vanslootens.fam

half year post

2009-08-06T12:07:00.000-07:00

this blogging thing is proving quite an undertaking and it seems that twice a year posts are all that can be managed. the vanslootens are all good and doing great and someday we may even be able to post a few pictures of what we're up to. so let's see, since that last disney posting, jolie turned 8 ( highlights; baptism and party with friends), been to the baja shack twice, summer fun in full swing although just managed one rincon beach day, a day visit to balboa island in newport beach, swimming at friend's pools, a week of cub scout summer day camp for rowena, a week of scout camp for henry as well as a week of school trip to florida, more swimming and as of this posting we are still in garden valley, idaho. staying at a house right on the fork of the middle and south of the payette river. mark's dad built the house so it's extra special (bummed that they dont own it anymore). kayaking, innertubing down the river, boat floats on the white water, hot springs and trips to the little town mercantile and fast sunday at the local branch. we are having a great time and will be sorry to leave to go back to woodland hills and soon back to school. but wait we still have camping in refugio and another trip maybe to baja coming up. it's all good. missing all our friends but we'll see you soon

2009-01-15T08:16:00.000-08:00

Disneyland

Went with friends Nancy and son Jake to Disneyland on the

last Friday of winter break (they have 3 weeks). Gorgeous

day at the park and not too crowded we all had a great time.

It was jolie's first time (parents have been dreading the crowd not

to mention the steep price to get in) so we were so excited

for her (and she was too). Nancy, our Disneyland expert (goes

to Disneyland with Jake about once a month, maybe more,and

needless to say have annual passes for years now, grew up

around Disney, and every year Disney would close the park

for her Dad's company employees and families, nice) made

the experience special. As Socal residents we also got a break

that day. For the price of admission we get to come back again

within 30 days and hop both Disneyland and California Adventure.

Yah, we are going back, right Jolie.

Jolie, Henry and Sam

in front of Sleeping Beauty's Castle

Buzz Lightyear ride

jake,jolie,henry and sam

jungle cruise

got stuck in the Indiana Jones ride for 15 minutes, 10
minutes before the park closes.

henry and jake

and sammy didn't mind, in fact they went again.

2009-01-14T09:50:00.000-08:00

New Year's Day at 4 in the morning we were yet again on the road heading south to our baja beach/surf shack this time with Henry's friend Jake in tow. This is our 5th New Year's trip with the Smiths and Rondos who had been camping at that same palapa spot where the shack now stands since the mid-90s. Our friends always come down day after Christmas and leave after New Year's so by the time we get there the place is already rockin'. This year there are 18 of us all told, including 6 mo old Trey Rondo and 18mo old Aubrey Kelsay.

jake, henry, sammy and jolie looking down at the secret beach

jolie, jake, henry and sam going down the volcano

jake and henry checking out consuelos

a polar bear swim for henry,jolie and sam. grrrrrr!

jake staying dry

might be mark in front of the house

a snail in a bucket

a shipwrecked jake, sam and henry

view from our sleeping loft

headin' out

2009-01-12T11:21:00.000-08:00

2008 in pictures Spent New Years Day (which also happened to be Sammy's

birthday) in San Diego. The Dead Sea Scrolls were on exhibit at the

SD Natural History Museum

our friend Sean from Vancouver came to visit for the holiday.

Huntington Beach Pier

end of day

Jolie on the pier

New Year's Day

Martin Luther King weekend trip to Baja with

Roy and Kelly Willardson and kids Max and Mia

boys paddling out

mia enjoying the sand dunes

jolie

roy communing with dolphins

sammy on a school trip to d.c
gettysburg and philadelphia

washington monument

dylan and sam at the smithsonian

at gettysburg

at the declaration of independence museum
Spring Break

Easter trip to Baja with

Taylor and Sheri Nelson and kids

Abby and Parker

Jolie and Abby
Abby and Parker

Easter morning

Taylor
Easter weekend at baja

early spring time hike

up on the hills of

Topanga Canyon State Park

Sammy and

Jolie enjoying a nice day at Cardiff Beach

at the Cowboy store enjoying quesadillas

baja for memorial day

marie and sam

checking out a sidewalk store in Ensenada

kayaks and stand up paddle boards , fun

but in May that water is still cold so don't fall in

Memorial Day weekend with Kevin, the Rondos and the
Tippetts, oh and Marie

Jolie's slumber birthday party
May 11, 2008

she's 7 in 2008

Baja in August

our secret beach

tidepools below the house

Montezuma's Castle in Arizona

one of our stops on our 3 week road trip in July

Mark's UFO at the UCM Museum

Abita Springs, Louisiana

New Orleans across from Cafe DuMond

Lincoln Memorial

Gettysburg

Liberty Island, New York

in front of Tomo-chi-chi's grave in Savannah, Georgia

Niagara Falls

New Orleans

on a oxen ride in Nauvoo

Colorado mountains

Independence Pass
during our three week road trip from LA to NY and back

rincon with friends late july

our favorite beach which we dominate every time we go

which was almost every weekend in the month of August

mermaids hailey, loni, claire and jolie

another rincon beach day with friends

roasting hotdogs and pizzas on charcoal ovens

late into the summer night at rincon

august at refugio

trevor on the standup

henry on the longboard

campers parker nelson and hank tippetts

brielle reading a clue to find treasure hidden by
pirate don diego del donggo (huh?)or was it don jon refugio?
ask mark

treasure seekers

beach camping, refugio state beach

jolie and sam

refugio

jolie getting a shoulder ride from dad

sam, marie and henry on a quick trip to jalama beach while
camping at refugio

marie and henry are not too happy about leaving camp
i guess because it means -back to school!!!!

our truck all loaded up for the drive home
after 4 days camping at refugio
end of summer

jolie and that cute surfboard that's just right

jolie and

sammy stand-up paddleboarding at Cardiff
late summer

sam, marie, courtney and riley

all dolled up for the fashion show

marie and

sammy at the stake young women fashion show

sam and marie
fishing at Lake Casitas

henry and jake

i had the important task of holding the unbrella

jake and jolie

jolie casting away
on a fishing trip to Lake Casitas in October

brenda and jolie
rockers for Halloween

lindsay, brenda, kiana and jolie

madison, brenda and jolie
halloween parade at school

jolie with friends tyler and abby on her way to lunch

at Chuck-e-cheese in a limo (fundraiser prize)
Tuesday before Thanksgiving break

jacques and bo, thanksgiving at baja

loni and jolie, baja thanksgiving

with Pam, Lisa and Bo

Thanksgiving trip to Baja with Barnetts and Tippetts

Baja Thanksgiving trip

quick trip to San Francisco and

Santa Cruz in December to visit family

2008-12-29T19:54:00.000-08:00

in front of the Pantages theater.

Sammy took her friends Dylan and Marie to see

"Wicked"for her birthday

Jolie's winter program at school

We headed up to Northern California early the last day before winter break started. The kids didn't mind being pulled out of school early (a real sacrifice? not!!) so we can beat the traffic rush. Living in Southern California doesn't give us plenty of opportunity to play in the snow (unless we go to the mountains to ski, which we dont) so when presented with the chance we took it. A quick stop to throw a few snowballs and then we were on our way. It was great staying with my aunt and uncle who didn't mind that we used their house as a hotel (they have plenty), feeding us breakfast before we left for the city and dinner when we got home. We brought along our Christmas beach cruisers and rode around the marina. Two nights in San Francisco then we were on our way.....to Santa Cruz. Our motel was great, smack dab in the middle of downtown. We can walk to the shopping district on Pacific Ave., our favorite Indian restaurant, Sitar, and bike rode up and down the coast from the famous Santa Cruz boardwalk, (where the girls spent an hour at the arcade while the boys skateboarded at the local skatepark) to the surf spots the boys surfed the two days we were there. We were blessed with great bike riding weather and a fun long weekend in the two best places we love to visit.

snow on the 5 up the grapevine

Fort Point in San Francisco and

oh yeah, the Golden Gate Bridge in the background

beautiful day in San Francisco

every major city must have a store dedicated to just
cupcakes. this is San Francisco's version (we forgot the name)

Sam swears Sprinkles in Beverly Hills is the best

looking for lunch

Palace of Fine Arts

downtown San Francisco skyline

that cold weather really makes you want to cuddle, right?

with aunt and uncle in Fairfield

at the Exploratorium

we enjoyed clam chowder and creme brulee at the Cliff House in

San Francisco on a cold and rainy day while watching surfers freeze their

_______off at Ocean Beach. nice!!!!

Santa Cruz surf spot

beautiful day in Santa Cruz

sweeeet bike

our sweeet sam on her sweeet bike

faint sliver of a rainbow

the famous Santa Cruz boardwalk in the background

rogue biker gang terrorizes Nocal

Henry at the Santa Cruz skatepark

Jolie walking the line in Capitola(quaint little town just south of Santa Cruz)

Christmas morning back home

San Quintin

2008-08-14T14:26:00.000-07:00

We headed down to San Quintin for a quick weekend trip with the Tippetts and Feinbergs. Mark and Ryan decided to finish packing the trucks the night before we left which meant strapping on the surfboards and boats and hitching on the trailer, which also meant the trucks would not now fit in the garages, which meant the surfboards and boats and whatnot might not be there in the morning, so the guys decided not to leave anything to chance and to a man laid out their sleeping bags on the driveway and toughed it out. Since we left at 4 in the morning they only had to be there for a few hours and really, this is Southern California in the middle of summer, how bad could it be. Relaxing after fish tacos

Hank, Henry and Bobby jockeyed with the local senoritas for control of the carousel

kayaking in the bay.
mark f. and bobby

a day at the secret beach

loni and jolie
bo enjoying the beach with her dad

sometimes in the winter this beach disappears

loni posing for her mom
golden girl sammy

a bucket of Bo

it's hard for the kids to hold that chick lightly
gently, gently and.....
forget it, loni is holding on tight to that baby

the next day
we went to a beach up at the point
not the perfect conditions for a beach day

the wind and mosquitoes (you have to be there)

chased us back
to.......

the secret beach

it was the perfect beach day after all.

loni

bo
the many faces of
hank tippetts
sammy

tidepooling in pjs

Rincon July 26, 2008

2008-08-08T08:43:00.000-07:00

summertime....beach....rincon....a day at the beach with a collection of boards, boats and friends. (july 26, 2008)

sammy, jolie, brielle and marie

mark g. and dane

jolie and mom and marie
sammy
that's me almost out of air (hurry and take that picture already)
lisa hopeful and henry bailing out
the wave that got away

surfer jolie

surfer henry
looks like tiffany-ann wrestling with a wave

logan with a "not sure i like this" look
kids messing around pushing
and tumbling kids in the water
notice the seaweed in the foreground , looks almost like marie's hair
the whole crew (the van slootens, tippetts, greens, tiffany-ann and gavin, grasteits (minus melissa and new baby), etc.)

Family Journey Part Two

2008-07-28T17:08:00.000-07:00

taking a dip in the mighty Colorado

ancient Indian cliff dwelling

Junior Ranger Jolie

Sedona

Santa Fe

Texas has 'em all

from camels

to buffaloes
to longhorn cattles.

our Dallas connection

got house?

when lightning stikes......

our Houston connection

t
h
e

B
a
y
o
u

muffaletta sandwiches

beignets

Lake Pontchartrain Bridge

Abita Springs, La (home of the bassigator)

may I have this dance ?

t
h
e

G

l
f

o
a
s
t

Savannah, Georgia

Charleston, South Carolina

haggling over saltwater taffy. that's me.

a lovely Gullah woman and her wares. these seagrass

baskets are so beautiful you'd want to buy them all but

beware!! talk about sticker shock.

warm Atlantic waters off Myrtle Beach

one of General Lee's cannons

oh yeah

a
n
d

o
h

y
e
a
h
!

at Gettysburg

pretty as a picture, Lancaster Pa

braving the toxic waters of
t
h
e

H
a
c
k
e
n
s
a
c
k

River

Lady Liberty

an assortment of nephews and nieces

Jersey shore

did anybody say "fore"?

Palmyra Temple

the Smith Family cabin

henry contemplating surf at lake erie

mark really wanted his picture taken

with that Amish dude

Carthage jail

Nauvoo Temple

Mark and Marc (our Denver connection)

Colorado mountains

hmmmmmm

Becky and Sam Lowe
(our Aspen connection)

Park Avenue by way of Moab

our lawn after three weeks of no love but a lot of water

We are back home after a three week road trip all across the U.S. We visited family in Dallas and New Jersey, friends in Houston, Denver and Aspen, church history sites like Palmyra and Nauvoo and civil war sites like Fredericksburg and Gettysburg. It was especially memorable going thru a lot of the civil war sites just as we would finish watching episodes of "The Civil War" tapes by Ken Burns in the car. We drove thru some of the most beautiful countryside and highways from Houston, Louisiana, the Gulf states, upstate New York, western New York etc., and farmlands (Amish country in Ohio and Lancaster, Pa) and still-snowcapped mountains in Aspen, Co. We drove over the longest bridge in Louisiana (Lake Pontchartrain), crossed the Mississippi River on a ferry in New Orleans and again coming from Nauvoo to Iowa. After leaving the coast (Gulf coast and Atlantic coast) we thought we wouldn't see water for a while but the lakes and rivers are numerous and all of them very pretty and some are breathtaking, from the Hudson to the Mohawk Rivers, the Susquehana River and Lake Erie, small rivers and lakes to the magnificent Niagara Falls. And then there were the must-see attractions that we absolutely could not pass on by. One of them is "The UCM Museum" just outside of New Orleans in a little town called Abita Springs. This museum houses the "bassigator" half bass and half alligator. Some say its not real but if you ask Mark and Sammy they'll convince you otherwise. We also went to this little town in Kansas north of all the major freeways called Cawker City. Here could be found the "Largest Ball of Sisal Twine". 'nuff said, right? We also had the best time discovering new food. We ate sopapillas in Santa Fe, in New Orleans we enjoyed gumbo, ettoufee (Mother's and Bubba Gumps) beignets (Cafe Dumond) and muffuletta sandwiches (Central Grocery). We had a really nice dinner at a restaurant called Poogan's Porch in Charleston that was voted by The Travel Channel as the "Third Haunted Place in America" due to its resident ghost named Zoe St. Amand. Ghost tours abound in Charleston and Poogan's Porch is definitely one of the stops judging from the number of people we thought were lining up to go to the restaurant. Ghost or no ghost, the buttermilk fried chicken, Ms Bertha's she crab soup and creole jambalaya were to die for. We were greeted by a summer rainstorm just outside of Savannah which made walking around the 21 or so squares that make up Savannah pleasant despite the humidity (the rain stopped minutes after we parked but not before we got a nice drenching looking for cover). Savannah, Georgia is a must-come-back kind of place. So is Charleston, S.C. and New Orleans, La. Myrtle Beach, S.C. on the other hand is the "we don't have to go there again" kind of place. The land of mini-golf (which Jolie discovered is her most favorite thing in the world) and hotels, motels galore. And every tourist east of the Mississippi must come there. Ya. (yikes more like) Still we had a great time. Washington D.C. involved a lot of walking and the use of the Metro but all the museums(Smithsonian e.g.) and memorials including the zoo could be had for free. Philadelphia meant a philly cheesesteak sandwich eaten at 11:00 at night at this no-nonsense hole-in-the-wall called D'Allesandros that a friend recommended and our GPS friend found for us. Yum. Three days weren't nearly enough to explore Manhattan (just enough to see the Lady Liberty, the World Trade Center site, for the boys and Jolie to skateboard Hoboken with an outline of Manhattan in the background and for Sam and mom to shop Soho). We had an awesome time. A lot of driving (for Mark), a lot of hotels, a lot of fast foods (McDonald's fruit parfait), a fortune in gas (ouch) and we are grateful to all the friends and families that welcomed us in their homes along the way and most of all the best memories of the beauty and grandeur of this great country and its people.

Family Journey Part One

2008-07-01T20:40:00.000-07:00

Catch Up

2008-06-16T15:34:00.000-07:00

Bo-licious with Mark

little Loni in her Hello Kitty luchadora mask.

go Loni, grrrr.

funny how a year ago Hank can't stand the feel of

sand on his feet. guess he got over that.
loni seconds before her tumble in the water Our friends little boy Hank.
Memorial Day weekend with the Tippetts

Sherry and Parker Nelson
Jolie and Abby
BFFs Sam and Marie
Abby and Parker Nelson with their Easter loot
Easter 2008 with the Nelsons

mark and roy making lunch on the sand

jolie, max and mia

Roy Willardson and family came down Martin Luther

King weekend.

Breakfast in Ensenada 8-08
Nick's not sure about all the fishies around
Lisa with little Bo-in-waiting.

Tiffany-Ann with little Gavin roosting inside waiting to come.

This was labor day weekend 2007

Cardiff

2008-05-03T12:06:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago we were able to visit the Smiths down in San Diego. We had a fun time with them and we were able to hang out at Cardiff for the day.

My dad was also able to use his underwater camera to get some pretty cool pictures.

Easter 08

2008-04-05T14:43:00.000-07:00

We went down to our house in Mexico for Easter with the Nelsons (Taylor, Sheri, Parker, and Abby). Fun!!

easter egg hunting

Marie and Jolie in the car.

Old woman selling bracelets. Dad bought her out.

Model Status

Jolie with all her Easter goodies.

Marie's official wrestling name is Tarzanita
My Beautiful first born Daughter.

(Check out Jolie's face.)

Flaming Mexican Tire

2008-04-05T11:24:00.000-07:00

On my dad's last surf trip to Mexico, he and his friends had some fun with an old tire.