so on wednesday...a very hot day indeed...my sister in law and nephew met the three kids and i at a fabulous idea of mine. this was going to be huge...larger than life FUN.

ahaha...well, sometimes things appear to be a bit grander in a picture than in real life.

we went to the sprayground in west sac. if you lived in the house that was closest to the sprayground, then it would have been fine. but i can't believe i made us drive there!

while jess and i sweated, the kids did have fun. mea and joey took a while to get used to it, but once they did...they had fun.

hannah got thrown up on by joey and handled it very well. although, she was pretty much done holding him after that or getting too close to him.

there is apparently an AMAZING sprayground in roseville, so we will venture there to try that one...a little farther, but hey...a good shopping mall is close-by if all else fails!

one of our beauties

mea and joey snacking before getting serious about the sprayground

noah made some friends...as usual

auntie jessie & the babes...

mea being wild crazy

such a paitent and loving cousin...unless you throw up on her!

rolling down the hill is fun...

watch me, mom!

trying to roll down...

sky mountain 2009

just arriving...

super excited...

just getting the mckinney bus unloaded and getting ready to check in

camaritto super burrito

big z and miss althea...

the crew...tony, vladmir, tyler, big raf, justin, big z, cameron, zachary and chris

miss emily in her stunna shades...

my artistic shot of the year...i don't know why i took this?!

momma shirar saying good-bye to her gem

how awesome to have your best bud with you at camp?!

mea giving her bubbs loves & saying goodbye

mea giving her best daddy some smooches to last for the week

fallen leaf lake camping trip

i am partial to camping in yosemite...but we did decide to try fallen leaf with most of the galgan family this july. it was a fun time! we went july 2 to july 5.

fallen leaf is pretty much across the street from lake tahoe. it was beautiful there...and very, very cold at night. i'm glad i was prepared.

hannah said her favorite things about fallen leaf were:

sleeping in mimis tent (trailer)

climbing on the big rock

swimming at the beach

and going to the camp store

mea said she liked going to eli's house...i guess that means his campsite?!

noah said his favorite thing was, uh, i don't know the lake?!

the daddies took all the big kids to lake tahoe to watch the fireworks on the 4th. they saw a pretty good show...4 different sets going on.

we have one more big camping trip...yosemite...august 1

yippie!

elyse chowing down

this is our niece, elyse. all kids are miracles, but the way she came into our family is pretty extraordinary. zach's sister and brother-in-law, stephanie and michael, were never able to have kids on their own. they adopted our beautiful niece, emily...followed by zeke, who is so much fun and then eli, who is super cute.

well, one day i was sitting at my scrapbook table, pregnant with our little mea girl and steph called. she said she had some news...and when she told me she was pregnant, i didn't believe her...my heart started pounding and i got super excited and giddy!

anyways, they had just adopted eli and i am pretty sure they had said they were done. but, obviously GOD had different plans for them.

to make a long story shorter...steph had lots of swelling, but you know, it was summertime and hot...i was super pregnant...so i could relate...well anyways, i had mea on august 18, 2006. i don't think steph was due until umm...October. i can't remember. but anyways...steph came to visit us when we had mea in the hospital...she had cankles and really high blood pressure...poor girl. a few days later, like 7 or 8 days...elyse was born! super early...like 1 pound 13 ounces early...of course she was in the hospital for a long time...but today is totally healthy and almost 3! and not that much shorter than her 8 pound 6 ounce cousin, mea!

so, you would think they were done right...4 kids-- 2 of which are babies...nope they expanded our family by 1 more and added elle. elle will take her own post to explain, but she is making me laugh all the time-- not so much her mom and dad...but something about when they aren't yours...you can laugh!