Zierenberg Clinton ran the Agoura Great Race in memory of our great friend. She ran it last year and was so happy to have finished it and especially under her goal time. I was so lucky to have been able to run it this year and as you can see from the second picture it was a beautiful sea of red for Ginger, her favorite color. Thanks to my running buddies who made it very fun and very memorable.  

On to Easter-

Which was very low key this year but still and always a lot of fun. There was the Ward Easter egg hunt, our family egg hunt, and the cousins egg hunt. Dont worry I decided to spare my kids the cavities and sugar high by eating a lot of the candy myself. That's me, always so self sacrificing. 

Now the part of this blog post I have been dreading the most. And although it still bring me to tears and my heart still hurts its a good way for me to tell those of you who dont know her all about a very good friend of mine. Natalie Paxman was one of the most wonderful women you could ever meet, she was kind and sincere, loving and sweet, thoughtful and caring. She was without a doubt in my mind, the most incredible mother. I visit taught Natalie every month for 2 years and whenever I would leave her home I was the one who had been uplifted with a resolve to be better, to be like Natalie was. I know she had her struggles but she rarely showed it, what she showed was concern for others. She would lose herself and her troubles in service and love to others. I also played Bunco with her every month for the last 3 years, and as you watched her you saw that everyone in that room was her best friend. She made everyone feel wanted, needed and loved. We had been out on dates with she and her husband Todd, and she was an amazing wife who cared for her husband and family above all else. I miss her so much, I wish I had been able to see her and talk to her and tell her how inspirational she was, and is, to me.  I love you Natalie.