Adoption Day!!!

On this day we received some amazing news from Aiden & Kyra's Social Worker in Fresno. She gave us our adoption day date for Aiden's adoption finalization. The date is going to be on Monday, September 27th at 11:30am in the Fresno, CA courthouse.

Jake & Iwould like to take this opportunity to invite anyone who would like to attend the proceedings in Fresno. We understand if you are unable to attend as it is a 3 hour drive and during a workday. We are allowed family & friends to attend. We'll need a photographer so if anyone would be willing to take pics before, during and after we would greatly appreciate it. If you are interested in attending please let us know and we'll send you final details with date, time & location.

We are truly Blessed to have wonderful family & friends in our lives.

Swim Lessons

Aiden is learning to swim and she's getting really good at it. Here we are on the boat over the weekend. ENJOY!!!

A Splash of Summer Bash!

So this being our first official summer in our new community we were invited to the Lincoln Crossing annual A Splash of Summer Bash! that was held at our clubhouse on Saturday, the 17th. Tickets were dirt cheap, $5 per adult and FREE for kids under 4. Good thing too because neither of the girls really ate that much. They were too excited about the cotton candy and snow cone booths. The BBQ started at 11am and lasted till 3pm. Jake's Mom Joan went with us to the event. It was really awesome. We had BBQ beef brisket, chicken, beans and cole slaw, all supplied from JR's Texas Bar-B-Que of Sacramento. The beef brisket was really tender and yummy but if I'm being honest here I much prefer the brisket from Lucille's BBQ in Rocklin but that's just me. 8)

They had food, a DJ, a magician, a face painting booth (the girls got their faces painted - see pics) a cotton candy booth, snow cone booth, bubble blowing booth, an arts & crafts table for the kids and 5 water bounce houses & slides, a rock climbing wall, a bungee jump thing and a dunk tank. Kyra and I went on the water bounce slide, not once but twice. I, being the brave parent opted to do the water slide with Kyra. I'd have been OK however at the end of the slide my pinkie finger on my right hand got caught in part of the plastic and pulled in the opposite direction. Did you know that your fingers aren't supposed to go the opposite way? Now my finger is all purple and hurts so bad. I think it's sprained, thankfully not broken.

We had such a blast at our first community BBQ. We'll definitely be attending next year. To see all the photos from the BBQ go HERE.

Jake & I got ourselves ready to go to Jake's 20th High School reunion at Fat's Asia Bistro in Roseville for appetizers and drinks. We had a pretty good time. Out of 98 people he graduated with about 30 of his classmates came with their spouses. Not too bad of a turnout.

Well that about wraps it up for now. Stay tuned for more updates. See you next blog.

Little of this...little of that

The Mason family has been super busy these past few weeks. Toy Story 3 in 3D, Birthday party, camping trip and celebrating the girls first July 4th.

Friday, July 2nd - We celebrated our nephew Erik’s 7th birthday with him and his slip-n-slide party! Jake’s Mom made him an awesome birthday cake of a dirt bike on a hill. It was pretty awesome!!! Great job Mom!!! Eriks Party pictures.

July 3rd - We tried a new adventure with the girls...seeing an actual movie in the theater instead of at home on DVD. We went with the Pascoal family to see Toy Story 3 in 3D. It was great. Kyra & Aiden actually sat and watched the whole thing without fuss or talking. They both kept their 3D glasses on the whole time. I guess it also helps that Kyra had a box full of popcorn to keep her occupied while she watched the movie. After the movie we went over to the Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner.

Andrew and Maria had plans afterwards to go his sister’s house and do some fireworks so we parted ways after dinner. On the way home, Jake, I and the girls went back to the house grabbed our lawn chairs and headed to scope out a spot to watch the city of Lincoln fireworks. They were really beautiful. 30 minutes of ooing and aahing was some great fun! Kyra wasn’t fond of the noise in the beginning so she covered her ears but after awhile she uncovered them and enjoyed the fireworks display. Aiden was asking lots of questions but finally quieted down and just watched along with us. She seemed more interested in who those people were in the car that was parked in front of us was. LOL. She finally settled down and watched.

City of Lincoln fireworks

July 4th was an unexpected surprise. We were initially going to go over to Andrew & Maria’s house to celebrate the 4th but they had called just before we were heading out the door and told us that their air conditioner had went out and had to call a repairmen and being that it was a holiday and a Sunday they would have to wait till Monday to call anyone. So we moved the festivities over to our house instead. Drew had cooked up some hot dogs, steaks and corn earlier in the day and we ate when they got to our house. Man we had so much food but it was yummy in our tummies. July 4th Pics.

After eating a good dinner we headed out to the front yard to let off our fireworks. They had brought some with them as well as bringing some sparklers for the kids to do. I am amazed at the sparklers these days. I always thought they were supposed to be safer for the kids when they don’t really seem to be. First of all, our friend’s son Aiden (same as our Aiden) got burned by the sparklers pieces being flown off the end on his poor little foot. Then Kyra was holding her sparkler and twirled it and the end of it flew off and onto the ground still burning hot almost hitting our Aiden in the arm. WHAT THE HECK!!! Safe for kids, my butt, we beg to differ. I’m beginning to think that the metal ones we had as kids are safer. This is just my opinion anyway. They were called Morning Glory sparklers. I’m considering writing the company and letting them know how unsafe their sparklers really are. Again, just my opinion.

Kyra was being a typical 2 year old and running all over the place just before we set off the fireworks so Jake brought out her highchair from in the house and she was okay for a little bit then she wanted out. Took her out and sat in her little lawn chair with the other kids and had a fun time watching our own family fireworks display. All in all we had a great 4th of July 2010.

Thank you everyone for reading our latest blog. See you next blog.