Shayla's First Day

Oh the drama. Shay's first day of school was, thankfully, a success. That morning she was raring to go. Think Nemo, "First day of school! First day of School!" Then there was me (Marlin), "Are you sure you wanna go to school this year? 'Cause there's no problem if you don't. You can wait 5 or 6 years." In reality I've tried really hard to put on a big show about how great school will be to get her excited. Here's a few pictures:
Kyler was about as excited as I was.

Showing off her new special bracelet from Mom and Dad.

I was so grateful that her sweet friend Julia was heading to first grade at the same school. When Shayla saw her there it was like Christmas morning.

Saying goodbye to Daddy. Mom wasn't the only sad one... Shayla cheered him up with, "now since I'm in school too we can do homework together tonight!"

When I finally got to pick her up I found her attached to a cute little girl named Rachel. Of course my friendly daughter (who likes to introduce herself to kids in the toy section of target)had no trouble making friends.

Kyler and I made a welcome home sign that she thinks should stay up until her last day of kindergarten.

As you can see from the giant smile on Shayla's face, kindergarten is nothing to be sad about. That didn't stop Mom from having a meltdown, but I did hold it together pretty well until she was safely in her classroom distracted by play-dough and I had to walk out the door. A big thank you to all my awesome friends and family who know me well and took the time to call (among other things) and console me.

What's so great about kindergarten

This is how I feel about Shayla starting school tomorrow:

Seven year itch... only joking

Happy Anniversary Hun! You're still the cutest boy I know ;)

Santa Cruz

Once Daddy FINALLY came home from Tonga, we went on a day trip to Santa Cruz. It was so much fun! We got on a steam train and rode through the redwoods to the boardwalk. The kids had a blast and it was definitely one of our funnest trips in the Bay area so far.

"Choo Choo!"

We had just gone on a little roller coaster before the kids got on the whale ride. Zach taught Kyler to put his hands up in the air while we were on the roller coaster, so of course he thought that's what you were supposed to do on all the rides.


There was soooo much good food on the boardwalk. Maybe because it was all deep fried. The twinkies were (unfortunately) my favorite.

Catch up

So I've been kind of a blog slacker lately. I'm going to make a quick attempt to catch up... the reason being I saw someone's "blurb" book they had made from their blog entries... so cute! And I found out you can choose which blog entries you want to include in your book... great news for me since I thought I said goodbye to having my blog scrapbooked when I started blogging about reality television.

Here's a few pics of 4th of July in Idaho (yah, I'm going way back)



The fire pit was a little hot apparently

"The best fireworks show west of the Mississippi"... and I totally believed it until I moved away. It was really fun though, just not as big as I remember.
Shayla didn't find it that exciting.



Hillcrest blogger reunion
Sooo many cute kids!



We came home to a new nephew in San Francisco, Colter Tyson Davis... he's so adorable!