Yearly Update 2010

Hello all! I am a terrible blogger, but here is an update. Shane was promoted from 8th grade to high school last week. He will be starting 9th grade in August, and will be playing sax in the marching band and joining ROTC. We are very excited for him! Kevin completed 4th grade and is looking forward to moving into 5th grade. Both boys are changing to a traditional school schedule, where they will start in August, and be in school until June (with short breaks at Christmas and Easter). It will be an adjustment for them, but it should be interesting!

We are gearing up for our annual camping trip to the Sierras. We will probably be there while most of you guys will be in New Jersey. We will be thinking of you all having a good time while we are in the mountains having a good time. Once again, we have a new family member of the four legged variety. Her name is Moxie, and she is supposedly a Mastiff mix. She's about two years old, and gets along well with Tigger. They have a great time together in our yard, and she will be going along on her first camping trip with us so we will see how she does as a camp dog.

I will try to make the effort to post updates more often, but cannot promise anything. We hope you all have a great summer! We are looking forward to seeing Pat & Cat later this week, and seeing the Nazzaros in October.

Summer Update

Hello, family! I have not posted for a while, so I need to update you. Let's see, we wish all the dads in our family a belated Happy Father's Day! Tim wanted to take the boys for a motorcycle ride, so we took the dirt bikes (boys on the back)up on Saddleback on Fathers Day. It was nice and overcast, and we had a great time.

Shane performed in a great band concert before he ended his school year. Shane is somewhere in the second row hidden behind Mr. McGee, the band director. Mom and Dad came out to see him, and he is very excited to be moving to Advanced Band for next year. He will also be auditioning for the Jazz Cats (the most advanced band at his middle school). Kevin and Shane completed 3rd and 7th grades, respectively, and were promoted to 4th and 8th grades.

The boys had a week off before July 4th, so we went camping in the high Sierra. Grandpa Jim Kilbourne, and Aunt Maureen and Uncle Mike came along. We camped at Lake Thomas A. Edison, we all fished and hiked, ate smores, went in the water at Mono Hot Springs and sat around the campfire at night. We all enjoyed ourselves immensely. Both boys and Grandpa caught fish, which we got to eat.



We had rain one morning, and a bear came through our camp on our last night, and investigated one of our ice chests (left out by accident). The dogs quickly scared him away, with no loss of food on our part. It was a long drive up though, so it was good to get home. This picture of the boys on the bridge, was just after they, with the help of another boy they met, had thrown a huge boulder over the bridge to see it splash into the river below.

We went to Mom & Dads for the 4th, got to see Pat & Cat, and got home in time to watch fireworks from our house. We could see probably five or six different displays from our upstairs. On a sad note, we had to return our newest dog, Jaws, after he bit me when we were on vacation. He was very dog agressive, and we decided we could not have such an unpredictable dog around the boys.

On a lighter note, Kevin finally agreed to cut his hair before starting 4th grade. He looks like a boy again!!

We are so excited to see the Wells and Nazarros in just a few weeks. The boys cannot wait to visit with their cousins. Talk to you soon!

2009 Update (So Far)

Well, it has been a really long time since I added anything here. To catch up, we had a wonderful Christmas, and safe and Happy New Year. Fast forward to April 2009, the boys are off track till the end of the month. I am attending school twice a week, and taking an online class. I found out that this summer, I will be getting two Associates degrees, an AA and an AS. Then I will be on to a Bachelors program. Shane's 13th birthday is coming up, and it is hard to believe he will be a teenager. Kevin is just enjoying being out of school for a few weeks. Tim, as always, is working hard, and planning for a couple of days off before the boys go back to school.

We have a new family member, a young Boxer named Jaws. The name is very fitting as Jaws is only 10 months old, so he tries to chew on everything. Tigger is very excited to have a friend, and we are hoping it might help keep her inside our yard when we are gone. Either that, or she will teach the new dog to follow her over the fence when she wants out.

We are looking forward to Easter next week, and will be thinking of all our family members out of state. Mom told us recently that all of my siblings and their families will be here in July (for Claire's wedding) so we are anxiously awaiting that visit. Love you all, and talk to you soon.

White Christmas? Almost

Hello family! Well I think we have come as close to a white Christmas as we will get here in sunny So Cal. These are pictures from our front yard and back yard after the most recent storm came through. The news said the snow level was down to 1500 feet, which is entirely possible judging by these pics. This is exactly the way we enjoy the snow, close enough to visit, but far enough away that we do not actually live in it.

Here is our Christmas tree, which the boys had a great time decorating.

We are looking forward to Christmas, and seeing all the Laytons we missed on Thanksgiving.

The boys are enjoying their long break from school, and cannot wait for Christmas. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year 2009. We love you guys.

Almost Thanksgiving!

Hello family! Thanksgiving is almost here, and I realized I haven't posted anything for quite a long time.

The boys just went off track from school last week, so they are off until about January 5, 2009. Before they tracked off, Shane had his first middle school band concert. Here he is with his best friend Romie before they performed.

Kevin just finished a round of flag football. His team, the Bulldogs, did pretty well. They ended up winning more than losing, so we counted that as a positive season. He learned a lot and had a great time.

I am doing fine in school, my semester ends in mid-December, and I am pretty sure I will have straight A's. Yay! Tim is working hard, as always, and we are hoping for the best in his job. Since he sells auto parts, his job may be affected, if any or all of the Big Three automakers go under. Time will tell, and we are hoping for the best.

We had some fires recently, one of which started in Corona and proceeded to burn down parts of Anaheim Hills and Yorba Linda. Here are a couple pictures of the smoke we could see, the first one is the view from our street.

We wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving, and we will be thinking of you. We will be at the Kilbournes in Prescott, AZ, so we hope you all have a great holiday in Arlington Heights, and in California. We are so thankful to have such a large, loving family.

Happy, Happy Thanksgiving!

NazFam Visit

You all know that the Nazzaros and Wells were here in June/July. I thought I had taken some pics of the Wells cousins, but I cannot find any, so Midge, if you have some of my boys with your kids, can you email me copies? I do have a couple of the Naz cousins, so I will post them here. There are a couple at Mom and Dads, and a few at the beach. There is one will all the Naz & Kilbourne cousins all in one frame, though none of them are looking at me. Oh well!

May-June 2008

I have not been a very good blogger lately, but will try to update you guys now. Let's see, Kevin made his First Communion in May, and had a wonderful time. He is thrilled that now the whole family gets to go to receive communion at Mass every week.

Shane had a band performance at his elementary school before he graduated, and he did great on his sax. He will be moving into the Intermediate band at his middle school later this summer.

Of course, we have been out riding and out to Palm Desert in the past couple months. On Fathers Day, we took Tim down to San Diego to the Automotive Museum to see some really neat vehicles, and we all had a picnic in Balboa Park. It was gorgeous!

At the end of June, Shane graduated from the 6th grade and was promoted to 7th grade. He has started middle school and seems to be enjoying it so far. We have also had visits from all our out of state siblings and families, but I will post pictures from that on the next blog. Talk to you soon!