Strawberries!

Behold our first-ever strawberry harvest!

Hopefully it is the first of many to come because these little beauties taste like candy and put the store-bought variety to shame.

Gardening win!

Day Out With Thomas

Yesterday we had went down to the Fillmore & Western Railway and enjoyed a day with Thomas the Train in absolute perfect weather. I was really quite impressed with the setup and the boys had so much fun. Even though Benji has never really gotten into trains as much as Peter, they both had so much fun.

The boys enjoyed the bounce houses, the hay maze, and playing with the many train tables.

 Benji was especially proud of his Thomas tattoo.

 They also had this great reptile show with a huge turtle which made a beeline for Peter.

 Of course, there were snakes. Which I suppose I'm getting a little better about. Mostly because of Benji's reactions. The lady in charge would call kids up by their age groups and the first time Benji lined up very carefully next to the other kids and was so interested in the snakes. But once he figured how it all worked, he tried to get up with all the other age groups to pet the snakes. That kid wound up touching every single snake up there I think. He cracks us up.

Luckily Peter was a little unsure about holding this python. I think he's more of my opinion about snakes.

Then we got in line to take a ride on Thomas. 

 Luckily we were able to snag seats in the outdoor car and enjoyed a 25 minute ride past lots of farms. It was really very cool and probably my favorite part of the day.

 Despite their faces here, the boys had an awesome day and loved the ride. I think they were just beat by this point.

 Some local firemen were there too and let the kids climb up in the fire truck and try on all their gear. Our future fireman Peter was in absolute heaven.

 Benji was in heaven when we found this fountain and he got to play in the water for a while. 

 We really had a great time - I was very impressed with how well the whole event was put together. It's one we'll definitely have to do again sometime.

Cowboy Festival

Last Saturday we trekked down to Santa Clarita for the annual Cowboy Festival at Melody Ranch. The ranch is actually a working movie set so there were all kinds of cool period looking buildings and people wandering around in western dress. Not to mention tons of great music, dancers and variety shows. Benji is right now totally enamored of horses ('Neigh') and every time we saw one practically went crazy until he got to go pet it. 

Look! Pete got to ride one!

The boys were thrilled. 

They especially liked watching this Indian Dancer who did a Prairie Chicken dance. 

See their faces? Rapt attention I tell ya. 

  There was also a small movie memorabilia museum from films that had been shot at the ranch including an actual General Lee. When he saw this car, Benji immediately ducked under the rope and tried to open the door to climb right in. We tried to explain that on this car it's better to use the windows -- but, hey, the kids got good taste.

 Benji doing some sort of flying machine pose here. Crazy kid.

 Peter panning for gold in the kid section.

 And the boys showing off their 'cowboy walks' which mostly made them look like they needed hip replacements. All in all, a very fun (if not hot) day. 

Which has led to a lot of this the past few days: boys running around with guns and cowboy hats yelling 'Pow! Pow!'

9 Years

I am soooo not a surprise person. Really, really not. I detest surprises whereas Travis, well Travis is all over them. Like, I'm all for just telling someone what I got them for Christmas and I like knowing what other people got me beforehand. Trav has to beg me every year NOT to tell him what he's getting.

It just so happens that The Wonderful Man That I Married and I recently hit our 9 year anniversary at the beginning of this month. I really wanted to do something special to celebrate and after coming up with several good ideas, I finally settled on a winner (I thought). Only, I wanted to make that night extra special by turning it into a surprise adventure. On our anniversary, I simply told Trav to mark off a certain evening and that we'd go on a super secret surprise adventure. Don't you know how hard that was for me?

He, of course, was excited. I, of course, was bursting to tell him what it was.

Well the day of our super secret surprise adventure FINALLY came (it was really hard not to spill the beans early) and we hopped in the car with a still clueless Travis. After driving up to Bakersfield he finally admitted "I have no earthly idea what we are doing!"

Until we pulled up in front of the Fox Theater to see this funny man:

That would be Brian Regan!

Trav was so surprised and we laughed ourselves silly for two hours straight. I literally had TEARS streaming on multiple occasions from laughing so hard.

Turns out, sometimes surprises are a good thing. Travis even said on the way home "I think it made the night even more fun not knowing what you had in store."

Success.

Happy Anniversary baby.

I'm glad you're around to help me grow and try new things.

I love you -- which shouldn't be a surprise.

Grandpa comes to Play

This last weekend Silly Grandpa came to visit us again. The kids are always beyond thrilled to see Grandpa and boy did we ever have a great time. Benji even added a new word in honor of Grandpa: "Pa" Which he took to yelling loudly all around the house to get my Dad's attention.

On the first day we went to our favorite park, Apollo Park and wandered feeding the ducks and trying out all three different playgrounds.

That night we ate at BeX (highly recommended) and the wandered around the Blvd, stopping at the penny candy store, until Benji (who is enamored of motorcycles) found this little bike.

We could not move the child off it.

Somehow we made it home. 

On Saturday, Grandpa made these awesome HUGE bubbles with the boys.

I love how it looks like Peter is grabbing the shadow in this one.

  And then just generally played in the backyard until Grandpa had to leave. 

We love you Silly Grandpa! Can't wait to see you again in a couple of months.

Brothers

Today we went for a walk.

And on our way home Benji grabbed Peter's hand and held on tight all the way home.

(Do love just love all of Peter's gear? He had to wear it all -- 'just in case I need to rescue any animals Momma.')

Love these boys. Especially when they aren't fighting.

Easter

We had a wonderfully fun-filled Easter weekend. Also sugar and candy filled. But I suppose that's to be expected at this point.

We went to two different parties on Friday, first at the home of one of my young women...

And then that night to another friends, the Busby's, which we also went to last year.

Here's Benji with his favorite friend from church Christian. Benji loves Christian so much. Luckily Christian is so good and will always come entertain Benji during church functions and the like. Literally, if Benji has run off during a dinner or party and I'm trying to track him down, inevitably someone will tell me, "Oh don't worry, Christian's got him over there." What 15 year old boy does that?!

Then on Saturday, in between digging the garden (that's a whole nother post), we dyed Easter eggs. 

Which was an...adventure we'll say.

By the time we finished we had spilled almost every cup of dye, dyed our hands a rainbow of colors, and I think Benji even tried to drink the dye at one point -- but we did wind up with 18 very pretty, colorful eggs.

All of which came in handy on the next day: EASTER!!

The boys were so excited to see what the Easter Bunny had brought.

They quickly ran outside to try out the new no-spill bubble set from Grandma. (Thanks Grandma!)

Peter also just had to put on his new camouflage pants he got.

 Benji's reaction to trying Peeps for the first time (complete with awesome bed-head).

After breakfast, we had our own little egg hunt outside.

Can you tell that the boys both got sunglasses in their baskets?

And then it was time to get into our fancy-pants church clothes. 

And yes, we also got the boys matching bow-ties. They looked so handsome together.

 What monkeys.

Happy Easter!!