Cousins

It’s been a fun month and a fun summer spending time with our cousins! Tomorrow is a sad, sad day! Callie, Eden and Riley are leaving for Chicago. The days of them living close by are over. We will miss them, as we miss our Aldama cousins. Here are some fun pictures of the kids that we took this summer.

Sylvie and Eden are best buds!

Tessa and Riley are just starting to recognize each other and play together.

Noelle and Marco-both going to be 1st graders!

All nine of them!

climbing on Uncle Dan

Pretty girls who love each other.

Santa Cruz continued

The Cows

Natural Bridge Beach

Mom and her girls after getting frozen yogurt on her birthday.

All the cousins together at the end of a memorable trip.

Cow camping in Santa Cruz

The Cows are a group of families that we grew up with; the Young’s, Decker’s and Gettys’. We went camping together every summer and spent many holidays together. We hadn’t done a cow campout in about 15 years, so this was a big reunion for us. Julio and I are not campers, but we sucked it up in order to spend time with our family and like family friends. In spite of the camping, we had a great time. Lots of memories were made. Here is day 1 at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

Julio and Marco on the mini-rollercoaster.

Lucia is becoming much more daring.

Can you see me screaming and Sylvie holding on for dear life?

All Sylvie really wanted to do was ride the carousel. The other kids went on it too grudgingly, although they enjoyed it too.

The beach!!Mom and ChrisThe babies in the saneMe and Tami

More to come….

4th of July

I can’t believe it’s already been a week! The time is flying by this summer. We headed out to Santa Cruz for our “Cow” family reunion camping trip. Julio thought it would only take 20 minutes to pack the car-it took him 2 hours. We had a lot of stuff to “pretend to be homeless” for 3 days and 6 people. We finally got out the door at noon, only to have to stop to eat an hour later. We got lost trying to find the campsite and the kids got extremely carsick on the curvy coastal highway. But, we finally made it around 4 pm where we unpacked our stuff and then found out we didn’t have a campstove. Tromp over to grandma and grampa’s camp where we mooched dinner off of them. Then we decided to head down to Scotts Valley with all the cow families to watch the fireworks. We found a parking lot and set up. The view of the fireworks through the tall redwoods was amazing. The show lasted almost a half hour and we were pleasantly surprised. It was a good show! The only thing missing was the accompanying patriotic music.

It was cold, so we headed back to the camp and roasted marshmallows for smores. It was fun. Happy birthday USA!

Lucia’s baptism

Lucia had been preparing for this day for a long time. We’ve been holding regular Family Home Evenings to discuss gospel subjects like faith, repentance, baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. We talked about the importance of being baptized and the covenants we make when we do so. Lucia is a very smart girl and very obedient and it was important to her to understand what she was going to do. We also prepared by getting her a dress for her confirmation and ordering invitations.

 

We invited family and close friends to the baptism. Abuela was able to come up for the occasion and the Aldama’s came all the way from Idaho. These pictures are from before the baptism. Lucia looks so happy! (June 30th)

Julio did a great job performing his first baptism (although he forgot to say her name before he started) and confirmation. There was a beautiful Spirit during the entire program. The highlights were Grandpa’s talk on baptism and a slide show with pictures of Lucia growing up accompanied by Primary songs that Julio put together. It was so nice-I felt so happy and I know our entire family did too.

We had a really nice dinner afterward-chicken salad sandwiches, salads, pasta, fruit, cheese and crackers, brownies. But we had so much food leftover. I didn’t get any pictures because I was so busy getting the food out and then cleaning up! Please send me some Tami-I know you got some good ones. It was a beautiful day!

June

Got to go see Wicked with

Mom and Callie-it was so fun! I loved it!

A Sunday at the temple.

Father’s Day

Playing “Daddy'"

Playing detectives.

Introverts v. Extroverts

A true or false quiz from the book  Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Won’t Stop Talking. These are my answers:

1. I prefer one-on-one conversations to group activities. (True)

2. I often prefer to express myself in writing. (True)

3. I enjoy solitude. (True)

4. I seem to care less than my peers about wealth, fame and status. (can’t say this is totally true, I am pretty materialistic, but don’t care too much about status or fame-False)

5. I dislike small talk, but enjoy talking in depth about topics that matter to me (Definitely True)

6. People tell me I’m a good listener (Not sure)

7. I’m not a big risk-taker. (I was a risk-taker as a child, but not anymore)

8. I enjoy work that allows me to “dive in” with few interruptions. (if housework counts, then True)

9. I like to celebrate birthdays on a small scale, with only one or two close friends or family members. (True)

10. People describe me as soft spoken or mellow. (not sure)

11. I prefer not to show or discuss my work with others until it’s finished. (True)

12. I dislike conflict. (True)

13. I do my best work on my own. (I guess-not sure)

14. I tend to think before I speak. (Most of the time)

15. I feel drained after being out and about, even if I’ve enjoyed myself. (True)

16. I often let calls go through to voice mail. (True)

So, this means I’m an introvert! Introverts and extroverts differ in the level of outside stimulation that they need to function well. Introverts need less than extroverts. It doesn’t mean I’m necessarily a hermit or antisocial, or necessarily shy (Shyness is a fear or public humiliation)-just a preference for an environment that is not over-stimulating. The book doesn’t claim to be a final diagnosis of personality types, but it does give good insight to how we function in the world. Just thought it was interesting.