Soooo

I am not even going to pretend that I will one day catch up with all the pictures and outings that I have yet to blog about. Somehow with the move and summer, life is getting in the way of me blogging about it. Go figure. It just gets to the point where it is so daunting, I don't want to blog at all. But that's no solution.

We had a wonderful time down at the beach and the kids have been in the water so much between the river, the pool, the beach and various splash parks that I can officially declare them fish. One day I will get my butt in gear and get the better pictures posted of our trip.

Until then, I thought I would go with a much smaller topic and therefore post, about a semi-snap decision we made on Wednesday night while at Sam's Club after a lovely family dinner out. Unfortunately when we moved, we were not able to take our swing set as it was in no condition to survive the move. We have debated over exactly what we want to put in the backyard to replace the play structure since the really good quality wood and plastic ones can be pricey. We thought about Joe building one himself with stronger materials but it would have to take a back burner to more pressing projects plus during the extreme heat of summer, the kids are not outside too much unless they are in the pool. The problem with that is we are finding that Yucca Valley has temperatures cooler of at least 10 degrees and the evening breeze creates a perfect environment for outdoor playtime. Anyway, the other option we had been considering was a trampoline with enclosure as both our kids seem to love them whenever the chance to jump around in them presented itself. And so it was at Sam's Club Wednesday night when we saw a great deal on a trampoline set and decided to "jump" on it.

Spare me the lecture on safety, Thursday Joe put up the trampoline without the enclosure and for one day only, the kids were able to jump from the trampoline into the pool. Even though there were a few moments when I thought I would a heart attack watching them, it was well worth the fun they had.

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Later after dinner, Joe and our friend Cruz (who you will be hearing a lot about now that he is stationed up here) put the enclosure up and the kids bounced and played to their hearts content.

Although I failed to get a picture capturing the moment, I knew we had made the right decision with the trampoline as dusk descended and the kids laid down on the trampoline exhausted and cuddled with each other as they looked up at the first of the evenings stars and whispered to each other about their plan to escape (they were playing some kind of good guy/bad guy game). It was utterly and absolutely priceless.