Fun Facts for You

For Father's Day, due to a very stubborn dad, we did not do much in the way of celebrating or honoring our father. In-fact, we canceled the holiday in our house.  However, in return, he took the time to bless us publicly at least twice which heaped much deserved coals of fire onto our heads and caused us to be very ashamed of ourselves so that we eventually bestowed gifts and...money (yes, that's what he wanted) on his grateful self the next day. This story is partly true. 

Julia isn't particularly fond of cameras yet.

Since we did not do anything very special that day I am going to mention something that I really admire about him.
Okay, something I really admire about my dad: his love for his kids. (Yes, me.)
I've observed a lot of parents interacting with their children, but hardly do I witness this kind of love. Dad's love for us wasn't touchy, it wasn't necessarily with lots of words about how great we were, it didn't include buying us all the things we thought we wanted, or giving us special treats because we were good, --not that he never did these things, Dad loves to be able to spend money on us kids. His treats were always way beyond what we would have imagined, but usually just because he felt like it at the time. 

But Dad always took the time to instill important lessons into our hearts, it didn't matter if it completely interrupted whatever it was he was doing at the time. If we needed advice on something, he was there to consider the circumstance carefully with us and offer sound wisdom, when being disciplined he would show us how we were harming ourselves by doing whatever it was we had done. Everything he did was with our best interests at heart, which must be hard, because I have a hard enough time putting my own best interests at heart sometimes, and he does it for fourteen of us!  Anyway, we think he's pretty spectacular and we truly are grateful to God for placing him as the head of our family. I honestly don't know of anyone on earth who could've done a better job. :) 

Our guest room has been coming along quite beautifully. Between surfing trips Dad, Mom, Annie, Merrie and Alyssa have been making that happen...

...So if you are planning a trip to the SoCal area, make sure you put us on your itinerary. :)

I know it looks like we spend most of our time working, but that is totally not true. There are several of us who are dedicated to full time play, and every once in a while we are able to drag those hard working members of our family along with us. =D

A bunch of us took a trip to the Griffith Observatory in LA one evening.


Mom regrets that in all her growing up she has never been there before. It's totally free, and very educational yet fun at the same time.

She highly recommends taking your family there for a field trip or whatever you wanna call it. It's apparently a really cool place. Unfortunately most of the pictures I have from there are really blurry. :\

 Those of us with Disneyland passes thought we should make good use of them before we got blocked out for the summer, so we planned a day, and went.

It was a loong day. 

Nathan and Tiffany are realizing the benefits of being related to such a large family: there is always someone who is willing to babysit for free. Sometimes there are even some who are willing to pay for the chance to babysit.   But who WOULDN'T want to babysit such adorable children? --There's no way I'm biased here. ;)

In other news, Justin found a house in Norco and moved out...partially. He is picking up random pieces of furniture from all over the place and getting the new home ready for his bride. --Don't you think that's sweet? I think that's sweet.-- Will, Jack and Trevor are excited about having more space, and are fighting over who gets what space in the trailer and in their new bedroom. 

That should be plenty for now. If there's something specific you wanted to hear about don't hesitate to email us and ask. If it's worth mentioning we might include it in our next update, if it's not worth telling everyone about we might just email you back, and if we don't think it's any of your business we might just not answer at all. =P

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." - Philippians 4:8