Change of Season

Ah, Fall. A time when the air gets crisp and the leaves start to change...unless you live in California. It was well into September (maybe even the beginning of October?) before the 100 degree temperatures finally went away for good, and just the last couple of weeks the minimal amount of leaf change we get here has come about. But still it is officially Fall now, and I LOVE this time of year. We have been pretty busy lately.

The first weekend of October I went to Apple Hill with my step-mom Paula and sister Tara. I go every year, but this year we rented a house and stayed two nights with no husbands and no kids. It was quite nice. We spent Friday at Apple Hill, buying apples and gourds and home decorations (and spending too much money in my case) and the spent Saturday going to some thrift stores and laying around the house. I think I spent the majority of my time in the hot tub, which was fabulous.

Paula and I

Me with my feet in the hot tub, enjoying the incredible view

My sister and I getting ready to eat dinner and watch a movie

My dad took my sister and I to see Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt play an acoustic show at the Mondavi Center at UC Davis. I know, I know, sounds boring or maybe even painful, right? But it was actually a really great show. They are two very talented men, and Lyle Lovett is actually pretty funny. We had a good time.

Every year we go to Bishop's Pumpkin Farm, and this year was no exception, although the entire family didn't make it out. First, I went with Adam's kindergarten class. We had a lot of fun.

Then Jon and the boys and I went with his oldest sister Jen and her family. They were out here for my youngest brother-in-law Jake's wedding (more on that in the next blog post...)

Jon and the Nortons (and Jonathan on the end)

My boys in jail...let's hope this isn't foreshadowing

Attacking Daddy

Jon snapped this one

Adam and his cousins Wesley and Andrew

"Oh my gosh, I can't believe they are making me sit on a pumpkin."

So as you can see, our Fall has been busy so far, and I haven't even gotten to the wedding or Halloween yet. Hopefully I will blog about those before Christmas!

You Say It's Your Birthday

Who needs a blog when you can post your pictures on Facebook? That is how I was feeling last night as I uploaded picture after picture to my Facebook account, where there is no pressure to tell any cute stories to go along with the photos, and, let's face it, many more people will see what you have posted. But then I got to thinking that Facebook is yet another application that is replacing some of those things that are so good in life, such as exercising your mind and creativity by writing actual paragraphs about what is going on in your life. Technology has already made letter-writing a lost art form, not to mention making actual human conversation unnecessary. And so I will try to continue to blog rather than let myself lapse into complete laziness by only slapping pictures onto an impersonal website and letting everyone guess what they are all about. No, instead you will continue to get too much information about what is going on in my life, complete with pictures. That being said, here we go...

Three of my children were born in the summer, one in June and two in August. (Yes, in California, in the heat, and yes, you can feel bad for me.) This year, we had pretty lowkey birthdays, nothing fancy. Some years are just like that for us.

Hailey Elizabeth Ila Joyner was born on June 27, 2002. She is the only child we actually, consciously planned, and she is also the most dramatic and somewhat bipolar (by our own diagnosis - not a doctors.) She is given to bouts of free-form dancing, and as soon as they have an Olympic category for interpretive dance, we are there. Hailey is very into fashion - not necessarily popular fashion, but her own idea of what fashion is. She loves the smell of the mall. Let me tell you, this girl was born into the wrong family to be high maintenance.

Anna Marie Joyner was born on August 13, 1999. It was actually Friday the 13th, but turned out to be lucky for us. Anna is very smart, very kind, and very responsible, all the things that a first child should be. She also has her daddy's goofy sense of humor, paired with her mom's wit. I dream that she will one day learn to use sarcasm in the way that my family always has. Her dream is to one day have her own bedroom where her sibings will not be allowed.

Adam Crandon Joyner was born on August 27, 2004. He is the only child we have who in no way, shape, or form resembles a Joyner, but is instead a King. It does not seem like he has inherited the extreme Joyner height, but instead will probably be just about average in size. Jon calls him his "all-American boy" and hopes he will play football. Adam is a hilarious kid, and makes me laugh all the time. He is also an evil genius, which his father says he gets from me.

Luckily for us we are done with birthdays until February. Maybe by then I will regain my desire to throw them great parties with food and fun.

All Summer Long

Where does the time go? It has been hinted to me, by more than one person and oh so subtley, that it has been far too long since my last blog post, and so, here I am, returned to fill you all in on our lives. The thing about this summer is that we really didn't do much that was worth blogging about. Funds being what they were, we were somewhat limited in the distance we could travel and what we could do once we arrived at our destination. So for the most part, we stayed close to home.

The one exception to the "close to home" statement is the trip I made in June to Idaho for my step-sister's wedding. Jon and the kids stayed at home, and I drove up Friday with my dad, did the wedding thing Saturday, and drove home with my dad and step-mom on Sunday. It was a very quick trip.

My sister, my Dad, and me at my step-sister's wedding

Anna and Hailey took four weeks of swim lessons at the Del Oro pool, which really taught them so much. Anna now has a confidence in her swimming and can make it across Upper Lake Clementine (which is more like a river in case you are suddenly wondering if she should be enrolled in the Olympics) without help or a lifejacket. Hailey began learning the different strokes and improved greatly.

Adam got to take two weeks of lessons at the Alta pool, during which time he went to live with Pa, who took him everyday. He came home to visit on the weekend, but the break was more for Pa than Adam, who would more than happily have stayed at his house until school starts. Jonathan had no lessons, but when wearing his swim vest is convinced that he swims better than anyone. His constant refrain was "No touch me Mommy, no help!"

While Adam was living with Pa, the girls spent almost a whole week camping in the backyard. Pa gave them his old tent, which I think may very well have been one of the first tents ever made. Seriously, it is old. I spent my childhood camping in it, and it was elderly then. I love the fact that when I set it up, it smelled just like I remembered.

We managed to make it down to Lake Clementine a handful of times and to Ponderosa once, all of which were great. Those three weeks of 101+ degree heat really made swimming necessary. We also went to the Del Oro and Alta pools a couple of times for swimming.

My step-mom Paula and I at the Alta pool

Kids at Clementine

Our family spent several Friday nights at the Fountains shopping area, where there was a DJ playing music and a woman who would teach different dances. We had a blast with our friends the Lammies dancing and then eating frozen yogurt at Big Spoon afterward. So far the music we have enjoyed has been Motown, Techno (which quickly changed to just oldies and things once they realized that no one really wanted to dance to Techno,) and Country, all of which came with their own dances to learn.

The kids and I spent a full day cleaning house, including the cleaning of our bedrooms, which previously looked like they had been hit by several tornadoes and abandoned by their inhabitants. Jon made the deal that if we all could keep them that clean for a week, we would get a reward. We all worked hard and we earned a trip to the zoo and dinner at Noodles & Company - yum!

Ok, that is the general summer update, but there are a couple more posts to come...notice I didn't say when...

Hippity hoppity...

Yes, I know that Easter isn't really "on its way" as the song goes, in fact it is long gone. It's a catchy title anyway. Easter was pretty typical this year - there were eggs and dye and hunting. The hunting actually began the day before Easter when I went out to find a few plastic eggs for the kids, and couldn't find any in 5 different stores. Was there some sort of plastic egg shortage this year? A terrible plastics factory meltdown? Some evil genious hoarding the plastic eggs to ruin Easter for children everywhere? And I know there are some of you sitting there, reading this in judgement, saying to yourselves or the person next to you "What kind of mother goes shopping for her Easter things the day before Easter? She deserved to have no plastic eggs left for her children." Perhaps it was YOU who went out and bought them all, just to punish those of us who aren't quite as organized as you are. The same people who already have their children's Halloween costumes made and waiting, and their Christmas presents purchased and wrapped. OVERACHIEVERS!!! But I digress...

In the end, we found a bag of tiny plastic Easter eggs from 1984 in a closet in the house here, and even if they smelled musky, they worked. Hey, real eggs don't smell good, why should plastic eggs?

First thing when we got outside, Jonathan finds his ball. Not an Easter present, mind you, but a ball that he has had for a couple of weeks now. Doesn't matter - he was excited to see it and in the basket it went. The result was that there was no room for eggs, and we couldn't talk him into taking the ball out, and so he was left wondering where to put the eggs he was finding. This one went in his pocket.

Once he realized he couldn't fit all the eggs in his pockets, he started taking out the ball each time he found an egg, putting the egg in, and then replacing the ball. It was a long egg hunt.

This was as close to everyone else as Jonathan would get without Daddy holding him - and as you can see he still has a death grip on his hand! At least he is smiling though, in the rest of them he was crying - he was in dire need of food and a nap.

We spent the afternoon at my dad's house in Alta, where we had our own private photo shoot.

Jonathan and Pa