The Pelican and The Snowman

Last Saturday Grandpa Dave and Grandma Karen came for a short last minute visit after attending a funeral in LA. They drove up for a few hours and took us out to dinner up in Pismo Beach; we ate at Mo's BBQ, and the food was oh so yummy! Afterwards we went for a little walk on the pier.

I know all these pictures are blurry, but my camera was on it's very last legs...

When we got out to the end of the pier, we found this guy:

He wasn't shy at all - in fact he ate some fish straight from a fisherman's hand!

On our way back to shore, the girls spotted this little guy. For some reason they were immediately friends...Rylee gave him a big hug, and then he and Cailyn just looked at each other and babbled a bit for several minutes.

Back at home, we celebrated Grandpa Dave's 52nd birthday a few days early. When I told Rylee that morning that we were going to make a birthday cake, she immediately requested that we make a snowman cake (never mind that it's September and has been in the 100's these last few days - hotter than it was all summer!) So, a snowman cake it was!

After cake, Grandma and Grandpa drove back down to LA so they could catch their early morning flight back to New Mexico. It was a short visit, but a fun one!

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These were officially the last pictures that my good old camera took before biting the dust. But I can't say I'm sad in the least, because I finally got the camera I've been wanting forever! I'm still learning how to use it, but here are a few pictures I've taken in the last couple days...

Merry Christmas to me!

Fire Truck by Ivan Ulz

Press "Play" and then scroll down and read about Rylee's pre-school field trip to the fire station today...

I wanna ride on a firetruck!

Today Rylee's preschool class took a field trip to the Fire Station, and Quinn and I were both lucky enough to come along!

The kids had been working for weeks on a cute song to sing for the fire fighters...I posted the YouTube version of the song in the post right above this one, so you can play it as a soundtrack for while you're reading the rest of this post (:

When I picked Rylee up from preschool yesterday, one of the moms who had been helping out that day told me a funny little story about Rylee. The kids had been taking turns practicing Stop Drop and Roll; they stood in a line and when it was their turn, Miss Shelley told them to come to her other side where there was some kind of "fire" and then they were supposed to (what else?) Stop, Drop and Roll. When it was Rylee's turn, she refused to go to the other side and said "I'm not going over there, there's fire!" Miss Shelley tried to reassure that it was just pretend fire, but Rylee stood her ground and never Stopped, Dropped or Rolled because she never went in the fire. Do I have a smart three-year-old or what?

When the fire fighters were talking to the kids, they asked if anyone knew what an emergency was, and Rylee raised her hand...

...and when the fire fighter acknowledged her, she announced "I have a necklace!"

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Shortly after this, they asked if someone could show how to Stop Drop and Roll, and Rylee popped right up and did a perfectly executed demonsteration of how to Stop Drop and Roll! I guess as long as she doesn't have to go into "fire" she thinks it's a great thing!

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After they showed the kids all the stuff in the fire truck, they let the kids take turns spraying the fire hose. Unfortunately, only about 6 kids got a turn before they got a call and had to leave. Luckily, Rylee was one of those kids because she told me several times this afternoon that that was her favorite part of the day.

Since the visit was cut short, we didn't get to go on the tour of the fire station, but the fire fighters promised that we could reschedule a time to come and finish the visit, so there will probably be another field trip to the fire station in the not too distant future.

Back at pre-school, everyone cooled down with popsicles. These girls were so funny and kept wanting me to take pictures of them with their treats!

Cousins at the Beach

Wow, it's been a long time since I've blogged! What can I say, I've been super busy...reading The Hunger Games trilogy. Yep, I read the first book a couple weeks ago and then the second two this last week, and they were totally amazing and worth me falling behind and neglecting everything else in my life. (This is why I hardly ever read, even though I love it. Because when I find a good book, I can't put it down and then NOTHING gets done!) So now that the girls are in bed, I've stuck the first load out of four over-flowing laundry baskets in the washing machine, started the dishwasher, swept the kitchen floor and wiped washable marker off the wall (What else are kids to do besides turn the walls into artwork when their mom is reading the day away? I promise, I did remember to feed, bathe, clothe and love my children, but that's about where it stops.) I've decided to spend a little time blogging.

Last weekend we went down to San Diego for a long weekend. We had been planning to go down for quite a while that weekend because Quinn's Aunt Melinda and cousin, Leslie, and her family took a family vacation to Southern California, so we wanted to see them. It wound up turning into a mini Clawson family reunion though, because Katie and Ava drove down (since Josh was away at military training) and brought Aunt Annette with them, and Annette's daughter (Quinn's cousin), Jessica, and her family just happened to have also planned a family trip to San Diego that same weekend! We spent two days at the beach and couldn't have had a better time.

The first day (Friday) was Brett's brother Todd's 50th birthday party, and we had a little luau party for him, complete with real hula dancers (see the videos at the bottom of this post...these were filmed during costume changes.) We didn't have all the Clawson gang there, but Leslie's family came and Katie, Ava and Annette made it into town for the end of the party. Here are a few pictures from the party:

Payton was the expert hole digger I love these pictures of miss Halle...she's a bit camera shy, and content to do her own thing for the most part, so I didn't get many other pictures of her, but she sure was cute playing with her buckets!

Funny enough, I hardly got any picture of Cailyn last weekend either, but here she is with flowers in her hair, eating her Hawaiian chicken

Saturday was the day when all the Clawson bunch got together. Here are all the kiddos:

Emma

Ava

Halle

Cailyn

Payton

Ila

Avery

Rylee

Cael

And here's how the day went...

I could spend every day like that day and be happy!

Quinn wasn't there because he had to stay and work...but he wound up taking the train down late Saturday night to meet us because he got a call for a third interview on Monday morning in San Diego. And he got the job! So, starting October 4th he will be working as a Sales Supervisor for Cox, and we're really excited to be living close to family again (although it may be a few months before we get the whole family down there.)

Oh, and remember that penguin suitcase from Sea World that Rylee worked so hard to earn money for? Well, Ila and Emma went to Sea World and brought it back for Rylee! Here are the girls counting out Rylee's money from her piggy bank

and here's the suitcase...isn't he cute?