Aliso Beach. And mangoes.

The tide was huge for this labor day weekend party

But it's always fun to have smore's at the beach!

We came one evening with a bunch of friends from our ward

Aliso Beach has a short steep beach and the waves break right on the shore so we don't often come to this one,

the advantage though is that our car was 10 feet from where we were at

My pictures don't give the waves justice with the steep incline, but they were HUGE!!! See that guy about to be swallowed up? :

The lifeguards were on careful watch that day and asked Ben and a couple other guys to come in after a particularly huge set of waves.

 Random and unrelated to the ocean, and late now that our costco mango season is over, but this changed my mango eating life. How to peel a mango:

The Week Before School Starts

Summer is over and School has started!

But that's not what this post is about.

This is summarizing a few highlights of the last week of summer.

Since we start so late I've already seen enough first day of school pictures to last a lifetime, but ours are still coming. 

Back to summer. This was the key to my (partial) sanity of grocery shopping:

 Samples and heelies.

I give full credit to Amy who found Macey a pair 

and told me the way to learn is at the grocery store.

Not only did it keep my naughty bored kids from running cause they would fall,

but it entertained them and was great balance/heelie practice.

Genius!!

 Mackayla has been riding her new bike all over town. She loves it!

 We hit up our favorite waterpark once more.

 This is random, but I sometimes crack up at the things Mackayla wants to wear (princess crowns and lots of jewelry). Sometimes I feel kinda like she's fancy nancy and we're the plain lame family she was given.

 The girls had a little ballet/tap showcase:

 Banana!

 After dance we snuck in one last ward beach day.

We collected water bottles this summer and with the money they earned they got a treat at the snack bar at the beach.

 Kayla loves taking random pictures on my phone. Here's 1 of 50: 

 We went on a hike along the dirt paths in the area one day. There were tons of crazy spider webs. This time of year is so creepy with gigantic spiders everywhere! Just in time for Halloween I guess.

 

Art, Football, Beach, Pioneers

Canvas Art

  then they made their own fresh squeezed lemonade and baked apples that they thought they tasted like apple pie.

The best part was that they did all the work :)

Cody did a football camp last week and was pretty excited to tell us that he scored two touchdowns in his last game of the week. They ran them hard that week, it was great!

 Beach days are always fun with friends

 Macey flying a kite! 

  Macey has really taken to boogie boarding lately. I've got to get a picture!

 Today we had ward beach day. It's always fun but I was dragging my feet.

Some days I don't feel like packing up enough junk for a week and walking it a mile (mostly) by myself. But Cody needed to play with some boys, desperately. (He tells me all the time he needs a brother. Good thing he has Rushmad.) So we went and he played all day with his friends who are boys and loved every minute! We always love beach days.

I found this super random paper from 1997 somewhere in my stuff.
#7 - If I could live anywhere, it would be - somewhere by a beach.
Perfect.
And why would I choose a bus for a free car? That is weird.

Stake pioneer day is always so fun.

Ben and Kayla waited in line over an hour until everyone was almost gone for these balloons!!