2012 4th of July

 Another year and yet another 4th of July, our 6th year, at Kim & Bruce T's pool party! We love this holiday because of the friends we see, such a great chemistry between all of the adults and children! The food is always a great collaboration among the friends, fireworks and loads of laughs! Because of the continual tradition, for Brady and Drew, going to Kim & Bruce's IS 4th of July to them! Its all they know!

The awesome Laurie Lane and Melissa! Two amazing women to put up with their cycling obsessed husbands! They deserve a great deal of credit that's for sure! Saint hood perhaps!?!? INDEED!

 Our girl Drew loving the pool!

Check out Drew catching air!

This is one of the slowest moments for Brady! He got the courage to swim all over and he was NON-Stop!

The love of my life, she is truly my savior! I love you baby!

 This is Drew thinking about the jump! Took a bit, but once the first jump was under her belt, it was ON!

Brady boy!

The slide!

Drew and Kenny sharing a moment! These two love each other! Such a cool friendship these two have! Drew LOVES Uncle Kenny!

 This was the huge highlight of the afternoon! Brady jumped before his crazy sister! Folks, you have NO idea how big this is for this little boy!  AWESOME!

Tour De CalFit - Natomas

Home gym! Yup, this is our home gym due to the facility; pool, Kids Klub (which we should use), Spinning in the winter, indoor pool and location! We have spent many days here in Natomas, we could've actually done the review without a tour stop, but that's no fun! So lets begin the review of our gym...

The pool area has two pools; a beach style and lap pool, plus a kid spray park! The beach style pool was roped off due to the swim lessons, cutting it in half.  Things worked out fine, so the small area wasn't a huge deal! The kids quickly found swim friends, making the experience a better one! The spray park, closed until 3pm! Really? Does that mean I can get a club discount? The pool had 25 kids in the roped off section, had the park been open, it might not have made the small pool smaller! Hire someone Cal Fit, its summer and kids are off in the summer, step it up management!

The seating area was great! The pool area is basically divided in half with the spary park acting as a divider! So if an adult wants to lay out and not hear kids or parents screaming at the kids, then this is a great spot! each side has plenty of lounge chairs, but the beach style pool has 5 tables with umbrellas!The landscaping was certainly more appealing then Laguna and Citrus Heights with palm trees and open fencing rather than 100% walls, well done!

 

The gym also had three swim instructors on hand, one was a school teacher earning a few extra bucks in the summer! The bathrooms were also easy to get to since they are accessible from the pool area! Brady asked to go to the bathroom, I suggested he go alone and he was totally cool with it! Perfect!

This shot shows the division of the two pools with the closed spray park in the middle! As you can see some homes get to see the gym all day long! Hope a criminal with a binoculars doesn't live in one of these homes! 

The closed spray park! When it is open, its a blast and usually CalFit has a "deck supervisor" managing the structure to avoid injuries and of course lawsuits! The "Get up lil kid and suck it" policy doesn't cut it at CalFit!

My final thoughts, its a great pool area for parents with small children exploring in the water because of the beach style pool! The beach style pool is a fantastic confidence builder for young swimmers! My rating drops because of the closed off area in combination with the closed Spray Park! The overall vibe was great too! The kids found friends and I even spoke to a fellow dad for a while, plus I did some serious Kauai research in a cool book! =)


Overall: 9

The new piece of Furniture!

 So here's the update!This new piece has replaced an old piece that belonged to Melissa's grandmother Betty! Sorry Betty, but your lil angel ran out of room!

 M has spend yesterday and today getting her things transferred over and looking great! She's HAPPY!

The closet blew up!

Yesterday afternoon I got back in the house from dropping the kids off at Nana & Papa's and this is what I found in the closet! The rods fell and it looked like a bomb went off in there! Interesting that just the day before Melissa mentioned that she wanted to work on the closet this weekend! Someone must have heard her request!

 This morning we ran off to Lowe's, Home Depot, IKEA, Lowe's, home and then back to Lowe's! This still in progress as you can see below! We picked the killer dresser set at IKEA(pics later) and now Melissa will spend a chunk of her weekend going thru clothes! Should be fun and extremely productive!

Tour De CalFit - Citrus Heights

Today is a special stop, Melissa was in attendance today! It added a bit of fun energy to have us all go! Not sure how we decided on this location, but it really doesn't matter right? Its a tour stop! 

We unfortunately arrived minutes before an aqua class started, which meant the pool was closed for free swim! Bummer, I understand the rules etc; however, there was plenty of pool space to rope off the class area and leave the shallow end open for swimming! The excuse was that the class, with its violent movements, stirred up the pool making it unsafe for young swimmers! Really?! So we sat out for one entire hour and got good and warm when the pool was open!

In the meantime, the splash area was open, no one got in it by the way! My guess, the locals knew the class time frame! As soon as the class approached the end, other members began to appear! 

Another angle looking out to the pool with the splash park in the foreground! The pool facility was pretty small. Only three umbrellas and tables, 8 lounge chairs, but many small & low chairs that Melissa liked! The hot tub was outside like many other clubs so far! The access to the men's locker seemed easier than the women's locker room!

Shhhhh, the cellphone policy! Drew has been progressing really well with her swimming! We're currently working on using her arms in combination with her legs! WHAT A CONCEPT!

Few trees in the area, just these from the neighboring homes! That stud getting out of the pool is Melissa! Six weeks of Insanity is paying off, she's got gun people!

The pool after it was opened! Lots of families with younger kids! A few of those who attended the class stayed to enjoy the sun! The weather was PERFECT, 80's!

The special guest, Melissa!Thanks for coming Melissa! It was great having you there with us!

Due to the small area, few tables with umbrellas and the pool not being roped off for free swim, I gotta drop the score a bit! I understand the policies, but this is our blog and we set the rules!

Overall: 7

Cat will be cat!

So our cat, Snow, decided to roam and explore a bit on this particular day and ended up 9 feet up on the small window of our shower! He's been up there a few times since, he's pretty cool now that he's mellowed out a bunch! The kids love the heck of these cats, I do like the cats, I just can't handle the cat hair! Balance!

An Afternoon with the Orick-Novaes'

For Christmas we gave Val & Gabe a weekend get-a-way, ie. watch the kids while they had a weekend to themselves! They booked an overnighter in Amador or ALL-Mador as Val calls it....She's Canadian eh?! Ains and Mila stayed with us and they were GREAT! The neighborhood kids love playing with them and they as well! It's a win-win for all of us! 

Once Val & Gabe came home we had some yummy food and drinks in the yard with our neighbors' Angela and her boyfriend Jim, he's Canadian too, so you know he has a buddy....eh?!? and hoot!!!

 Thats poor 'ol Drew and her busted toe nail! Ouch! But she's tough!

Melissa gets the "Super Mommy" award for the weekend! While V & G were away, so was I! I was out pedaling Saturday(training ride) and Sunday morning for the LiveSTRONG Challenge Ride out of Davis! Melissa had her hands full, but in the end, because she rocks, it was a breeze!

 I LOVE YOU and THANK YOU Melissa!

Ains, this girl rocks! Never ending energy! She might be an interior designer when she grows up! Always moving things in one of the houses, but she's learned to chill over here!

My boy Brady! Look at those teeth y'all! I took a few seconds to try to capture him on the swing! 

Brady and I both love this shoot, the lines are way cool, in addition to his awesome smile!

P.S. Gabe, Mila and Drew were here too, the camera came out for about 5 minutes and that was it! You three KNOW you're be in here in a matter of days!

100 MILES!?!?!? Are you kidding me?!?

For the past few months I have been fundraising and thanks to my family and friends, I was able to raise $355 for the LiveSTRONG Davis Ride tomorrow! I will be riding 100 miles in honor of Mary Welch, a fighter, and all those that helped me out! If you wanna track me, download the 2012 Team LiveSTRONG Challenge app for free and track me with the bib number 801! For a BMX'er, who sprinted 100 yards, this a insanely huge for me!

Kids in the backyard

 After that crazy wind yesterday, I was out cleaning the yard, AGAIN! Racking the millions of leaves, twigs, the crap from the Spring that fell off the trees(STILL) and mowing! Now that it looks all cute and cleaned up, the kids showed up to hang out a bit and chit-chat!

 Cole reaching for the sky!

 Looks like Cole has competition! Way to go Brady!

Morgan hanging out with Snow!

And here was the whole team: Morgan with Snow, Brady, Drew, Mackenzie and Cole!

Tour De CalFit - Elk Grove

Here we are on our third stop, Elk Grove! I used to frequent this gym back in the BMX days with Richard "BigBird" Matulia! We have lifted a great deal of weight in this place and it was where I had my first Spin Class! So I have a little love for this place, let's check it out...

The pool area was HUGE y'all! Three pools and a hot tub, one of the pools was salt water and covered(4-5 ft), a lap pool and a kid friendly pool 3.5 to 5ft deep! Loads of grass, chairs and options for seating depending on how much sun you wanted! Bonus points for the cool water feature, useless of course, but cool nevertheless!

Where do we sit? So much to see and be! We ended up in a shady spot with a table and chairs! Wait, what's that I hear? Music!?!?! YES I DO! COOL!

LUNCH! Since we arrived late from the dentist appointment, we immediately had lunch to prove the old tale that one can eat and swim afterwards! Today we had turkey and cheese sandwiches and I had salmon left overs, and yes, the tale is a joke! Sharks and whales eat after they eat right?!?!

Outdoor shower...SCORE!

Menina! Shes loving the sun this summer, working on her tan!

The hot tub! We never touched it, but guessing it was...hot!

The covered outdoor pool! This was the salt water pool! There was a class going on when this shot was taken, bit after the class was over, the kids swam in this pool too!

Brady has sure taken on to swimming and water this year! He still hesitates here and there, but overall, MUCH better than previous years! Proud of my little fish!

The view from the chair! See all the grass!?!?

From Maceio to Elk Grove!

In addition to the pools, the gym also had: tennis courts, sand volleyball court, outdoor bathrooms with showers, and more chairs than a movie theater! We played ghetto tennis, a ball and no racquet, no different than back in the day when we'd go to PetSmart instead of the Zoo because we were broke!

The shot says it all, 10 baby!

Drew agrees with Brady, without Ro-Sham-Bo!

OVERALL: 10

An Afternoon with The Maddux's

Look who gets a pic this week on the blog?!?! MELISSA! We took advantage of Melissa's Wednesday off and hooked up with The Maddux Family; all of them! Such a good time! So used to it being 4 adults from back in the day, BK(before kids) and then seeing 5 kids roaming around....really strange...still! Anyways, we had some "drinks" and Pizza, and great laughs and times! Hopefully we'll continue the trend this summer and onward!