Spring into Nights

10:47 AM Edit This 0 Comments »

Yesterday my girls and I went to Sea world. Right now they are having special night time shows and staying open until 9 pm. The girls LOVE to go to sea world and having a passport (membership card) has been the best money we have ever spent. They never tire of it, and being able to go back whenever we want makes it nice to not have to try to get everything into one visit. Plus they have a lot of special events at holiday times and at different times a year so it is not always the same.


The plan was to eat lunch at home and dinner at sea world. So we left the house about 2pm. The night time stuff is all after 6pm so this gave us some time to mill around and eat dinner before the shows. Ironically 50,000 other people had this same great idea apparently and we had to park in the farthest possible lot, despite trying to get preferred parking with our membership card (apparently that only works when it is not already full). It took us 20 minutes easy to walk from the parking spot to the park.

It was a nice warm day and the girls Love to play in the water play area at the bay of play so we took their bathing suits and spent the first 2 hours playing there. They had money from Easter so they got to spend it which they Love because usually they are told "we are not BUYING ANYTHING!" If it were up to them we would own one of everything the park sells. Next it was off to dinner at our favorite place, the calypso bay smokehouse. They have yummy BBQ chicken and ribs and corn on the cob and dinner rolls and fresh strawberries... we just love it they have something for each of us and everyone gets a full belly which is great. I hate spending money on dinner that the kids refuse to eat.


Next we hit the Sea Lion and Otter show which is always very funny. From there we grabbed a few snacks changed into warmer clothes for the cool night and headed to the Dolphin show. This too was different than usual and had some cool pyrotechnic parts. After the dolphin show we and 10, 000 of our closest friends ran across the park to make the Shamu show in time. I threw Kate in the stroller and told Meghan and Melanie to grab onto my coat so I could feel they were with me and OFF we went! Whew we made it.... and found seats near the top which was OK. After Shamu Rock's there were fireworks and out seats were awesome for the fireworks.

Forty Five minutes later we got to the car and headed home. Katelynn was exhausted having missed her nap. She was mad that I did not want to listen to them watch a movie and instead put on music, BUT as soon as she stopped arguing with me she was asleep. It was a very nice day. The Girls said "This is the best day ever MOM". Funny they have one of those every couple of weeks or so and never seem to remember the last one!

Easter

9:08 AM Edit This 0 Comments »
As luck would have it Andrew has Duty Today Easter Sunday. He was Deployed last year. We really have some great luck with his schedule it seems like he end up working on all the wrong days. So we make the best of the days we do have.

The Girls after the Egg Hunt

I decided we would do our Egg hunt on Saturday and have Easter dinner Sat. Night. Unfortunately Our family who is here had already made other plans so it was just us, and it was OK we had a NICE dinner and enjoyed time together.


Dinner

This morning the Easter Bunny had come and hid Baskets for each of the girls. They were very excited and enjoyed way to much candy way to early in the morning. Luckily they did not get a TON of candy so in a few days it will be gone and we can return to normal!




The Girls with their Baskets

An after noon Outing to "THE HANNAH MONTANA MOVIE"

5:22 PM Edit This 3 Comments »
Andrew got home from work early and Kate was down for a nap so I took Meghan and Melanie to see Hannah Montana at the movie theater. They were so very excited, I may be the Coolest mom ever at least for the rest of today.
Melanie sang her little Heart out to every single song, she even stood up and did the Ho Down Throw Down with the girl in the row in front of us. It was hilarious! She is such a drama queen If she does not end up in some type of preforming arts I will be shocked. She has always been a little singer, and with three years of Ballet under her belt she is getting to be quite the dancer as well. She is totally uninhibited and thrived on the attention of an audience. It is amazing to me. I do not know where she got the nerve I love to sing and am known to do a silly dance for my kids but would NEVER do either if I knew anyone was watching I would be mortified! After the Movie Melanie Dances ALL the way to the car. Meghan say with her hand on her fore-head "MOM... She is SUCH a DORK!". You see Meghan is her sister's polar opposite she too is an artist at heart and is a good singer, and is getting good at piano/keyboard but would never want anyone anywhere (even mom and dad) to see her. She is frequently caught putting on a show for her stuffed animals and immediately hides under the nearest pillow or blanket.
It was a nice afternoon out with my big girls.

What is in YOUR Purse

3:18 PM Edit This 2 Comments »
I have seen this on a couple other Blogs and decided To show you MY purse.


It is a pretty boring Mommy Purse. I do not use a diaper bag and I am really not a fan of purses in general SO this one does double duty for me.

Here is the "bag":



And here is what is IN it:




The contents:
Kate's pants and Undies (incase of accident)
Pull up (in case of 2nd accident)
Wallet
3 Tampons
Dramamine (Meg and Kate get car sick)
Motrin
IPod
headphones
Cell Phone
Gum
Socks (recently took meg and mel Sneaker shopping)
Zoo Membership registration renewal
Pen
Pencil
Wipes

Miss Potty Princess

7:00 PM Edit This 0 Comments »
Katelynn has been holding steady with the potty training. She did AMAZING while camping. I kept her in Pull ups because I was unable to do laundry daily if she had accidents. In the last week she has had 3 accidents that I can remember one was poo and 2 pee while dozing in the car. She has really shocked me after 3 days I was ready to quit we hit bottom on Wednesday of the first week and on Thursday night she started telling us and going on her own. She has been very consistent the last week. Words can not express how happy we are that we will NOT be buying diapers... at least not for a while!
YAY KATE!!!!

Our Family Vacation

8:02 AM Edit This 0 Comments »
We left home around 12:30pm on Monday April 30th and drove 3 .5 hours North East to Yucca Valley, CA. We quickly got to work setting up the tent and the Girls discovered an awesome bush that had a hollow center to play in and instantly had their club house! Andrew then got to work on a fire for dinner and I set up house in the tent. Soon our camp was ready and so was dinner. It was really COLD the first night and by 9:30 we had all snuggled into our beds with as many clothes on and as many blankets as we could find. It was a VERY cold sleep that night but the girls seemed to manage it all very well and slept through the night no problem. Mom and dad spent the night worrying about the little ones!


Tuesday morning we were off to the Joshua Tree National Forrest to see what it held for us. We stopped at the visitor center for a map and found out the girls could do some work and become Jr. Rangers(which the took very seriously) headed in. We were very surprised to see what all there was to do. Lots of rocks to climb, hikes to explore and dirty road that require a 4 wheel drive car to experience. First we stopped at quail crossing because the girls were ready to get out of the car and we had fun finding lizards and climbing the rocks. Then it was on to big rocks which turned out to have a very cool camp ground and Andrew drooled over that while making plans already for the NEXT trip. There was also more climbing fun to be had at Big rocks. Then we headed back to camp for dinner, only to find that it was VERY windy and we struggled to get dinner cooked we then decided to to have a picnic in the tent. Katie was also a bit scared of the wind. After dinner was cleaned up Andrew hooked up the lap top on a power inverter run off a spare car battery and we all snuggled up and watched a movie before bed. Another rough night of sleep ensued at least for mom (dad said he slept better) Kate fussed on and off as the tent was hitting her in the head when the wind blew it. But we made it threw and about 3 am the wind stopped and we slept well for a couple hours.

Wednesday we got up and moving early and went out to see what we could find in the Park. The girls spent the morning working on their Jr. Ranger paperwork so we stpped at the ranger station to hand that in first. We did some more rock exploration and tried to find the trail to Barker Damn which we never did but had fun anyway. Then we wanted to ride on the geology tour road which was one of the 4WD paths. The actual tour part was a bit tame and then we went off the trail on another road which was very fun and rocky and LONG! Andrew was thrilled I had fun and the girls were over it about half way through. Kate said "let's get off this broken road daddy". We ended up stopping for dinner at a KFC on the way home because the trail ended quite a ways from camp and it was already late. Back at camp it was an awesome night the wind was gone the air was cool but not cold and we enjoyed a great camp fire. We had friends at the site who liked the fire and came out to visit us and well kept us on our toes. They looked like a hamster with a long tail that had a puff of fur on the end. Come to find out they are "Kangaroo Rats". Damn things are to fast to photo though!

Thursday was back to the park for a couple of hikes (we finally found the Barker Damn Trail). We saw lots of cool dessert plants (cactus, wild flowers and trees). When we left camp that morning it was starting to get Windy, up in the park for most of the day it was fine but we were at a higher elevation. Then toward the evening it was windy there too. When we arrived back at camp we found our tent broken and the wind was unbelievably strong the whole tent was swaying side to side. Andrew spent at least an hour fixing and tightening up the tent and fixing the broken hooks with string. By this time it was 7 pm and we could not start a fire in the wind it was not safe let alone possible. So off to McDonalds we went. We also decided that if the wind did not die down by the time we got back we'd go to a hotel. We ended up back at camp to pack a bag and off to the Hotel.

Friday Morning we went back to camp amazingly the tent held. We spent 2 hours breaking everything down and packing up. By 11 am we were off to Bakersfield for a visit with My grandfather.

Updating and Procrastinating

10:32 AM Edit This 0 Comments »
I thought I would jump on and update the potty progress. It seems that we may be turning the corner. We have stuck it out and for 6 days now lived life running to the potty every 45 minutes or so. She has twice told us she had to go and twice she just went and did it without telling us. Andrew and I and her sisters have all praised her and hugged and kissed and hooted and hollered and made a huge deal every time. This morning we got the big prize........ POO on the potty Oh yeah! You would have thought we won the lottery and she got a fudge cicle at 10 am and her sisters were jealous. She immediately wanted to call her grandma (my mom) but ahem... they were not home! I said oh Hun grandma is not home right now and she says OK can I call PatPat (my dad) I guess she does not get that they are at the same place. She was OK with we'll call and tell her later.
In addition to the news on the potty training I am on here procrastinating the tasks of the day. I have 3 loads of laundry to fold AND I have to pack for our trip. I HATE BOTH! I can wash laundry no problem just throw in a load here and there as I go about my day as they come out of the dryer I put them in a basket in my bedroom and avoid it like the plague Spending an hour folding laundry is not my idea of a good time. Yes I know if I just folded them when they came out of the dryer it would not take that long. My mother tells me this ALL the time I just can not bring myself to do it. As for Packing I do not know what the hang up is there I just do not like to do it I am a chronic over packer in that I want to prepare for every possible occurrence. Making those choices on what to bring and what to leave GRRR... I just do not like to do it! I think I will go do the dishes and exercise and then shower... then I will get to the dreaded tasks of the day. Oh yeah I have to call mom too..... I am good at procrastinating!
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