Hockey Night

Saturday night we headed into Fresno for a Falcons game! We went with one of Jack's friends from school and his family. We had a great time! Along with enjoying the game, we also had some yummy cotton candy and some silly faces!!!


Early in the game we thought Molly might fall asleep, but there is nothing like a bit of cotton candy to pep a girl up!

Sadly we only stayed to the end of the second period b/c we had to drive all the way home (2.5 hours) and it was late and we were all quite tired. And of course poor Izzy was at home and needed to go out. So back we headed to our little valley.

Monterey Vacation

Over Easter weekend we went to Monterey for a little family R&R. We stayed at Asilomar, which was lovely. It was so much fun. We did all sorts of things, but I think my favorite parts were watching the sunset over the pacific and seeing sea lions in the wild! It was amazing!!! They were just hanging around on the rocks in the bay. Quite a cool sight.

We also went to the Monterey aquarium. It was neat - there were lots of things for he kids to interact with, which they both loved. We all decided that our favorite part of the aquarium was the Jelly Fish exhibit. It was beautiful.

On Sunday we went to the MY (Monterey Youth) museum and let the kids play. It was so much fun. There were costumes to dress up in and a grocery store and a pizzeria, and all sorts of things that the kids could make believe with.

We had super one night at Bubba Gump's and it was so very very yummy! We all ate lots of yummy sea food on our trip!!!

Monday we went to Carmel by the Sea and walked around and looked at all the shops. This was my choice of activity - the kids were good about letting me have my thing since everything else we did was for them. We ate that day at a little pizzeria called Allegro's where the kids got to make their own pizza. They thought that was the best. And Jack commented on the fact that the family next to us was not making their own pizza, by saying "that is sad for them." I think he was right, b/c it was really fun!

We also went to this really cool playground/park called Dennis the Menace Park. We did that on Tuesday, the last day, before we drove home.

On the way home we stopped at this place called Casa de Frut. If any of you have ever driven south on I95 on the North Carolina/South Carolina border, then you know of South of the Border. This place was similar to that, but smaller and much cleaner and nicer! It was hysterical. Everything was Casa de "something". We laughed. It was a wonderful vacation and we are headed back there again sometime!

Happy Birthday to Molly

While we were in Florida Molly had her 4th birthday! She is very happy to be 4 and has told us many times that she is a very big girl. So along with being home we also got to celebrate her birthday numerous times which makes her very happy as she loves to be the center of attention (sadly she gets that trait from both her parents - poor kids don't have a chance) :-) We first celebrated her birthday at Gigi and Boppa's (my grandparents). She got to have a sleepover with them and got to eat ice cream for breakfast (not a bad way to start the day as a 4 year old).

Next we celebrated at Uncle Joe and Aunt Janet's condo on the beach. It was so much fun. The kids spent the day playing in the pool and at the beach and then we had pizza (Molly's fav) and Cinderella cake (that is now 3 years in a row we have had Cinderella cake). But she enjoyed it as always, eating nothing but the frosting (again, apple does not fall far from the mother tree).

We then had a little birthday time at Grandpa Jim and Grandma Judy's. They had a card to give her and it had money in it for her birthday and I said that she loves cards. So Judy handed it to her and Molly said "Oh thanks Grandma, I hope its money". We all laughed so hard.

The next time we celebrated was at Beedi's house with Uncle Dan and Aunt Cindy - the kids are now calling Cindy "Aunt" now that she and Dan are engaged - yipppeeeee (we love you guys!!!) Deb made her delicious doll cakes and a crown cake. It was all so much fun!

We celebrated one more time with Daddy when we got home. Molly got this hysterical talking Barbie head from Aunt Jamie and Uncle Josh. She loves it so much and it makes us laugh really hard - you can sing karaoke with it and she does sing really loud and a bit off key, which makes us giggle.

Thank you all for making Molly's birthday so special. She had such a wonderful time at each party! Molly is always up for a party (unless it's in the morning) :-)

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig...

I know, I know, it has been a ridiculously long time since I have posted anything new. But the weekend after the Snow Ball the kids and I took a trip home to Florida! I found these super low fair flights out of Las Vegas (an 8 hour drive from here) and off we went. Brian was already in Florida at the time for a conference. So our paths crossed for a couple of days - it was fun! So we began our trip with the drive to Vegas which was really cool b/c the scenery changes so drastically from where we live down to the desert. The kids were totally fascinated with looking out the window! We arrived in Vegas around 8:30 at night and Jack immediately declared that "this is the most beautiful place I have ever seen!" I told him it was a god thing we were there at night b/c it is not all that great during the day. We were a bit early for our flight so we drove down the strip to see all the lights and hotels and whatnot. The kids were so funny. Molly said "are we in Paris?" (she saw the Eiffel tower) and then Jack saw the Sphinx and wanted to know if we were in Egypt. It was pretty funny. So then off we went on our red eye flight. We had some good sleeps on the plane and then woke up and headed off to see our dear Beedi waiting for us! The first night we were there we had a delicious and a most favorite thing - low country boil!!! It was a fabulous meal and so much fun to see all out pals! The rest of the trip seemed like a blur. My grandparents and Brian's parents did not know we were coming and so it was fun to surprise them. We spent lots of time hanging out at the pool and seeing our friends. We went to Disney and the Zoo and all in all had a most excellent trip!

The flight home was crazy bumpy. I mean so bad that the captain had to get on the speaker and say "if you are traveling with small children, please hold on to them." I was a mess - thank goodness the kids slept through all of this. We did finally land back in Las Vegas at 11pm and then we got in our car and headed home. Tired and exhausted but thrilled to be back in our little nest in the world. I do love it here and if it weren't for our friends, I would want to stay here forever!