Family Pictures

It feels like we have our family pictures taken like four times a year, but when my cousin Chelsea was in town from Georgia, I had to take advantage.  She is an excellent photographer and I am so grateful to her for snapping a few shots of us, I love them.  

These are all of my grandparents grandchildren, except Letty :(

And these are their great-grandchildren.

Moving - The Details

Well our house officially closed yesterday Sept 22.  Now that everything is official I feel like I can share details.  For the past year, or so, we have been contemplating a pretty big life change.  As many of you know, Jason's dad is a 4th generation beekeeper (you can read about him in this newly published book).  I think beekeeping had always been a thought/option/idea in the back of Jason's mind, but we hadn't really considered it until Jason's dad began thinking about retiring in the next few years.  We thought hard and prayed about it, then decided it would be a good fit for our family.  Jason worked in the bees growing up and has very fond memories of his childhood.
So now it is official.  Jason will be leaving Apple at the end of January and working with his dad learning the business.  We are moving next month, so Jason will be working at Apple Mon-Wed then he will work from home Thur-Friday.
When I tell people down here about our move I get responses ranging from confusion about why we would leave a place like this, and a company like Apple, for a life of farming (the bee variety), to others who think it is the absolute coolest thing they've ever heard.  We are pretty excited.  The next year or so with be a year of big change and learning.  We will be spending our summers in North Dakota (where the honey is harvested) and the rest of the year in CA.  Soooo if anyone has ever wanted to visit ND (I know you've all been debating between Cancun or ND for your next getaway), now you know someone there!!  We also would love visitors in CA, we have a guest bedroom with clouds on the ceiling to lure you in:)  Please, please come visit!!
Now to the house.  In a (small) effort to keep my blog somewhat private, I don't want to post the pictures and address of our new house on our public blog, so they are at the following password protected link: Our New House
If you are interested in seeing the pictures, please call me, email me, or leave me your email address as a comment, and I will send you the password. Even if your a distant acquaintance don't be shy, I probably blog stalk you too!

Us in ND last summer.

Max Turns One Year Old!

I can't believe my baby is one.  Where does the time go?  We just love our little Max Max, he is such a sweet little guy.  The weekend before Max's birthday we headed to Auburn to do some more house stuff.  While we were there we went to the Gold Country Fair in Auburn and celebrated Max with the families.  

Ollie really enjoyed seeing the animals.  He even got to go inside and pet this pig.

Look at that cute smile.

Max was an angel that evening, just so pleasant sitting in his stroller.

They had a little puppet show that Ollie actually sat and watched for quite a while.

 Sunday our families got together to celebrate Max and Ashley's birthdays.  Max had his own little cupcake and throughly enjoyed it.

I love making a mess.

Proud parents.

Jason's mom also made a farewell dinner for Michelle and Eric, they moved to Seattle yesterday :(

Jack, Ashley, Owen and mom. 

I have kind of been obsessed with making chocolate cakes lately.  Mmmm I want one now.

 On Max's actual birthday we signed the papers for our house.  We will always remember the day.  

Here we are with our mobile notary, it was nice to do the signing at our house.  And it was really nice of Michelle to play with the kids so we could do it uninterrupted.  

Daddy and the birthday boy.

Final picture with Michelle and Eric before they moved (this picture was really hard to get).  I don't think Ollie totally grasps what them moving really means, otherwise he would be really sad.

Now we are just waiting final underwriting approval and the house will be ours.  We are having a room and a hallway painted, the whole house deep cleaned and the carpets cleaned.  Jason is also sealing the garage floor before we move in.  We will be moving up the last weekend in Oct.  We are sad to leave the bay area, but are looking forward the changes that are coming.  I will be posting pictures soon!

We're Moving!

I know I have vaguely mentioned before that we are moving.  Well the move is becoming a reality, FAST.  I'm not going to go into too much detail yet, but basically we are in the process of buying a home (a beautiful one might I add) in Auburn, CA.  We are suppose to close Sept 19th.  When that happens I will post pictures of the house and details about why we are moving and what not.  Anyway, when we got word that our offer was accepted, we put the wheels in motion to try to hit the closing date the bank gave us.  That meant an impromptu trip to Auburn for the home inspection.  We managed to pack the weekend full of family and friends.  

Friday evening I got together with my favorite girls (minus Megan) for a little dinner and chatting.  I love these girls so much and cannot wait to live closer so we can hang out ALL THE TIME! :)

Saturday morning was the home inspection, which went very well, YAY!  That afternoon we took the boys to a park and met up with our friends Scott and Amanda and their two cute boys, who are almost the exact ages as Ollie and Max.  We had a great time enjoying lunch, checking out the house they are hoping to buy and seeing Scott's parents new home.  We are excited to live closer to them and for our boys to be playmates.

The next three pictures are courtesy of Ollie.  I'm actually glad I let him play with the camera!

My boys love to swing!

 All Saturday Jason kept noticing flyers advertising a Spaghetti dinner and street dance in Newcastle.  We gathered up both our families and enjoyed the beautiful (and hot) evening.

Even my cousins Alicia and Maggie joined us.

My parents on the left, Jason's on the right.

Mom and my cutie patootie nephew Owen.

Ollie playing with Max.

Can't get enough of these two (actually I can, they were driving me a  little crazy last week).

Jason and Ashley

Ashley and Chrissy

 Sunday my mother-in-law was kind enough to have my whole family over.  We also were able to visit with my cousin Katelyn who was visiting from PA.  We jump at any chance we get to see our PA family, we love and miss them all so much.  It was pretty crazy with everyone, but as always, a good time.

The fam

Ugly faces!!

 As I mentioned before, stay tuned for more details on the move and pictures of our new house!!

Jason's Birthday Weekend

This past Sunday was Jason's 31st birthday.  A few months ago, he planned a fun weekend so we could celebrate as a family.  We rented a camping trailer (one similar to the kind we want to buy in the future) on Friday morning, and headed down to Watsonville and stayed at Pinto Lake Park.  Everyone probably knows what we did all weekend because I checked in everywhere on Facebook.  Is that annoying?  Cause I just assume everyone wants to know where we are at all times :) 

We got there Friday afternoon and the boys loved playing in the trailer while we got things all set up. 

Max was SO happy and kept rolling around and laughing, it was the cutest thing ever.

Ollie is at an age where it is really fun to talk things up to him.  We had talked this up a lot and he was pretty excited.

 Friday afternoon we went to the Martinelli's factory.  We weren't sure if we could take a tour or what but it turned out to just be a tiny little shop where you could buy their stuff (in bulk).  We ended up spending $40 on various kinds of apple juice, haha.  After that we walked around a little farmers market in town.  It was pretty awesome since Watsonville is pretty much all farmland.  That night we headed to Ocean Speedway to watch the sprint car races.  It was fun, but we didn't stay long because we wanted to get the kids to bed fairly on time.  

In the stands watching the cars warm up.

How cute is that face?  He wanted the earplugs in.  He doesn't like loud things very much.

Max had a tough time going to sleep Friday night.  He was so overly tired that it took him a long time to calm down.  Saturday we made sure he got plenty of naps, and he did MUCH better Saturday night. The next day we hung out at our "campground".  It had a pond with ducks and a play structure.

Here we are in front of Pinto Lake. 

Had to get a picture in front of the trailer.

Saturday, after a run to the store for a few things we forgot, we headed over to Gizdich Ranch, where we played in the hay, picked our own strawberries and got a delicious pie.

They really loved this hay.  It was cute.

Picking strawberries.  We don't know if it was in our head or what but these were seriously the best tasting strawberries.

Ollie with his berries.

We came back and napped/relaxed/played with the ducks, then headed to Elkhorn Slough where we went on a hike.  

I'm pretty sure the ducks weren't huge fans of Ollie since he liked to chase them.  He also liked to just watch them.

On our hike there was this cool old barn, here we are in it.  Ollie refused to be in this picture.

Ollie loves to find sticks.  Apparently (according to a lady we passed on the hike) this is poison hemlock,  needless to say, we didn't pick up anymore sticks and we thoroughly washed his hands.

 After our hike we headed back to our campground and Jason prepared a delicious pasta dinner.  I'm not going to lie, while I have always claimed to love tent camping (and I really do) I am a big fan of the camping trailer.  It was so nice to have a stove, oven, microwave, and especially a bathroom/shower.

He accidentally burned some of the garlic bread.  

Ollie LOVES to swing.  And I love to push him non-stop :)

The Flex did great!  We were definitely riding low and gas mileage suffered.

 While we were gone my sister and cousin and some friends stayed at our house.  When we got back Sunday we all went to church together, ate dinner, and then went on a walk.  It was fun to see and hang out with them, even if it was only for half a day.

Zach broke his foot and required assistance on the walk.  Let me just say I don't know if I would trust Letty to push me in a wheelchair :)  There were a few close calls.

The whole group on the walk.