Ladd Photos

Connor’s wish for a Plex robot birthday party came true.

After spending a few days in the Seattle area, we headed back to my parent’s house in Beaverton, OR to celebrate my mom’s birthday. It was nice to get to have a family birthday with the moss covered Ladd clan up in the great Pacific Northwest.

The Ladd clan celebrated the 93rd birthday of their matriarch, Marjorie Ladd, A.K.A. Grandma.

Unfortunately, my wife and boys had to head back down to San Diego before the party at P.F. Chang’s, because Gavin had school the next day. I got to stay in Bakersfield a few extra days because they needed me on-site at work.

Gavin has an early morning baseball game. Then we headed over to his Grandma and Grandpa Loera’s house for his 7th birthday party, complete with pizza and baseball piñata.

My nephew Hector, who is my sister-in-law Kristel’s youngest, celebrating his 1st birthday.

This year, we decided to hang out at the Safari Park for my birthday. Nothing says party time like a bunch of goats 🙂

All the San Diego family gathered at Mando’s house in Highland to celebrate Grandpa Walo’s 21st birthday party. He has been celebrating his 21st birthday every year since I have known him. Best we can tell, he really turned 88, but he hasn’t been his real age for so long that no one can quite remember 😉

Photos 2-6 are of the boys taking pictures of each other using mine and Ross’ (Mando’s brother-in-law) cameras. Luckily, they managed to get a few good shots without dropping the cameras.

It’s hard to believe my little “Bub” is already 8 years old. The time has gone by so fast but he has turned into a wonderful little boy. Children really do grow up too fast!

Gavin got to open his presents in the morning and then we spent the early afternoon at Connor’s soccer game. We spent the late afternoon at the San Diego Natural History Museum checking out the new Whales exhibit. Then we went out to dinner for Gavin’s favorite meal: pizza at Woodstock’s.

This year Gavin (turning 8) and Connor (turning 5) both wanted a Minecraft themed birthday party. Because Connor’s birthday fell on Mother’s Day this year, we decided it was a good idea for the boys to combine their celebrations. Poor Steve succumbed to the typical fate of a piñata.

My “Dokie” is 5 years old, already loving school (preschool) and planning on becoming a Robot Engineer. I hope he never loses his love of art projects, creating new things, and figuring out how existing things work. I have no doubt he will make a brilliant engineer one day.

This year Connor had to share his birthday with Mother’s Day, so we opened up his presents in the morning and then headed south for a get together with family. All the Loera clan ended up at Kristel’s house, where we ate an assortment of meats and the kid’s bounced on the giant trampoline.

As the evening progressed a water balloon fight broke out… luckily we keep spare clothes in the car for the boys. Eddie ended up going nuclear, and getting a few of the older nephews with the hose 😉 Unfortunately, I failed to capture photographic evidence of the chaos.

The Loera clan gathered at Kristel’s house to celebrate Diego’s 10th birthday. Of course, his brothers couldn’t leave him alone and managed to get him in the face with whipped cream.

Gavin wanted to hang out at Legoland for the day before his birthday, since this year his actual birthday is shared with Easter. After having fun on all the rides, we went to have a birthday dinner at the nearby Pizza Port for his favorite meal – pizza!

Gavin got to share his birthday this year with Easter. We spent the day at his Grandpa and Grandma Loera’s house.

All the kiddos painted and hunted easter eggs, had fun playing with Papi and Reina’s dogs, and generally having a noisy, chaos filled time. Gavin got to have pizza again to go along with his birthday cake.

I can’t believe my little “Bub Bub” is 9 years old already! He has grown into an amazing (not so) little boy.