Daisy-The Pink BB Gun

A couple of weeks ago we went to a gun shop in town. While we were there Mikayla saw a pink bb gun and a pink camoflauge gun case that she wanted.  For two weeks now she has been asking us to take her to town so she could buy the pink bb gun.  John suprised her and bought her Daisy, the pink bb gun for her birthday.  After her party yesterday it was raining.  When the rain stopped she went outside for some target practice with her new bb gun, Daisy.  Mikayla did well.  She shot the target more than once.  Her friend Allison, was able to shoot the target on her first shot. 

Mikayla, John, Allison and Ashlee watching

Allison shot the target on her first shot.

Ashlee

Mikayla's 9th Birthday Party

Today Mikayla turned 9 years old. Mikayla continues to amaze and suprise us with her abilities and personality.  Mikayla is a girly girl one minute and a country girl the next minute.  One minute she is playing dress-up , doing hair and make-up.  The next minute she's outside with John feeding chickens and rabbits, catching chickens for him and killing snakes with a shovel.  She isn't afraid of things.  She is a hard worker and she tries her best at everything.  She is a peacmaker. She wants to make sure everyone is happy and she doesn't want anyone to be mad at her.

Yesterday she had a party with her friends. This year we planned on doing a gymnastics/hip hop party at a local kids gym in town. But we ended up with an instructor who teaches mainly dance, so they learned a dance routine to some hip hop music and didn't get to do any gymnastics activities. After learning their dance routine we went to a pizza place for lunch, cupcakes, games and a little craft activity.

Warming up for hip-hop routine at Kid Time Fitness Company

 Starting the routine:

Top Row-Hannah, Emily,Hailee, Jordan, Ashlee
Bottom Row: Karah, Mikayla, Allison, Brooke, Julia

 Playing The Price is Right.  They had to guess the price of 7 items.  The one closest to the price won the item.

Mikayla opening her gifts

A wallet made out of Starburst papers to Mikayla from Hailee.

 For a couple of weeks now, Mikayla has been begging for a pink BB Gun.  John bought her a pink BB Gun.

Julia, Hannah, Emily and Ashlee

Mikayla, Allison, Karah, Jordan and Brooke

Top Row-Mikayla, Allison, Jordan, Emily, Hailee, Julia & Hannah
Bottom row- Brooke and Karah

These are the treat bags we put together for the girls.  The flower on the outside is a clip for their hair. 



World of Wonders Science Museum



Today I went on a field trip with Mikayla's class to the World of Wonder's Science Museum in Lodi.  The museum was small, but they had several hand's on activities for the kids to do.  They also took the kids into a room, taught them a little bit about how batteries work, and had them build a miniature robot with a partner.  The robots actually worked and walked around on the table when they were done them, unfortunately they didn't get to bring the robots home. 



The group of girls I had.  Mikayla, Allison, Riley & Samaria



Mikayla and Allison with a space craft behind them



Mikayla, Allison, Brooke, Jordan and Madison

Mikayla and Allison building their robot.


Playing with some static electricity.



Mikayla and Allison with their robot.





Mikayla, Allison, Samaria and Riley



Fine Art's Night

Ashlee with her woven bag.  The green, blue and pink one is her's.

Mikayla with her drawing of apples.

Fine Art's Night was tonight.  The cafeteria at the school is transformed into an art gallery.  Every student has at least one piece of art work on display. 

Mikayla's Solar System Project

Right before the girls got a week out of school in February, Mikayla got an assignment to build a solar system.  Our school loves to give projects during breaks for some reason.  Luckily she had 3 weeks to work on it, so we put it aside during our week to Utah and dealt with it when we got home.  Here is her finished project.  She got an A on it.

Sunset Beach

This weekend we took a short but sweet camping trip to Sunset Beach with Teresa, Danny, Carlee and Preston.  We had never been to Sunset Beach.  In fact we had never heard of the place until Teresa and Danny told us about it a few weeks ago.

Breakfast time

Getting warm by the camp fire after breakfast.
From left to right: Danny, Ashlee, Mikayla, Preston, Teresa and Carlee

Mikayla, Preston, Carlee and Ashlee headed to the beach for a treasure hunt.  Teresa put together some activities for the kids.  They had to find the items listed on their bag.

Carlee and Mikayla heading to the beach

Preston and Ashlee

Socks and shoes are off.  Pants are rolled up.  Off and going on a treasure hunt.

Our Family

Teresa and Mikayla.

John and Mikayla.  Looking for treasures and surfers.

Mikayla with some of her beach treasures.  She is keeping all her beach treasures to show grandma.  She called grandma on the way home to tell her about all the treasures she found.

Ashlee marking off what she found on her bag.

 Aunt Teresa also planned a little volcano experiment. 
Step 1: Dig a hole

 Step 2: Bury a water bottle half full of water in the hole and cover with sand.  Leave the top of the water bottle above the ground though.

 Step 3: Put food coloring in the water bottle.
Step 4: Put banking soda and vinegar in the water bottle.

 Step 5: Watch your volcano errupt.

Preston's Volcano

Mikayla's Volcano

Carlee and Mikayla watching Ashlee's Volcano

 Playing at the beach.  It was cold and breezy.  Mikayla and Preston kept on going though.

 Trying to get warm.  Eating some snacks and playing a game of Go Fish.

 Our site was site 18.  Nice site.  No neighbors next to you or behind you.

 And the weirdest thing of all.  To be camping at the beach and having thousands of acres of farm land right next to you.  Most of this is strawberries.  Not sure how they keep people and critters from eating their crop.   Friday night after dinner we were sitting around the campfire and a racoon came into the campsite, got into the garbage can and took some food.  It was a fat racoon.  I guess he lives well off the crops and the campers!

 Some hitch hikers hitching a ride:)  They had their thumbs out, but I was too slow with the camera.

Needless to say, the trip came to an end way too soon.  A short, but sweet trip.  We hope to be able to go back again sometime soon.  Thanks for inviting us Teresa and Danny.