Hotel CaliFarnsworth

Okay there, so us Farnsworth's did have a pretty eventful summer. I just haven't documented it until now. The first adventure we had was going to Shavonne's wedding. We left the day school got out and headed up to Vegas. Doug was in charge of the music for the reception so we made a playlist with the songs Shavonne requested on it. Unfortunately for us when we tried to upload them onto Doug's ipod, all of Doug's songs were deleted. Yep all 30 gigs. Oops. That left us with only Shavonne's wedding songs to listen to on the way to Vegas. Since she mostly chose slow country songs it was not very fun for me. Once we made it to Vegas Douglas and I were put in charge of decorating and assembling the wedding cake. Aghh! We were scared. Anyway, the cake turned out fine, the wedding was beautiful and we had a good time getting to know our Nampa cousins better. The best part (besides the wedding ofcourse) was going out with Doug's Aunt and Uncle and Sister and Brother-in-law. We had a blast at Kings Fish House. Uncle Dana and Aunt Nancy are a true hoot! I loved hanging out with them.After the festivities were over in Vegas Douglas headed home and the kids and I headed to Utah. Once again we only had Shavonne's wedding playlist to listen too and since I was DONE with country we heard Miley Cyrus' The Climb and Jason Mraz's two songs over and over again. Preston was awesome and being in charge of the music. LOL. We did so much in Utah so I am only going to highlight a couple of things. First I LOVED seeing some of my Canadian cousins.Lynette and her family came down from Oregon to visit and Matthew came from Edmonton. They were so much fun to hang out with. Lynette's kids are adorable and my kids had fun getting to know them. I also loved being around with my sisters! I got to see Jennilyn, Stephanie, and Kimmy! Yipee! Look how happy we were to get so close! Ha ha! I asked my kids what their favorite thing was about our Utah trip and they all 3 said the pageant. I knew it!! I wanted to go sooo bad once I found out it was going on. My mom decided to give us a memorable experience and take Stephanie, Matthew, and us to the Manti Mormon Miracle Pageant.The pageant is done on the HUGE hill on the temple grounds in Manti. On the way there the kids got a kick out of seeing Snow College and where their daddy went to college. Preston noted that there were more animals than people! Too funny! Now I hadn't been to the pageant since I was a kid but I remembered having to get there early to stake your claim on a spot. They had tons of seats set up (I thought before, back in the day, we had to sit on the grass) when we got there and we quickly picked out our spot and spread out!Oh, we also brought Kim's girls with us. Chloe was super excited about this. She LOVES those Humpherys girls. Anyway, the 3 little girls soon attached themselves to a certain Canadian and whether he wanted it or not they became his new BFFs.They were pretty much all over him the whole time. I think Matthew enjoyed it though. He took them all around the grounds before the pageant started so they could have their pictures taken with some of the characters. Matthew was a sport and took lots of pictures of them. Here are a few (note how they are all little posers):

Before arriving at the Manti temple we went to Sams club to get a game or something to entertain the kids while waiting. I was worried about them being bored and naughty before the pageant started. I didn't find a good game but Preston found the 4th Diary of a Wimpy Kid book which lets you fill in the blanks and make your own book. Preston had read the whole series throughout the year and LOVED these books. I thought they were pretty funny too. I bought him the book and the kids were cracking up at the things they were writing.It was cute to see them all work together to come up with funny stories. My kids totally enjoyed the show - they still think they saw the real Angel Moroni and Jesus even though we tried to explain it plainly a hundred or so times. So thank you Mom for taking us!Our biggest event of the summer happened right after we got home. We were only home for a few days when we went to the airport to pick up our JARED!!! HE served a two year mission in Italy and since we've adopted him as our own we got to pick him up.Jared came home with another Anziano too and so when we saw this: a pretty big crowd started clapping and cheering LOUDLY! We couldn't help it. We were all so excited. Jared was so happy to see his little adopted parents. Chloe and Derek wanted to know if Best Buddy big brother would remember them.
He did! Preston cried a little. Too precious. Here's our gang!
After getting Jared back we were ready to party. First up was the 4th of July. Chloe was in the Ontario City 4th of July parade that they televise. Then we had a BBQ party with our new neighbors. This was so fun!!
Chloe in the parade. Looks who is in the car too. . .Preston wanted to sport his cub scout shirt for the parade to show his patriotism.Here is Derek watching the parade. Tiny Miss and Mini Miss Upland girls (Clover and Chloe)! Also in July was Cow Appreciation day at Chik-Fil-A. You know we didn't skip out on that action!
Another Ontario event that we were able to attend (for Chloe) was Ontario's National Night Out. The kids LOVED this! They got to meet several "famous people." Like Mr. National Night Out: and Wonder Woman (and WW's daughter?) Recycle Roo and Ontario's SWAT Team were there too! The Fire Department brought many trucks and Sparky the Dog. McGruff was happy to pose with Chloe. So were the snakes! Tremor from the Quakes was there which made Preston very happy! He went up to him and said, "Hey Tremor! I love you man! I always see you at the Quakes games and I'm like Hi Tremor what's up. Throw me a t-shirt. But you never do. That's alright though buddy. I'm Preston and I love baseball." Tremor then hugged Preston, left and came back with a Quakes backpack bag for Preston! He gave one to Taylor too! Those two were on cloud nine! Once they had enough of the meet and greet we celebrated at the park and joined in the festivities. Derek got brave and touched a character! Amazing huh? Then Chloe wanted to participate in the group tug of war. And Preston decided to do some rock climbing. This summer we also celebrated Mr. Yee's birthday. We made some homemade cupcakes for him and watched a movie. The Ingram twins also had their birthdays! Doug took us all out to the Watergrill to celebrate the occasion. Doug has a funny story to tell about this night. . .Douglas and I Jacob and Shelley Ingram Ryan and Melissa Ingram The last highlight I wanted to write about was our family backyard camp out. Douglas wanted to camp out with the kids in our backyard. He made us a yummy BBQ dinner. The kids played Helicopter Helicopter on the trampoline while he cooked. We finished the evening with smores, an outside movie, and sleeping in the tent. Preston made perfect marshmallows for the first time. He was proud. Derek wanted a turn. . .with a little help from daddy he had much success too. Chloe even got to get in on the action (she got to eat a marshmallow). This was such a fun family night! We wrapped up our summer with having Amie (Doug's awesome cousin) come and visit us. We took her to the beach at Corona Del Mar. The kids had so much fun with the boogie boards.
They also equally loved the tide pools and ended up talking to the volunteers for about an hour and a half. What can I say, my nerdy kids wanted to absolutely EVERYTHING they could about the animals in the tide pools. We also got to take Amie to Disneyland for her first time ever! We spent 3 days there, two days with her and the last day because it was Derek's birthday. Donald Duck is Derek's favorite Disney character. I think it's because he has a grandpa who talks like him. Anyway, Donald Duck sent him a birthday email. Derek was so excited! HE wrote him a thnk you note and mailed it to him while we were at Disneyland. Derek had a great birthday. We are planning a little party for him after school starts. He got a $62 gift card to spend at Disneyland plus birthday money from both grandparents. He hasn't spent all his money yet though. He bought himself some Jack Skellington drum sticks, a Jack sweatshirt hoodie, and a Jack Wrist band. He also bought a Mickey mouse stuffed animal. Now we are ready for school to start! Good bye SUMMER!