Abby's Crawling...

She's started... crawling that is. Abby's quite the little speed racer now too. She has been crawling for a couple weeks consistently now and is certainly enjoying her new found mobility. Lizzie thinks it's absolutely hilarious when Abby crawls around after her. They can finally now, kind of play together... in a very, primitive, tag sort of way. I wish I could find the plug for our video camera, because it's really cute to watch them together, but I can't find a darn thing in Ben's "personally organized" office. Anyways, video soon... I promise. The crazy girl (Abby) has already started to stand up on her own as well. I saw her just this morning push herself up off a big basket and onto her feet. She looked terrified and excited all at the same time and since spent all day trying to figure out how to do it again. She'll stand up just fine if you place her standing by a table or hold her bottom, but never all on her own until this morning. What a big girl she's becoming. Before I know it I'll have two kids running around getting into all sorts of trouble. I have feeling that those two will be pretty inseparable in a little while, but who knows... I could be way wrong. You never know with siblings. One can only hope. ;)

More Sunny Days in the Pool...

Ah, wonderful weekends. I love them and always hate to see them go... especially during this month when that's really the only time we get to see Ben. And they always go by way too quickly too, what's up with that, why can't they ever last just as long as the week before it?!

Like I mentioned briefly before Ben's been working some seriously insane hours, we really don't seem at all Mon-Thur and this last weekend was the first weekend he didn't go into to work. Yay! I kinda feel sorry for him, he's so exhausted (did I mention he's got a side project going on at the same time too... ugh), but he's only has 3 weeks left until he can no longer touch his game and it's forever in Sony's vault. I think he's slightly freaking out, to say the least. The 12th of Sept. needs to hurry up and get here so his sanity can come back.

Anyways, this is how we spent our Sunday. Doing absolutely nothing but enjoying the sunshine, some water and a little bit of time all together.

We'll Miss You Grandpa...

This last Tuesday morning, a little after 7am, my Grandfather Ralph, passed away. He was 83 years old and on Saturday afternoon our small family will get together to remember him. I send all my love and prayers up there and I wish we could somehow see you, Grandma. I love you! It sucks so bad to be so far away from family sometimes.

So, I was going through my millions and millions of boxes of photos and grandpa is almost impossible to find in any pictures. I know I have some more somewhere packed in a box within a box somewhere, but this is one of the few I could find at the moment. As you can tell it's really, really old - that's me in the picture. ;)

I love you Grandpa and I'll miss you dearly!

Ocean Bike Ride...

A couple of weekends ago we (very spontaneously I might add) drove over to Ventura with our new bikes in tow, courtesy of the United States Treasury. ;) I wish we could have done more things with that fun, little check, but alas we were really good and paid two credit cards off with the rest of it... ugh! Anyways, back to the fun day in the sun with the sand and sea. The girls love going for bike rides and up to this point the only places we've gone are on the trails by our house or to the park, or the store, or some other place as equally exciting. The beach was by far our favorite place to ride so far. There's this huge bike trail that goes along the beach, past the fairgrounds, past a couple campgrounds, and on for what seems like forever going north. It's not a super strenuous trip by any means, but the are some parts that elicit thoughts of certain choice words. ;) We spent the whole afternoon riding, taking a little picnic break at one of the campgrounds, riding some more and then on our way back playing on the beach. The whole trip ended up being just a little shy of 12 miles. I thought that was pretty good for us since we're both kinda out of shape, and with two kids in tow I'm surprised we actually made it that far.

The girls in their buggy. All is good if Abby gets in first.
Don't know why that really matters, but for some reason it does to Lizzie.

Taking a snack break

It's still true... anywhere is a good place to sleep!

Playing in the sand for the first time

Got to love a playground on the beach with that view!

4th of July...

Okay, so I realize that it's August now, but I still have a little catching up left to do... not much but still a little. ;)

On the morning of the 4th of July we decided to be really, really nice to Ben and let him sleep in (he'd been working some pretty crazy hours getting ready for E3 - it's the big gaming expo/press conference in case you're wondering what E3 is) and the girls and I went to our town's parade. I can't believe how hot it was already at 9am that morning, by the time we parked and walked just a couple blocks we were all sweaty and tired. We met up with some moms (and dads) from our playgroup and just chilled on the grass and waited for the parade to start. I didn't realize how big (and long) the parade was... it was pretty cool actually, better than I was expecting, and Lizzie loved all the cars. She would shout at them while they drove by yelling "I like your car!", but her favorite was the huge firetrucks and the big bulldozer/landscaper thing that they use to reroute fires (sorry I can't remember the name). Those things are humongous! By the time the parade was over and with a quick stop at the store on our way back, we got home slightly after 1:30pm and guess who was still asleep.

The rest of the day was spent just hanging out at home, making the poor dog go crazy with all of our pop-its and noise makers, Ben BBQ-ing dinner and then walking just down the street to the park to watch the fireworks show. Our girls were so exhausted at the end of the day.

Puppy Love...

Well, Mabel isn't exactly a puppy, but she sure gets a lot of attention from Lizzie anyways... whether the poor dog wants it or not. This picture makes me laugh... spooning with the dog on Ben's studio/office floor. I guess Lizzie really loves her after all.

Seattle...

Last month we took a trip up to Seattle to see Ben's family and hangout for an extended weekend... it was way too short of a trip to see everyone and do everything we had planned (sorry if we missed you), but one of the main we reasons we had to go up there was Ben's cousin, Phillip and his wife, Shannon, and new baby Bella where going to be there from North Carolina. It's been over 3 years since we've last seen them, so I guess you could call it a family reunion of sorts. I stupidly only took pictures one day and not very many either (I'm completely kicking myself)... at Grandma Hake's house, Ben's grandma, but at least we got some pictures. It was a great trip, too short but sweet, and it only rained once the whole time we where there!

Riding with Uncle Steve

Uncle Phillip with our Abby

Baby Isabella and Abby... can you tell they're less than a month apart?! ;)