Last summer I spent half my time in Southern California & I took sooooo many pictures that I never posted.

Anyway, we've been really getting excited about Christmas & Aubree is bombarding me with Christmas questions, so I got my external hard-drive out, I usually only back it up, but this time we opened it & went ALL the way back to Christmas 2007! We were having so much fun looking at old pictures & videos, that after I put the kids to bed, I continued looking back... I found these pictures from last Father's Day & they made me really happy. Our whole family was all together, for once! I *feel like, the time before this one was Thanksgiving 2007, seriously! There is usually always somebody missing in action.  So, to take you back... This is June 2010, Aubree was 2.75 years old, Natalie was three months pregnant with Marian (who is now a big 1 year old!!!), Preston was about 5 months old (& he'll be two in Jan.!)... So, we were more or less all together.

To explain the scene here... My Dad builds these amazing model boats! It's his hobby - his passion & these boats don't just come out of pre-bought boxes & glued together... NO!!! These boats are built 100% from scratch! Each piece of wood carefully glued & nailed, he makes the whole base out of Fiberglass & he also builds a motor so it can be controlled. It's all really quite amazing! So, I think my Dad's got at least 8-10 of these huge boats all over the house - my poor mom! Hahaha.... He needs a workshop & should probably make this a side business! Or, at least document all his ship buildings on a blog, I think that would be so awesome!! I wish I were closer, so that I could take pictures of his crafts weekly & post them!

Anyway, this boat wasn't complete. But, it was able to sail - so, my Dad does this often; take his ships to sea for test runs. Not really "sea", but why not pretend?? :) It's always fun & relaxing to watch the boats sail & of course, it was a great family memory... Aubree also enjoyed this grand event!

 (I'm not sure where Preston was... Maybe napping in a stroller?? Or being held by Mimi??)

You know, this gets me thinking that my family is pretty artistically gifted. I'm going to dig out my hard drive again & see if I have any pictures of Kelly's pastel drawings - they're amazing!!