Welcome Home Arnold Family!

As I have mentioned in a previous post, our friends (the Arnold Family) have been sailing around the world for almost 3 years. They arrived back in the Bay Area on Saturday!

WELCOME HOME!!!!

We have been following their travel adventures on their website and online daily log, gonesailing.com for the past 2 years, 11 months.

My girls have loved following "Adventure Bear" and everything he has seen the last three years.

We can't wait to see our friends. We were all so excited to see them in the newspaper this morning!

What a wonderful experience! Again, we welcome the Arnolds home and can't wait to see them!

Aaaah Baaacon!

The other day the girls and I were at the grocery store. We walk by the bacon and I hear CK behind me, "Aaaaaah baaacon."

CK, I ask, do you want me to buy some bacon?
"Yes, please."

Later that day, C opens the refrigerator and I hear, "Aaaaaaah baaacon."

Like father, like daughter. I just laughed.

This morning C made pancakes and bacon. It was a good morning.

Swimming Lessons

The girls started swimming lessons this week. They have only had swimming lessons once before and that was two years ago.

They are both doing great. By the end of the first lesson CK was swimming to the deep end and back and O was swimming from one side of the pool to the other.

CK swimming to the deep end on the second day.

O swimming from one side of the pool to the other on the second day.

The second lesson, they were both going to the deep end and back. YEAH!

O is in the upper part of this image and CK is at the bottom.

Today, CK jumped off the diving board and O got a toy off the bottom of the pool! The are doing great!

Bowling Play Date

Sadly, this was the first time my girls have been bowling. I know, I'm a horrible parent. Believe me, this will not be their last. They had so much fun!

We got together with a Summer Kinder Play group some of us parents formed from O's Kinder class. The group gets together once a week. A different outing or park each week. It's been great.
Last week we went bowling.

We have got to go back. The girls did great and had a blast! CK scored an 83 and O an 85! Yes the bumper guards where up, but still...



Each time O finished her turn she would run to the computer to see her score. She then would run to tell her sister and I what her score was. It was so cute to watch.

4th of July Weekend

What a weekend! It started on Friday night with the girls in the Patriotic Sing. What a wonderful event. A wonderful way to celebrate our country's birthday!

The girls with the poster they made, with absolutely, NO help from mommy or daddy!

Getting ready to sing.

O getting a little sleepy. We thought for sure she would fall over. Thank goodness for big sister.


Saturday morning was the 4th of July Parade! The girls were on the Patriotic Sing Chorus float! O was so excited to be able to join her sister this year. They had a great time. Mommy and daddy, on the other hand, had a very long wait watching for them in the parade. They were about 5th from the end.

The girls were a little disappointed they did not get to see the parade....being in it and all. Not to worry...mommy took plenty of pictures for them. Here are just a few...

There they are! The BIG RED TRUCK!!! YEAH! A very long 2 hours later.

We had a wonderful BBQ dinner at my parents house. (daddy was working) We took a walk after dinner then the girls and I headed home just as fireworks were going off.

We saw fireworks as we drove home, but it's not the same. I had told the girls we could stop. We found a perfect new spot. Up the hill from our house, where we had seen the cowboy riding at sunset. It turned out to to be the best little spot. We saw all the fireworks, from Santa Clara to Morgan Hill. The girls loved it. They want to go back to "our spot" next year, hopefully with daddy.


Today, the girls and I did a little gardening. I'm not good at knowing how many flowers to get for a given spot or what to put together, etc. We'll see how I did....we're not finished yet.

First was the planter box on the front porch. I do hope these flowers do well here. They are so pretty. Gotta remember to water them. That may help.

Next was this little strip of lawn by the mail box. I want to put flowers here, so we had to remove the lawn...ah, weeds....dead stuff. That took one hour. The girls did help. They were great! I wanted to stop after less than half way (it was already late & close to dinner). The girls wanted to finish. They wanted to plant at least one flower. So we continued. I'm glad we did.

Our new Lavender plant. Pretty.... It should fill that little section. They get pretty big. At least my mom's Lavender plant does.

These are the rest of the flowers we bought for this section. I hope they fill in nicely after they are all planted. This is the part I'm not good at. I'm also hoping I bought the right plants to do the whole layering thing....large to small. We'll see.

I'm pooped.