4th of July in Philo, CA and Cam's first broken bone:(

In our normal holiday tradition, we spent our 4th of July holiday weekend at my uncle's ranch in Philo, CA (off 128 on your way to Mendocino) We packed up the dog, kids, food, Cam's dirtbike, and of course lizard catching supplies and headed up north.

As soon as we got up there, Karl got to work installing a security system on my uncle's new barn and the boys literally ran out of the car to go catch lizards. When Karl was done, he pulled out Cam's dirtbike and got him prepped to ride for the first time...

He wore his dirtbike helmet and Karl's soft armor Harley Jacket with all sorts of hard pads inside to help if he fell. Karl held onto the back handle for several laps around the property and Cam was serously grinning ear to ear as his went around and around. 

Finally, Karl let him go off on his own and he was so thrilled!

Dillon and I spent our time lizard catching while the big boys played...

Sooo... Cam had a great time riding and then we took a break to play some Monopoly. We were the only poeple up there at the time, the rest of the fam. was wrapping up their things at home and were going to meet us later in the evening. We took a break from Monopoly while Karl ran up to lock up the barn and Cam decided to have just one more ride around... and he crashed.  He fell into the ivy with the bike on top of him. He fell on a buried piece of metal flatbar that was used for landscaping years and years ago. He managed to hit his arm/elbow right on that metal strip and he was just sobbing when we got to him. I asked him if he needed to make the super long drive to the ER and he said yes. I knew we were in trouble :( I had to stay behind with Dillon because we had Jack up there and he couldn't just stay in the car at the hospital.

Long story short, Cam broke his elbow.  He has to have an appt. with an orthopedic surgeon hopefully tomorrow (they're closed for the holiday weekend) and everyone says he will need surgery.  I guess they will need to pin or screw the bones in order for them to heal, so there should be a pretty long recovery period afterwards. I spent the day today cancelling swimming lessons, football, and sleep away summer camp that he was so excited about. Oh well....

After Cam got home from the hospital, he was splinted up and high on Vicodin :) The next day the whole fam was up there and the boys spent even more time lizard catching. We finished up the night with s'mores and sparklers, and had a pretty good 4th of July weekend, all things considered!

Dillon playing with sparklers...

Cam's turn with sparklers...

Cam taking it easy with his splinted arm...

The lizard the boy's caught that was really, really, unhappy with the situation...

My photoshopped pic of Cam's arm, explaining the breaks.

I'm hopeful the surgery will be scheduled soon and he will recover super quickly. I will update with more as soon as I know!

Tahoe!!

First of all, Yep I'm alive! We've had some seriously major family drama (not between me, Karl, and the boys... but other family members.)I've been kinda down lately and I just haven't been thrilled to write  anything... but I've been really working hard to get back to my old self, so I'm hopeful I'll be back to normal really soon! In the meantime, enjoy the pics of our yearly Tahoe trip!

A picture perfect day at the lake...

Cam playing in the sand...

Check out the ladybug on Dillon's hand... Cam found it in the lake... it's some sort of gigantic ladybug...

Dillon getting ready to take on the whole lake... just him and his fishy floatie...

Group shot with my boys!

Waiting for our very delicious dinner at Fire & Ice Restaurant...

The boys posing with Grandma

Cheesin' it up waiting for their Cold Stone ice cream under the gondola

Dillon at his finest...

Enjoying his ice cream!

Skyping with Nessa who wasn't able to make it up...

Virginia City!!

Our yearly picture in jail... Cam got something major in his eye so that's why he looks so upset... I swear no one was beating him :)

Our other yearly picture up at the top of the mountain overlooking the lake by our hotel...

Thanks for looking!! I will hopefully be posting more regularly, **fingers crossed!!**

Memorial Day Weekend 2010

                                             

This weekend was the epitome of summer for me. The boys running wild through the lush green meadows in Philo, CA at my uncle's ranch. The boys ran free for hours and hours, Jack trailing, never far behind. They caught dozens of blue belly lizards and kept them in buckets. Dillon was in little brother mode, loaded down like a pack mule with buckets and nets while Cam, hands empty, ran around trying to catch the lizards. At the end of the night, they ate s'mores around the campfire with their grubby little hands. They conked out late that night, only to awaken at first light, Dillon bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready for some more lizard hunting.

The second day brought more than just lizards. Cam's bounty....

                                                  A baby bird he rescued from our room...

A frog...

A dead scorpion and huge brown spider (not pictured- it was HUGE!)

And his buddy, "Co-pilot" The little lizard that stayed on his shoulder for our entire hike!

 Dillon came running over to Karl yelling "Dad!! I found the weirdest creature!" We just went along with it...

The Boy's blue belly collection from just a few minutes....

Dillon showing off the first lizard he's ever caught...

The kids standing under an old wooden footbridge that used to be the only way over the river... over a hundred years ago...

And last but not least, a great pic of Karl and I! We had such a wonderful time... I can't wait to go again1

Wordless Wednesday courtesy of my husband...

What does Dillon want for his birthday?

The question was posed to Dillon yesterday before preschool by his friend... "Dillon, what do you want for your birthday"
His answer? (Without any hesitation by the way)
"Some more homework books."

How can 2 kids be so different from eachother? I mean really? Cameron HATED (Still hates if we're being honest) homework. It was a huge fight every single day from Kindergarten to the end of second grade. Now he's finally at the age where I just tell him to do it and he can face the repurcussions if it's not finished (although honestly there are none at his school, ugh, but that's a very long post best saved for another day!)
Dillon has several different Preschool and Kindergarten workbooks and CDs for the computer, he really loves to learn. Every day we do "homework" and he does really well. He can write a ton of letters from memory and almost all of them if he sees them and can copy how they look.
The boys both have some amazing qualities and things they can do that the other one can't/won't do, but it just baffles me on a daily basis that two kids raised the same way can turn out so different!

Life as a Preschooler

Dillon has been able to write his name without help for maybe 2 months at this point and every day he comes home from preschool with an art project or two that he's very proud to show off to me. Only problem? They aren't made by him. They're expertly colored, and it's quite ovbious that one of the high schoolers have done his work for him. They have written his name on the back too. I haven't said anything to him really, I just tell him that they're awesome and I'm glad he had fun at school.
 Finally I just couldn't take it anymore and I said, "Hey buddy? Why didn't you color this kite? It's very nice looking and I'm happy you're proud of it, but why didn't you color it? I would much rather have something you made on the fridge." He looked at me and answered "Well, I don't want to, so I have my girlfriends do it for me." "Oh... Same as your name?" I asked. "Yup, it's too hard for me, so Mackayla does it."

Fishing Round 2!

The boys have been so excited about fishing after their first trip that Daddy and Pop Pop treated them to another fishing day, this time at Del Valle. Dillon (who is our early bird... up at 5:30-6:00 every morning waking Karl and I up with super random questions like "Can I have marshmellows for breakfast? Just one and then it's done.") got the fun for us yet not so fun for him experience of getting woken up super early in the morning!! Boy was he cranky about that!! Hahaha, payback my boy! 
 Karl woke them up while I laid in bed trying to fall back asleep and I hear Dillon look outside and say "But dad.. it's still dark outside! See? It's dark out and that means it's too cold!" You can tell from this pic how thrilled he was to be woken up early...

The weather was pretty beautiful that day... I think it got up around 80 degrees!

Dillon waited for a bite...

And waited...

The whole group hanging out and waiting...

Now I don't have any pictures of their catch from the day, but they brought home one good sized fish and a few small ones, all of which are wrapped in foil and in the freezer which doesn't make for very good photo taking :( Maybe when I cook them up for dinner I'll remember to snap a pic and update (I'll be the first to admit the chances are slim of me remembering anything these days, my brain's on overload!)

I can't even tell you how much the boys are enjoying their fishing trips. Cameron spends every single day organizing and re-organizing his tackle box and all either boy talks about these days are fish and fishing.  We've decided that we will spend Dillon's birthday day (May 7th) fishing as a family. That's right...You heard it here first folks, the sad puppy dog eyes from my children have accomplished their task... Mommy's going fishing! We're going to let Cam use his one hooky day from school that day and come along, and they're soooo excited!! Pop Pop is coming too so the kids are in hog heaven!

Boys Day Out!

(Sung to the tune of "I've got a dollar from the Little Rascals Movie) -I got a break, I got a break, I got a break, hey hey hey hey!
What a great day yesterday was! Pop Pop Gene (Karl's dad) has been talking about taking Cam fishing for a while now, and they finally got to go yesterday... with a little twist. Karl threw out his back on Tuesday (I think) and had the go to Urgent Care and they gave him a shot, painkillers, back brace, etc. He went to work the next day, and then on Thursday he got to go home super early (about 9 am) because the work for the day was core drilling and that's how he hurt it in the first place. So... the boys got a very special treat. Not only were Cam and Pop Pop going fishing, Karl and Dillon got to go along too!

They were absolutely exhausted when they got home last night! They left at about 9:30 and got home around 5:00... with 4 extra guests (rainbow trout). They had the biggest smiles on their faces! They didn't fight or bicker, they worked together as a team and had a really good time. Karl was so proud to tell me how well it went. Gene topped the whole day off by treating us to dinner at our favorite restraunt, Red Robin. Yum Yum!

Here's some of the many pics Karl took from the day:

Dillon getting ready to leave...

Cam's first fish. He caught it within 10 minutes of getting there!

The boys hanging out together.

Dillon with his Spiderman pole all set up...

While they were there a man came to stock the lake with trout. If you look close you can see tons of fish pumping out of the truck. The guy specifically came over to Karl afterwards and told him that he told the boys to stay away from his truck and that they were the best behaved kids he's ever seen!

Dillon's fish...

Cam's beard o' fish

Group Shot with Daddy

And with Pop Pop

The boys will remember this day forever. They were so happy and had such an amazing time.