Day 72: When It's 1000 Degrees

It hit like, a thousand degrees today. 

Actually it hit 92 degrees today in town. Which might as well be 1000 when you live in Coastal Northern-ish California. 

Personally, I LOVE this weather. Any time I can get sunshine and hot weather, I'm going to be outside doing anything I can to NOT go inside. 

The inlaws and I spent the day out on the front porch chatting while the boys were at school. When they came home, we set up the little kiddie wading pool in the driveway and had a pretty spectacular water balloon fight with kids and adults alike. 

I remember water balloons breaking a lot easier when you're hit by them when I was a kid. But it seemed today like every single water balloon would smash into a human body and ricochet off, leaving a great welt on your skin and a harsh reminder that someone had it out for you. 


After we ran out of water balloons (300 of them), the boys had a great time in the wading pool having an epic Lego water battle. 

Who doesn't love a scorching hot day?

Day 71: The Day You Turned Eight

It's Camden's 8th birthday, you guys. 

EIGHT!!!

That's halfway to driving, ten years to adulthood. I can't even you guys. I can't even. 

*hides in corner* *sobs* *blows nose loudly*

Anyways. 

We had a great day celebrating our tiny guy. The grandparents are in town, so that makes for extra extra special fun. 

We started the morning with traditional birthday pancakes. Whipped cream (Reece's PB cut flavor, because 8 year olds), sprinkles, a number candle, and some singing. 

After birthday breakfast the boys had to go to school, boo!! But luckily for them we had every intention of pulling them early to do some celebrating. 

Bonus points for going to the principal's office on your birthday for wearing your Heely's (rolling shoes) to school without Mom noticing and skating all over the school campus. Principal laughed. I kind of did too. 

So at 11am we yanked the boys out of school and came home, and Brad came home for lunch break so we could do birthday presents. Highlights this year included a couple small Lego sets, a Knex Nerf gun (coolest thing ever), rollerblade guards for his hockey skates, and new dinosaur Heely's (which was especially funny since he got in trouble at school with them today). 

Brad had to go back to work, but the fun wasn't over yet. The grandparents and I took the boys to Scandia, a family fun center type place, and did a round of miniature golf, got completely and totally soaked on bumper boats, attempted (and failed) to air dry doing go karts, and then spent an hour or so inside (shivering because we were still wet) in the arcade. The boys were elated that they managed to actually complete the Halo arcade game from start to finish (with help of two college kids, since it's a 4 player game), and announced it was well worth spending every credit they had on one game. I was also impressed that after every "chapter" where they showed the scores, Calen was beating the college kids in scores and kills, and he made sure they knew it because during gameplay he kept bossing them around on where to go and what to do. "OKAY GUYS we are going go up to this area and WATCH OUT FOR THAT SHIP you go right and I'll go left and DON'T FORGET TO USE YOUR GRENADES OKAY? OKAY GO GO GO". I doubt they were listening but it was funny anyways. 

After we totally exhausted ourselves at Scandia, we met Brad at Target to complete our tradition of letting the birthday boy pick out their own present(s). We gave him $100 and let him run amok in the toy aisles. After careful consideration, he picked a huge Star Wars Lego set, a Nerf gun (because we don't have enough), two small Halo "guys" (because obviously), and a little transforming dragon ball thing (Bakugan?). He walked away happy, and we were happy for him. 

And because we hadn't had enough fun, we finished off the night at Mary's Pizza (Cam's dinner of choice) for cheese pizza, french fries, and a chocolate sundae with a cherry on top. 

Now how can you top a birthday like that. 

Happy 8th birthday, Camden. 

Day 70: Easter Sunday

Happy Easter! He is risen!

It was a wonderful Easter Sunday today. The sun was shining, it was warm, and the grandparents are in town. 

The boys opened their Easter baskets from us first thing in the morning. Highlights this year included new hats (a Mariners hat for Calen - that ended up being too small for his big huge head, and a custom hockey hat for Cam in his new Kodiak team colors), a little Lego flying set, some dragons that have to be excavated out of hardened clay, and the boys new Cub Scouts handbooks (and some other small goodies). 

We went to church with Brad's folks, and then went out to an amazing brunch at the Sheraton hotel in town, where we stuffed our faces with salmon, crab legs, prime rib, eggs benedict, and literally any other fancy breakfast/lunch food you could imagine. 

We came home and played outside with new styrofoam gliders in the back field while I hid Easter eggs (by "hide" I mean ceremoniously tossing eggs into the field haphazardly where the tall grass hid the eggs for me), and then we had a big egg hunt with some neighbor kids in the field.  

They came in after eating literally every jelly bean and bunny shaped sweet tart in all 5528 eggs (and collected the pennies and nickels in the other eggs) and did a little Easter painting craft that the grandparents brought, and then went out and dyed real eggs with them while Daddy barbecued a steak dinner (because we hadn't eaten enough today) and called it a day. 

Another great Easter with wonderful memories. 

Day 69: Party Hardy Hockeysaurus

Today was Camden's 8th birthday party! 

Each year, we alternate which boy has a birthday party. Since their birthdays are 5 weeks apart, it's too much having two birthday parties the same year. So, last year was Calen's year to have a birthday party, this year is Camden's, next year will be Calen, etc. 

When I asked Camden what kind of birthday party he wanted to have, he really struggled to decide. He couldn't decide between a hockey party, or a Jurassic World dinosaur party. 

After a very long debate with himself in the middle of the kids' themed aisle in Party City, he approached me and asked:

"Can I have a Dinosaur-Hockey party?!"

Ummm, sure! 

So we bought a hockey table cover, Jurassic World plates, hockey napkins, Jurassic World cups, and wristbands as party favors from both sections. Done and done. Then I found a shirt on Amazon that had incorporated both hockey AND dinosaurs, and ordered it for his birthday shirt. 

As for the cake, this was by far the easiest cake I've done. I made a rectangle sheet cake and covered it with white fondant and used those little colored gel frosting things to make lines to create a hockey rink. I stole borrowed the goal nets from Cam's Playmobil hockey set and set them at either end, and then took a bunch of Lego dinosaurs and stuck Playmobil hockey sticks in their little dino claws and created a velociraptor hockey game on top of the cake, and used a BIG T-Rex on the end of the cake to ceremoniously eat the human goalie. 

Best.Cake.Ever.

The party was SO easy too. Camden wanted to do "open skate" (public ice skating) at his hockey rink with his best hockey friends Tyler, Will, Tommy and Gavin. And since hockey players only pay $5 to skate, this was a cheap party. So the boys went out and skated for 40 minutes or so (and caused an announcement over the loudspeaker that "hockey players need to slow down and be careful of little kids"), and then went outside to the front of the arena and ate Costco pizza and cake and played cornhole, mini hockey (with cheap plastic sticks and balls I found on clearance at Target) and hide and seek with Jurassic World Easter eggs. Cam announced it was the best party ever and was asleep before we even hit the freeway afterwards. 

Hockey and Dinosaurs. Who knew the two could mesh so well. 

I took like NO photos because I was enjoying watching them all play so much. 

Day 68: Like Brother, Like Brother

I peeked into the boys' room tonight, and spotted Calen on the bottom bunk snuggling his Stitch stuffie in his sleep. I thought, awww, how cute, and then glanced up on the top bunk and spotted Camden with his arms wrapped around his "Stitchy" (which is his favorite stuffed animal of all time). 

It was so cute that they were doing the same thing at the same time in their sleep. 

Day 67: Heat Wave

It got up to 70 degrees today, you guys. 

I mean, 70 degrees plus a really cold arctic windchill that probably dropped it to 60, but you know, the kids see 70 degrees and announce it's summer. 

Camden asked if we could pull out the small plastic wading pool and fill it up, and so we did. 

The boys lasted a lot longer than I had predicted. I predicted them to stand in it for five seconds and say "it's too cooooold" and leave. And while they did stand in it for five seconds and whined it was too cold, they decided to pull out some toys, throw them in the pool, and hang out on the outside of the pool and play with the pirate ships and the sharks and the krakens and whatever else was going on in that pool. Pretty soon neighborhood kids asked to join in, and it turned into a several-hour adventure. 

Fantastic, I say. Stay busy, be outside, and do something you don't usually do. 

Day 66: Rebel Turns One

It's Rebel's birthday today!!

That tiny little fuzzy ball of chocolate fluff that we brought home in June is now a full-fledged, gigantic, blundering ball of chocolate fluff. 

Of course, we HAD to have a big celebration. He basically throws tantrums (barking), wants to play all day, and doesn't listen to adults, so basically he's a human in the household anyways and deserves a birthday party. 

We gave him a bath (yesterday) and picked out a new blue bowtie for him to look fancy today. Thanks to Pinterest (of course), we made a dog-friendly birthday cake, made with pureed pumpkin, peanut butter, egg, vegetable oil and baking soda (or powder? I can't remember which), and a peanut butter/pumpkin/cream cheese mix for frosting (eww). Then we plopped a small container of wet dog food (sirloin steak and cheese flavored) on top, and garnished with Beggin Strips dog treats. Slap a candle on it (recycling Calen's #1 candle from his birthday) and plop it on a paper plate (so that Rebel could eat the plate along with the cake because he loves paper), and it was the best birthday treat a pooch could ask for. 

And because I'm me, I had to do a cake smash photo shoot. With a dog. And a party hat. And do you KNOW how hard it is to stuff a dog into a paper party hat?! Let me tell you it's not easy. 

We ordered him to "wait", and he did, but he was shaking with excitement.

Calen picked out a few toys for Rebel at Target (a few different sized tennis balls, a stuffed taco and cheeseburger, and a Kong), and we tossed them in an open cardboard box for him as his "presents". He loved poking his head in there and pulling out one after the other and carrying them around for us all to see before circling the box again and picking out another one. 

Considering we've never celebrated a dog's birthday before, I would consider it a grand success today. 

Happy birthday, Rebel Scum. 

Day 65:Conversations With Cam

After the kids got home from school today, Cam announced:

"When I go to Alaska I'm going to join Boy Scouts and learn to carve a bow and arrow out of a tree branch and shoot a bear." 

And after that he grabbed his foam sword and shield and marched outside, hopefully not trying to carve any bows and arrows. 

No photos today, sorry. 

Day 64: I'm Bored Crime Stoppers

Calen had a baseball game today and Cam had to be drug along. 

It took about 3.5 minutes sitting on the bleachers before Camden announced:

"This is so boooooring."

Luckily, I keep an arsenal of "I'm bored" crime fighters in my Mom Bag, including snacks, coloring books and crayons, books and stormtroopers (because who doesn't have stormtroopers hanging out in their bag?). 

Maybe if you chose to play baseball, Cam, you wouldn't be bored during baseball season. 

Day 63: Scale The Wall

We had another super fun semi-busy day today. 

Hockey season is winding down, but we still had to get up early to get Cam on the ice for his second to last Intro To Hockey session. I also had enough sense today to finally attach a Go Pro (or rather, a $50 Chinese knockoff of a Go Pro, because who actually wants to spend $400 on a glorified underwater camera with a fish eye lense that runs the risk of being run over/smashed/sunk to the bottom of the sea?) to Camden's hockey helmet for some hilarious first person view, complete with commentary. 

It was a good day to hook Cam up with a Cam-Cam (HA! See what I did there?), because they had a special pre-Easter celebration on the ice, complete with the Easter Bunny On Ice, and a super fun on ice egg hunt where the skaters were required to keep their hockey gloves on and *attempt* (key word) to pick up eggs off the ice with their gloves, then deliver them to us parents on the sidelines, one at a time. Camden took no shame in completely dumping himself headfirst into some of the training tires to find some of the eggs, which I'm sure will be great video later. 

Can you find Cam? Hint: He's head first in a tire

After hockey, we ran home and got some lunch, then walked to the base pool, where they had installed a brand new vertical climbing wall on the edge of the deep end. This is SO cool. As long as you can pass the swim test, you can climb the wall (beginner, intermediate and advanced sections), and either fall to your doom of the deep end, or, hit the top and celebrate by falling to your doom of the deep end. What's not to like?

Camden of course is a complete monkey, has incredible upper body strength and even at almost 8 doesn't hit 50 pounds, so he scaled all three sections of the rock wall without even struggling, even the advanced section, and probably climbed the wall a thirty times in the two hours we were at the pool. Calen struggled a little on the advanced section, but even he successfully climbed all three sections. 

Cam the monkey

Calen on the intermediate section!

They walked home tired and worn out, a good sign that it was a successful day today. 

Day 62: When In Doubt, Build A Moat

We had a fantastically long day today. 

I like long days. It means we accomplished a lot, did a lot of adventures, or a combination of the two. 

We started the day off with Calen's baseball game first thing in the morning. He started in right field, and the very first batter hit a towering fly ball right to him. Calen kept his composure, wavered around a bit, and CAUGHT it for the first out of the game! Cubs won a tight one (for 10 year olds) 5-0. 

It was shockingly warmish today (considering it's been raining for the last 57 years here), so I announced to Brad upon returning home from the game that we NEEDED to go to the beach. So we ate a quick lunch, packed up our Ikea bag of beach toys (does anyone NOT use a blue Ikea bag as a beach toy bag??) and marched right over to Bodega Bay to spend the afternoon at the beach. 

It was NOT as warm there as it was at the baseball game. In fact, my sweatshirt never came off, and no one except Brad and Camden (the two family members completely immune to cold water) even touched the water, but, it was still sunny and warm enough. 

We had a great time playing soccer on the sand and building sand castles. Brad brought a "real" shovel, and he built the boys a little "pool" to play in near the water. 

Of course, the tide started to come in, and was threatening to destroy their little sanctuary. So give up and move inland, right? WRONG! You build a moat around the pool as a "defense mechanism" (according to Calen), and then you build a large barrier in front of the moat, as a second defense. 

The tide came in, and the defense mechanisms "worked", much to the boys ultimate delight. And then a huge wave came in and completely wiped out their fortress, so Calen surrendered and moved back inland to our sand castle city, while Camden stayed at the completely flooded fortress with his shovel, fighting to the bitter end, yelling at the attacking waves "you'll never get me alive!!!". 

Everything with boys is a battle. Even incoming tides.