Fox and a Saturday Showdown

Anna has been joining me on many of my walks and Tuesday night, we saw this fox in the pasture with the cows.  Thankfully it didn't want anything to do with the cows!

Yesterday Olivier competed in his first Saturday Showdown at jiu jitsu!  He had two tough competitors!  He lost the first match and won the second!  It was great to see him gain confidence in his skills!  

What we have been up to the last couple of weeks!

The last couple of weeks have been busy!  On July 8th Anna found out she passed the two AP test she took!  She got a 5 on the Spanish test and a 4 on the World History test!  This is super exciting and gives her college credit.  Additionally, she will set a seal of bi-literacy on her high school diploma for passing the Spanish test.  Way to go Anna!  She also got her first paycheck on the 10th for her hours worked in July and she was quite happy!  Exciting!

The boys have wrapped up their summer school classes, including getting CPR certified at the end of their health class.  We are in good hands having three kids who are certified!  

And this past weekend I took the kids on a quick trip to visit my brother.  We went up Friday after Anna got off work and came back today around lunch time.  It was nice to have a full day yesterday to hang out and the kids had some stuff they wanted to do and it worked out into a nice fun day!  We started off by going and doing some cart racing!  The first round the kids and I raced with my brother and one of his daughters.  Here are the results (Robert was just another racer who got stuck with us):

Victory Laps Track

Pos	Racer	Best Lap	#Lap	Avg.	Gap	ProSkill.
1	David	31.536	10	39.421	-	1265 (+65)
2	Olivier Arnold	31.959	10	37.428	0.423	1245 (+45)
3	Mason Arnold	37.627	9	40.323	6.091	1225 (+25)
4	Rhys	38.620	9	41.942	7.084	1205 (+5)
5	Tania Arnold	45.786	7	50.054	14.250	1185 (-15)
6	Robert	46.850	7	51.227	15.314	1165 (-35)
7	Anna Arnold	47.077	7	50.521	15.541	1145 (-55)

I had to laugh because my tactic of making space to allow others to pass me shows!  We all had a great time and my brother's other daughter decided she wanted to give it a try and I gave her my spot in the second race!  Thank you for making me look good Natalie!

Victory Laps Track

Pos	Racer	Best Lap	#Lap	Avg.	Gap	ProSkill.
1	Olivier Arnold	29.238	11	32.515	-	1299 (+54)
2	David Remillard	30.352	11	33.033	1.114	1295 (+30)
3	Mason Arnold	31.171	10	34.076	1.933	1238 (+13)
4	Tania Arnold	34.767	10	37.092	5.529	1182 (-3)
5	Rhys	35.168	10	37.154	5.930	1180 (-25)
6	Anna Arnold	36.360	9	38.112	7.122	1106 (-39)

Okay, now for the photos from racing!  They had these funny head sock which made us looks like knights! 

Here is the line up for the first race.  Rhys!

Me!

Anna!

Mason!

Olivier!

David!

Celebrating after the race!

Here is a glimpse of what the track was like.  Yes, we went up and down in additional to all the turns.

Here is the line up for the second race!  David, Natalie, Rhys, Anna, Mason and Oliver!

We then headed to the Jelly Belly factory!  A group of us went on the tour to learn what goes into making them.  It sure smelled good!

They had a lot of jelly beans!  This is only a small portion of what we saw!

And this is where they take the soft centers and they get tumbled to get the coating.  I had to giggle because when I saw this photo it made me think of the Oompa Loompas from Willy Wonka!  

They had a couple of games along the tour and Olivier and Rhys enjoyed playing against each other!

Not sure if he has a name but they took photos with the giant jelly belly!

After lunch we all enjoyed some time in the pool.  While getting ready for dinner the girls made cookie brownies.  They were yummy!

And while we were goofing off, Matt was working his wheels off!  He went on 100 mile bike ride!  We are amazed at his drive and glad it went well for him!  

We had a berry good time!

Yesterday we had a berry good time...  at Knott's Berry Farm!  We got Fast Lane passes which allowed us to a crazy number of rides!  Here is the summary of all the rides we did in roughly eleven hours.
Ghostrider (all once, boys twice more)
Pony express (all four times)
Train (twice)
Silver bullet (three times no Anna)
Coast rider 
Sky cabin
Calico mine
Pacific scrambler
Surfside gliders 
River rapids (all three times)
Sierra sidewinder (all twice, boys once more)
Timber mountain log ride (all twice)
Los voladores (swing ride)

We even had time for a couple meals!  Ha ha!  With all that, the only photo I took was one!  I take that as a sign of a good time!

Hot! Now cooler but more HOT coming!

This week started off very warm, okay we called it hot.  Especially for us who are used to our cool temperatures!  Thankfully it did cool down and we were able to enjoy the weather a bit, including going to a local baseball game last night!  It was perfect weather and they won!

Today it was a bit warmer and seeing that even warmer temperatures are expected, mr friend and I changed plans on when we were going to hike and we went out today.  We got to visit with the cow who were all around the trail, and even on it, when we started.  

I don't think this cow counts but we still enjoy seeing it when we get to the top!

When we got to the bottom the cows agreed with us on the heat and they were all hanging out under a large oak tree!  Fingers crossed we don't melt but thankfully the boys are done with the PE class they are taking so they won't melt so much!

Fun trip to the aquarium!

Today we took a trip to a local aquarium!  We haven't been since the boys birthday in 2012!  Wow!  We had visited the first time with them in December of 2011 and if you can't tell they have grown!  Anna was able to stand in the middle but just barely!  

And here is the same spot in December 2011!

Anna requested to visit the pengines first and we got to see a couple of them swimming around and playing together.  

And the kids were much more behaved with the touch tanks.  They all checked out the hermit crabs and the crabs had varying reactions.  I think they liked Mason because he runs so warm!

We did a lot of other things but a lot less photos that when they were younger.  We saw the otter feeding and a presentation in the auditorium on the otters, as well as on bioluminescence.  Only bummer was they no longer have sea horses!  Bummer!  We still had a great time though!

Happy Father's Day!

 We love you Matt!

Zipping good time!

Today we took advantage of the gift cards the kids got for Christmas and enjoyed some zip-lining!  It was a lot of fun!  We were a bit broken up going down the various zip lines but we got a great group photo to start!  

Olivier was the first one to go!  He is on the left zip line.

Anna was the next from our group to go and she is also on the left.

Then it was my turn with Mason!

And Matt was the last from our group to make the trip.

Super fun treat to kick off summer (and thankfully it wasn't a hot day!).