Visit from Grandparents, Rachel's Birthday & 4th of July

We just wrapped up a visit from Gramazona and Grandpa Pat.  Carl took some time off to clean up the garage.  Then he and Pat focused on one wall.  They tore down the dilapidated shelving haphazardly installed by the previous owners installed drywall on the wall.  It is completely amazing what a white wall can do for the garage!  We still have more work to do in the garage and it has taken us 5 years but I think we can finally fit one car in the garage :)  5 years in the house, wow, that went fast!


Here are some snapshots from the visit:

 No visit is ever complete without a beach day and no beach day is complete without sandcastles!

 This just also happens to be my birthday.  Carl and I took off for dinner and had a lovely meal over-looking the Pacific.  Here is a picture of us cleaned up after hours at the beach.  We came home to chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles...and a request to have 2 cupcakes :)  2 cupcakes are okay in my book when they are baby cakes :)

 Happy 4th of July!

We hiked Mission Trails Park...from the entrance near our neighborhood to the old dam.  Elena did great and walked nearly the entire way, about 2 miles.  She was fascinated with all the scat we found--calling attention to it, trying to figure out what was eaten and by which animal.  As Gramazona said, we have a naturalist on our hands.  We also saw a coyote a few times, Elena was very excited!

 It took a year for Elena to overcome her fear of her helmet but now she's loving her bike and always asking for a bike ride.  She's always excited to go and is getting really good at pedaling all by herself.

Also wishing Grandpa Newman a very happy birthday!