We’re fitting in as many fun activities as possible before summer is over and we get into our busy fall routine!

Everything from eating lunch at our favorite local sandwich place, to slip-n-sliding in the sun, to hanging out with Aunt Jamie while she works at Anthro (still can’t believe she let my kids color at an $800 table).

Of course we are making good use of our year pass at the Santa Barbara Zoo!

Plenty of watermelon… and a trip to the Ikea showroom with the Aunties.

Personally I’m hoping for a few more beach days, now that the sun comes out on a regular basis!  It was a really foggy summer here!

We had a wonderful time this week on the Wilkinson Family Camping Trip!  This was a tradition when Andy was growing up, and made such a lasting impression on everyone involved, that we all want to continue it with our growing families!  What an awesome extended family.

The kids really bonded with their cousins!  Apparently the Wilkinsons just have a knack for producing super cute, sweet natured kids.  The little ones played so nicely together and seemed to love camping.  I know Natalie was thrilled to sleep in a tent and Ben loved being covered in dirt for 2 days straight!  Cousin Eden is one year younger than Natalie and these two had a blast together.

It was nice to have plenty of hands to help. You will notice that in every picture has someone is holding a baby?  Thats what happens when you take 5 kids age 3 and under camping!  They did incredibly well, I thought.  (Though Ben made it clear that he has his girl cousins beat in the tantrum department.)

Breakfast story time with Cousin Crystal (who Natalie keeps calling Aunt… close enough).

Josh entertaining the kiddos while we make dinner:

Aunt Becky with quite the audience:

Natalie has no problem drawing everyone into her imaginary games… hey wait, is Lexy smiling in this picture?!?

Like I said, plenty of willing baby-holders like Andrew and Michelle… love it!

We had one visitor who was most definitely not related to the Wilkinson clan…  but we will never forget him or the TWO visits he paid us! (Wish I had a picture of Ricky, the heroic bear chaser.)

I have tons more pictures to share, and will try to get those into a Facebook album tomorrow!  Also Andy will put the hi-res versions of all of them online so our fellow campers can download them and print them if desired. 🙂

Admin Edit: The pictures should now correctly appear in all versions of Internet Explorer.

There’s no doubt about it, Benjamin keeps breakfast (well, any meal time) funny.

He’s become an expert climber, which allows him to climb up and help himself to Natalie’s abandoned breakfast on a Saturday morning…

I guess oatmeal is just not the same after Ben messes with it… even when daddy puts chocolate chips in it.

So Ben has this brown blanket.  It is his favorite thing EVER.  He drags it all over the house, can’t sleep without it, cackles like a crazy person when you mention it, and finds strange comfort in chewing on the corners.  I’m not sure how he managed to get it to the breakfast table one morning, but it was pretty funny to see how he wrapped “brown blankie” around himself and always had it in one hand.

Natalie of course was horrified.  This was her face after she said, “MOOOOOOOOOM! Oh no! There’s crumbs on his blanket!”

They keep us laughing at table!

Sorry it’s been a while since my last post!  We’ve been busy with our summer activities… ballet lessons, beach days, zoo trips, and even a weekend out of town for the grown-ups…

Last week we went blueberry picking at a friend’s ranch, and came home with about 5 pounds of blueberries!  Not bad considering I was picking one-handed, holding Ben in one arm (he was having a rough morning).  Natalie was a great little helper until she decided to dump her bucket out on the ground and start over… AHHH!!  But she had a ton of fun with her BFF Bekah, and other friends from church.

Ben was only happy when there was a steady stream of blueberries from the bush to his mouth!  I had to work hard to replace the berries he was taking from my bag.  He was covered in dirt by the end, but that’s pretty much the way it goes around here.

That’s what my 5 pounds of blueberries looked like… I froze 1/3, gave 1/3 to my mom, and the last 1/3 was eaten fresh within a week.  I didn’t even have a chance to make some kind of special dessert!