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Fall Fish Tour

The first weekend in October, we wanted to go see the Kokanee salmon spawning at Taylor Creek in Lake Tahoe. As I was telling Shelley about our plan, she suggested we stop by the Nimbus Fish Hatchery, since it's on the way, and her boys used to love going there to feed the baby fish. What a great idea! The boys loved it! 

Hanging out with a Kokanee salmon at the Nimbus Fish Hatchery

The fish would flurry when we came near...thinking we had food! 

Buying fish food for 5¢ 

Fish ladder

The next morning, we headed over to the Taylor Creek Visitors Center. We love the Rainbow Trail hike. It's short enough for kids, and has beautiful views of the mountains and the creek.

First glimpse of the spawning Kokanee!

The annual Kokanee Salmon Festival was in full swing. It was a cute little event with a few games, activities information booths, Smokey the Bear, and of course, salmon to eat! We had already eaten at the Red Hut Cafe before we came, but next year we are going to have salmon for sure! 

Giant Kokanee

Tanner inside the giant Kokanee

Bean bag toss with "salmon eggs". 

Inside the stream profile chamber. The kids thought it was so exciting to see a crawdad eating one of the dead salmon!

The Naked Chef

Tanner is a picky eater. I never thought I'd have a picky eater in our house since Russ and I eat A LOT! Tanner won't eat cheese, butter, eggs, bread, vegetables, and he won't drink plain milk (just to name a few.). Feeding him has been a struggle. 

But one day he woke me up and announced that he wanted to try a hamburger. I don't know what he discussed with Russ, but after his proclamation, they zoomed off to the store and bought ingredients to make hamburgers! Ground beef AND bread? Are you kidding me? We were so excited! I forget why he is only wearing underwear while making dinner, but hey, we didn't want to ruin the momentum since he changes his mind more than he changes underwear! 

He even wrote out the dinner menu for that night...

The chef mixing the ground beef by hand. My germaphobe husband made him wear gloves. 

A Day at Wounded Knee

I pick up the boys through the back gate of the school. Today it was locked, so a bunch of us parents were waiting for the custodian to come and unlock it, but after about 5 min. I figured I could just run to the side of the school and get the boys. Of course they are both no where to be found. I go to the office where I have told them to go if I'm not there when they get out of school. The ladies in the office hadn't seen them, but one of them paged them over the intercom. Knowing my boys, they wouldn't hear, so I go check the playground. A mom said she just saw them, but a boy says he saw them going toward the back gate. WHAT?! Then I get a call from another mom saying she sees them walking with a neighbor. So I run to the gate BUT IT'S STILL LOCKED!! In a panic, I climb the fence and land, but I still manage to fall after my landing and scrape up my knee. I'm running down the street with my bloodied knee, furious at the boys for not going to the office in the first place, but thank my neighbor for looking after them. As soon as we get in the house, they get the full yell/lecture about not going to the office, how they could have been abducted if the neighbor wasn't walking with them, how it's so important to follow directions because someone CAN GET HURT (like ME!!!)! Then I point to my knee which is scraped up in two places, and I tell them, "See? This one (scrape) is named Cody, and this one is named Tanner. A reminder of the day you didn't listen to mama!" 

Are they going to write a Mommie Dearest memoir someday or what?

 

It's kind of weird... after I took the pic I noticed the scrape on the left looks like a "T" on it's side, and the other scrape looks like a "C" facing down. T for Tanner and C for Cody! 

Sharkie Visits!

Tanner's class won the Sharkie reading contest (most pages read), so they received a visit from Sharkie himself!

Tanner presented Sharkie with a Valentine from the class!

Sharkie love! Tanner said, "First he bite me in the head, then he gave me a hug!" HAHAHA!!! I love it! The valentine is even on his website (SJ Sharkie)! Of course, I didn't even know about all this until I saw the pictures on the class website!

I can't believe Tanner got to interact so much with Sharkie! Especially since I didn't even know the class was still doing the contest (and we hadn't turned in any pages read), but we DO read to him every night! hah!

Solvang Century Ride

Last weekend, Russell went on the Solvang Century Ride with his former boss & friends. They rode from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm! I can't imagine being on a bike for that long!

Pajama Day!

Last Friday was Pajama Day at Cody & Tanner's school!

It was also Dr. Seuss's birthday! I went to Tanner's class and made green eggs and ham with his class! So fun!!!

Close Encounter

Tanner trying to look like his alien balloon friend.

I Heart Pancakes!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Pink heart pancakes with syrup and tiny heart sprinkles! I kept thinking the pancakes should have a strawberry flavor to them because of the color, but it was just a few drops of red food coloring...

Dear Cody,
Please don't keep red crayons in your pocket for me to discover AFTER they melt/explode in the dryer. Daddy doesn't like the tie dye look on his clothes...

Note to self: check the boys' pockets for small crayons from Red Robin...

The Candy Man Strikes Again!

Cody and Tanner got new beds! We needed to move Tanner's bed to the other side of the room and slide their dresser over, so Cody could open the drawer on the bottom of his bed...here's what Russell found behind the dresser (besides dust and hair!)
...CANDY WRAPPERS!!!

Of course, they are only on Tanner's side! I have never caught him with candy, so I am hoping he hasn't been sneaking it after we put him to bed!

Skee Ball with Flair!

I've never seen so much flair...for zero points!!!

Missing Item of the Day

Why is it so hard to find things in our house? It's not a big house. Messy... yes, but it still shouldn't take so long to find certain items that were recently seen or are used often in the household. I've decided to add a section to my blog called "Missing Item of the Day" because we seriously have one at least every few days, most of them one of the boys' toys. So let today be the start of it all and here are the items:

1. phone charger

2. stuffed Peas in a Pod (from Toy Story 3). These have not been seen since shortly after Christmas.

Delish Fish!

This place has the best fish and chips!

They are HUGE and served blazing hot! YUM!!!

Some quickly disappearing calamari rings...

From the parking lot of the restaurant, there's a little path that leads under the Pacific Coast Highway...

...and right on to the beach!

I could swear that was Napoleon Dynamite walking by. He was on to me, because he looked the other way right when I snapped the pic! Gah!

Tanner was unimpressed by Russell's ability to lift up the highway!

Little Mamas

Here is newborn Cody (in 2004) surrounded by my sister and her daughters. Her son is also there, but steered clear of the chaos taking place! My sister is trying to referee who gets to hold Cody. They would hang around whoever's turn it was, while the "holder" would get mad and say their time wasn't up yet. Those girls just love babies! They have always been very good to my crazy boys, and it melts my heart when I think about it.

Sydney is only 4-1/2 here. She was so excited to feed Cody!


Maddie feeding Cody in Nov. 2004


Camping in July 2006.
Note the "nannies" (Kylie & Maddie) tending to Tanner, who was 8 months old at the time.

Kylie is the only person who has braved taking Tanner to the movies. I warned her, and she STILL took him. And yes, she spent 3/4 of the movie in the lobby playing with him because he refused to sit and watch the movie!

And they love Trent too, whether he likes it or not! haha!
July 2006

Halloween!

I figured I'd better hurry up and post Halloween before Thanksgiving!

Here is what Russell took pics of at my parents' house before he rushed home to pass out candy at our house.
Eve is a doctor, and that is an IV bag of blood (sugar) around her neck!

Super Mario and James (the train from Thomas the Tank Engine series.).

Tanner has perfected his "forced downward smile" that most kids do when told to smile for the camera. Or maybe he's trying to look like his bag he's wearing.

Mummy cookies by Elle.

Eyeball jello. We had an eyeball theme going. There were also eyeball deviled eggs, but the photographer left before it arrived.

It's watching you.

The red velvet eyeball cupcakes that didn't look like I had envisioned...

Halloween parade at school.
Yes, the other asian boy in class was Mario too!

Bumper Bowling!!!

Cody has started bumper bowling!!! Marci told me that they were going to sign up Haley, so Cody was excited to join! He looks forward to it every Saturday.
Even with bumpers up, leave it to Cody to accidentally throw his ball in the other lane...and pick up a spare for the person in the other lane! I missed it, but my Uncle Horace came running to tell us! He was laughing so hard, he could barely get out the words to tell us what happened! haha!

Haley already has nice form!