Matthew & Lauren were in California for 3 weeks and this week was our turn to spoil them and boy did we have fun!!! Our time with them was jammed packed and we didn't get to do everything we wanted, but we were able to fit most of it in. They were probably happy to escape the hot temperatures in Arizona, but didn't expect the cool temperatures we had this past week. Michele forgot to pack a jacket for Lauren, so she had fun wearing my stuff.
Here are the activities we did with the kids... we went to a circus, baby shower, swimming at the community center, the boys fixed things around the house, the girls had manicures & pedicures, went to Six Flags Park, Cold Stone ice cream, playing Wii games, walks with our dog Codi, we played games, made craft projects, and had a scavenger hunt.
We only got the scavenger hunt on tape from my big video camera, so I'm not able to post it. What we did was write out clues and hid them all over the house. Every other clue had a prize with it. The prizes kept getting bigger as they found more clues. It started off with $5 gift cards to McDonald's & Target and the biggest prize was Six Flags Park! The kids had to focus on the key words in the clue to bring them to the next clue. Example, here's one we gave to Lauren: "Auntie Pam likes to cook in the kitchen". The key words are "Pam", cook" and "kitchen". The prize was behind the Pam cooking spray in the kitchen.
I have to tell you that 99.9% of the pictures are of Lauren. The reason for this is because Matthew HATES to have his picture taken... see what I mean! Lauren on the other hand is miss photogenic and LOVES to have her picture taken... go figure.
Here we are at Cold Stone enjoying some yummy ice cream. This is one of the very few pictures that you will see of Matthew. But he really was at our house and did participate in everything.
Vovo made Lauren chocolate chip heart shaped pancakes for breakfast and she loved them.
We take take off our shoes in the garage before we come in the house. So here's what our back door looked liked for 5 days... LOL
Once the weather warmed up we were able to go to the pool which is around the corner from our house. Matthew and Lauren had a great time together. Lauren climbed on Matthews shoulders and he tossed her into the air.
Here's Lauren doing one of her favorite things... EATING!!! Check out her plate! She eats more than Vovo, unbelievable. AND she normally has seconds... WOW. So let's get this straight, she DOES NOT normally wear a bib, but she was spilling so we were making fun of her. I said I have a bib with a scoop on it if she wants to wear it and she said "OK". She thought I was kidding, but I do have a bib so I pulled it out and put it on her... she cracked up and left it on. We all laughed over it.
Here we are at Six Flags in Vallejo. They have lots of cool rides for the big kids as well as the younger kids and really cool animal shows. I have to tell you that 5 hours is just not enough time to see everything. Because of the kids age difference and preferences, we split up. Matthew was with Papa and was able to hit all the big scary rides in the morning. Lauren and I hit the smaller rides. We met up for lunch and watched the whale and dolphin show.
These are the crazy rides that Matthew likes. Matthew is the kid with the shorts on in the front left seat. This thing was going soooo fast I'm surprised I even got the picture!
Lauren loved to take pictures with the characters.
I think this was their favorite ride. How do I know that you ask?!?!?! They went on it 3 TIMES!! They loved getting totally drenched; so much fun. Here they are getting off the ride dripping wet.
Here's Lauren having fun
Another fun thing that Lauren got to do is dance with the Six Flags Guy!!!!! We just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Out of all the kids doing line dancing he picked Lauren to dance with. It was so much fun to see them dance together and I got it on video, so check it out.
There was some serious Wii bowling competition going on between Michele (our daughter) and Lauren. Michele attended her friends wedding on Sunday, which just happened to be in a city close to our house. So we had some time on Saturday afternoon to play around before she headed back to San Jose.
Everywhere Lauren went Max was sure to follow. As you can see, Max also had to be safe and buckle up of course.
The manicure and pedicure was a big hit with Lauren. It's so much fun to do "girly" things with Vovo.
Lauren LOVED the spa chair that massages you while getting a pedicure. She was just giggling the whole time... listen to the video.
Here's the finished product.
Mike & Pami made a great dinner and we all brought over a dish. We had TONS of food as usual.
