Rockin to Crocodile Rock

Mammoth Lakes, CA Camping Trip

Warning: We are about to bore you with LOTS of pictures!

We got home today from a 4 day 3 night camping trip in Mammoth Lakes, CA. We had a great time and arrived home this afternoon tired and filthy! Mammoth is a 4.5 hour drive from our house. Other than my paranoia of bears and no showers we had a great time. Enjoy the pictures! We plan to go again next year. There is so much to do and it is absolutely beautiful! We would love company next year...join us!

The boys in front of the tent.

Micah was into jumping off of everything this weekend! Matt is king of the tree stump and so proud!

We hiked back to this lake. It was beautiful and the boys had a blast playing in the water and sand on the shore.

We rode the gondola to the top of the mountain. Matt was REALLY scared at first. After throwing a major fit/tantrum for the first part of the ride he realized how cool it was! He then kept talking about how cool it was. Micah called it the "gong-gong ride."

Family picture at the top of Mammoth Mountain. Some of the Mammoth lakes are behind us. There was snow in some places at the top but the temp was in the high 60s.

Devil's Postpile National Monument. You can't drive into this part of the park. We had to take a bus that stopped at various sites for hiking. We originally planned to do a couple hikes during this outing but we had two tired little boys so we settled on a short one to see the Postpile. This is a really cool natural rock formation. There are hexagonal shaped pillers that were formed after a combination of lava, eathquakes, and cooling (We were wrestling two very tired boys as the ranger was explaining!) Regardless of the details is was pretty awesome.

Yummy breakfast of eggs, bread, and fruit. Good hiking fuel.

We capured Micah in a rare moment not in the dirt! He loved shoveling and running his dump truck in the dirt. I have never seen a child so dirty! We bathed the boys in a plastic bin each night.

Matt's favorite was cooking in the fire. We made hotdogs, veggies, pizzas, pie and LOTS of marshmallows.

Here is what kept us up until 10:00pm on Sat night from the campsite next to us. Both Matt and Micah were doing the "country jig" in the tent.

Here is Micah recreating his dance moves from the night before.

Kidspace

Karl's dad, Tom, came to visit from MN a few weeks ago. He was only here for a few days but we packed in the fun! We went to Kidspace, swimming, and Karl, Tom, Clark, and my dad went to a Dodger game.

Micah- you forgot to jump!

My sister and her family moved this weekend. They now live in Acton. She is a 22 minute drive away! They moved from a third floor condo into a cute little house with a yard! They are so happy to have a yard for Luke to play in. This move makes Jon's commute to work a little longer but shortens my sister's by 20 minutes. As I type this we have a really cool little "digger" grading our backyard. We are having a small wall built, additional drainage pipe put in, and lots of sand in preparation for a future swing set. This is phase one of the yard plans we had drawn up. This and preparing for a garden are probably all we will do this year in regard to the plans. We had to start somewhere!
We leave on Friday for our 4 day camping trip in Mammoth Lakes. I am excited to spend 4 days in the beautiful mountains and fresh air!

Karl Completes 30 Mile Run!!

Check out Karl's blog for details about our busy weekend!
I have great pictures of Tom's (Karl's dad) visit the weekend before that I will post soon. We are still in minor recovery mode from the big event last weekend! Karl is doing great and I am so proud of him! 30 miles on his 30th birthday! I'm still unsure how supportive I will be if he decides to pull this same stunt when he is 40! Only joking...we had a great weekend surrounded by close friends and family. More pictures to come...

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to every dad!

Karl got a really cool tie from the boys (thanks for sending it, Tom.) The boys decorated it with crayons and then I ironed it to seal the "design." Matt drew crosses and a muffin on the tie. Micah added some very artistic scribbles! Karl went for a long run this afternoon and we then had dinner at my sister's home. Louise and I put together a dinner of ribs, salad, and sauteed veggies for our dad, Karl and Jon.
Tonight Micah wanted to sleep with Matt. I took this picture about 3 minutes ago after tucking my 3 boys into bed! I don't really think Micah will fall asleep in bed with Matt. In fact, I hear a bit of babbling and playing now! We will see though!
I hope everyone had a good weekend!

Camping in Los Padres National Forest

I was feeling left out last week because my sister and her family were in Yosemite for their annual family trip. Jon's family goes each year and when they come back they always rave about how awesome it is! I meant to make reservations in the fall so we could join them although forgot and thus we were left at home! Poor us...not really! Karl and I decided to plan a few small camping trips this summer. We both feel it is so good for the kids to be outdoors and in nature. We also love the family time! On a whim we drove to the Los Padres National Forest outside of Santa Barbara on Saturday. We were lucky to find a campsite! Close to the campground was a stream that the kids had a great time exploring. We then did all the usual camping things and hit the beach on the way home. Various times during the trip Matt said, "Mommy and Daddy, I just love camping!" It is interesting to see the boy's personalities and how different they are. Matt loved sitting around the campfire and talking and hanging out in the tent and Micah wanted to hike, explore and play in the dirt with his trucks. Occationally Karl and I would have to split up and one of us would hang back and chat about the birds, trees and life in general with Matt while the other would explore with Micah. Even with their different personalities they are playing more and more with each other. It just warms my heart to see them play with eachother. It is usually a short lived feeling because inevidably one of them will wack the the other on the head with a toy or try to steal the other's toy!
This little trip was in preparation for a 4 day camping trip up north in Mammoth Lakes, CA in mid July.
Enjoy the pics. The last one is of the boy's faces after an ice cream treat in Ventura. Matt said he wanted purple ice cream! Lucky kid because they had purple and blue cotton candy ice cream. Gross!!

Popper on Lukes's Head!

Matt and Luke discovered a new game! We bought this popper trinket after the train ride we took in Henderson, NV. There was a little gift shop and Karl picked up the little popper as a souvenir for the boys. It is a plastic cup and when you invert it and place it on a hard surface it pops up into the air. Matt discovered it would pop on Luke's head!! I hope this little video captures a fraction of how funny it is! Look at Luke's face!

Memorial Weekend

Sorry it has been so long since the last post. I really have no excuse this time other than we have been very busy!! I think the best way to summarize the highlights of the past month are in pictures!!
We were in Vegas last weekend for Brayden's baptism. It was another "quick and busy" Vegas weekend. We took the boys to a water park, played in Grandma and Grandpa Bennett's back yard and went to Brayden's baptism. Matt was very excited to see Brayden become "a child of God." Yes, that was a quote from Matt. When it actually came down to the baptism Matt got really nervous. It must be such a confusing concept for a three year old. We told him Brayden was going to be one of Jesus' special friends, like he is. Matt was comforted by the friend aspect of this but very confused why God and Jesus weren't physically in the church. This weekend was dedicated to home upgrades! We have a lot of projects and actually completed most of them! We had a landscape designer come over on Sat morning. He will be drawing plans for our front and back yards. Karl and I got so excited hearing all of his ideas but reality hit when we got the rough estimate. The first step is to get the plans then we can slowly complete the yards over the next few year. We also installed two ceiling fans, a bathroom light fixture, toilet seat, and two window valences! Only 7 trips to Lowes in less than 24 hours! The only major project not completed is the bathroom facet fixtures. They will probably end up sitting under the sink for a few more months!! The pictures below are of the boys reading books in Matt's room early (6:30am) this morning. They were actually cooperating! The other picture is of Matt "helping" Daddy assemble a ceiling fan. We went to Apollo Park this morning and fed the ducks. Matt rode his bike and Micah pushed his ride on car around the lake. Needless to say the boys napped great which allowed us to work in the house.


Below are Luke's 2 year picture and Matt's 3 year pic. What handsome boys!!

Keeping Busy

The Stutelbergs have been busy as usual! We were in Las Vegas last weekend visiting family. We took the boys on a train ride in Boulder City. The boys had a great time! I don't think Brayden was too impressed, but in a year or so we will have three crazy cousins running around! The refurbished 1930's style train took us for a 45 minute ride. They boys had a great time exploring the different cars. We also went to a car show in Henderson. There was a Celtic/rock band playing and the boys got their grove on! Matt was mesmerized by the music. It was precious to see him dance with no inhibitions! A woman who had been watching him dance came up to Karl and told him she has been teaching for over 20 years and has never seen a child Matt's age dance like he did! Wow, he certainly didn't get that from his mom! We are taking a break from gymnastics this summer and enrolled Matt in a dance class for 3 and 4 year olds through the city parks! He is very excited about it!Matt is a great helper with his cousin Brayden!

The boys had a blast swimming in the "special blow up pool!" in Grandpa and Grandma's backyard!

Today we went to Malibu. There was an event at the pier with bands. The event didn't look too kid friendly so we played at the beach next too the pier where we could still hear the music and the kids could play. Last year Matt was scared of the ocean and Micah was too young to care! This year is very different. Matt, Micah and Luke had a great time digging in the sand and playing in the water. Karl and Matt went up to the pier to look at some CDs and saw Matthew McConaughey. Walking back to the car Matt kept telling me "Hey Mommy, my name is Matthew too!"

Happy Easter

Happy Easter!!

The Easter Bunny visited our house and left marshmallow bunnies hidden around the living room! After church we went to my parents house where the Easter Bunny had also been! He hid eggs with chocolate covered pretzels in them. Not the smartest bunny because it was a sunny day and kids in church cloths with melted chocolate don't go well together!
After a nice Easter lunch we came home. The boys napped and Karl and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and worked outside. We are wedding and cleaning out flower beds and planting new plants that will hopefully thrive better than the crazy things that were planted before. Our "grass" is over 50% weeds so we have been working on that as well. Hopefully we can save the backyard grass. The front may have to be ripped out. It is overwhelming the amount of work that needs to be done in our yard. It will take us a long time!
Happy Easter and have a good week!