Cude Family Reunion

Chad, Tyler and I drove up to Morro Bay a couple of weeks ago for a big, Cude family reunion. It had been YEARS since all of the aunts, uncles and cousins had been together so it was great to see everyone!!! My cousin Lindsey and I both have babies now (as does Jessi but she wasn't able to make it) so that adds another generation to cousins who were there. We drove up on Friday night and stayed in a rental house with my mom, dad, sister and Cris. Saturday we all got together for a big dinner (SO YUMMY!) and lots of chit chat and catch up with everybody. My dad has all of the family pictures on his camera so I'll add them as soon as I can get them from him!! On Sunday, my dad, sister, Cris, Chad, Tyler and I went to visit Hearst Castle. It was sooooo amazing!!! My dad hadn't been in 30 years or so but was telling us all about it and I'm so glad we were able to visit and see it for ourselves. We did the overall, general tour and I would love to go back for more in-depth, detailed tours in the future. Every little detail of EVERYTHING on the entire property was just crazy! The last stop on the tour was the indoor pool which is covered in over 1 Million 1" mosaic tiles. Truly breathtaking. We drove home Sunday afternoon and Tyler did awesome in the car. We were contemplating waiting until bedtime to leave (like we did on Friday) but really didn't want to make the late drive again... It worked out perfectly between Tyler taking a nap, stopping for dinner, and then having Baby Einstein play on our portable DVD player! Overall it was a great trip, great to reconnect with family I NEVER get to see and create some family memories.

* my handful of a boy * wouldn't change it for the world though!

* daddy and ty *

* sister and cris *

* ty on daddy's back at hearst castle ** the indoor pool - over a MILLION tiles *

Again... ALL of the family pictures are on my dad's camera - blah!!!!! I need to get them and I'll update this post ASAP!

Summer Spectacular 2009 (Vacation Bible School)

The week has come to an end - I'm exhausted but sad to see that it's all over. It went by too fast and seems like it was just Monday morning. The theme this year was "Transformed to be like Christ" and I had the privilege of shepherding 4th grade this year. Last year I shepherded 3rd grade so I had a few of the same girls (including Lauren!) come and find me this year which was so much fun! I had a total of 12 kids (11 girls and 1 boy) - I know... brave boy!!! He was too cute. When he came and chose my row I told him there were other open groups with boys in them and his response was "Oh no, I'm used to it! I have 4 sisters!" Okay... whatever ya say!! He was a trooper with all of us girls and Chad was actually able to join me Thursday and Friday and co-shepherd my group so he had at least 1 other guy :)

Tyler had a blast in the preschool area with his activities. The preschoolers pretty much participate in a lot of the same activities as the elementary kids and have music, snack, storytime, etc., just on a different level.

Monday was T-Shirt Day, Tuesday was Twin Day, Wednesday was Crazy Clothes Day, Thursday was Crazy Hair Day and Friday was T-Shirt Day again. The closing to the program and the energy in the sanctuary today was breathtaking and nearly brought tears to my eyes watching 1,200 kids (some of whom have ever been to church and at the beginning of the week had no idea who Jesus was) sing and dance and worship! It was quite a sight! As tiring as it has been, it has been worth every second of it knowing that you're making an eternal impact in these kids' lives. I'm praying that I continue to see my kids in Flight School every weekend, especially a couple of them in my group who don't attend church. We had such a fun time and can't wait for next year!

A few of the pictures are from my camera but they had a ton of people walking around with cameras to every age group and activity all week long so I took a few from thehangar.org that they captured of my group and of Tyler. Enjoy!!

* Tyler all ready to go! They don't make the shirts small enough for the toddlers so I just took a childs small, cut out the logo and verse on the back and sewed it on a shirt that fit him - It was super cute! *

* Our verse for this year came out of Romans 12:2 "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed but the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will."

* My 4th graders on Day 1 *
* Tyler on Day 2 - Twin Day. I was going to be Tyler's twin but realized I hadn't done laundry in over a week.. so anything that we could potentially match with was dirty... Oh well... *
* Lauren and I on Day 3 - Crazy Clothes Day *
* Tyler in the Toddler room on Day 3 - for crazy clothes I put him in boardshorts with a sweater vest, LOL *
* Day 4 - Crazy Hair Day! *
* Chad and I during Pastor H's morning devotion on Day 4 *
* The Priest Fam on Day 5 *
* Tyler on a buggy ride - he loves the buggy! *
* Playing Red Rover during snack - we played A LOT of Red Rover this week *
* My 4th graders before the closing * We were missing 2 girls today :(
* The tough boys of our group *
* The Closing on Day 5 *
The mission we supported this year at Summer Spectacular was The Narrow Door. The kids are asked to bring quarters everyday and if they reach the goal of $10,000 by Friday then Pastor Thune, Dave (missionary of Narrow Door) and Pastor H get slimed! We ended up raising over $12K this week to give to The Narrow Door!!! This local ministry gives boxes of food, every week, to families in need here in the desert - mostly in parks in Thermal and Coachella. It brought great awareness to some of the poverty and living conditions of those who are just 10 minutes away from our house. Chad and I are looking forward to serving with the Narrow Door in the coming weeks/months.

Park Days

The water features are up and running here at the parks in the desert - It's a nice way to be able to get to the park, in the heat, and stay somewhat cool. Tyler and I met Kaycie, Mckenna, Connor and Cole at the park a few weeks ago (I haven't blogged in FOREVER!) and had a fun morning running around the park, playing on the playground and in the water fountains.

Girl's Weekend!!

Joan, my boss, was soooo gracious to let myself and 3 of my best friends, go up to Carpinteria a few weeks ago and use their beach house. Sabrina was able to fly down for the weekend and join myself, Katie and Kaycie. We're all moms who rarely get a break and it was soooo nice to have the weekend to ourselves to do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted!! We made the best use of our time and packed in a list of things we wanted to do but also left some downtime to do NOTHING at all but relax!!

* going for a walk on the beach our first night there - it's was foggy!! *

* sabrina and katie @ cpk *

* kaycie and i @ cpk *
* sabrina and brooklyn - she was such a good baby!! *
* kaycie and brie with their bright pink lipgloss - the gloss changes color to the chemistry of your lips!! it was HOT pink on them and just a light, pretty pink on me - we thought it was pretty funny! *
* before we went to see a movie - ahhh the leisurelyness of having nothing to do... *
* getting ready to leave : ( *
* at lunch on our way out of town *
THANK YOU AGAIN JOAN FOR AN AMAZING WEEKEND!!!

Tyler's going to be a...

... BIG BROTHER!!


I'm sure most of you have probably heard it one way or another but I just wanted to officially post it on here!! I found out the exciting news on Mother's Day - what a gift - and we're very excited!! It took a few days to sink in but we're beaming now and can't wait to find out if Tyler will have a little brother or sister!! I'm only 7-1/2 weeks right now, I know -- I found out early -- and still have a ways to go!! Hopefully we'll be finding out the sex sometime in August. We'll keep you posted!

My boy loves to dance!

Women's Retreat

Chad got home from spearfishing on Sunday and I headed out on Friday for a women's retreat with church. It was a nice break and perfect timing after having Tyler for 5 days while Chad was gone. The retreat was held at the Calvary Chapel Conference Center in Murrieta Hot Springs and it was GORGEOUS! The grounds were beautiful!! Even though there were a few hundred women from other churches on different retreats it NEVER felt like it. There were wide open grassy areas, benches, tables, real hot springs, big shady trees all throughout were you could get away for some quiet or just go and chit chat with friends. I room'd with my good friends, Kameron and Amber and we had such a blast and made tons of lasting memories!!! Our room had a bunk bed and then 4 twin beds but we kind of re-arranged the room right when we got there to make a somewhat triangle out of 3 of the beds!! It's so fun to have slumber parties and sleepovers with girlfriends when they're so few and far between now. The theme of the weekend was The Great Adventure of Knowing God. The messages were great, worship was awesome and I took away so much from a great weekend of getting away from the distractions of life at home. I can't wait for next year!

dinner

The Chiampi's came over for dinner a few weeks ago. After the kids were a complete mess after burgers and fries we decided to throw the 3 kids in the bath together. They had so much fun! After bathtime we had a little dance party in the living room - so cute!

Palapas Ventanas

Chad and one of his best friends, Justin, went down to Palapas Ventanas (near Cabo) for a spearfishing trip the end of April. This place caters to spearfisherman and has all of the boats and complete setup for the perfect guys spearfishing trip. They wanted to get a good trip in before Justin and his wife, Araceli, have their first baby due the middle of June.


Chad and Justin went down there mainly looking for yellowtail and dorato but the fish weren't as abundant as they were hoping for. Mako sharks were VERY abundant though as the guys got spooked a couple of times while diving -- SCARY! That would be enough for me to call it a trip, haha! Chad still managed to bring home a 22 lb Pargo which are famous for scurrying into caves and put up quite the fight when speared - Justin helped Chad eventually get him out of the water after an hour of wrestling 40 ft down in the rocks -- It was a group effort and Chad was exhausted! He also speared a 10 lb cabrilla. They spearfished for 2 full days and spent their last full day pole fishing off of a boat were they caught quite a few sierra. Justin also managed to catch a pelican while fishing that last day, LOL!! They through him back obviously but later found out from a few locals that it's actually really good eating -- SICK!!



The place they stayed fillets and freezer packs all of the fish for them to bring it home. Needless to say we ate a ton of grilled fish, fish tacos and seviche for the next couple of weeks. It was soooo yummy!!

They had an awesome time and created a ton of lasting memories!!



Araceli, Tyler and I went to pick them up at the Palm Springs airport when they got in Sunday night. We made signs for them -- it was cute! They were soo excited to be back home with their wifeys and back in the United States.