Friday, September 18, 2009

What I did this summer - Part 9

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What I did this summer - Part 9
A relative of ours has a cabin in South Lake Tahoe, so we made a long weekend out of it and made the long drive up the Sierra Mountains and arrived to THUNDER STORMS! Usually it's Hot August Nights, but not that weekend. Would you look at those clouds...


If you know me, you KNOW that I am a huge coupon user. I had already been collecting coupons for most of our summer activities in addition to our regular everyday used ones locally, so when we needed to get a bite to eat I showed the kids the McDonalds coupon and off we went to see if the storm would pass by. The McDonalds located at the "Y" in the road is a really NICE restaurant with the playground inside the restaurant. From the outside you can see it's not your typical McDonalds. Here is a picture of it when there is snow on the ground....

My boy saved his spending money and made his first purchase at the McDonalds. They were selling the Happy Meal Toy displays as complete sets, this one was $10. My boy asked me if that was a good price to pay and I told him "Oh Yeah Baby, better get it! We'd have to buy about $35 dollars worth of happy meals to get all those!"
SOLD for $10 bucks!

To pass the time, we decided to go fishing. We didn't catch anything worth keeping for dinner, but we did catch a lot of small catfish to make the hours pass by in quiet, peaceful comfort.

Ah the clouds have headed East to Idaho, so it's back to the lake for some fun in the SUN!
Here the kids are adjusting themselves to the C-O-L-D temp of the water. It was seriously cold for the month of August! And if you look carefully, you can see the water line in the distance where you can literally walk out to that darker blue line until it drops off to deaper depths. It was weird walking so far out into the lake and it only being up to waist level.




Then we headed to historic Camp Richardson Corral for some horseback riding! My girl had saved her CHRISTMAS money to do this ride! YES that's right, she didn't spend her gift money for 8 months - I am so proud of her discipline.


The BEST day of her summer vacation!





While we waited for the kids to return from their hour ride, my Man and I found a shady picnic table and rested for awhile. My Man saw this squirrel eating away at this pine cone.


Well we're all tired now, so we headed back to the cabin to turn in for the night and drink hot chocolate and watch cable. ha ha


This was funny... the kids chose a room where there was a HUGE bed with a TV and REMOTE to sleep in. Personally, I think they were scared about being in a strange cabin and didn't want to sleep alone. ha ha It made for great memories though because I'll bring these pictures out again when they are older and arguing with each other to remind them of how much they love and played together and are each other's best friend!


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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

What I did this summer - Part 8

"What I did this summer - Part 8"

It was my boy's turn to have his birthday party and he chose a Knight theme. Ut-oh, can't buy those decorations at the Dollar Store so we raided his toy box and I made the rest.


Remember these crowns I made for my sister's birthday last year? We brought them back out again to use during the crowning ceremony of the dragon slaying competition.

We watched movies like, Ella Enchanted and Shrek to get some ideas for the decorations.





The guests start arriving! Let the fun begin!



Again, we went for the same menu of Fruit salad and Pizza!


The big moment!

Now that everybody is fed, let's play some games!



Like I said before, my kids LURVE to play Pin the tail on the Donkey game and we just change it up depending on our theme. For this Knight party, I made a Dragon poster and it was Pin the Flame to the Dragon!





Then we headed outside where I had made a kid friendly jousting area, with a twist of course!
I bought several cans of Silly String at the Dollar Store and told the kids to line up with their chosen opponent!


Ready... Aim... GO!!!
The kids absolutely loved this simple game and it was easy clean up because it sticks to itself.


Again, it was not easy to buy decorations for the theme but we made it work and for the pinata, I bought a pre-made dinosaur that I turned into a Dragon. Not the best looking dragon but the kids didn't notice. ha ha




Once again, I got up in the wee hours of the morning with my pot of coffee and spent an hour and a half making water balloons.

Once again, they were gone in 3 minutes and the kids loved every minute of it!




Then I gave the kids some water squirters and showed them how to fill their squirters using the little pool as a refueling station.

Best friends! Birthday memories!





His favorite gift was the Pogo Stick my Man and I got him!


Happy birthday baby!
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