McKenzie is 8 weeks old!!!

I hadn't seen McKenzie since she was just over a week old and it was amazing how much she'd changed in two short months! She has gotten bigger obviously but she has also become much more expressive! Recently she went on her first camping trip and she's even begun to find her personality! She can make so many faces now and she makes herself quite clear that she hates her back to be scratched or tickled because she instantly scrunches up her nose and tries to squirm away.

McKenzie is all decked out in her camping outfit...cute, shaded, and comfortably napping in her little Hawaiian
hat!

The "WE" Reunion!!!

It has been almost 6 months since the three of us have gotten together at the same time and place! It is difficult to get three schedules to match up now that everyone has moved 1 to 4 hours away and has husbands and/or babies (except for me...still working on that) but the"WE" (Mindi, Tori and I) made it happen last Saturday (7-14-07) in Lake Isabella. Besides visiting each other, we of-course had ulterior motives to visit with Mindi and Nick's new baby girl. Since I live much closer and Mindi comes into Bakersfield for baby Morgan's doctor checkups I have had the pleasure seeing her every week or two since she was born, but this was Tori and Steve's first visit so it was extra special for them! We invaded Mindi's new house (which is BEAUTIFUL by the way) for like 5 hours just enjoying each other's company...catching up, laughing, taking pictures, and watching Morgan's every move and new facial expression. It was a really good day...enjoy the photos!

Steve and Tori holding baby Morgan for the first time!

Kailey's first Dog Park & River Walk Park Experience!

Kailey is super friendly with humans to the point that some people get sick of her always wanting to be in their laps being held like a baby...but with other dogs this is not always the case! Kailey has a bit of the "little-dog syndrome" and will growl, snarl, and or bark at other dogs...especially if they try to take her toys! Luckily 99% of the time Kailey and Baylie get along extremely well thanks to Baylie's laid back nature, she normally just ignores Kailey's unnecessary aggressiveness. Anyways, I took Kailey out to the Kroll dog park on Friday morning when I knew there wouldn't be too many dogs and she had a blast running around freely! Then as the morning heated up I drove the girls out to River Walk park (one of Baylie's favorite places to go...a park with WATER--oh yeah!). Aside from a few people here and there, the girls essentially had the whole lake to themselves and they seemed to thoroughly enjoy it! Kailey had no trouble at all keeping up with Baylie's long distance swims out to retrieve the tennis ball. After the park we went home for naps and lunch then back out to Sherry's house for a photo opp. with the "cousins" (Blue & Liberty...NOT as easy as it looks!!!).

A day at Lake Buena Vista

Saturday July 7th, 2007 the temperature in Bakersfield was expected to reach a not-so-comfortable high of 103 (according to the paper) although, my car it was a few degrees hotter than that! Regardless, we decided to beat the heat and get up by 6:30 in the morning and pack up the "Golden Shower" (our ancient, but tough yellow and gold boat that has a custom fitted tower that Wayne built and welded himself, complete with speakers and just last summer Amy used her a artistic abilities to hand paint the back end...proving that our boat is just as good, if not better than all the hyped-up name-brand boats)! We were on the water by 8 am and off again a little after 12 o-clock. Had we stayed much longer we'd have all been completely sun burned...as it was we all came home pretty pink! We had pretty good water for the first hour or so, but the lake was packed with people by 10 in the morning (thanks to the residual 4th of July camping crowd)...luckily, most of the wakeboarding and skiing had happened by then and we'd decided to move on to tubing...if you can't beat the waves join-em I suppose! Anyways, this was the first time Amy wakeboarded and she did really well! She was able to pop up almost every time and it only took her few tries to stay up...now the toughest part...learning to maneuver the board. Wayne of-course was still the highest jumper in the buch, even though his ankle surgery was just a few months ago! Laurah is getting much better at not only jumping the wake but landing on the other side too...now she just needs to work on keeping the rope down so it doesn't block her face in every photo! All in all it was a good day at the lake...no boat trouble or catastrophes!