August

Happy Birthday to Corinne!  She turned six!  We celebrated with fancy cereal, Blaze Pizza, and Oreo cake.  Her main present was a Calico Critters RV, so her little animals could be like Grandma.
  

   
We decided to take a weekend and go to San Diego for a mini-vacation.  We did Legoland during a heat wave, as you can see from the pictures of Celeste.
  

  

Corinne was obsessing on the stuffed animals in this shop for awhile.

On Sunday, we attended church at the Oceanside ward, where over half the churchgoers were visitors.  Then we spent some time at the San Diego Temple and the Mormon Battalion Historic Site.  
  

Ryan did his somewhat annual backpacking trip in the Sierras.  This year was Lake Sabrina, along with various higher alpine lakes.  They had a great time until the second day, when a sudden freezing rain storm caught them out on a hike, and they barely made it back to camp without getting hypothermia.  Since the forecast seemed to call for more of these showers, they cut the trip short the next morning and came home.
  

Ryan caught a fish!

Hailstones on the Ground

Evan celebrated his half-birthday with a birthday party!  (Yes, it was 6 months late, but we finally did one.)  He took his friends to laser tag and ate custom sandwiches at Subway.  They loved it!
  

Elise and I also had the opportunity to go to her friend Ashlee's birthday party.  Her family has been struggling with her mom's ALS diagnosis, so it was nice to have a chance to sit and talk with Charice via text message.  The kids had a great time just swimming and eating cake!
     

  
Ryan's work had their summer party, which was particularly kid friendly this year.  There were crafts, a photo booth with props, games, and of course food!
    

One of our friends is head of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, so he was able to get us tickets to the Walk of Fame ceremony for Weird Al Yankovic.  The crowds of fans who turned up were so enthusiastic and loud - apparently there is a very active fan club online that had been lobbying for this for years!
    

Us, the Gublers, and the Whites (all church friends)

More fun summer stuff:
  

Tutti Frutti!

Tuna Sandwich Fragment

Bunnies don't tolerate heat well, so we bring Winter in when it's over 95 degrees.

I installed clothing racks in my bathroom to help with church and school clothes.

Banana

Elise's Favorite Life

Clustering Around the Computer

Homeschool Spanish Academy

Evan's Awesome Mennonite Math Book

Mom, Elise, and Corinne.  By Corinne.

We started getting Evan ready for CSA Baseball.

More Clustering Around the Computer