August 2024

At the beginning of August we had two weeks to kill before school started. We got the girls a wood burning kit at Joann's.  

They found some stencils online which allowed them to do some cool art.

We watched the boys when they didn't have, or didn't want to go to camp, on Thursdays.

We took the girls golfing. Anna is really beginning to like it. Mia, not so much.

Denise gave Dan and I her front row center seats to see Bohemian Queen. Fantastic show!

This guy did a great David Bowie for Under Pressure.

For Father's Day we gave Dan tickets to the Dodgers vs. Phillies game. The Dodgers lost but it was still a really good game and we had great seats.

Anna did cross country camp this year and she's now thinking about doing cross country in high school next year. Hard to believe she will be in high school next year, I know.

Anna also volunteered to work at the 6th grade orientation as a web leader. Her words from the experience, NEVER AGAIN. Apparently the sixth graders aren't good listeners. 😂😂

I totally forgot to take pictures on the first day of school, and truth be told they probably wouldn't have smiled anyway. But she smiled for her CORE teacher. 

Mia's sophomore school picture was taken at registration. That's pretty close to the first day!

With the boys at camp and the girls at school it's just Kinga with us on Thursdays now. We baked chocolate chip cookies.

We used the recipe from my mom's old cookbook that Denise kept. That's my mom's handwriting.

Dan went to visit his brother, Greg, for a Saturday. Greg was in a bad accident on his bicycle. So the girls and I had a girls day. We stopped at Chick Fil-A per Mia's request and then Crumbl Cookies for Anna. I must say I have never spent $19 for four cookies before!

After that we went to a place they've been before which they loved. It was my surprise to them. The Melting Pot! We got there 30 minutes before our reservation. With a bunch of stores around I asked them where they would like to browse until dinner time. This was their choice.

A hardware store! We bought a cute little gnome for Dan's succulent garden.

At The Melting Pot we had a great time dipping our appetizers in the fondue, cooking our main dishes and drowning our desserts in chocolate!

They love the yin and yang chocolate sauce. It's a good representation of these two very different people!

August wound down with a trip to Campland for Labor Day Weekend. In the former words of Anna, NEVER AGAIN. Thank goodness Kelly and Melissa had the Super Site with a jacuzzi, bay view and lots of room. Our site was terrible, tiny and right next to the pool with music blaring from 8:00 AM to 11:00 PM.

Melissa bought a waffle maker which was a great success!

We brought our paddle boards which the kids went on for a total of forty minutes😒, less time than it took to pump them up. The beach was wall to wall EZ ups with hardly any space between them making it very hard to even get to the water. Last time we were here it was still covidy out there and a lot less crowded.

Melissa and I had a good time playing BINGO even though we couldn't get anyone else to go with us.

That's about it for August! 

 

July 2024

The first third of July we were still in Europe. As soon as we got home we had to clean out the motorhome as we had a serious buyer coming the next day for an inspection. After a SIX and half hour inspection we sold it! We will still camp, but will have someone else set up a trailer for us.

We made it back in time for Hanah's birthday dinner.

Dan and I decided to celebrate our anniversary when we came home from Europe instead of on July 5th. We found a delightful restaurant in Long Beach with a prefix menu that was perfect. It was pricey but it was the best food I've ever tasted.

This is the dungeness crab tart.

And here is the farm beets salad. Dan doesn't like beets and he really enjoyed this. Go figure. Maybe he actually likes beets??

I don't know how the chef got cod to taste this good. 

I forgot to take pictures of the rest of the dishes until they already had bites out of them and didn't look quite so appetizing. This meal was amazing!

A week after we got home from our trip, Lorelai came to spend two nights at our house. They all dressed up in their cosplay outfits and walked to lunch. They like attention, apparently. 😂

Riley, Mia and Lorelai went to a rage room, their one request for the visit.

After Lorelai's two nights here, Mia went to Denver for two nights. She had a blast!

While Mia was in Colorado, we joined the neighbors at their campsite in San Clemente for a day at the beach.

Sunsets never get old.

And just like that it's a week and half until school starts!

Europe 2024 - Poland and Slovakia!

We got up early in the morning in Prague and headed to the train station for our 6:19 AM ride to Krakow. It took about six hours, and truth be told we weren't quite sure we had the right train because everything on our reservation was in Czech. Lo and behold we made it, however! Our tour guide, Arek, met us at the train station and our small group of 16 headed over to the hotel hoping at least one room was ready to store the luggage.

Dar and Sean's room was ready so all the luggage got dropped off there and we headed out for some much needed vittles. This cute little restaurant was able to put all of us in the basement, away from everyone else, for which we were grateful. Thank goodness Arek and Martyna speak Polish!

After our first delicious Polish meal we headed out to explore the city. It was quite hot and we had plans to tour the castle. But truth be told, all the kids that had been in Europe for awhile were castled out. The adults pretty much too.

We took the kids to a little park.

And then to see the fire-breathing dragon.

And the creepy mime.

After that Becky and Beth's families headed out to the Skawa area while the rest of us went to the hotel.

Day 2: Bright and early we made the hour and half drive to Auschwitz. We learned that there was actually three Auschwitzes, Auschwitz 1, which was originally Polish soldier barracks. It was made of brick and is still standing.  Then there was Auschwitz 2, also known as Birkenau, a wooden set of structures made by the prisoners. Little of that is left. The conditions there were much worse than Auschwitz 1. It had four gas chambers as opposed to Auschwitz 1, which only had one. The main purpose of Auschwitz 2 was the gassing of Jews. Auschwitz 3 was a forced labor camp. 

We only toured Auschwitz 1 with the girls. Dar and Sean went on to Auschwitz 2.

This is where executions took place.

The is the gas chamber at Auschwitz 1. We actually went inside of it. The gas had to be at a certain temperature to work which is why the chambers were all built into the ground. Prisoners undressed in the courtyard and were told they were going to take a shower.

After leaving Auschwitz we headed to Skawa to be the rest of the family. Jenny, Nick and Wally were there too. Arek and Becky were staying in Arek's uncle's house and the guys took all the kids to pet the local sheep. 

The house had a trampoline, a zip line, swings, a doughboy pool and a giant bathtub which they preferred to "swim" in.  

Day 3: Today was our big water rafting trip. There was some confusion as to actually what the trip entailed but eventually it was clear that we were taking eight kids, including two toddlers, on a three hour rafting trip with no guide. Arek worked his magic and got us one guide. That meant Arek had to guide the other raft. The kids played in the water beforehand not knowing what they were going to have to endure. 😂

Kinga was pretty miserable in this life jacket.

We rafted for an hour and a half and then stopped for lunch in Slovakia. That was when I noticed my phone was no longer in my pocket but in the river, either on the Slovakia side or the Poland side. I lost all my pictures of Poland as I hadn't hooked up to wifi the night before. Luckily, I scavenged all these pics from everyone's else's booty. Lunch took two hours because there was only one person working in the little snack bar and she had to cook and take orders!

Then we rafted back. It was exhausting but we had so many laughs and Darlene was brilliant to tell the kids in our raft that she would give the winner of the quiet game a dollar!

For dinner we went to Arek's aunt's restaurant which had more delicious Polish food.

Day 4: Today we all drove up to the mountains to visit the cute town of Zakopane. Mia and Paige decided to ride in a horse drawn carriage while the rest of the kids went to the arcade.

After that we went over to the house Arek's parents still own and he took all the kids out on the razor.

He also took Dan out and there he showed him the painted rocks that indicate where pope John Paul II used to take his walks when he was the archbishop.

What a trip!

We were happy to be going home the next day but made memories to last a lifetime!