Summer is almost over!

Well, school shopping has begun, summer is winding down and even though the kids (I am sure) could go for another month or two of summer, this momma is ready for them to get back into school. We started out with minimal bickering this summer and these days its almost a daily occurrence again which means...the children must return to their normal habitat of school, homework and that torture called "real life". We like to teach them at a young age that its not all awesomeness.

After camping we were still on a GO GO GO mission and these are a few of the things we did...

Saw Al Pacino Live...Yes. Oh. Mah. GAWD! I got to listen to one of my absolute favorite people in all the land speak live in Reno, NV. A huge thank you to both Rich and Jared for making this possible. I swear, the night was amazing, minus the $60 I lost at the BlackJack table. Yeah. Apparently I can't win unless I am sitting at a penny machine. Either way it was amazing. Also happened to run into (very briefly) some acquaintances/friends from back home. Cute! He was really great and just this last weekend Jared and I watched one of the newest movies he has out. Danny Collins. Probably the first Al Pacino movie I ever cried during. It was pretty good, and oddly a total chick flick. Rich was soo kind he kept 5 of our 6 kiddos (Carina was in Ventura with her Tia) and he didn't even have a meltdown by the end. Brave, brave soul.

The other awesome thing that has happened is that my friend Lauren and her wife Kari had their baby girl. Emerson Grace Pryatel Tucker. I honestly didn't think I could fall in love with another baby as quickly as I fell in love with my own and yet...I totally have. She has melted this aunties heart and I absolutely love her. She was only 5lbs and just itty bitty so of course we went out and bought as many small clothes as we could find and shipped them right out. Sad to say they are still even a little big but glad she got them. We will be seeing her in a couple weeks and I am sure this blog will be inundated with even more baby pics!

Since we have been on week to week schedule with the kids, I haven't totally taken advantage but I did get to do something I don't normally do and snuck in a weeknight baseball game. It was totally fun and Desiree and her sis in law were tons of fun! Sometimes I forget that I have friends out there that will do fun things with me. I get so caught up in home life! Its always a good reminder to stay close!

The most recent big event that occurred is that Rich and Sherrie finally had their wedding reception. Sadly I didn't get to join in the fun of Cancun but I did finally get to meet Sherrie's sibling and boy are they incredibly fun, outgoing and they like to karaoke. My kind of people completely. I really had a blast and ALSO had the  honor of making Rich a grooms cake. Sherrie gave me an idea and I ran with it. Soo much fun! My kids weren't able to go as they were having fun in Tahoe with my parents and my brothers but it was a quick trip so I suppose they didn't miss to much. Next time, we always have next time. Jared also took a detour on our way up and we went this totally random way and saw this cute little town called Cool. Of course. We took pics. Duh! It can't go without being said however that in all my years of knowing Rich I have never seen him so happy and I am ecstatic that I get to be a part of it all. He is a great man and I can only hope this happiness continues.

The most recent depressing event is that we started back to school clothes shopping for the kiddos. Yes. It was as painful as it sounds. I went in with a nice hefty bank account balance and left with one that was all murdered and non existent. The good news is that Rian is all taken care of, the girls are almost all taken care of and I won't have to buy clothes for like...a month. Or at least until Christmas. Haha.

Up next on my list is to start planning for Carina's Sweet 16. I cannot believe my baby is going to be 16 soon but its true. First party at our house, first party that I get to really get all 'grown up' on and hopefully its great. If not, oh well, I am sure I will have fun planning anyways.

Life has been crazy, it hasn't been without its hardships, what with schedules changing for Jared, football starting and my crazy kids being on all sorts of trips and vacations and of course our own hectic stuff but I would not trade it for anything. EVER. I love this crazy life we live and am so blessed to be on it with my crazy guy!

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!!!

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!