I Wanna Go Back

There is an Eddie Money song lyric going through my head this morning. You know the one, "I wanna go back and do it all over, but I can't go back, I know." This is my mantra today. I really do want to go back to Pacific Beach! How can you not want to go back to this?

-or the smiles and giggles from my children as the waves crash around them

Oh yeah,

-or naps in that Lazyboy next to the sliding glass door each day while the ocean treated you to it's cool breezes and sounds? Then you wake up to watch the surfers catch a wave and the dolphins go by each afternoon.

-or the cool sand in your toes, shoes, underware, pockets, you get the idea...

-or watching your slightly workaholic husband let go and enjoy himself with his children instead of being frustrated with them

I bet it's going to be beautiful today in San Diego. It's supposed to be 100 degrees here today and the motor on our ONE YEAR OLD evaporative cooler broke this morning when I went to turn it on to bring in the cool morning air. That means we'll be cranking the AC, which we don't use due to the costs to run it. Ugh! Hopefully the company will get back to me soon! In the meantime, I wanna go back!

San Diego Zoo

Here we are at the zoo. I've never been a big fan of zoos. I have a hard time with them caging up lions, elephants, and such up for us to see up close. Then I saw this!!! It was at this time I decided I just don't like zoos that suck. This one ROCKS!!! The animals have nice enclosures and these elephants get pedicures all the time!!! They scrub their feet every day! Then the other zoo worker put on an extra LOONNNGG glove. Uh-oh, I know what that means! Poor girl!


Hello! Chris always takes pictures of me when I'm doing some weird face. Gimme the camera! We're taking a tour of the zoo, not taking pictures of me! The kids loved riding around the zoo on the double decker bus. We had great views of the enclosures and it gave us a great layout of the park.

The koala enclosure has about 15 or so koalas in it, but I'll spare you all of the pictures I took. Awww, isn't it cute? I think he has a great idea. I'm going to bed! Good night!

Take me out to the ball game!

Day one of our vacation was in Downtown San Diego. We stayed at a hotel that gave us the ability to walk to our first event. The kids loved staying on the 25th floor and that it had a pool as well. There were many fights over who got to push the elevator buttons and slide the room key. I really thought we were beyond that point, but there is something appealing with calling the elevator by pushing that little button and then guessing which elevator would come first. We did lots of walking, whining, and watching. Watching the birds, the docks, the bums, you know...all that the city has to offer! We headed out Sunday morning ready to take in a Padres game. Chris got us great seats on the 3rd base line and the weather was PERFECT!!!


The kids couldn't wait to buy some gear to wear. I talked them into a $7 hat I found, which if you've been to sporting events most are in the $30 range. Score!

The kids were so excited once we saw the field. There were concessions set up around the ballpark where you could get breakfast, lunch, season tickets, play on mini fields set up for the kids, and take in the excitement of the upcoming game. I had ONE thing I wanted to get before we sat down.

Yup, freshly roasted peanuts and a diet coke. Food was outrageous, but part of the day. Hot dogs, pizza, cotton candy, sugar, you know---the basics!

We had fantastic seats. You could see their faces! We had 2 balls hit right around us, and if Chris hadn't been holding the camcorder he might have gotten one that went into the empty seats in front of us. I kept yelling, "HONEY! It's coming right at us!" Very exciting!

The kids enjoyed watching a real game, and we enjoyed spending a day at a great American pastime. What a way to kick off our vacation! Thanks for planning this Daddy!

Ahhh, vacation

Tap-tap-tap-Um...is this thing on? Hello...how do I do this "back to reality" thing?

Here is a picture of some Meercats(Is that how you spell it? That doesn't look correct) at the San Diego Zoo. Evan had them mesmerized with his yo-yo going up and down. It was hysterical. Up, down, up, down. What strange little creatures!

We're back from our week long vacation in San Diego. We did a lot of fun things, and took a lot of pictures. I've decided there are good and bad things associated with digital cameras. You can take as many pictures as you want and not have to worry about developing bad pictures. But you can also take as many pictures as you want...we took 620. Ugh. That's a lot of pictures to go through! I'm trying to go through the best of them, but we did LOTS of stuff! Now that the kids are out of school, that means serious use of our 3G Internet, which means I won't be able to post as often as I'd like, but I'll try to put in a couple of pictures every day.

I'll give an overview of our trip on this one. First, let me say, my husband rocks at planning vacations. He's been holding out on me all these years! We started with our 91/2 hour drive on Saturday morning all the way into the city of San Diego. We stayed on the 25th floor of the Sheraton. We did a lot of walking, went to a Padre's game, went to the zoo, and went through an earthquake. I went through a pretty bad earthquake years back at my grandparent's house when we were visiting them in Los Angeles, but never have I been in one where I was 25 stories off the ground. Can I just say HOLY CRAP!!! The building swayed past the point where the earthquake ended. We were all sound asleep when it hit. Once it was over Chris decided he needed to pack up his things. He just kept saying, "Where is my stuff?" I think he was still slightly asleep. It REALLY freaked him out. It took about 30 minutes to calm the kids down and go back to sleep. NOT fun! After 3 days there we headed north towards Pacific Beach, which is just above Mission Beach. We did an unplanned trip to Sea World and got lucky with a 2 bedroom condo that was equipped with beach toys, chairs, and a boogie board. The rest of the trip we were beach bums, and decided the city life wasn't for us. That was easy to decide since the condo was right on the beach and had sliding glass doors in every direction opening to the ocean. Can you say free upgrade? We really lucked out! I think we'll be going back there next year. Seriously. It was that enjoyable and relaxing. Not a computer, cell phone, or Starbucks in sight. Well, I found the Starbucks next to the grocery store when we were stocking up but it was out of sight for the most part! Now I'm having a hard time coming back to reality and having my husband not be around all the time again. After 10 days of him being here I don't want him to go back to work! We did come back to mild weather, still, and LOTS of weeds so I guess I know what I'm going to be doing this week!

Funny story before the field trip post

I thought I got us lost on the way to the field trip. Not a great moment when you're 1 1/2 hours in the hills. I went a short cut through the back roads. How bad can the roads be? Um, they got really narrow, washboard dirt roads for about 15 or 20 miles, and I had 3 little girls in the back seat squealing, "YOU GOT US LOST!" I just kept going, hoping we'd get there sooner or later. I almost cried when we got to a sign that said only 5 more miles. Then we got there 20 minutes earlier than the people that went the paved way. Sissies...Just kidding! My Prius was COVERED in dust and probably needs an alignment, but what an adventure! We even went across a small wooden bridge over the Yuba River. Very cool! I think I'm going that way next year with Evan and his group. I might pretend I'm lost again. Just adds a little excitement to the mix. It also made the girls thankful when we got there. Hey, I wanted them to feel what it was like back in the old days with a wooden wagon and a hand drawn map, hoping you make it someday! Looking back it was funny. During the time, I was scared I got 3 kids lost on a small rural road that is prone to wash outs and didn't have a good spot to turn around! I think next year I'm taking the truck! On with the field trip posting!

End of the year fun

Well, the end of the school year is tomorrow. One more field trip is scheduled for Amanda to the ice skating rink and she's not that happy about it. She's nervous about ice skating in front of her friends. Last week I went with the 4th graders to Malikoff Diggins to learn about the town of Humbug and the mining that went on there. I was in charge of the candle dipping. There was a certain technique involved. Don't dip it too long or the wax will remelt off the wick, walk around the tree for the wax to set before your next dip, and try not to get smoked out by the fire! We had 45 kids go through in different groups and they all got some great candles! I think this will be a project for summer. It was pretty fun! I was also in charge of the Drug Store tour. What a cool place! They had all original bottles of old remedies, scales, living quarters, pill rollers, and household items. No wonder the life expectancy wasn't that great back then. "Oh here. Take this bottle of Creosote to help with your ailment." The comment on paper I was to read was that they either found out that the drugs didn't do anything, worked too well, were toxic, or are now illegal. Ahh, the good old days!

Here is my pretty girl, begrudgingly dressed up in the period dress I made her. She loved it last year at the Bernhardt museum in 3rd grade. What happened when she went to 4th grade? All of a sudden she's opinionated, is embarrassed by her mother, and rolls her eyes and has fits when she is upset about something. Sigh...She wanted to wear jeans and I told her over my dead body. I made that dress for her to wear and by George she was going to wear it. I'm sure you can hear the words coming out of my mouth, "Do you know how lucky you are that you have a Mom that can sew you a costume? I worked very hard on that dress and made one for me too so we would be authentic. You are WEARING THE DRESS!" Then all day I reminded her that she was one of maybe 3 girls that were actually dressed period correct while the other 75 kids were NOT and didn't make the effort. She'd just roll her eyes.

I know someday I won't be able to push her to do what I want her to do. That day is coming faster than I know, and I miss my little sweet girl. I do, however, enjoy watching my girl grow up into a beautiful, long blond hair, smart, sassy(I don't know where she gets that from), bashful girl that I hope someday will sew costumes for her little girl and smile, remembering back to 4th grade when she didn't want to wear her costume.

Spring goodness

We've been dabbling outside with some planting in between storms this Spring. The weather has moved from not quite as wet to overcast. The sun peaks through on occasion. Can't say I mind the mild weather but the garden doesn't care for it much. It's rather puny!

We made up a couple of little cactus gardens. I'm a nut for cactus but don't want them anywhere that I can't contain them. I just like the mini sized gardens! I remember as a kid rubbing my hands up and down the "smooth" cactus at my grandparent's house when I was a kid. Ugh! I was miserable for a couple of days. I'd lay there and scrub my hands on the carpet to try and get the microscopic pokies out. NEVER did that again!
Here is the beginnings of my new rose garden...in the middle of a weed patch. I had to give up my last rose garden at our old house when we moved so now I'm starting over. These two I got for Mother's Day. I hope to have it grow in size as needed. It's a lot of work to start a fresh patch! I tried to play pathetic so Chris would help but he wasn't buying it.

We've had so much going on these past couple of months and although I want to share it here, our 3G internet doesn't allow for a lot of picture downloads in a month before it goes over the usage limit. With the kids on the computer more it's amazing how fast those megabites disappear. We're going on vacation in a week so I'll sneak some in before we go since we'll not be using the computer while we're gone. The kids are out of school next Thursday so summer is quickly approaching!