McComb Family

We celebrated Easter up at my parents' house. Here are the kiddos with their baskets. Brie really wanted one with a ball, and Adam was all over the water guns!!
They stayed with Grandma Barb and Grandpa Tom the night before, so here are the eggs they decorated. Pretty!!!
Adam found an egg!!
They had 36 eggs each to find in their own designated colors. Inside was either money or a clue. Here they are solving the first clue which led them each on their own scavenger hunt. Each new place had a small present and another clue, until they finally arrived at another Easter basket!!! Fun, fun, fun!
And here is Adam trying out that new water gun. "I'm just cleaning the windows," he claimed. He doesn't know yet that that evil glint in his eyes gives him away every time!!

Even though we had a very nice day, we were very saddened by the loss of one of our family members. At a time of year when you think of birth and new beginnings, Kayla lost her battle with a very aggressive cancer. She turned 8 this month and will be terribly missed by our family. Rest in peace Kayla.

Posted in: on Monday, April 13, 2009 at at 4:14 PM 3 comments  

Being as spring is my favorite season and vacation is my favorite part of work - this week has been fantastic!!! We went to South Lake Tahoe for 5 days with friends and had a great time! The Reeds stayed all 5 days with us, but the Cliftons and Brusts were only able to stay for the weekend. Wish they could have stayed the whole time, but we enjoyed ourselves plenty while they were there! Here is the whole gang in front of the cabin we stayed at.
Here are "the girls" while we were getting dinner ready the first night we were there. We had plenty of time to pose for pictures.....
.....as evidenced by the sad, sad faces of our starving children....
.....who were finally served dinner at 10:00. Yep, there's Bret in front of the clock (hard to read, but trust me it says 10:00!!) with the chicken fresh off the grill. I'm sure the 40 in his hand has nothing to do with why dinner was so late. Hmmm....just thinking!! : )
The next day we went to Sierra and went tubing. It was so warm we were stripping out of our sweatshirts and working on our tans! Ahhh, the joy of springtime in California!! This is Brie and Megan.
The next day we headed back to Sierra yet again, but this time to do some skiing!!! I literally haven't been skiing for probably at least a decade! Luckily it was just like riding a bike! Scott and Kathi are both great skiiers, and Scott used to be an instructor, so they helped our kids learn to ski. It was so much fun, and the kids absolutely loved it!!! Here are Scott and Adam.
Then Briana got in on the harness action. She was a little more cautious than Adam, so I think she liked having the straps holding her more than just riding between someone else's skis with them just holding her.
Here are Scott and Brie, Kathi, and Bret and Adam. Abby and Emma are really good skiiers -- I'm not sure where they are in the picture, probably off in the trees taking some jumps!! : )
Brie was able to get off the lift with just a little help from Bret. Yay!!
Here comes the 6-legged skiier (aka Amy, Adam, Kathi)!!!!
We thought we'd go up Sugar and Spice one more time before the day was over, but what we didn't realize was how long it takes a first time skiier to go down that run. I was hanging with Brie, who was going down the hill all by herself. Everyone else took off and were going to catch the lift again and meet up with us, but it was closed by the time they got to the bottom. So, they waited and waited and waited for us, until we finally showed up at the bottom on a snowmobile!! I guess just because it was an hour past closing all the employees wanted to go home for the night, so rather than let us finish our run they made us ride down on the snowmobile. Sheeesh! Actually, Brie was thrilled that we got to ride on a snowmobile, so it just topped off her day. We didn't want it to end, so here we are tailgaiting out in the parking lot. We were the last souls there and security finally came and parked near us, so we took the hint and eventually went back to the cabin. What a great day though!!!
It turned out we had other friends who were up there as well, so we ended up meeting for dinner at Chevy's later that night. Good food, good company, and yummy mango margaritas -- how could you go wrong!!?!!
The next day Kathi and I thought we should do a little shopping, so the boys took the kids hiking near Emerald Bay while we set off in search of a good bargain! Here are the kiddos above the lake.
Boys being boys, of course they have the kids posing on the edge of a raging river. It's a good thing we didn't know what they were doing!!! All I know is that all four kids returned back to the cabin at the end of the day, so I guess that's a successful trip!
Scott and the kids by Emerald Bay -- beautiful!!!
When they got back, they went up the road to Kathi and Scott's timeshare to swim and go in the hot tub!! We got dinner ready, and it started snowing for the first time since we had been there. When we left the next day, everything was covered with snow and it was just gorgeous. The Reeds went skiing again and said it was fantastic, but we headed home. We're thinking of heading back up this weekend after the storm has passed through and there is fresh powder. We've got the bug!!!! All in all, it was a great way to spend Spring Break!!!!

Posted in: on Thursday, April 09, 2009 at at 6:30 PM 2 comments  

Posted in: on at at 6:21 PM 2 comments  

Here is Briana's game schedule for anyone who would like to come see a game. They are all on Saturdays.

4/4 1:00 Creekside, Georgetown
4/18 TBD Sac
5/2 TBD Mills Middle School, Rancho Cordova
5/9 9:00 Northside
5/16 1:00 Northside
5/23 10:00 and 12:00 Northside
5/30 1:00 Northside

I haven't heard anything about Adam's team, but he has practice tomorrow. Maybe we will find out something then. I'll keep you updated when I hear!

Posted in: on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at at 8:36 PM 1 comments  

Friday we headed down to Santa Barbara for Michele and Ben's wedding. It started out like any other McComb road trip -- Bret all of a sudden had a million things to do before we could leave. I was just happy he didn't want to wash the car as well. We got down in there in time to check in, get dinner, and then go to the open house Ben's parents hosted.



The next day we were going to head down to the pier, but there was just too much stuff to do. Briana had left her shoes at home, so we had to go shopping for her. The kids had to swim in the pool. And, of course, somewhere in there we all needed to get ready.



Briana went with Jer over to the house where all the girls were getting ready, because as the official dress-train-holder-arranger she got to ride in the limo over to the ceremony (oh, happy days!!). The rest of us went to the ceremony to set up. Luckily for my mom, Adam fell asleep just as we got there so she got to stay with him in the truck. Bret and I set up chairs and my dad tried to kick people out of their parking spots to reserve them for the wedding party. :) I just wanted to document that sometimes Bret really does do real work (evidence: no beer in hand).

The weather started out a little sketchy, but there was no rain for the ceremony!!! It all turned out perfectly and was a beautiful location for a wedding overlooking the ocean and harbor. Here is Brie in her official position as Michele and Jer get ready to go down the aisle.

She was a happy girl!!!

Yay -- good job!

The wedding party:

Mrs. Ben Johnson

Michele and her family

Here is Adam sitting dejectedly after being told (for the 12th time) that he's not in that picture either. He tried telling the photographers he wanted to be in them, but no such luck.

Instead we tried to distract him by taking some pictures of our own.

Then we were off to the reception. The centerpiece at our table was beautiful. I kept trying to tell Bret, "No, no...just one martini for me thanks!"

Adam made his presense known and by the end of the night all the girls loved him. Here he is with Michele and Mary.

The cake was beautiful.

Then we hit the dance floor! Here's Bret and my aunt Linda.

Here's Adam busting out his moves in the center of a group of dancers.

Adam being swung by Michele and Mary.
I think he was little heavier than Michele thought!!! : )
And finally Briana showing her rocker moves and Jer shaking his groove thang. Hmmm.....I'm not sure which one Michele found so funny!
We had a great time and are so excited for the happy couple. Now we have to find a time to go back when we can spend more time seeing the sights.

Posted in: on Monday, March 23, 2009 at at 2:46 PM 4 comments  

This landscape project of ours seems to be dragging on FOREVER. I guess it all takes time, but my goodness. We finally got the plan worked out, but then had to wait all winter before we could plant. Now that it's pretty much spring, we thought we better get on it, otherwise it will soon be too hot to plant anything. There's a narrow window of opportunity, and we thought we better pounce on it. Next weekend we're gone to Santa Barbara, so yesterday I spent quite a bit of time (and $) at the nursery. Here's what I got (not counting the few plants I had in the back seat because they didn't fit in the back!). They had everything jammed in there tight. At least I didn't have to worry about anything rolling around in the back on my way home! : )We started putting them around the yard in the basic location of where they are on our plan to see how it will look. So far, so good. It's exciting to see it taking shape!!

I can't wait for it to be finished. Actually "finished" is a relative term. I only got probably a third of the total number of plants we'll need for the whole design, but we wanted to at least get the ones in closest to the house. You know....it's a typical McComb project -- ongoing!!!

Posted in: on Monday, March 16, 2009 at at 5:04 PM 1 comments  

My album arrived this morning, and I love it!!! I'm so glad I went ahead and forked out the extra money for the big one, because it's fabulous!! Of course, I'm almost to the point of being sick of it because I've nit-picked over every little detail, but I'm thrilled with it. All that time spent was definitely worth it!! : )

Posted in: on Saturday, March 14, 2009 at at 3:02 PM 1 comments  

Bret and I apparently have different views on what the word "work" means. In fact, I'd even go a step further and say men and women might have varying ideas about the concept.

Here's how it came about.......I had a CRAZY busy weekend trying to get all my school stuff done. Report cards had to be sent home, and I still had a ton of work to do. I spent hours both days at my classroom and when I was back at home the working continued. However, laundry still needed to be done, dishes needed to be washed, meals needed to be made, etc. etc. Could Bret do all those things while I tried to finish up my school work?? No....he needed to go outside and "work". And by "work" he meant burn.

I went outside to find him and his buddies sitting around a fire with beers in hand. Now that's hard work!! And because they are guys, once the brush supply started dwindling they decided to challenge Bret to take down another tree and fall it directly on the fire. Well, of course, he can't turn down a dare. So we end up with a tree across our driveway and hours of more burning to do, oh wait....I mean "work" for the guys accomplish.

Here are the boys showing off their tools -- a Hello Kitty chain saw and a small gun (he he - love ya guys!!).

I don't even care if you're climbing on a burning pile of sticks, that is fun not work!!

So the next day, here is the remaining evidence of all their hard "work".

I think next weekend we'll switch jobs, and he can take care of the house while I wander around outside feeding fish, staying warm around a fire, and drinking large amounts of alcohol. What do you think girls -- bring on the bottles of wine, ditch the household chores to the men, and come on over and help me "work"!! : )

Posted in: on Thursday, March 12, 2009 at at 5:05 PM 3 comments  

Scrapbooking is fun and all, but seriously, who has the time for it?? I'm still trying (okay, trying might be a bit strong!) to finish the kids' baby books. It used to be easier when I had my table and supplies all set up in the craft room/guest room, but since then Bret has taken my table to the office leaving me with a huge pile of paper, embellishments, albums, stickers, tools, pictures, and so on and so on. Then the craft room/guest room became Adam's room and all of my goodies got put into an even smaller room. I mean, really people, how am I supposed to work under these conditions? Just getting myself set up to start working on a project is a weekend job itself.

So.......I decided to put my digital pictures to good use and make a photobook. I started with 2008, and the plan is to work backwards. I just completed my first book and am so excited that I will actually have something I can put out on the coffee table and people can look at. It's kind of tough to set everyone around the computer monitor and go through all my folders of 2008 pics!!! : )

If you want to check it out online, leave me a comment and I'll email it to you. Otherwise next time you're here, be prepared to be bored out of your goard as I brag about each page in my new album!!!!!

Posted in: on Wednesday, March 04, 2009 at at 9:10 PM 5 comments