Last Swim Meet vs. Quail Hill

Mark and Jocelyn swam in their final swim meet for the season on the last Saturday of July. We swam at Quail Hill's competition pool. Wendy worked at the Ready Bench and was more than worn out by the end of the meet since the Quail Hill team lacked support at the Bench and younger children follow Einstein's Law of Constant Motion, especially when you want them to line up or stay seated in one place.



Mark ready for the 50 backstroke competition....


Mark swimming the 200 IM (Individual Medley)...



Jocelyn finishing the 50 backstroke...



And the season is over!!! Now we can sleep in again on Saturdays...at least until September when soccer and football games consume us and leave our lawn in disrepair.

Homemade Mini Pizzas

Today for lunch the children and I made homemade pizza dough and personal pizzas. The dough turned out very yummy! Here Jocelyn (wearing the all-important baking apron!) and Blake tried to spin their dough into round crusts, but it did not quite work out.

Michael Jackson Hill was very meticulous in spreading his dough into a perfect circle and then carefully spreading the pizza sauce.

Michael Jackson Hill also meticulously placed each piece of mozzarella cheese on his pizza (picture not taken). He definitely had the best looking pizza, but Jocelyn's Combo-pizza was the tastiest as she added mushrooms and pepperonis.


Yummy!!

Football Season Starts!

Irvine Chargers football season started on Monday. Mark is on the Junior PeeWee team this year. Here is the team's first roll call...


Mark is on the Irvine Chargers Junior PeeWee team this season. His head coach is Steve Morini, his same head coach from the 2009 season. There is a mix of both returning players and new football players on his squad. It will be an interesting training season as these boys all learn the fundamentals of football together.

Here Coach Morini is going through his teamwork principles with the boys.

This week the boys are wearing t-shirts and shorts because it is pure conditioning work all week. Mark is in terrific physical condition, so these workouts should go well for him!

Despite three hours of basketball camp, one hour of swim team practice and two hours of football conditioning each day, Mark is not the least bit worn-out. No surprise to his parents who survived his baby and toddler years when the words NAP and BEDTIME were not in his vocabulary. As a baby and toddler, he only slept 6 hours each day! We knew it would take a lot of activities to use up his seemingly endless energy!

Boyd's 50th Birthday

On Friday, July 23, Boyd turned 50. The kids planned a fun celebration for their daddy. Jocelyn conducted a Birthday Card-making Seminar for her brothers. Each child presented their Daddy with a custom birthday card that expressed their love and appreciation for all their Daddy does for them.

We celebrated by taking the family to dinner at the Laguna Beach Montage resort, using a gift card Boyd had been given 7 years ago by a client. We finally had a fun event to celebrate and the kids were old enough to not completely embarass us while eating in public.


Brent being a well-behaved dinner guest at the Montage. He was so excited to eat at a fancy restaurant for the first time in his life!




Brent's birthday card for Boyd.....

Brent gave his Daddy the oversized $1 bill Boyd has had on his desk for years and 5 shiny pennies he found in my change box. He was so thrilled to give his Daddy MONEY!>



Blake happy because the waiter gave him a full glass of chocolate milk before even taking our food orders!



Blake's birthday card for his Daddy...dinosaurs everywhere! That is a dinosaur claw-print on the back cover of the card.


Mark made an Apple card for his Daddy and called it the "Apple MacBook Nothing" because it was not a real MacBook.


Jocelyn drew a fun birthday card for her Daddy...



Now on to the yummy dinner.....

Jocelyn ordered the delicious duck. It was sweet and tender. We all enjoyed it immensely. Jocelyn is our most adventurous eater and is always eager to try new foods.

Mark ordered the grilled chicken and gourmet macaroni-and-cheese....

Boyd ordered the salmon...
(Notice the pretty sunset in the view windows behind Boyd)
Now for dessert!

Jocelyn ordered the S'mores plate! It came with custom chocolate delicacy, fire-roasted marshmallows, lots of chocolate cream, and crushed graham cracker crumbs.



This is a photo of the beautiful night view of the Montage beach-side pool with the waves crashing below (in the upper part of the photo).



This is also a perfect example of why I need a DSLR camera so I can take night shots that capture all the beauty of the evening skies and ocean waves.

Happy Birthday Boyd! The hardest part is behind you! Now you just have to keep up with your kids for the next 50 years! We love you!

Unwanted Hitchhiker

Because life can never be dull in our household, the kids and I had an adventure with an unwanted hitchhiker Saturday.

Mark, Jocelyn and I went to the swim meet at Turtle Rock around 7:30am so I was up early packing the car with towels, chairs and food. We noticed some yucky poop on the floor of our garage but assumed it must be from a neighborhood dog.

After the swim meet ended at 1:30pm, Mark asked if we could go to Yogurtland for a treat. While climbing out of the car, Mark said to me "Mommy, there is a rat in the car." I said, "Oh come on" and didn't believe him. Then he said, "I'm serious! I can see its long tail sticking out from under the car seat!" I got out of the car and looked at the passenger seat Mark was referring to. Sure enough...there was one long ugly tail sticking out!! I pulled back the seat to see what it was (assuming it was a rat), but found another critter instead (to be revealed below). It must have smelled the remnants of donuts the kids left in the car, because it was stuck inside a plastic donut bag. I tried to knock it out of the car using a pool toy (what else do you have when you're a mom??), but it scampered underneath the driver seat instead and then climbed up into the wiring.

Now panicked that I would never be able to drive my car with a rat-like critter right near my legs, I called Boyd. He called Irvine Animal Control. Within 30 minutes, Irvine's Finest arrived to de-critter our car......


And look what he pulled out!!



A big, fat, donut-fed opposum!! This is the same critter that has been eating Boyd's vegetables from our garden.



Off he goes to the Animal Slammer....



Boyd and I spent three hours Saturday afternoon cleaning out our garage and finding remnants of Mr. Opposum. He must have been living in our garage at least a day or two. The Irvine Officer told us that based on his large size, this critter most likely worked alone so we hopefully will not be finding family members any time soon.

This was a story the kids were all too excited to share at the Stake Pioneer Day picnic Saturday evening. Brent even told it to our home teacher when he visited today. Brent thinks it's the "coolest" thing that has happened to our family in a long time.

Apple iCamp

Mark and Noah Gordon attended the Apple iMovie Camp last week at the Apple Store in the Irvine Spectrum. They had a great time filming an overview of all the great techy toys that Apple sells. And they enjoyed the added bonus of two whole mornings in the Apple Store! It felt like living in Shangri-La to these two Apple-lovers!



Mark, Noah and the other Apple campers working on their movies.


Mark and Noah editing their movie....

Brent "Michael Jackson" Hill had a great time playing games on the iPad. Brent calls it the "Big iPod Touch".




Editor's note: After spending two mornings surfing the internet on the iPad, this editor was less than impressed. Basically it is a giant iPod Touch with a giant price tag ($500 to start!). If a student can get his textbooks as e-books on the iPad or if you are a big reader of books and newspapers but hate to lug them around with you, then the iPad becomes a becomes a very useful reading tool with terrific color display. But it is heavy to hold and not very easy to use if you are used to typing quickly on a regular keyboard. For games and fun, stick with the small, pocket-size iPod Touch. Otherwise, put your money into the MacBook Pro with its 10 hour battery life (it's on my Wish List after a Canon 50D EOS DSL camera).

Project: Organize the Shoes!

I should have taken a "before organized" photo of our over-crowded shoe shelves in the coat closet. The shoes were piling up on top of each other because we had run out of space for everyone's sneakers, sandals, church shoes, cleats, and basketball shoes.

I decided the solution would be to install a cubby bench with storage baskets in the laundry room. Each child was given a basket to store his/her everyday shoes - sneakers, cleats and sandals. The Sunday shoes and extra shoes could then fit on the shoe shelf in the coat closet.

Mark agreed to be a good Boy Scout and put together the cubby bench for me.


Brent was a good helper!



Now the kids have a bench to sit on when putting on their shoes and their shoes are close to the garage. I still need to sew new basket liners and paint the bench to match the liners, but at least we have a start.


Here is the newly organized coat closet with the children's Sunday shoes and Boyd's sneakers. So much better!


Now I need to order a storage shelf with coat hooks to hang above the bench in the laundry room. Then the bench will be a complete locker room for the children's shoes, jackets and backpacks. No more clutter on the laundry room floor!

Blake and Jocelyn at Soccer Camp

Blake and Jocelyn had a great experience and good exercise at soccer camp last week. We were blessed that the heat wave of the previous week let up and the kids were able to run around in cool, cloudy mornings. The camp was held at Tustin High School from 9-12 each morning. Boyd came to watch the children's practices during his lunch hour.

Here's Jocelyn with the soccer coach Luis Cruz...


Jocelyn practicing a foot manuever on the ball.




Blake practicing his ball-handling manuevers....

Happy Soccer-playing Blake!





Happy Soccer-playing Jocelyn!

Surviving the Heat Wave!

Just when we were gloating that the East Coast and West Coast must have switch seaboards because the East Coast had 100+ heatwave over July 4th while we were in low 70's and jackets, the coasts switched back and we got slammed with their heatwave. It reached 100 last Friday! We were lucky to take the kids swimming each day (sometimes TWICE a day!) to stay cool. Now what kid would not want a heatwave in summer if the end result is twice-daily swimming at fun pools with their friends? This is a kid summer paradise!

Jocelyn and Mark came up with a creative way to enjoy the soaring temps. They created their own fireless marshmallow roasting system. They placed the marshmallows on coat hangers and then roasted them on aluminum foil set in the blazing sun on the patio. After about 10 minutes, the high temps chased them inside, but they left their marshmallows to roast. Unfortunately, the marshmallows did not toast but they were tasty!

With fond memories of the 20 marshmallows Jocelyn and Mark EACH ate at Yosemite's camp fire several summers back!

Summer Pool Party at Robertsons' Pool/BBQ

On the hottest day of the summer - Friday, July 16 - we had a fun pool party and BBQ dinner with the Gordons and Robertsons at the Robertsons' community pool and BBQ area. The highs that day hit 100 so swimming was utterly delightful for the kids and dads! We swam, ate dinner, swam, ate birthday cake (Juliet Gordon turned 6!), swam under the stars, did flips into the water under the stars, swam races, enjoyed the lighted pools, and basked in the most perfect summer night! It was a beautiful, warm, sparkling evening, and the children had a terrific time swimming for hours.

Boyd manning the grill and cooking up the hotdogs for the kids and steak for the parents....delicious!!

Mark, Jocelyn and Elise Gordon eating dinner at the BBQ area of the pool

Noah and Mark showing off their iPod Touches. Mark is babysitting for me this summer to earn money to buy the new generation iPod Touch, which he hopes will be released in September.