Second Day in San Diego

The second day we were in San Diego the kids woke up with some sorta of Pink eye stuff. It wasn't classic pink eye, but it was in the same family. Phoebe was also having symptoms of an ear infections! Oh boy. My sister in law always told me that kids always get sick on vacations, but this? Man we were getting hit hard! Charlotte and I had manicure and pedicures scheduled for that morning and we had to get started on the wedding cake. So my wonderful husband and mother took all three kids to the emergency room in San Diego while I got pampered and then made a cake. Part of me felt bad, I know that isn't what anyone wants to do on vacations. I know they were both tired from being up all night with sick kids, but I sure enjoyed having a day kid free! And my toes looked great. After we got primped I was dropped off at my oldest brother, Rich's house. He does catering so he had everything I needed. I spent the next seven hours baking and icing the wedding cake.

Rich left home when I was six years old, and up until now we had never gotten to know each other. It was such a great experience to get to know him and find out a lot of things we have in common. He was my side kick in making the cake. Thanks Rich for the help. After it was done it was back to the hotel too see my kiddos for the first time all day. We got them to bed and then started to pack for the early morning departure to Catalina Island!

Cousin Corbin!

There are two men in my life that I have know never to loose at games. Board games, video games and computer games. My wonderful, handsome husband and my big brother James. So what do I do? I put them together to challenge there mad skills to a wii tennis game. I think that was the most intense game I have ever watched. It took forever! The kept getting deuce! Every time we thought one would finally take the win, the other would come back. It was a blast. At the last second Jake lost. That is okay, I still love him. He will always be my knight in shinning armor!

The kids loved that they finally got to meet there cousin Corbin. The also like having toys again. The played great for being so tired and off schedule. I really think Corbin liked them. He would say "cousins" whenever he wanted them. That kid is just so laid back and darling! I am so glad the got the chance to spend time with him.

Cousin Corbin has a small turtle, it was fun to see the kids react so scared of the small turtle after seeing a huge land tortoise! Uncle Eric was happy to take it out and let them touch it!

Bella was also very thrilled to get to see her youngest grand baby. I wish we could have spent more time over there. But we had a wedding to get too!

San Deigo part two!

The kids liked visiting Charlottes boat. We also let them eat at In-N-Out burger. Jake was thrilled to get some meat! (ChadMichael is a vegan, poor Jake!) The kids had no interest in eating the burgers, just the fries and lemonade. After we ate we headed to Cousin Corbin's house!

San Deigo!

As many of you know, my kids love pirates. They love dressing up like them, talking like them, and playing like them. When they found out that Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Eric live on a sail boat, they knew they were real pirates. They were so excited when we took them to see where they lived. It was great! Kimball fell in love with chasing every seagull he could find. He would just laugh and try so hard to catch them. It was so fun to see him enjoying himself so fully!Going on the boat was a grand adventure. It is a very small boat for all of us, but we squeezed in. The loved it. They liked looking at everything and "driving" the boat. We even got lucky enough to see a sea lion and three seals! The kids were in heaven. Warren has always been my little fish and he just did not want to leave the boat. His new favorite word it "boat". Everything we talked about was boat this and boat that!

The rest of LA

I figure that I better get the rest of our LA visit posted. I know it is impossible to write every little thing we did, because we did so much. We got to see some of the windows ChadMichael designed, we got to see Mito at work. We got to see a movie being filmed, and the best of all, just playing at Uncle ChadMichaels house. His house is a wonderland. It is full of mannequins, and props and animals ands plants. It was so much fun! That you so much ChadMichael and Mito for letting crash your place. (Oh and we even got to take Warren to Ceder Sinai Hospital Emergency Room for an ear infections!) Here are some photos of some of the big places we went:

I have had a childhood dream to go to the American Girl Place. I have brainwashed.. I mean introduced Phoebe to them, so we got to go to the store in LA. It was a dream come true. It is such a fun store. I wish I had more time to look at every little detail. Phoebe was allowed to pick out a doll of her choice. She didn't pick a Character doll like I thought, but a Just like you doll. We helped her pick out the one that looks the most like her. She named her Spring. She picked this name because she has a cousin named Autumn. I thought that was really sweet. Phoebe also asked me to make her doll some clothes! I am already getting one that. I think I have as much fun with the doll as Phoebe! I know I am a geek!

We also hit Le Brea Tar Pits. This place is just so stinking cool! You are in the middle of the city and then you get to walk into this prehistoric tar pit! The kids didn't think it was as neat as Jake and I did, but give them time. I like how tar pits just pop up where ever they feel like it. We saw a couple small ones that haven't had fences put around them yet. Being the scrapbooker that I am I had to have some. I dipped a piece of paper in it and took a sample back home with me. It really is tar! I don't know why that surprised me, but it did. I guess I am easy to please! We arrived early Saturday morning at Uncle ChadMichaels house and left early Wednesday morning, and drove down to San Diego!

Old Zoo

One of my favorite spots we visited in Los Angeles was the Old Zoo. This place is amazing! It reminded me of the old Donald Duck cartoons, the ones when he goes to the zoo and the animals pace back and forth in these tiny cages. They don’t even have a natural environment. Just black metal bars. This zoo looks like it. It has become a public park. But, if you didn’t know about it you wouldn’t know it was there. It is tucked up in the hills of Griffith Park. The City has now added BBQ pits and picnic tables, but the real fun is when you get down and dirty! If you just follow the side walk you don’t find the real treasure, but if you start climbing and following the unbeaten path you will find ways to get INTO the cages! They are amazing. Cut out of stone, and extremely tiny. I really can’t believe animals lived like that. It is amazing how humans can be so stupid. Some of the wood buildings have gone but the foundations are still there. We found the old Zoo Keepers house, the chimney was still there. I think we found the old aviary. I wish they would label every thing. One of the sad things about it, is that is disappearing before our eyes. Some of the cages are half buried in the sand. The hill it is built on is changing and in the process is killing this wonderful site! Sometimes I wish I had so much money that I could spend whatever it takes to restore this place. My brother had a really great idea too, how spooky would it be to create a spook house there every Halloween? Needless to say, I loved it!

Our California Vacation!

We are finally back! We arrived early Monday morning and I am glad to be back. It was so much fun, but a lot of work, on top of having mono, I am glad to be home and able just to take it easy. I am going to try to include everything we did. I will start with my brothers house.

Los Angles

We drove straight thought the night to arrive at my brothers house. It was great to see him. The kids loved finally getting to meet his pets. He has a few fun ones.

ChadMichael has three pets, the first is the third largest land tortoise. His name is Lortus. The kids loved him. He is big enough and strong enough that Phoebe and Kimball could both sit on him and he could stand straight up. It was great! I had no clue they liked banana peels. The second pet is Harley, a standard American poodle. He was the coolest dog. He was so well behaved. Warren was in love with him. Warren could also look him straight in eyes. I really like the photo I posted with Kimball playing dress up. There are just some photos that need to be on cards, and to me, that is one of them. The last pet is a parrot, named Elfaba. She use to belong to my grandpa. I remember her in our life sense I was six. ChadMichael has now inherited her. She is a little mean, but the kids loved to make her talk.

While at ChadMichael's house we went to Griffith park. It is like Central Park, but in L.A. We first went to Travel Town. It is a museum of trains that you can let your kids climb into. Talk about every boys dream! Kimball and Warren were in Heaven.

Okay, I need to get on dinner, so I need to finish the rest of the trip later.

I love Fall!

Don't these photo make you feel the complete definition of "Fall". I love it. I love that Jake was out there doing this chore without being asked, then let the kids play and he even played with them. I love this man.

Compute this!

Have you ever seen your computer die? I have. It isn't pretty. I was told that I lost everything! I haven't backed up my photos sense June! I bawled!! It was awful. I lost all my ABBA music! The world was going to end. But then one of our wonderful friends came over and did dome fancy stuff and was able to retrieve all my data off the dead computer and saved it to Jake's laptop. What a wonderful blessing! Today I will be backing up EVERYTHING! I will not have to learn this lesson again.

Are you a Good Witch?

Or a bad Witch? I finally am getting around to posting the finale picture from Halloween! I finished all the costumes!! I had to get creative with Jake's but it worked. People were stopping us in the street to take pictures of us. I couldn't believe it. I felt ridiculous in my costume, but I think it was worth it for the family.