Mother's Day!

I love Mother's Day!  At Tatum's preschool, they put on a Mom's and Muffins, where the kids make muffins the day before and invite us at 9:00 am for some coffee, muffins and time in their classroom.  All the kids in Tatum's class sang a song for us, so cute!

The kids also filled out this info sheet on what they know about their mom.  I love that I'm only 14 years old and that I love to do chores and dishes. :) 

Here's Andrew, one of Tatum's special friends in class.  She's quite taken with Andrew and she can't wait for Thursdays which is the only day of the week that these two have class together. 

Enjoying my muffin with my little muffin.

She also made me this beautiful place mat, that's me and a fancy purse!  She also hand painted a pot and planted wild flowers in it.  We've got two plants coming up already and we can't wait to see what they become!

Then, on the real Mother's Day, I met Mom at church and then we both came home to a delicious brunch!  Eggs Benedict and crab enchiladas, yum! 

It's not a Mother's Day brunch without mimosas!  How blessed I am to have my mom living right down the street and to have such a loving family.  When the days get crazy and I feel beat down, I need to remember how lucky I am and how loved I feel every day. 

Perfectly matched

Can you believe we've been married for 7 years?!  I sure can't, seems like yesterday we were getting ready to walk down the aisle.  But we've been so blessed these past 7 years and have built a beautiful family and life together.  So perfectly matched.  To celebrate, Grandma came over to baby sit while Garrett and I headed to Japango sushi for dinner.  Yum, what a wonderful date and way to celebrate.  Many more years to come!

We headed up to Grandma's Irvine house and a duck landed in her backyard.  We saw two ducks flying and one landed and the other kept going.  As you know, a male and female duck mate and stay together for life, so when the female duck landed, we knew the male couldn't be far.  She stood around and we tried to give her some crackers.  Then we heard her hubby calling.  He suddenly swooped in and they walked around the yard, checking things out.  He must have explained to her that they were headed for a lake not too far from the house and that, as lovely as my mom's yard appeared, it wasn't the place for them.  So they both jumped up on a small brick wall surrounding my mom's roses, and then they talked and flew off together, so romantic.  Off to make their new home, another perfect match!

The next morning was garage sale morning!  It was actually quite a flop but at least we sold a few things and got rid of lots.  The kids enjoyed trying on some of the clothes and shoes...

Leanne and Isaac came over to help as well as Jenny with Cam and Mattie. 

Look at these sweet friends, perfectly matched again.  We love visiting Irvine and seeing our BFFs!

Welcome back to the animals

We recently bought a pass to the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park and we were sooooo excited to get back to see the animals.  We took Grandma on our first trip back to the WAP and enjoyed the bird area where the kids loved this big egg,...

we visited the bat sanctuary,...

had lunch at the safari play area,...

and finished up our trip with a ride on the carousel.  What a wonderful trip back!

Then, for an early Mother's Day gift, I asked that we take Daddy to the Zoo so here are the boys enjoying the sky buckets.  Cool dudes in shades!

Garrett had never seen the Elephant Odyssey so we headed over there to see all their climb on animals...

before checking out their real elephants.  They're so big!!

Can you believe at one time there was a bird this size!  Wow, wouldn't want to meet him on a path. :)

Tatum our Paleontologist. :)

Ty loved the construction play on area...

and we all enjoyed seeing the pandas.

The gorillas were up and around with their babies, so cute.  Here's a monkey out of her cage!

And everyone was tired after a long day of walking and talking so Ty got a ride to the car.

The kids each got a lollipop when they got to the car but as you can see, some of us were too tired to even eat it. Fun family day, we plan to go back many times!

Stagecoach, Oh my!

This pictures gives you a slight idea of the number of people and the outfits they sported at Stagecoach.  If you've never heard of Stagecoach, it's a 3 day concert in Palm Springs and a wild time!  If only I were tan enough and had the bod to walk around in my bikini! :)  There's always next year.

The first day of crazy.  We got there around 5 and found Shauna and Lauren's friends.  After dropping our blankets, grabbing some beer and people watching, we got out to watch and listen to some awesome concerts.

Shauna, Lauren and I.

My girl Misty.  Her and Shauna have been friends since childhood and I met her many moons back when I met Shauna.  We traveled Europe together and she's a wonderful, fun friend.  Just wish we got to see each other more.

Day two.  Lauren and I got crazy and wore skirts. :)

These are pictures we took in the cool room.  It was 97 degrees out there and too hot to do much other than hang out in the cool room and drink too much. :)

At one point, we ventured out to do some shopping and silliness.

Shauna got a hat!

Oh no, maybe too many drinks in the cool room. :)

We decided early on that we needed to get pictures with some of the naked people walking around, so here's a group.  Misty and Lauren went off later and got some great pics with some crazies, including some guys dressed up as red cups, loved it!

Here's our spot on day two.  Lots of people every day.

The end of the fun.  Shauna and I had to leave the next day, as well as Misty, but Lauren hung in there and made it back for day three.  What a fun girls weekend.  It's been a month since we went and at the time, I said I didn't need to go back next year.  But I'm already thinking I'm signing up again! :)

Baaaaaad to the Bone

So I bought a groupon for 1 hour at a shooting range.  I've always wanted to try it out and when the deal came across my computer for $10, I couldn't pass it up.  But the whole experience went south quickly.  It started when we drove out to the place and it ended up being deep in El Cajon, over 30 minutes from our house, in a very remote part of town (borderline sketchy).  Then, as we stepped out of the car, we heard loud gun shots and I almost dropped to the floor.  That's what they do in movies and I guess it must be an automatic response because I don't think I even had time to process the thought and I was halfway down to the ground.  It turns out they have a shot gun area outside, hence the loud shots.  Anyway, we survived the walk from the parking lot and as soon as we got in the shop, they handed us a long book with a quiz at the end, along with the instructions to thoroughly read through the book and take the test.  This worried me a bit and since I take tests seriously, I opened to the front page and started reading.  Garrett, on the other hand, turned to the back page and started reading the quiz and trying to answer the questions, flipping through the book when needed.  I was appalled, clearly we need to know every ounce of this book to be safe!  We're handling a weapon for goodness sakes!  Anyway, 10 minutes later we made it though the reading and passed the quiz and we're given a bin with a box of amo, 4 targets and a large hand gun.  He told us to go to booth 4 and we'd find our ear and eye protection.  As we walked out to the shooting range, there was a large sing that said ear and eye protection mandatory beyond this point.  I knew this since I read the book from cover to cover.  How could we get to the booth to get our protection if we're to have it on to enter our booth?  Anyway, long story short, it was in our bin and we got our protection on and ready to fire.  I was really disturbed that we were in a room with many booths and many people holding large hand guns and shot guns.  Even a small child was shooting.  What kept him from being distracted and turning his weapon on me?!  I was not a fan so far but we got organized, Garrett loaded the gun and I did it.  I fired the weapon.  I actually hit the bulls eye on the first shot!  But never found it again, and completely hated the whole experience. 

I put this mean face on for show but I have no plans in ever returning to this or any other shooting range.  Just not for me.  It was freezing in this room and the man next to me was using a shot gun and blew his target to smithereens!  Freaked me out!  I won't do this again but if for some crazy reason I find myself back at a shooting range, I hope to have a private room with no children or wild shot guns!

Garrett had a hay day though, loved it! 

He looks like an Italian Mafia member here.  Must be in the blood. :)

Camping at Doheny

Camping!  And not only were we excited about camping, we were excited about camping at Doheny.  This is the camp ground that my parents and I would come to at least once a year for years when I was a kid.  I brought many different friends with me, but mostly Leanne.  And we enjoyed every minute of it.  And it was a walk down memory lane driving into Doheny, I had definitely missed it.  We had site 90, a small one, so I was worried about how we were going to fit.  But we got the little tent you see above in the corner for Lee and Isaac and we were able to fit our tent over in the other corner and everything worked out.  We got set up and Grandma came down to check out our spot and enjoy dinner and smores with us. 

Smores are everyone's favorite part of course!

Yum!

After smores, since the kids were wide awake, we all bundled up and took a blanket out to the beach to look at the stars.  Tatum had brought Zane, a zebra puppet from preschool, who came out to enjoy the stars with us.  But after this cute picture and about 1 minute of looking at stars, we decided it was way too cold.

The next morning Lee and Isaac arrived and after unloading, we headed out to the beach.  Too bad the sun didn't want to come out all day!

While we were walking around the camp ground that morning, we met two nice boys, 3 and 5.  Trip and Brody enjoyed us so after meeting their parents, Angie and Phil, we all hung out on the beach together and the boys enjoyed running from the waves.

Ty had no interest in the water, just enjoyed using the sand toys safely next to our beach chairs. :)

Tatum and Brody enjoyed playing Frisbee...

While Ty and Trip played some sand tennis!

That evening the Miller's and the Jazayeri's came to enjoy the beach with us, I love Mattie's face in this shot!

We told the kids they could just get their feet wet.  Ty was happy standing back and watching from a distance.

But these three enjoyed holding their clothes up and getting hit with the freezing waves.  I love this picture, friends forever just like their mom's. :)  And after this, we all headed back to the site for dinner.  Our site was right next to a path that went out to the beach which was great for riding bikes.  Some other kids near our site also came over and we had quite a riding frenzy.  It was nice that it was so close to our site and we could enjoy adult talk and drinks while the kids played with friends.

The boys were up early the next morning so in attempt to keep them from waking up the entire camp ground, they enjoyed playing Mobygo around the camp fire. :)

This sleepy head stayed in bed late!  Well, late for camping which was like 8:00 am!  Breakfast in bed.

After we stopped at Grandma's for a warm shower, we headed off to Mattie's 5th birthday party.  It was an Arial themed party and Jenny and Sadri did a wonderful job decorating the house.  And look at the beautiful birthday girl!

We enjoyed hanging with Sierra and Laura again while making necklaces.

Then we headed outside for a picnic with Mattie's preschool friend and cousin. 

Then a surprise guest arrived!  Arial!!!!  And in her fin no less! 

She carefully hopped to a blanket in the living room and taught the kids how to flip their fins, sing songs, dance and also read a story.

The kids loved it!

Then we headed back to the camp ground where Leanne's mom and step dad as well as Grandma, Jane and Barbara joined us for a wine tasting and dinner.  The kids enjoyed the ramp Trip and Brody brought.

Even Tatum tried it out!  What a wonderful camping weekend at Doheny.  I'd really missed this place, we'll definitely be making this a family tradition as well.