Happy Easter!!

We had a wonderful Easter celebration this year. We headed up to Irvine on Friday and started the festivities by decorating eggs. Ty loved it but I wonder if they make a less staining egg dye. I'll be finding that one next year.

Tatum loved the dying, and loved mixing the colors and making up her own.

Ty loved the stickers the best.

What a pretty color Tatum! She called this aqua marine. :)

Saturday we headed down to the Greentree pool for a delicious pancake breakfast before the neighborhood egg hunt. Yum!

Leanne and Isaac came to join us in the hunt.

Ty could barely wait to grab the eggs. He started crying just before they allowed the kids to run in. The suspense was killing him!

But when he got in there, he loved running around and grabbing as many eggs as he could get his hands on.

And Tatum did a pretty good job gathering eggs too.

She even found an egg with the special business card in it! This meant she got to pick a prize from the basket, a stuffed animal of course. ;)

Here's an attempt at a family photo, Ty wasn't too into it. He wanted to hunt for more eggs.

Easter morning Mom and I attended sun rise service and wow, was it packed! We thought just a few people would show but tons of lawn chairs, warm blankets and kids. Lots of fun and very uplifting. What a blessed event. Too bad the weather was over cast. :(

When we got home, both kids were up and couldn't wait to see what the Easter bunny brought! Ty wasn't too sure what all the excitement was about but he loved the basket full of goodies that was left outside!

He also loved a repeat of the egg hunt! He found one! :)

Tatum was nice to let Ty find a few but she was pretty quick and filled her basket up fast.

For some reason, when I'm uploading my pics to the blog, it's putting them out of order. This picture is later in the day when we headed to Arcadia to enjoy Easter dinner with Shauna and the rest of her wonderful family. So sweet of them to include us in their festivities. They put on an egg hunt as well, the third hunt for Ty, he loved it!

Thanks Easter bunny!!

And of course Patti is too sweet to these little kids. They got lots of goodies and treats from the Beaston's and some very cute duds including new bathing suits from Shauna!

Then Caty took Tatum out back to practice pitching with her new ball and mitt she got from the Easter bunny. What a great throw! Thanks Caty! It's best to get lessons from a pro!

All the sisters. From left, Toni, Amber, Tatum, Caty, Ty, me and Shauna.

San Diego Space Museum

My girlfriend Kelly called me asking if we'd like to join her to visit the Reuben H. Fleet Space center in Balboa Park on the free Tuesday of the month they offer for San Diego residents. I use to go to the Space center regularly with my parents when I was younger, knew it inside and out. But I hadn't been in a very long time and the kids had never been so we thought it would be a wonderful activity for one of the first days of Tatum's spring break. There's a section for younger children so we spent most of our time in there. Ty loved all the gadgets.

And one of his favorite things in life is driving. Driving cars, trains, boats, you name it. Anything with a steering wheel, he loves it. :)

Here's Ty and Keira playing together. Keira's about 6 mo. older but the two get along great and really enjoy playing together.

They have an older kid section downstairs and all of the exhibits were a bit over our heads. Except this shadow light section, so fun!

Then we hit the park down the road and here's Ty needing some rescue. :)

The park has lots of these large animal statues, Ty loves it. Here he was slaying the dinosaur with his stick sword. I wish I could say the day was a complete success but shortly after rest that day, Tatum's eye starting looking red. I figured it was pink eye so we tried to be careful the rest of the day and yep, when she woke up with her eye crusted shut the next morning, we were off to the Dr. for a week of drops. It kind of put a damper on the rest of her spring break since we didn't want leave the house. But luckily, I was a cleaning crazy lady and no one else got pink eye! Amazing, that stuff is so contagious!

A final farewell

We took Uncle Tom's remains down to Fort Rosecrans cemetery on April 11. He's got the top spot in his column. Uncle Tom would be happy to know he's on top. :) ( I had to get that in there since we all know Uncle Tom would have said it himself if he were here)

This is the view from his resting place, the harbor and the San Diego sky line. Such a beautiful view. We plan on returning with some wine to see the completed plaque and will have a toast to Uncle Tom, we miss him greatly.

A Sunny San Diego weekend

Our wonderful sunny weekend started with a trip back to the Welk Resort in Escondido. Garrett's family had to cut out a day early on their timeshare so they offered it to us for Friday night! Leanne came down to visit and Shauna joined us too, so much fun!

Here's Ty attempting to blow bubbles in the pool with Shauna.

Enjoying the wonderful weather and warm pool.

The best part in my eyes was the water slide! I hadn't been on a water slide for years and sadly, Tatum was too small to join us. But that didn't stop the adults! Here's Shauna showing her perfect form from many days of attending water parks. :)

Garrett with his too cool for school up right...

Lee gracefully rounding the bend...

and crazy lady Joy out of control. So much fun!

Ty loved it and didn't nap once all day!

Later that night the ladies hit the town to enjoy some wine and appetizers at a wine bar in Escondido. We were excited to also check out Stone Brewery but after driving around for 45 minutes and getting lost, we gave up. Still had lots of fun though!

After saying good bye to our beautiful getaway resort, Leanne and I stopped at a nursery and picked up some plants to spruce up the front of the house. Here's my favorite planting move. Really getting in there. :)

Leanne and Garrett weren't foolin' around. Those weeds better watch out!

Tatum loved planting and did a great job showing us where she thought the plants should go and then helping to break up the bottom of the plant to ready it for planting. She's already an excellent gardener.

And here's the finished product. I think it'll look great as it grows in.

Sunday we headed back to Bernardo Winery for live jazz music, appetizers that we brought from home, and delicious wine. There's a large field out in back where we spread out a few blankets, set up a table we found for our appetizers and let the kids run and play.

Shauna brought her fancy camera and took some great pictures. Here's our little busy body with his beautiful blue eyes.

Tatum with her fairy Godmother. :)

And the group. What a fun time and a beautiful place!

Look at this little model. She loved the camera and posing for Shauna.

So many interesting corners at this place. It's a photographer's dream.

Jack, Ty and Tatum showing off the old wagons.

We'll definitely be making this a frequent activity all summer long since the concerts continue through November!

JW Tumbles

We bought a groupon for JW Tumbles, a fun place with lots for kids. Such as the trampoline, balloons,...

slides, blocks, climbing items,...

and lots of fun ride on toys. Here's Collin, Ty's friend and our neighbor, who joined us for the fun.

The groupon was for 10 play times so we used 2 and can't wait to go back.

We also got 3 classes in the groupon so here's Ty enjoying the wigglers class in Rancho Bernardo. His teacher, Mark, was wonderful. So gentle with the kids and had them doing all sorts of things like gripping onto this round tube. He would rock it from side to side and the kids would use their side and stomach muscles to stay upright. Ty loved it.

Jack and Erica joined us for the class as well but Jack didn't care for the exercise quite as much as Ty had. :)

Ty loved all the places to play and crawl through and hide.

And he loved these hanging bags that the kids ran through and ran into. :)

Both boys loved the swings the most, especially this double swing. We'll definitely be heading back for this class.