On Friday, Andy's office planned a big "Summer Day of Fun" for the employees and their families. They rented out Dave and Busters in Irvine for five hours. It was incredible! Everything was completely free!

There was face painting.

I love Ellie's little clasped hands in this picture. This was her first time getting her face painted, and she was so excited. 

Both girls got mermaid tails.

Joey picked a dragon.

They also had glitter tatoos

and balloon creatures. Ellie got Pinkie Pie from "My Little Pony."

Decked out! Face painting, glitter tatoos, and balloons, oh my!

After all that fun, we headed over to get some lunch. There were four different buffet options. We all preferred the kid buffet. That's just how fancy we are!

Andy and Joey tried their hand at Sumo wrestling. 

It was pretty funny.

Finally we made our way over to the arcade area with unlimited games. Joey's face says it all. It was epic!

A "roller coaster ride." I've never heard Hannah laugh so hard before!

The boys pretty much stayed in the arcade area for the rest of the time.

They were in heaven.

We found a few games that the girls enjoyed, and then we headed over to the "Frozen Room."

This was a great room for the girls. They had Frozen playing over and over with tons of coloring books and crayons.

They also had some baby/toddler toys set out that Ellie really enjoyed. She even made a friend.

At one point, Hannah joined Andy and Joey in the arcade, but Ellie and I pretty much stayed here the rest of the time.

Can you tell she really enjoyed this room?

We did take a brief break to go get ice cream sundaes!

And I got a Long Island Peach Tea....and a Peach Sangria. What a fun treat!

I also got on the glitter tattoo band wagon. This one says "faith."

They are right, getting tattoos is addictive!

Later in the day, the girls decided to go back and get another balloon creation after they found out that the guy could make any Disney princess.

One Elsa.

Two Elsas.

 

Joey went back for a bow and arrow and really worked!

I didn't get a picture, but at the end of the day, Andy, Joey and Hannah redeemed all the tickets they earned playing arcade games. They had a couple THOUSAND tickets, and we went home with two bags filled with prizes. The whole day was so incredible! We felt so spoiled to be able to walk around and do all that stuff for free. We can't wait to find out what next year's "Summer Day of Fun" is going to be!

Joey: It's just so amazing to sit and think about Jesus.
Me: (Be still my heart!) What?! Really?!
Joey: Yeah! They're so amazing to think about. I mean, cheetahs can run like 73 miles an hour.
Me: Oh...CHEETAHS...yeah...they're okay, I guess.

Me: Ellie, I'm going to help at Joey and Hannah's school this morning. Guess who is going to take care of you?
Ellie: Nana?
Me: No.
Ellie: Mrs. Leviton (our neighbor)?
Me: No.
(I start pointing up at the ceiling trying to get her to guess Andy who is still asleep upstairs.)
Ellie: Jesus?!

Hannah: Joey, I got our yearbook today at school.

Joey: I know! I saw Chloe's. And you know what I noticed? You are the cutest person in your class!


Joey: Okay, tomorrow I think we should get up at 2:00 in the morning to get everything ready for Father's Day!

Joey had his version, so Hannah and our neighbor Chloe made their own Dreamland for Joey.

Wednesday was the kids' last day of school. Everyone was excited about our "last day of school" traditions. That meant I needed to make a big batch of chocolate chip cookies for creamy cookie sandwiches.

 

 Then I picked the kids up from school, and we headed to the pool.

Lots of kids from school always come!

A gaggle of girls!

After the pool, we came back to our house to play. Dress up started off fairly normally...

and then it got a little goofy!

In the past, I've let Joey invite one friend over after the last day of school. This year he somehow managed to convince me to let him invite two friends. So of course Hannah got to invite two friends as well. Joey's friend, Jack, ended up leaving after our three hours at the pool, so it was just Josh, Kahren, and Chloe for dinner. We ended the night with tacos and creamy cookies. A great end to a great day!

At the end of the year, every grade does a special performance for the parents. Hannah's kindergarten performance was first. They sang a several songs that they learned throughout the year. It was way too cute.

Hannah was probably the loudest person on stage and really got into the motions!

She was so fun to watch!

Miss Bell and Mrs. Prescott. Best kindergarten teachers ever!

Here she is with her third grade reading buddy Riley, who also happens to be Mrs. Prescott's daughter. It cracks me up that they are the same height. These two clicked right away and have been good friends all year.

These are two of Hannah's friends from class: Charlotte H. and Kahren.

A couple of nights later, the second grade performed the "Three Piggy Opera." Joey was the straw peddler. Can you spot him (hint: front and center)?

I know this is a terrible picture, but my camera wasn't behaving and it's the only picture I got of Joey's little solo.

The performance started at 6:00 and Andy wasn't going to be able to get there until around 6:15. Since Joey was the straw peddler, his part was early in the play so I was worried Andy would miss it. Thank goodness he got there just in time. He literally came in, sat down, and Joey walked on stage. Phew!

And a picture with his beloved teacher, Mrs. Watters. He sure is going to miss her next year!

This past weekend we went camping as a belated birthday gift to Andy. We packed up the car Friday afternoon and hit the road as soon as Joey came home from school.

We planned this trip with our favorite camping buddies, the Warners and DeMilles. Andy worked with Philip and Natalie at Ostendo years ago, and we've become good friends with their families. Camping with them is really nice because our kids are all around the same ages and have a blast together.

For this camping trip, we tried a new campground called William Heise in Julian. It was definitely a winner. It was beautiful and had nice facilities. On Saturday we took a lovely hike, until we missed the turn for the playground and accidentally took the path to "fatigue and despair" as Andy called it.

It didn't help that the other two moms were both pregnant and all the dads were carrying toddlers on their shoulders. Thankfully we retraced our steps and finally made it to the playground.

Like I mentioned before our kids get along so well with the other kids. Lucy and Ellie's favorite activity was digging in the dirt.

Joey and Joseph enjoyed a few games of chess and Uno. We also played a lot of wiffle ball!

While Andy loves camping, I'm more what you would call "indoorsy." (I totally stole that line from Jim Gaffigan) In order to enjoy camping more, I scoured Pinterest for good camping tips and ideas. Some were super helpful (like my sweet shoe organizer turned camping organizer) and some were a bit of a bust (like the heavy duty 5-gallon water container with attachable faucet where the faucet didn't actually have a hole for the water to come out--true story!) Overall, the extra supplies and tips I got really did make camping easier and more enjoyable!

Julian is a cute little town and is famous for their awesome pies, so on our way home from camping we all stopped by Mom's Pies and indulged in a little post breakfast dessert. Now that's a camping tradition I can get behind!