Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

Noah, Dylan, Hailee, Ashlee, Alyssa, Ashlee Stiles, Kaylee, Mikayla, Allison, Landon

Landon and Ashlee

Dylan and Hailee

Every year the girls are allowed to participate in a reading program through their school. They have to read for 6 hours, fill out a form, and in return they receive a free admission ticket to be used at a Six Flags Theme Park.  This year the girls and I went with some of our friends from school, and I also took my brothers three kids with us.  The park was crowded, probably one of the most crowded times we have been there.  But we were still able to ride just about everything before heading home.  Everyone had fun and enjoyed it.
 A couple hours before we were going to head home Landon's stomach started to bother him.  After giving him some ice water and having him lay down, the stomach ache persisted, so I decided that we should head home. I did not want to be in bay area traffic, by myself with 5 kids (one sick), and driving home in the dark.  As soon as we made it out of the parking lot of the park, he started throwing up, luckily I had garbage bags in my car.  I pulled off into a parking lot and some man starts yelling at me, telling me that I better get out of  there, or he is going to lock the gate on me, and I will not get out of there.  I tried to tell the man that I had a sick child in the car, and I would leave in a couple of minutes.  The man kept yelling at me, so we just left and went to another parking lot.  Thankfully, Landon only had a couple of episodes in the car, fell asleep and was fine the rest of the way home.  I think he may have got an upset stomach on a spinning ride!

Dylan, Landon, Hailee, Ashlee and Mikayla

Ashlee, Ashlee Stiles. Kaylee, Noah, Allison, Mikayla,  Hailee, Landon, Dylan, Alyssa.

9th Move Success!

Well, the month of June has been one fast paced blurr.  I am glad it is over with and everything has fell into place(we had some very stressful decisions to make, but everything is working out).  We officially moved for the 9th time in the 16 years we have been married in June.  Thanks to some very helpful friends and family the move was quick, easy, and successful!  We were all moved in about 24 hours from start to finish.  We just had to hang stuff on the walls and we were done.  By the end of the week, the house looked like we had lived there for months.  Our neighborhood seems to be nice and quiet (which is a great thing) and we are now only  5-7 minutes away from church, shopping etc, instead of 20 min.  Which is really nice, especially when kids have to be to church activities, etc.  I can drop them off and go home.  I don't have to spend hours in town waiting for them to finish, because it's too far to go home and come back!
John started his new job on July 1st.  Things are going ok.  He is a bit overwhelmed by information right now.  He has 4 weeks of training to complete, before he begins working in his department.  Each day is a learning experience, but he seems to be enjoying it and will feel better when he is more familiarized with everything.  So far the company and the people seem to be really good.

Swimming

We have been experiencing a heat wave.  Temps over a 100 pushing 110-112 degrees for a week.  There are a couple high schools here in town that have pools, and they open them up for a few hours a day for the community to use for a dollar a person.  So I took the girls and my brothers kids to the pool for a couple hours to cool off.  I did not swim, and I thought I was going to die!  It was soooo hot.  Next time I decide to do this, I think I will swim too!  I did not think I was going to convince them to get out of the pool so I could take them home because it was so hot.  But they ended up getting out on their own and asking if we could leave.

Ashlee's First Year of YW Camp

Ashlee got to attend girls (YW) Camp for the first time this year.  She went to Clarks Fort (Camp Liahona) in Dardanelle California up past Pinecrest.  I drove Ashlee and the other 4 girls from our ward up to camp (our ward has a really small group of YW right now).

Just finished getting her health check.

Ashlee and some YCL's helping her pack her luggage to her A- Frame aka "box".

Has her bed laid out for the week.

The outside of the A-Frame (yes it's only a tarp).  Talk about free range for the critters.  And they are sleeping on the floor too.  Ashlee, Alyssa, and Hailee (Hailee is a non-member from school attending camp for the first time, unfortunately she got sick on the third day and had to go home).

Ashlee returned home from camp on Saturday.  Not so sure if she wants to do it again.  She said it was cold(so cold, that she slept in two sleeping bags, with two blankets, with pjs, socks, sweatshirt and a beanie on and she was still cold), dirty, the bathrooms and showers are gross, and she had a room mate that was a huge disturbance.  On the other hand, she loved the craft shack.  She brought a duffel bag home full of crafts she made!  We will have to wait and see what happens next year.  We told her now she knows what to expect, and how to be better prepared next year!

Last day of school, Knotts Berry Farm, Midevil Times, Mason and Jessica's Wedding

June 6, 2013 the girls got out of school at 12:30pm.   After cleaning up from the end of the school year carnival activities, we headed home around 1:30pm.  2:00pm we loaded up the car and headed for Knotts Berry Farm.  The plan was to stay at the Knott's Berry Farm Hotel Thursday and Friday.  Friday spend the day at Knotts Berry Farm, Friday night go to the Midevil Times Dinner with Dan & Teresa and Family for Mason's bachelor party and Saturday attend Mason and Jessica's sealing in the LA Temple.
 About an hour into our trip, John received a phone call, he had interviewed three times for a position at Foster Farms, and they were calling to offer him a job!  Half way through his phone conversation with them, he lost phone reception and the call was dropped (stupid cell phones)!  This is not good, when someone is calling to offer you a job (especially when they had called him a couple months prior to tell him he was not accepted for another job he had interviewed for, and the same thing happened)!  After several attempts to call them back, John was able to get through, got the details concerning the job, and accepted the position.  Talk about excitment, nervousness, craziness, etc., all rolled into one.  We have 3 weeks to find a house, move, and start a new job.  Talk about hectic and stressful!

6/7/13 Today is our 16th wedding anniversary too.
Knotts Berry Farm-This was our first (and probably our last trip to Knott's Berry Farms)  it was crowded.  There were lot's of schools there,with un-chapperoned kids running every where.  The lines where long, the rides were mostly fast, twisting, flipping roller coasters (not the type of roller coasters we like).  We like roller coasters, but not the ones that jar your back and make you feel sick.  We only rode 6 rides all day.

Midevil Times Dinner/Mason's Bachelor Party-Danny and Teresa invited us to have dinner with them and their family and Midevil times and celebrate Mason's last night as a bachelor.  It was a great family filled evening.  Dinner, family, and cheering on your team.  Thank you Danny and Teresa.

Mikayla with one of the horses in the show.  Ever since she hurt her foot, she has been obsessed with horses and wants to have one.

Clearly John and Ashlee cannot read the sign.  They did it anyways.

Opening Ceremonies

6/8/13-Mason and Jessica's Sealing-LA Temple
Saturday morning we got up bright and early and drove from our hotel in Buena Park to LA to the temple for Mason and Jessica's Sealing.  The sealing was great.  The temple sealer did a great job.  The temple sealer had such an affect on John, he said he would like to be a temple sealer!

After the sealing it was time for pictures.  And walking around the temple grounds.  Temples are always such peaceful places.  It seems even when the temple surroundings are not in the greatest neighborhood, the area around it is peaceful.  After the sealing we drove back to Anaheim for the reception.  We spent a few hours at the reception and decided to head home.  Ashlee needed to get packed for girls camp and we had a lot on our plate.  We needed to find a home and start packing.

Academic Excellence Awards

Ashlee in pink (sorry for the head shots).  It seems to be unavoidable at these things!

Mikayla third one from left.  Next to the teacher.  She is in the black shirt.

Ashlee and Mikayla both received awards on the last day of school for Academic Excellence.  Academic Excellence means they have a 4.0GPA.  Great job girls.  We are proud of you.  Your hard work and dedication to your academics will help you tremendously in the future.

Mikayla's End of 4th Grade Luau Party

For Mikayla's class  party myself, along with her teacher, and the other 4th grade class teacher, planned a Luau party.   The two classes were separated into groups and rotated around to various games and activities.  They had a pizza lunch with fruit, carrot's,  a cookie, and raspberry slushies for a cool treat.  I wish I would have got more of a variety of pictures, but that's hard to do when your having to run the party (Mikayla's teacher was on maternity leave and could not be there to help).

 Blow up a balloon sit on it,  pop it, and run back to tag the next person in line.  Mikayla was still under doctors care for her fractured foot, so she could not play.  She got to pass out the balloons and then we had someone run in her place, so she got to blow up a balloon and pop it.

Allison 

Allison

Jordan

Mr. Newell (the long term substitute)

 Water balloon toss.

Mikayla on right, Allison on left

The last half of the school year has been a long one.  Between Mikayla's foot injury, having a long term substitute, and drama from several of her classmates, it's been a long year.  We are glad it is over with and we can catch a break from it all.  We hope to have a better school year next year!