Oh. Mah. Gawd.

I am 32 years old. I get excited at the most random things.

• Rain when its warm outside
• Puppies
• Baby smell
• Freshly delivered pizza
• Finding an unexpected super cute shirt THEN finding out its on sale
• Getting my car washed

Nothing compares to getting a call from the mister (who is currently on night shift with opposite days off) to say he will be going to a new schedule. Even better when that new schedule is Monday through Friday. Even better when its DAY SHIFT.

Oh.
Mah.
Gawd.

We will not only have days off together with the kids. We will also be on nearly the same hours. I almost died.

No.
Really.
Died.

It's been a {nearly} a year since we started dating and we have always had the weirdest schedules. Between his random days off, odd hours and lack of sleep most of that time we have seriously just never been on the same page as far as work or sanity goes. This will be a welcome change! The downfall is it's a new job so who knows if it will be awesome or less than awesome and he has never done it before sooooooo...hopefully he doesn't get bored and it still keeps him busy.

The good news is that we get the weekends together with the kiddos and some weekdays solo without kids. The bad news is that he does have to work one weekend a month. The good news is that the Luoma kids mommy will get them one weekend a month and that's AWESOME! I'm sure its fun to have kid free weekends but it's even more fun to get time WITH your kiddos so you can do super cool stuff. Like sleep in. Haha.

So. In light of the amazing news I found some funnies that I have deemed my internet 'happy dance'.

I.
Am.
Stoked.

So. Now I grace this blog with some funnies about the regular work week.

School days...

Well today marks the official beginning of another school year. At least for 4 of our kiddos. There was excitement, nervousness, happiness and lots of giggles and smiles all the way across the board. Talk about awesome.

I'm a holiday girl. I love every holiday. The one non holiday that is just as important as a real holiday to me is the 1st day of School. Ever since Carina started her preschool I have felt like each year its a new beginning, a new year to become a little more of the grown up you will become, the person you are destined to be and somehow all those other little people in the same classroom and tiny desks as you will help shape that person.

The 1st day of school is important. I will always treat it that way. No matter what grade. The difficult part of this year is that it was the first year that all 3 of my kids were ready for us to drop them off and wish them well. First year they didn't necessarily need us by their side. This was sad. Carina my big girl even had me drop her off at a friends and they all rode in together with another parent. WHAT! Ugh. High School. I hate you. You took my little girl and made her grow up. BOO!

On the Luoma side of things, little Alyssa started Transitional Kinder today! What! We have a high schooler and a TK'er. This means. All 6 kids are officially in school. WOOHOO! Its almost like those glorious days of having all your kids potty trained. Haha. Just a little better though. Until we have to help with homework. Oh homework. I loathe you.

Needless to say, with all our sweet kids going to school today and 2 being able to say 'neener neener we get another week off' I was able to get some pics and Jared got some pics and here they are! 4 of  our big kiddos and their 1st day of school!!!

Guess who came to visit!!!

MEGAN!

 

All the way from AZ our sweet sweet Megan came down for what has become her annual summer vacation to visit us and our crazy selves! Unlike most of the trips she had taken we didn't have giant plans, I didn't hvae a ton of money to spend and I had to work 2 of the days she was here. I nearly thought this would be a bummer but as luck may have it we still ended up having a great time!!!

 

She arrived on a Thursday and we hung out at my work until I got to take her home and surprise the kids without secret visitor. Of course being Megan she was chill and had no problem surfing the internet watching Netflix while I finished my day out.

 

Once we got the kiddos we just chilled that night and the next day we went to a concert that was not planned but OH SO FUN! We went to Miranda. This was my 3rd Miranda concert and it was Megan and Jareds 1st. That was awesome. Carina and I got to share yet another special day because our first Miranda concert was also together! I tell ya. Country music. Brings everyone together. I already went over all the details about the concert in the last post so no need to go over that!

 

Saturday we literally chilled most the day while Jared and I put together this super bada** table and then Megan, Laneya and I all went to play mini golf while Rian and Jared did man stuff. You know. Like hardware stores and sitting on the couch scratching their...well. You get what I'm saying. I won at mini golf by one point. But I can admit that it was on a technicality and if I'm being totally honest me and Megan really tied. BUT. Doesn't mean I didn't take an awesome victory pic anyways. Haha.

 

 

When we got home we grubbed down on dinner with only 3 kids (Aidan, Rian and Laneya) and had a pretty quiet night at home watching weird movies (I do not recommend Noah) and getting tired quickly.

 

Sunday we just hung at home again and did a little back to school shopping for some shoes. Seriously we knocked it out super fast all things considered. We had only 1 little meltdown but when shopping for shoes. Who doesn't have meltdowns. Ya know? Serious business. Once we got home we of course had to do a quick photo op of our accomplishment and Megan was just so sweet and modeled for us. Classic.

 

 

Monday she stayed and chilled with all the littles and Jared at the house and then later that night after we dropped the kiddos off Megan and I went to dinner and a movie. I introduced her to Red Rock Café where we chowed down on a serious Tri.Tip and BBQ pork sammich. NOMS! After that we went to see Step Up. Like the 100th one, but not gonna lie. It was still cute. How can you go wrong with a movie based around awesome dancing and crappy dialogue. You can't.

 

Tuesday morning we left nice and early and we hit up Starbucks and went for a yummy deli sammich at the best 'fresh' bread deli in San Jose. Cough Cough. I have only been to that one so I could be biast. Then we had to take Megan to the airport. Of course it always seems like we didn't get enough time with her and I wish she could have stayed longer but alas, I suppose we had to return her to her ACTUAL family. Shucks!

 

 

We decided we will seriously stick to this annual tradition and next year we will plan it around a baseball or football game. I cant wait. I never thought so many years back that my friends little sister would become such a great friend and adopted little sister to me but I sure am grateful. We love you Megan! Can't wait to see you again!!



Miranda Lambert...Take 3!

Since becoming a family of 8, the time in which Jared and I get to be grown ups without kids has become pretty much non existent. So when it does happen we make sure its well worth it and we make sure plenty of memories are made along the way. This weekend was no exception!

Our friend Ashley had posted something on Facebook (yay for Social Media!) about going to a Miranda Lambert Concert. I of course posted I was jealous. Later she texted the mister about what we were doing Friday and BOOM. We decided to take advantage of a great offer we had on tickets that we otherwise wouldn't have thought twice about, got the kids taken care of and off we went to a concert!

Of course, we had Megan in town so we took all four tickets and not only did Carina get to go to her second Miranda concert, but we took Megan to her first. It was awesome. We met some very obnoxious and intoxicated young ladies. Who of course, fell in love with Megan immediately and I had to bust out my momma bear claws for a minute as they were trying to take pics and videos with my little girl in them. I mean. I don't care how old she gets, there will never be a moment when I don't protect her above all else. I may be a lover not a fighter but I'm a protective momma bear above all else! Needless to say as soon as they found out I was her momma and not just a rude friend they totally understood and all was well. Of course, they hung around for a majority of the concert but we didn't let that mess up our fun time!

We finally met up with Ashley, I got my concert nachos. I literally have them EVERY TIME. The music was fabulous. The company was better. I have now been to 3 Miranda concerts and it only gets more awesome every single time. I seriously adore her.

Jared was quite the trooper and since Miranda sings a lot of strong woman songs and some man hating songs he really was probably out of his lyrical element but he still had a great time. I mean. Hello. With all the lovely ladies he was with, how could you not!

Here are some of the pics we took and in case you can't tell the smiles were overflowing as were the drinks...for the 21+ anyways!

 

 

Camping with the CR8ZIES!

Well. We finally got out for our first and only summer trip with the kiddos. Took us long enough but man was it totally worth the wait. We had a BLAST! We booked the trip just shy of two weeks before and it was at a place neither of us had ever been so it was a good new place to venture up to!

Lets start at the beginning of the trip!

Woke up the day of the trip to some texts from my bank and apparently I had some fraudulent charges that didn't immediately trigger anything because..HELLO! My ATM Card was in my car. But. Wait. Oh.Crap. My car was in front of the house and these charges were online which means. Uh. My car was broken into? Oh. Nope. I left the damn thing unlocked in the midst of all the camping chaos and it just so happened to be the night someone decided to bother messing with it. Classic. We were now starting our camping trip minus the $350 that I had stored in the glove box just for camping and gas for the next week AND we were starting off much later because we got to do the following...

• Call the places that the card was used to see if there was any delivery details
• Stop by the address itw as to be shipped to in order to give the people the benefit of the doubt and make them aware that a police report was going to be filed
• File a police report and the PD in Suisun
• Close my bank account and open a new one as my checkbook had a missing check also

After all that was done, and I reminded myself that I do not live in the nice middle of nowhere country anymore and cannot be so naïve as to leave my doors unlocked we got to pack up the cars.

This went pretty quickly and by now the kids were ready to be on our way and quite frankly. So was I. We then looked up the weather and would you believe. It was set to be 15 degrees warmer than what we planned. If ever I felt like signs were pointing to the fact that we needed to stay home, these were there. Haha. Regardless, Jared kept me motivated, he sang his praises of excitement even if they were somewhat sarcastic and off we went.

2 cars. 6 kids. 2 already tired parents.

We made a quick (kinda) stop at a store closer to our campsite for the final things we needed as well as the things we forgot in the freezer. Oops! I got to see which direction we would go if we went to see Jareds dad and then FINALLY we were only 30 minutes away and the kids were getting super excited.

We checked in, we saw our spot, we got sort of bummed because the lake was so low and the water was not near us, we tried to change our spot and got denied and finally we decided to just roll with the punches and set up our campsite. Whilethe kids sat there. And stared at us. No. Seriously. If they weren't staring at us there were asking us when we would go swimming and telling us there was nothing to do all the while we were just trying not to grab the cooler full of beer and lock ourselves in the truck while letting them fend for themselves. Haha.

We got camp set up. We got them in their bathing suits, we blew up some rafts and we headed out for a night swim. It was great. It was finally feeling like a vacation and after a couple hours we headed back to our site and that is pretty much how the rest of the trip went.

• Wake up
• Eat
• Swim
• Play
• Complain
• Eat
• Sleep
• Repeat

We did get some yummy meals in, we did get to play in the sweet raft we bought, we did get to taste some of the yummiest and most GIANT scoops of ice cream ever. I mean. Seriously. It was like a mountain of ice cream for 2 bucks and it was awesome! We also got to shower on the second to last night and more importantly. We got to disconnect from the internet, phone calls, texts, social media, work and real life and just focus on each other and the memories we were able to make. It was seriously awesome. I have never felt so at peace with all of us than I did this weekend. I mean. After all the chaos at the start of the trip of course.

Now without any further delay and because I know pics are much b

etter than stories here are some pics from camping!