Busy Vacation Part 1

We are on vacation in Oceanside, CA. My sister Marie lives here so we are taking full advantage and squatting at her house for ten days! Marshall drove out with us and then flew home for work---he plans on coming back out here this Thursday and we will all stay until Sunday.

Here's what we have been up to the past few days....

There is a nice community pool at Marie's condo that no one ever uses so we have been spending LOTS of time there. There are three really long steps so Tyler is very happy just hanging out on them!

Friday night we met up with my cousin Corinne, her husband Dave, and their very cute Mason. We went to Jazz in the Park in Carlsbad. It is a great kid friendly event put on by the Parks Dept. They have live music and all you need to bring are lawn chairs, some munchies, and a good bottle of wine. The kids run wild in the outfield and then have fun chasing bubbles and dancing.

Emma was teaching Aunt Corinne how to shake her tail feather!

Emma has way more dancing ability than her momma!

Tyler broke out some old school break dancing moves!

On Saturday Corinne, Dave, and Mason came over for a swim day. Mason is a maniac with his floaties on. He jumps in with absolutely no fear. I thought Tyler and Emma would be inspired by this but they still pretty much stuck to the steps.

After naps we all headed out to Ron and Gail's house for a cook out.

Here are the three hoodlums in the back seat on the ride over to Fallbrook.

When we got there Gail had the baby pool and slip n slide set up...a good time was had by all!=)

Sunday, Dave took us out to the Bay on his parent's boat. I was really worried about how the kids would handle wearing life vests and their very first boat ride but they both LOVED it. We had a great day of boating, playing on the shore, napping at the Morash house, and then dinner. We all wish we lived closer so that we could do this more often.

Today we met up with a friend of mine from elementary school that I reconnected with on Facebook. She lives just about 10 minutes from Marie. We met up at Lego Land and went through their water life museum, Sea Life.

She has two cute little boys, TJ and Reese. The kids played well together and I had a great time catching up with an old friend!!

Summer=Monsoon

July and August in the dessert are monsoon season.  This is when we get the majority of our rainfall.  The late afternoon storms can be pretty spectacular.  They are often accompanied with major wind, lightning, and thunder.  Today we had a mid afternoon storm that just came out of nowhere.  The sun was shining, but all of a sudden there were big fat rain drops falling from the sky.  Both of the kids decided that being indoors was just not the place to be during this rare occurrence. So we headed out and they danced and played in the rain.

Check out our drowned little rats!=)

Indoor Fun

A friend invited us to a play group at a local gym today.  It was our first time there and both of the kids had a blast.  So much fun in fact that  I signed little Miss Emma up for gymnastics in the fall.  I think we have found a new indoor Monday activity for the remainder of the summer!

Arrrg!!!

The kids did a cute craft with the babysitters the other night.  Check out my little pirates!

Another Chapter Over

Our house in Chandler has sold!  We closed on Friday so everything is done and over.  We were so blessed to have had it listed and sold all within a month.  

I have to admit I never really appreciated this beautiful home because I never actually wanted to move in the first place.  We found out we were going to have to move when I was eight months pregnant with Tyler.  I was not happy about having to leave my comfort zone here in Tucson. Looking back I now know that God put me in that house and in that neighborhood so he could bring two of the most wonderful women I know into my life-- Keli and Debbie.  Keli lived in the house across the street when we moved in.  I saw her walking a baby in the neighborhood and decided to stalk her until we got the chance to "bump into" one another on a walk one day!=) She had a new baby named, Tyler as well.  She is an incredible person and I was so sad to learn that just as we were becoming good friends that she was going to be moving to Chicago.  I was really lonely again until I realized that the cutest little pregnant lady was moving in!  That was my dear friend Debbie.  After a few short months, and I swear the biggest pregnant belly I've ever seen she gave birth to Travis.  We had such a great time with our boys.  She was with me every day of my pregnancy with Emma and was a major source of support as we road an emotional roller coaster dealing with Emma's hemangioma.   Shortly after I had Emma, Debbie moved away as well.  She and her family moved to Colorado.  As hard as it was to have each of these women move away from me I knew in my heart that I had made a friend that would be in my life forever.  Both of the girls have had a daughter of their own--Keli has sweet Mia and Debbie has cute little Avery.  I am so thankful that God brought both of these women into my life and I am forever grateful for the life long friendships that I established while living in Phoenix.

Although the Phoenix chapter of our lives is closed I am so glad that it happened and we sure did make some wonderful memories.  

Keli and Debbie, I love and miss you both and am so thankful that we have remained friends!

In need of a chuckle?

Today I took the kids bowling for the very first time and of course I forgot my camera.  I was so bummed because I gotta tell you, it was just too cute.

We went with our friends Elva and Nicholas.  Tyler is obsessed with 8yr. old Nicholas...he thinks he is the COOLEST kid in the whole world!  Right now I have to agree, he was so patient and sweet with both Tyler and Emma.  He really helped make the first bowling experience a great one.  

Ok..I know you want me to get to the funny part so I want you to try to picture the following scene.

We had just gotten our cool shoes on when Emma decided to run toward the bowling alley.  I saw what was about to happen so my "save your baby instinct" took over!  Poor Doodle bug slipped and was about to fall down as her very ungraceful mom was heading in for the save. Well friends.....I didn't the make the save.  No, not only did poor little Miss Emma land on her butt but big momma here also had feet flying up and landed HARD on my ass!  Thankfully no real damage was done but I will be taking 800 milligrams of Ibuprofen for the next few days!

(This picture was taken with my cell phone)  We had so much fun that we will be doing it again soon so I will post better pictures next time)

Happy Anniversary

Six years ago Marshall and I stood on a beautiful beach on the island of St. Lucia and vowed to love and honor each other for the rest of our lives.  These six years have been filled with love, joy, new beginnings, tons of laughter, and the creation of a beautiful family. I am so blessed to have found and married my soul mate.  He truly is my other half.  I look at him and know that I am going to spend the rest of my life loving him more each day than I did the last.  

Thank you Marshall for being my friend, my love, my partner, and the best daddy in the world to our children.  

This is the sweet necklace that he gave me.....see he really is a keeper.  If you love it as much as I do and would like to have a personalized one for yourself click here for my other blog to see where he found it.

Ronald McDonald Story time

Last year I took Tyler to see Ronald McDonald at the library for a special story time.  The problem was that we didn't get there early enough and apparently they only let in a limited number of people.  They cut the line off right at us, so not only did we not get in, but Ronald walked right in front of us and poor Tyler was just devastated.  

Flash forward to this year and he was going to be at story time again this week.  I made sure that we were there 30 minutes early so we would get in.  The guy did an FABULOUS job.  He did all kind of magic tricks and kept the kid's attention for close to an hour.  

The funniest part was when he was going over swim safety rules and he was asking the kids to name some things that they should never go in the pool without....Tyler yelled out, "your bathing suit!"  There was a whole room full of people giggling and wondering what when on at that little boy's house!=)

Swim Lessons

We just finished up our swim lessons for this season.  I am sure that one of these days my children will become little fish but as of right now they are still pretty much guppies!=)  Tyler made massive leaps and bounds this year by putting his head under the water and actually jumping in to the instructor.  I am going to really work with him while we are in CA and we may take more lessons when we get home in August.  

Emma on the other hand is pretty much fearless.  She will jump in to you and doesn't mind being put under at all.  When Tyler starts school in the fall I am going to enroll her in more lessons since she enjoys the water so much.

We had a wonderful 4th of July.  We spent the day at our dear friends, Kim and Elva's house and then were able to go and watch some fireworks.  We saw the display from a distance which was perfect because we got to enjoy the show without Emma getting worked up about all the big noises.  They both managed to stay up until 10 p.m. and for some odd reason they still felt the need to be awake by 6 am the next morning!

I tried to get a good red, white, and blue picture of them but as you can see they really weren't in the mood for pictures!=)