What we did on our summer vacation!

I have not been good at all with recording the kids events and milestones in their baby books, but I have noticed that I'm good at keeping people updated by email. So I thought this might be a good way to create a record for Blynn and Rusty, and keep friends and family updated. This is going to be a long entry as I just downloaded the summers pictures onto the computer. Here we go:















We started the summer by going to the coast and seeing the elephant seals. Rusty does a great impression.
Blynn and Rusty both got tattoos this summer at Vacation Bible School. Just another way of showing God's love.

We went camping at Hume Lake with family and friends. I love this picture of Papa Russ telling a story to all of the kids while they are on his lap.

The last picture taken with this tent was 25 years ago.

Then we got to go berry picking at a local farm here. Kai referred to himself as a booberry picker.

Eating with chopsticks at one of our favorite places in Palmdale. We made a lot of trips to Palmdale to help Russ.

First train ride. Blynn and I took the train home from Palmdale.

Let the record say that the boys love this activity and usually ask for certain fairies or princesses when they come over.










































Blynn started writing her name. For those of you who haven't been to our farmhouse yet, this is wallpaper on our wall in the kitchen. If you are going for a similar look, eat your heart out because this is vintage wallpaper. I bet you could have never guessed.

This is the official day of the merger between the Walling and Martin tribes. I haven't heard when we are going to our first tribal council, but I'm pretty sure my alliance with Todd is tight.










This is one of my projects and obsessions this summer. Composting. Blynn and Rusty have gotten into it too. We take a trip out to the bin every night and dump our food waste for the day. I even stalk Starbucks for their used coffee grounds. It is the best smelling compost bin ever. I like to refer to our harvest as "black gold".














Todd's grandparents and uncle moved away from Bakersfield to go to Arizona. The kids and Todd went to help with packing. I'm sure Rusty and Blynn weren't a distraction at all.












Papa and the kids are harvesting the grapes for drying into raisins. It is so fun for me to see Blynn and Rusty experiencing the same things I did with my grandpa when I was their age.
















We love every part of living in the country and I can't ever imagine living in town again. Even Todd likes it. Although he does still try to work in the field with his flip flops (slippers) on, my dad is good about keeping his comments to himself.

Click on this pic to see how dirty their faces are.












We went back down to San Diego in September to see Papa Russ and Grandma.














Went to the San Diego Zoo with some of my good friends from college and their kids. Finally, Blynn has a group of girls to hang out with.











One of Todd's favorite parts of this trip was taking Blynn to her first ballgame, which she refers to as the old ballgame and insisits it is not called baseball. I have had many years to get over the fact that these children will be Giants fans, although I have not given up the fight. As you can see Blynn is wearing a Giants dress which still hurts my heart, but it also helped that this game had nothing riding on it and the Dodgers were and are still killing. It also helped that I didn't go to this game as Rusty was getting all 4 of his molars, so I didn't have to see her in the dress. She made it through til the 9th inning and couldn't last any longer. I called her after the 7th inning stretch and she was so excited to tell me that everyone at the ballpark knew the same song we sing to her before bed at night.

I had to put this picture up because it cracks me up to see her sitting at a laptop. She loves this "quiet time" activity. I can't wait til she can help me with my computer problems. Probably next year.











Another picture I couldn't resist posting. This is the cheesy smile Rusty does whenever he is in the vicinity of a camera. Even if it is still in the case, he says "cheese" and puts on this smile.











Blynn's CBS lesson this week was when Moses asked God to provide food for his people. So this is Blynn and Rusty gathering up the manna that God had provided.










I promise that future entries will be much shorter, I just felt like I had to catch up on a summer's worth of experiences and milestones. Other than our obsession with the Tour de France and the Olympics, I think I covered our summer.