Ventura, CA Family Trip

Several members of the family traveled to Ventura, CA to celebrate Uncle Jay's 40th Birthday!  

We rented a beach house and spent time at the beach, Santa Cruz Island, the Ventura Botanical Garden Trail, the Mission Buenaventura, Ojai, Serra Cross and other local sites for a week of fun and family.

Pics are in no particular order.  :)

Pizza Hat - At the Hat Store with Jerome the Harbor Seal

John and April selfie at Santa Cruz Island

one of the coves at Santa Cruz Island

J and C selfie

The last morning in Ventura

Santa Monica pier

Little Man with C and C

Uncle Jay with the boys

Family pic in the sunset

R took the best pic of the pod of dolphins!

LM and Jerome the Harbor Seal

LM

Ventura sunset

LM with the cousins!

on the beach in Ventura

Mural in Pierpont

We stopped in this coffee shop and met the owner who

is from Bartlesville, Oklahoma!  Small world!

Scuba LM!

C and LM

Beach Landscape

LM, Renee and C

Surfer boy!

C and LM

LM, C and Uncle Jon

Uncle Jon and Aunt Renee

Aunt Renee caught a wave!

C and LM

Jon and Jay

J and T

San Buenaventura City Hall

J, LM, Uncle Jay and C

Ventura Botanical Gardens Trail

Ventura Botanical Gardens landscape

LM and Daddy - Ventura Botanical Gardens Trail

Family Hoops!

Go J!

C and J

LM chillin' with a Pina Colada in the hot tub

Baby T

J and T

Ojai, CA

April and John in Ojai, CA

Denise and Jay in Ojai, CA

Bell Tower in Ojai, CA

John and April

Mission San Buenaventura

Courtyard at Mission Buenaventura

Courtyard at Mission Buenaventura

Junipero Serra statue

Tapestry - Mission San Buenaventura

J and C selfie

Island Packers boat to Santa Cruz Island

Harbor Seals

Common Raven - Santa Cruz Island

Scorpion Rock - Santa Cruz Island

Bat cave - Santa Cruz Island

Snorkeling at Santa Cruz Island

The only source of drinkable water on Santa Cruz Island

Campgrounds - Santa Cruz Island

Eucalyptus Tree - Santa Cruz Island

View from the hiking trail - Santa Cruz Island

View from the trail

Lizard

Island Fox - Santa Cruz Trail

Hungry boys after a full day at the Island

Grandma & R (photo bomber - C)

Jennifer and Renee

Drinks at VenTikis

Drinks at VenTikis

Relaxing with Buck at VenTikis

Buck is seriously the coolest dog EVER!

Seagulls

Family Volleyball

J and Renee serving!

J and J

J burying J in the sand

Playing at Marina Park

LM and Mommy - Santa Monica

The weather was perfect, the beach house was perfect and the time spent with family was priceless!

Division 3 Champs!

We have been so busy that I forgot to post video and pics of LM's baseball team!  The Yankees won the Division 3 Championship!

Little Man up to bat!

So Serious!  :)

Coach D presenting LM with his trophy

The Yankees!

 The silly Yankees!

Yeah!!!

LM had such a great time playing baseball and making new friends…already wants to sign up for next season!

Summertime

Little Man has a lot going on so far this summer!  Camps every week and an occasional get together with a friend on the weekend.

Minecraft Camp was a hit!  I was so impressed at how organized they were.  The pick-up and drop-off security was awesome, the campus was great and the camp counselors were upbeat and patient with the kids.  This is a definite "do again" camp.

LM logging into his Minecraft world to show me what he has been up to all week.

New buddy "L"

Invited LM to join him in "his world"

I guess the kids can send out invites to log into their Minecraft world to play and build.

Pretty Cool!

LM and his other new friend "L" with 

their group leader "CatFox"

LM being presented with his Certificate of Completion

The local Lego Store has a monthly Lego Club Build.  We've been to a few but this time LM's buddy "H" and his Mom met us there!  Fun time building. 

Explaining his project.

Their assignment was to build a habitat for their parrot.

H and LM and their parrots

Summertime Spruce Up!

I'll start this post with a cute picture of the boy.  :)

Central Market had a classic pickup out front so we had to get a pic!  Love classic cars!

LM with the '54

I don't think I ever posted pictures of the creek in our neighborhood during the May flooding.  Crazy to see.  All the elderly residents were saying, "in the 40+ years we've lived here, its never been that high!"

White water rafting anyone?

The bench is going under!

This is were the low water dam used to be.

You could walk across the rocks from the other side of the creek!

Now to the main reason of this post.  We have been working on the house…stuff you really didn't get to see but still made a difference.  Think, insulation, new electrical box, etc.  I know…doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies either.

We've been putting off having people over to swim / party in the pool (cause you know…we're crazy like that) because the pool and patio were looking a little rough. 

We had the pool re-plastered this past October after swim season and are now having the patio leveled and covered with Oklahoma flagstone.  Also had the black wrought iron fence around the pool taken down to open up the back yard.  What a difference!

In progress

Still in progress

another view of the progress

another view

and a close up 

air unit in the background is for our "pool room"

Will keep you posted on the progress!

So excited!  Can finally have some pool parties for little man and his friends!

Hit the Ground Running!

The last day of school was celebrated with a 2nd Grade Boys Swim Party at the neighborhood pool!  A good number of the boys made the party and had a great time!  I think we'll do this every year!

LM with the soaker

LM and his friend "P"s little brother "L"

2nd Grade Dudes!

LM and his friend "R"s little sis "Miss C".

Popsicle time!

We have also been crazy busy with baseball!  The month long rainstorm we had here in TX caused major delays in the season.  So now we get double header Saturdays…yeah.  :)

 Go Yankees!

 LM up to bat.

I tried to pick the one video where I wasn't 

screaming like a crazy woman. :D

And Summer Camps!  Last week he attend the UTD Baseball camp and really enjoyed it and learned a lot.  This week is Minecraft Camp and I can't tell you how stoked he is about it!  Do people say stoked anymore?

LM wearing his Minecraft swag

Baseball Championship game is this Saturday!  I'm sure we'll be out on the practice field a couple of days this week getting ready.  Hope everyone is enjoying their summer vacation so far!

Stuffs...

The 2nd Grade boys at Little Man's school have a yearly spring outing with the dads!  This year they went to a Frisco Roughriders Baseball game!  The Hubs was out of town so a friend of ours was nice enough to take LM along with the group.  Thanks T!

LM and R

Two cool little dudes!

The gang!

And on a totally separate note…we have a baby bunny living in our yard!  In the last 8 mos we've lost 5 babies during storms.  I guess they get flooded out from under the deck or the wind / lightening scares them…either way they end up in the pool. :(  The first time we lost the triplets…then the twins a couple of weeks ago.  We have a regular bunny graveyard in the back of the yard.  But this little guy seems to be toughing it out.  Now, just to keep the hound from catching him!  :)

Little baby Bun Bun

So cute!

Baby Made Green Belt!

Yesterday, LM graduated from a yellow w/green stripe belt to a full green belt!   

They changed the way the kids test…not just working it into a regular class but having a separate testing class.  A little more pressure on the kids maybe, but I was able to really see what he learned and the full testing process.  Very impressed!

Pics

Found some pictures that I forgot to share!

My company does a "Spring Outing" every year and this year it was complimentary ball caps, lunch, cash bar and covered seating at the Texas Rangers game!  Pretty cool!

Before we got all this crazy rain, we had a couple of great weekends.  We ventured out to White Rock Lake and there were so many people out sailing, kayaking, running, biking, etc.  It was a beautiful day!

Cute little mushrooms!

The sailing club

And I threw this one in because it makes me laugh. :D

LM has been a "selfie addict" lately.

Hey! Its May!

Wow!  Its May already!  Almost time for Summer!  

We've been working on the yard which means lots of trips to the nursery to look at plants, trees, etc.  One of our favorite places to go is Ron's Organics in Garland, TX.  Knowledgeable staff and animals running around. Turkeys, roosters, hens and a dog!

Little Man visiting with resident nursery dog, Barney.

(mistakenly called Rufus in the last post!)

Henry turned 3 on April 27th and we wanted to take him to the dog park but it was closed. Boo!  So we decided to take him to a Doggie Boutique for a quick "spa treatment", treats and a toy (that was mauled beyond recognition within 1/2 hour of being home).

Giving Henry a bath at "Woof…cool stuff for dogs", for his Birthday!

LM taking a selfie with a soaked Henry (he did not look amused).

While I was washing Henry, LM was playing with Taco.  So cute!

Little Man's school had a 2nd grade play titled, "Go Fish!"  LM was one of the swordfish that guard the Great White Shark!

Sorry for the blur!  LM 2nd from the left.

"Stay back, stay back, stay back from Great White! 

We guard him all day, we guard him all night!"

LM's friend O - swordfish, LM, R-the crab and L - swordfish 

LM and his friend L - Great White Shark!