Caltrans Kids Day

Every year Caltrans has a kids day for the families of their employees. It gets better each year. There are a bunch of different stations where the kids can do different activities (like make a street sign, use surveying equipment to hunt for treasure and go inside huge machines, just to name a few).
There were a few visitors there this year.

This was a really cool truck that had a huge and very powerful vaccuum hose on it.

I wish I would have had my hair vaccuumed!

This truck below was some kind of snow equipment, the kids got to go sit inside and honk the INCREDIBLY loud horn.

Peyton was happy with her sucker and rubber monkey.

I made Morgan pose on the police motorcycle, she was a good sport (we were both in our suits and cover ups for our first trip of the summer out to the waterpark).

The boys enjoyed playing in the police car, we had to make them get out to let other kids get a turn.

We are looking forward to next years kids day already and plan on going again.

A good Sweat

In my never ending quest to lose weight I have discovered a great workout that is less than 30 minutes. It is Jillian Michael's 30 day shred. There are 3 different workouts, 3 different levels. I have been doing them for several months now and I wish I could say that I've lost weight but I have not. However, my body is changing and many people have said they have noticed that I'm losing weight, so that's good. The workouts consist of a brief warm up, 3 circuits of 3 minutes of strength training, 2 minutes of cardio and 1 minute of abs and then a cool down stretch. It's a tough workout but if you can hang in there for about 24 minutes or so then you're done!

Don't I look nice after my workout?!

Cub Scout Day Camp

June 14th - 18th I can't believe this was already a month ago! Our summer has sure flown by. Cub Scout Camp was the first week after school got out, everyday from 9 am to 3:30pm at Reagan Elem. It's a pretty new school so the trees are very small and there isn't any shade to speak of. We were fortunate to have some abnormally cool days, a few anyway. I got a nice start to my tan, my farmer's tan that is. It was a sports theme this year which didn't excite me or Micah much but I ended up really loving it and wishing I had tried basketball when I was in school. This is micah and Keith during one of the basketball drills. Camille Fox (I think that was her name) was one of the teachers in that rotation and she was awesome.
Archery, one of mine and Micah's favorites, we both want bows now.

We had a guest speaker, do you recognize him? If you don't you probably don't care anyway, it's Pat Hill, the football coach from Fresno State.

My group of boys was able to carry me on a homemade t-shirt stretcher!

Cliff McKinney coached/taught flag football, that's Micah with the ball. You'd never guess he didn't like sports.

On the last day it was incredibly hot and the boys did all kinds of relay races, here is the frog hop.

This is my group, they were some pretty awesome kids and I am proud to say that I survived (barely) the entire week all by myself with this big group of Wolves.

I look forward to next year and being Jacob's Den Leader for Cub Scout Day Camp. There were a lot more activities and rotations that I didn't get pictures of or that I didn't post. Everyone did a great job. My favorites were, basketball, archery, wood working (tool boxes), swimming, music, waterslide, map and compass (even though our group lost and I sweat like a pig running all over the school). I'm sure I left some out but they really were all fun. Thanks to all who helped put it together and kept it going!

Sit down and Hang on!

I am feeling a bit overwhelmed but I'm tackling this head on. If you want to get caught up on the lives of the Laings tune in and every few days you'll see a little something new! In no particular order, here we go...

June 30th Peyton is a huge animal lover and we are fortunate enough to have the world's nicest cat, seriously. Thanks to my mom for buying us this sweet thing. She claws on all our furniture but really, she's amazing. Peyton drags her around all over the house, pulls her legs, lays on her, carries her around, you name it. Carmen had NEVER, EVER, bitten or scratched her or anyone else. She even comes to Peyton sometimes, she really likes attention.
Grandma Kay bought Jacob a rock polisher for his birthday several months ago and we finally got it running, only 5 days left in this first batch. There are 4 stages and during each one the tumbler runs for 7 days. It's quite an exercise in patience. From now on when we camp or go to the beach we will scout out pretty rocks. The picture below is after the 1st step (July 2nd).
Peyton has a growing Barbie house and amongst many rooms is of course a bathroom. One of my favorite YW, Wendy Freeman (and her family) has made multiple contributions. One of these said contributions is a toilet, a purple toilet. Micah, being the great brother he is will often play with Peyton and her Barbies. Let me assure you, he does play like a boy. He came and got me to show me what Gabrielle was doing to Taylor. Oh my....

July 2nd Yes, I'm a Twilight Saga fan. Not one of the crazies, but I did go a few nights after Eclipse opened with a few of my best friends and my sister. I really liked it, it was my favorite of the three movies so far and I am looking forward to the last 2.

This was also taken July 2nd. I guess I felt like I needed more pictures that day, I don't know. I'm including this because it's a cute pic of the boys and it shows all of their hair "before"

Jacob had quite a mop so he got a few extra shots, the were taken last night, July 17th. Jacob really is a beast when it comes to haircuts and it causes us to allow his hair to get pretty out of control. He claims that his haircuts are very painful, there are 2 places on his head that he always flinches, on each side, so, I am inclined to believe him. I just don't know what the problem is. I cut Tyler's hair as well as Micah's, Jacob's and Benjamin's and none of the other complain about it hurting a bit.



Here is Micah's Before, it's also his After. He is riddled with cowlicks, well 3. His hair looks great short but has to be cut frequently or it sticks up everywhere. He likes it long and it lays nicely when it's long so I have decided not to cut it until just before school starts.

Jacob and Ben's After. Now they look even more alike.

Still alive

This summer has been busy and fun. I was able to be Den Leader again for Scout Camp, Micah was in my group again. After Scout Camp I was also able to go to Girls Camp again, at Camp Keola. In between we have been swimming at Nana's house and going to the water park. We got passes this year which we haven't done since I was pregnant with Peyton, so the boys have been very happy. I will hopefully be posting all of our summer events soon. Our laptop is very old and is having some issues. The usb ports are pretty loose and will no longer recognize when my hard drive is plugged in which is where all of our photos are and all of my digital scrapbooking stuff is. I have lots of pictures building up on my camera and I really miss scrapbooking. Tyler said he will try to set up our wireless network again and I can do everything that way. The only drawback there is that it takes so much longer to do anything. Anyway, Tyler implemented a new program for our household, those of us at home during the day anyhow. We, myself and the boys included, are responsible for cleaning one room a day. It's been great. The boys are learning a lot, our house is getting back in shape and I'm not having to do everything! It's just one room a day and I have help, I can handle that! So far we have done the boys bathroom, their bedroom, the living room, and today the kitchen. I plan and hope to keep it up. I miss blogging, kind of ;) I must not lie, it's nice to have a break, but I do want everything recorded! I hope you are all having a great summer.