Damn, does that last entry say May 18?!?

Been busy busy busy these last few months, I guess. Lol. Let’s see…went to San Diego/Anaheim over Memorial Day weekend, celebrated my cousin Lisa’s graduation from SDSU, took the kids to Legoland then Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland. The kids’ first time, and they LOVED it. I guess that’s going to be our vacation destination from now on…well, when we go to SoCal, that is.

After our SoCal vacation, we came home so Dillon could finish out the school year, then it was off to Vegas…where we got married.  Yep, finally did it.  I was chatting with a friend and he asked why we weren’t married, and I explained that I didn’t think it was necessary, since there was really no benefit to being married.  We argued for a while, then he told me to look up the tax benefits.  Sure enough, we’ve been missing out all these years, lol.  So I decided since we were going to Vegas anyway for my sister’s high school graduation, and (some of) my family was going to be there, we might as well do it while we’re there.  The kids were the happiest, I think. The family members that weren’t there, and weren’t notified, were NOT happy. 

Hmmm…let’s see what else.  I don’t think anything big since then.  My car passed 100k miles, lol.  Had a mini family reunion in Monterey. Alexandra started a new ballet school. We’ve been doing the normal daily stuff, but I’m trying to do more outdoors-y stuff with the kids.  We went to Point Lobos a few weeks ago, they had a good time there.  Been spending more time at GG Park.  Spent a day at Gilroy Gardens.  Celebrated Jasmine’s Sweet 16th at Seacliff Beach on a cold ass day.  Oh, got a new iPhone 3gs, but I didn’t want to…yet.  HBY made me   Been shopping, of course.  I buy things faster than I can take them out of the bags at home.  I’m now debating between a 17″ Macbook Pro or an iMac.  Actually, I’m really still debating if I should make the switch to Mac at all, I have a hard time thinking I’ll be one of “those Mac users”…

That’s been our summer in a nutshell.  I didn’t get to bring the kids to Hawaii this summer like I wanted…I can’t use a Delta buddy pass on a Northwest flight until 2010, and I dont want to risk getting stranded at SLC or LAX alone with the kids, so we may go in October, or we’ll just push it back until next summer.  Hopefully October, though.

Still on our to-do/visit-in-the-near-future list:

• Ferry ride to and picnic on Angel Island
• Explore Point Reyes (specifically “Dillon” Beach, lol)
• Santa Cruz Boardwalk (I can’t believe I haven’t gone all summer!)
• Great America
• Coit Tower

Dillon goes back to school on Aug. 24…wonder if I can get all that in before then? I also have two birthday parties…oh, AND  a stamp day!! I REALLY can’t believe I haven’t had a stamp/scrap day at all this year.  That’s just crazy, lol.  Scrapbook Expo coming up this week…I may go down on Friday, but I’ll have the kids, so I don’t know if I should do that to myself…

Our long-term to-do/visit list:

• Explore Big Sur
• Hike the Pinnacles (although I’m not sure if Babygirl’s big enough for the caves, which is really why I want to go)
• Visit the Giant Redwoods
• Yosemite (but not to camp)
• Dillon wants to visit Mt. Rushmore…I don’t even know where that is
• Grand Canyon

I hope to get to do all of that by the end of next summer, although Mt. Rushmore is iffy..

Okay, I think I’m current now.  I’m sure once the school year starts and we’re back to a normal routine on a normal schedule I’ll update more often.  I think I’ll start a new Project 365 on Aug. 24.  Lol.

It’s Official!

Officially funny looking now!

My Son The Photographer…

When we were down at Roaring Camp Railroad for Chubby’s birthday party, I gave Dillon my little 880is and let him loose (after I wrapped the strap securely around his wrist).  First, on the train ride and then pack at the picnic site.  These were the photos he came back with…

He had such a good time running around snapping pictures all day that I decided I’d get him his own little camera.  I gave him my Canon S400 a while ago, the first digital camera I ever owned.  But I felt like it was time for a new one (plus, I’ve been on a total shopping spree these past several weeks – that really has to stop!).  So I thought I’d get him the Canon A470, cute little inexpensive camera.  But I decided to stop by Sears today to look at a toaster oven that Hby’s been wanting for a while and found myself in the digital camera section.  I ended up getting him the Olympus 850SW, it was on clearance for only $104…I couldn’t pass it up.  Waterproof/shockproof – perfect for my little boy…

No Training Wheels

They really encourage bad habits.  I’m sure I learned with training wheels, but I’ve always accepted the logic that with training wheels the kids come to rely on them and don’t have a sense of their own balance.  Plus, I’m not that comfortable on a bike anyway.   I like to be close to the ground, so rollerblades are my wheels of choice

I took Dillon back to Aptos Park yesterday after school.  Hby was there too, still whining about the training wheels until I could have killed him.  Am I too strict?  No, I don’t think so.  Anyway, the point is moot…Dillon took off on his own after about 15 minutes.  Only his second time out.  I push him hard, maybe a little too hard, but his sense of accomplishment is so much greater in the end. 

And okay, I cheated…I owe it all to Pedal Magic! Lol. Seriously, the first day I took him without watching the video.  Wasted my time.  Dillon didn’t understand because I wasn’t explaining the right way.  How can you really explain it anyway?  Then I remembered that my aunt had given me a copy of Pedal Magic a while ago (probably 2 years ago), so I came home and hunted for that damn disc.  Dillon and I watched it Tuesday night, and we were both psyched to try it out on Wednesday.  Well, it’s BRILLIANT!  The video is geared more towards teaching the teacher how to train the rider.  Supposedly it works in 5 minutes or less.  Took Dillon a little longer, but I attribute that to all the “bad teaching” he got on Sunday  

I just realized that last part sounds totally like a commercial, lol.  But it’s totally true…now for the girl…

Dillon’s 6th Birthday Celebrations

We took Dillon to Discovery Kingdom on the Saturday before his birthday.  And, like we always do, we dress up the kids in their costumes since they have the Halloween thing going on at the park. 

Bumblebee, Harry Potter and Snow White

It was pretty lame though, they only had a few trick-or-treating stations and all they gave were mini Milky Way bars.  Gross.

The kids had fun though.  Joshua came, so Dillon had a ride buddy.  Joshua didn’t like the roller-coaster though, and that’s the only ride Dillon really likes, so maybe I have to look for a new buddy for him.  Well, when his sister gets big enough, then she’ll be his buddy, she loves those rides.  They got to go up onstage take pictures with the tazmanian devil. 

At the end of the day when we were heading out of the park, I guess they were gearing up for Fright Night (which I would have loved to stay for if I didn’t have the kids), so there were zombies and monsters and guys with chainsaws running around chasing all these screaming people (girls, mostly, lol).  I was pushing the double stroller with Alex and Katana inside so I had to run past before they scared them.  Honestly – couldnt they wait until all the small kids were gone?  There was one little kid, I guess got freaked out by all the commotion and was crying kind of hysterically, clinging to his mom and there was a zombie/monster guy headed towards him.  The mom looked him in the monster in the eye really mean and said “DON’T YOU DO IT!”  Hahahaha.

Anyway, afterwards we went back to Donna’s house to hang out, have cake, open presents.  THEN! Donna busted out the alcohol.  She made me a mixture of Ketel One Citroen and Odwalla Pomegranate Limeade.  Oh my god.  I didn’t realize until about the 5th drink that she was making it about 90% alcohol and just a splash of the juice.  It was SO GOOD! I couldn’t believe that little juice could mask all that vodka.  Crazy ass.  Well, yeah, I got drunk.  Luckily we stayed long enough for it to wear off a little before we drove home otherwise I would have thrown up.  I’ve come to realize that I can’t drink like I used to…yep, it’s taken me this long…

For Dillon’s actual birthday, we did a celebration in his classroom.  He shares his birthday with another classmate, a Russian one, and his mom and I decided to do a culturally themed celebration.  She brought in some of her son’s favorite Russian snacks and I brought Dillon’s favorite Chinese little egg custart tarts.  Nasty things, Dillon would eat those all day if he could.  So the kids got to celebrate, learn a little about the birthday boys and learn a little about different cultures also.  Pretty cool…

After school, since it was early dismissal that day, we took the kids to the Academy of Sciences.  I couldn’t believe it was still so crowded on a Monday at 1 in the afternoon! 

We got to see almost everything, except for the rainforest.  We got the membership though, so we’ll definitely see it next time.  We were lucky enough to catch the last Planetarium show.  It was cool…but…I fell asleep.  I couldn’t help it.  The AC was blasting and Alex was sitting on my lap because she was scared, so she was keeping me too warm, with the cold air and the darkness, I didn’t even know I fell asleep until HBY smacked my arm.  Oh well, I’m sure we’ll watch that again too. 

After that, I wanted to go to J-town for dinner,

and of course HBY convinced Dillon that he wanted to eat at Benihana for dinner.  lol, HBY is still in love with their fried rice.  I don’t mind, and the kids LOVED it.

 

We told them it was Dillon’s birthday, but I had to leave before them to get the crepes (which was why I wanted to go to Jtown in the first place), so I missed that whole celebration AND the picture!!! 

 

Oh well, needless to say it was a long day for Dillon, he fell asleep in the car on the way home…

 

::Except for the Tazmanian Devil picture, all of the photos were taken with my iPhone, then “massaged” in Adobe Lightroom.  I LOVE that Software!!

and THIS is why they creep me out…

Seriously, they are so gross.

We went back to the park to finally bring the kids to the Butterfly Zone at the conservatory. I packed lunch and we had a little picnic on the grass out front before we went in. Afterwards we went inside. I’ve never been there before, and I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was HOT and HUMID inside. Okay, makes sense, it’s a greenhouse. And when we went into a side room it got even worse! THEN! We get to the Butterfly Zone. A few years ago, the Bellagio had a butterfly display in their atrium that was basically netting from the floor to the ceiling with a bunch of butterflies flying around inside. Kind of like this, but gigantic.So I pretty much expected that sort of thing, but NO. It was a room with a bunch of plants and displays and the butterflies were just flying freely around. Like – LANDING on people. Oh my god. AND it was crazy hot and humid, I was sweating just standing around. Dillon was determined to hold one, I saw some kids with 5 or 6 on their hands. Eww. So Dillon finally caught one, I didn’t get a good picture of it because I was trying to hurry before it flew away. And then I saw it. It was so huge and nasty looking all I could do was stand there and go – eww, oh my god. There were two hidden in this plant, so I felt kind of safe, they weren’t going to just leap out at me, I would have screamed I swear. But then there was this old lady and after I pointed it out, she got the butterfly to sit on an outer leaf of the plant, all spread out like this (I wonder if she touched it, eww).Then, on my way out, I saw another one sitting on a plant by the doorway, so I told Dillon to put his hand next to it so I could show the relative size of it (haha, yeah, I’m a chicken). I swear if those things were flying around landing on me it would be my worst nightmare come true…

First attempt to go to the Conservatory of Flowers…

HBY had a couple of free days, so we decided to spend a day at Golden Gate Park, and I figured it would be a good time to bring the kids to the Conservatory to that Butterfly Zone. I’ve only been trying to bring them since March. So we went Monday right after we had lunch, and OF COURSE the damn place is closed on Mondays, and I should have known that. I had brought paper and pencils/crayons for the kids to draw the sights at the Conservatory, but since it was closed I sat them out front on a bench and had them draw pictures of the gardens. I guess it looked kind of funny, these two small kids with their clipboards and crayons, looking all serious. I saw this asian guy wandering around, taking pictures, talking to his friends, and he kept glancing toward the kids smiling. He came up to us and his first question: “are you guys taiwanese?” uhh, yeah RIGHT. haha. anyway, so then he asks in his backwards broken english if he could take a picture of the kids, and i’m like – uhhh, i guess, why not, right? and then he hands me the camera – i’m all – OHHH, you want me to take a picture of you with them? weird, so they’re drawing with their boards on the bench, backs to me, and he goes and stands next to them while I snap the picture with his camera. HBY was standing next to me, I’m surprised he was cool with that whole thing. Then, since I had my camera ready, I took a picture of him so I could blog about him, haha. Funny tourists…lucky for him I understand the desire to photograph everything I see, otherwise I would have told him HELL no, lol…