Celebrating 10 Years

Three months ago, on C's first Friday of kindergarten, Damon and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary.  We always assumed we would spend our anniversary on a beach somewhere, but due to school schedule, that will have to wait until next time.  

We decided to celebrate by throwing a small party up at the ranch with our family.  It turned out to be a perfect night, we only wish that my sister and her family were in town (they were visiting her in-laws in San Diego.)

My grandparents even made the journey up to the big mountain - which is always a treat :)

The best part ever was my grandparents taking a ride - they love that thing and act like little kiddos on a ride at Disneyland.  Its way too cute!

It was a glorious night and after our taco dinner we all headed up to the hill for a toast.

After our toast and a few choice words we took a few selfies of the group:

And some pictures of my favorites:

It is very hard to believe that Damon has been standing next to me for 12 years, 10 of which we were married.  Time has flown by extremely fast and I wouldn't have picked anyone else to do this thing called life with me.  We are in it for the long haul and look forward to all our future adventures...together.

C drew us a super cute happy anniversary card - her creativity make me so happy (and proud!)

The rev - with his rev necklace :)

Damon with his best man :)

Damon and I headed out to Bodega for the weekend and enjoyed a lovely stay at the Bodega Bay Lodge.  We were really impressed with the property and loved our time together drinking champagne, playing scrabble (just like we did on our honeymoon) and taking in the coastal view.

The Start of School Life

After we returned from the cruise I changed my work schedule to two days per week to spend more time with Cambrie and prepare for kindergarten.  We found out her class list, visited her classroom and met her teacher, completed all of our preparations and counted down the days for kindergarten to start.

We love her school - lots of bright colors, mixed seating options, social media presence and tons of technology (almost too much technology for my old school self!)

On her first day we were all nervous!  We woke up early, Damon made us a full breakfast and I set out a variety of small surprise gifts for C.  She was excited about two of those three (not so much the waking up early part.)  Our motto for the week was 'just keep swimming' and it worked perfectly.

We decided that we will take a picture of her in front of this mural on the first day of each school year.  When we were completing her kindergarten assessment students were working on painting the wall...so it is only fitting for our soon-to-be tradition.

(Don't mind her bug bites on her forehead...poor girl!)

This girl was all smiles...love her confidence!

Each morning we were able to sit and read for about 15 minutes with the kiddos before leaving.  IT was a nice transition.

She was so excited and so ready.  This was her face when we said good-bye.  Damon and I were pretty shocked at her response to everything...because of it we did good too.  No big tears from either of us.  But, on the walk to the car and the ride home we didn't look at each other in the face or really talk about it, because we both would have gotten way too emotional.  Knowing how great our girl was doing was an amazing comfort.

She was all smiles at pick-up too!

And all smiles on day two :)

And the third day too...

and the next day after that :)

We are so thankful that C had a good transition into the elementary school world - we are so proud of her!

Mrs Grossman's Sticker Factory

Since C only has a short summer due to her year round school schedule we tried to fit in as much as possible in the 3 weeks between returning from the cruise and starting school.  This included a tour at Mrs Grossman's Sticker Factory in Petaluma.  Its a fun tour that kiddos of all ages can enjoy.

Sweet LT so excited about his robot stickers!

My sister and I really enjoyed seeing all the stickers of the years....so many memories of our childhood were posted on those walls.

So many stickers!

At the end of the tour you receive a bag of stickers and time to make a project...which obviously our kiddos were excited about.

It is always nice to support local businesses and spend time with our family.  I am a firm believer in exposing children to as many environments and situations as possible....including manufacturing plant tours :)  Must've been all those Press Democrat tours I went on as a kiddo!