Summer wrap-up

I was going to devote a post to each event that happened this summer; however, time got away from me and here we are in the end of November just now posting pictures from August.

My parents and my Grandma Jan came to visit us in Camarillo for a week. We had such a good time. It was so fun to see my Grandma with Skylar for the first time. "GiGi Jan" taught Skylar how to make noise going over bumps in the car (which she still does to this day), she helped her learn how to crawl on hands and knees and not only on her belly like an army man. It was also really cool to have 4 generations together and be able to get pictures of that. While they were there we were able to go to the beach a couple times, we also went to the Wings Over Camarillo Air Show, and made our way around the greater Ventura County area. It was so fun to spend time with them.




Our little Family at Emma Wood Beach



Grandpa Hal and Skylar at the beach



Skylar thinks her "Gran-B" is pretty funny. Love this full-body laugh




4 Generations: (l to r) Chisum, Chisum, Simmons, Niskanen


My Aunt Sally and Uncle Doug also came to visit us in Camarillo. Unfortunately, Matt had to work the whole time they were there, but we had a great time exploring the area. We went to the beach each day, we also ate at Neptunes Net, which has great people watching and lots of greasy, yummy food.



Great Aunt Sally and Skylar at the beach
(Can't seem to find my picures of Uncle Doug and Skylar, but they had a blast together. We went to the Camarillo Farmers Market and Doug showed Skylar all there was to see...she got to touch most of it too!


My Sister also came to visit. We had a great weekend full of girly stuff. Stamping, Gilmore Girls, Nail Polish, etc. Sadly it was grey the whole time she was there so the beach was a little chilly. We did go, but we didn't stay too long and we don't have pictures to prove it.



Auntie Mack and Skylar in the courtyard at our house.

As I look at these pictures I'm reminded of how nice it was to live somewhere warm for a time. Love the green grass, flipflops and sand. However, I am thankful to be where we are now, in Colorado, because we are much closer to my family.

One day perhaps I will be a blogger....

Until then, I'll have random blog posts that usually only happen when some BIG event occurs. Like this one!

We moved, again, back to Colorado.

We are now living in a cute farmhouse that sits in the middle of a field....currently planted in Winter Wheat. (pictures to come....if I get around to it, haha!)

Matt is working for Walter Angus and Walter Farms. He will also be doing some flight instructing on the weekends.

So far Matt has been working a TON and Skylar and I have been trying to get our house set up.

This weekend my aunt and uncle, Sally and Doug, are comign to visit. The following Friday is Matts brother Jon's thesis defense! He has been studying Microwave Engineering at CU and will be graduating SOON! A good portion of Matts family will be in town for that, and we are excited that Mama and Papa C will be staying with us for the following week. :)

Skylar is doing so great these days. A little update on her...she has 6 teeth in, she sits, stands, "cruises" around furniture, she loves to play, she loves the heat vents in our house, she is still a bad sleeper, she still hates naps, but she has started taking an occasional "long" nap...which is SO nice. She loves to laugh, she hates when Matt goes to work, she loves to drive the truck (yup, learning young)....

I will try to get some pictures up soon. That's all for now!

City Fair

I have a bit of catching up to do as far as the ol' bloggity blog goes...so, I guess I've got to start somewhere!

Matt, Skylar and I heard on the radio that the Ventura County Fair was happening. We also heard that they were having $1 admission day, so we chose to go.




Being the cheapskates that we are we chose to park where it was free and walk. Now, not that I don't enjoy walking and all, but it seemed to be quite a walk (on the way back I clocked it on my jogging app and it said 1.75 miles, ONE way).

Well, we walked in, paid $2.00 total...headed straight past all of the vendors and the rides in search of the animals. Much to our dismay there weren't very many there...and, as you can imagine on a day when admission is only $1/person (usually something like $13/person) the place was PACKED. We found ourselves a little overwhelmed and chose to escape out a back gate we found.

Our total time in the Fair was probably no more than 40 minutes. However, what this did do was give Matt the bug for a corn dog. So instead of spending $6.50 for one corndog, we (cheapskates, again) chose to go to the store and buy 16 for $4.99.




One thing we saw on the walk home from the fair was this trailer who was obviously there for the week, "camping." We generally see the people who are staying in their trailers for fair week stuck in some nasty, dusty, back lot where nobody would want to really live but its the best places they've got. This guy had a sweet location, about 25 feet from the sand! Definitely not something I've seen before!




A shot of my cute boy and pretty little girl on our walk back to the truck.


All in all it was a very different "county fair" experience for us. However, it was pretty cool to see how they do it around here! I'm sure our time there would have been a bit less hectic if we hadn't gone on dollar day!

July pictures

Here are a few pictures from some things we have done recently.


Family picnic at Nancy Bush Park in Camarillo






Family day in Santa Barbara


Note the teeth showing in this picture :) So cute!





Cowgirl dress from Nana & Papa




All smiles playing with some toys







Pretty little princess

Got food?

Here are a few recent pictures of Skylar eating food.
This is what her face looks like when Daddy feeds her. :)

Monday = Friday

Woohoo!
I am currently so excited for a few upcoming events.
1. This has been a pretty L.O.N.G. week as Matt has had a full schedule every day, (sweet, yes) meaning he has essentially been gone from 7:50am til about 8:00pm. Good thing Skylar gets up early or he wouldn't have gotten to see her much! That's not what I'm excited about though....back to the point. Tomorrow begins the first of Matt's 2 glorious days off!
2. My Aunt Sally and Uncle Doug are coming for a visit. They will be here on the 12th, so only 11 short days away! They get to stay for a long weekend and don't have to return to Colorado Springs until the 15th. :)
3. My parents will be coming the 18th, which I'm sure will come very quickly once Sally and Doug arrive! Woop!
Yup, that's what I'm currently excited about.
Something I'm not so excited about:
1. The fact that tiny red ants are attracted to Skylar's laundry...thanks to her throwing up sweet milk on EVERYTHING. Yuck.
Happy Monday to you, and happy Friday to us!

Spiders and Sin

The other day Matt and I were going to work in the yard (I'll post about that later) and I walked outside to start helping him, only to see a HUGE black widow on the outside of our bedroom door. This happens to be the door that our A/C unit is rigged into...so the door isn't actually closed all the way. It also happens to be the door that my glider is right next to, yes, the same glider that I feed Skylar in some 5 + times a day.

That poor spider is alive no more. I definitely squashed the life out of her....

However, later that day as I was sitting there (literally 1 foot away from where I killed this massive spider) feeding Skylar and I got to thinking about that spider lurking in our doorway. I thought how similar that is to sin. Sin lurks in the doorway of our hearts just like this spider lurked in the doorway of my home. It occurred to me that it is super important for us to examine the creepy crawlies at the door of our heart...you never know when all this time something deadly or something that can very quickly cause you pain could be right there waiting for the chance to slip in and start its destruction.

Just a thought...but I think I will start examining the door to my heart and to my home more often!

Here she is just before getting squashed. Do you have any creepy crawlies lurking that need squashing?

In shape?

The time has come to put all excuses aside and get in shape!
As many of you know, I wasn't able to do much in the way of exercise (or anything else, really) while I was pregnant with Skylar. After she was born it was the middle of winter and quite frankly I didn't want to go outside. Here we are now living in Southern California in a town that has nearly ideal weather everyday.
After not working out AT ALL since last June its time for me to throw my excuses out the window...so here we go!
Matt and I have run 6 days in a row and it is getting easier by the day. We are starting small, but hope to up our distance every week. Wish us luck!

Hiking

This weekend Matt had to fly his plane to San Diego for maintenance. Rather than staying down there for a few days without us, he chose to ride the Amtrak back up the coast (4.5 hours) so we could spend part of his weekend with him.

Yesterday we went hiking at Rancho Sierra Vista, which is a small state park about 20 minutes from our house. This was Skylar's first hiking experience. Although, we didn't actually have to carry her the whole way because we started walking and then realized that the trail was good enough for our beast of a stroller, so Matt ran back to the truck and got it.

While hiking we saw a baby hawk, a full grown hawk that was hunting (so cool), and a really nasty looking coyote. I have never been afraid of a coyote before, but this one was walking towards us and didn't scare off until we were about 30-40 feet away from it, at which point it nonchalantly turned and walked off.

Matt's plane is supposed to be finished today (sadly), so he had to spend the rest of his "weekend" riding the train back to San Diego.

Here are a few pictures from our first hiking adventure.





Looking towards Point Mugu and Sycamore Canyon


All smiles


Our little family


Skylar decided to have a nap part way through the hike.

Life

I've started writing a blog post multiple times, only to be interrupted by a crying baby, a telephone call, etc. That said, I think I'll just say a couple things and leave the rest to pictures in hopes that I will actually get this one posted!

First of all, we moved. Matt got a job at Skydive Coastal California so we are currently living in Camarillo, CA. So far we've enjoyed going to a few different beaches and trying to figure out what this place has to offer. Although it has been a little hot from time to time, we really like the weather so far.

Skylar is growing up a lot! She currently has two teeth that have grown in this past week. She is starting to link more consonants and vowels to make more "words." She is getting bigger all the time. She is eating solids 3 times a day and her favorite thing so far is avocado....affectionately referred to as "cado" thanks to our cute nephew Caleb.

In this mess of pictures you will see: Skylar's first horseback ride on Gran-B's horse "Little Brother," Skylar's first 4th of July/6 month birthday, first roping lesson, fun in Seattle with her cousin Caleb, hanging out with Uncle Jon and Aunt Katie just before moving from CO to CA, meeting her Great-Grandma Betty, and a few from our little vacation to Laguna Beach.