3 6

That's not my age but the grades the girls started today. They were so excited to go back. Yesterday we went through backpacks, pulled out lunchboxes, and gathered supplies (Ellie's teacher sent a pretty healthy list of supplies they needed that came in the mail on Monday). They had back to school night last night that we juggled in between their duet lessons. It was a full crazy prep day yesterday. They got up excited this morning and ate some scrambled eggs before getting donut holes (instead of going out for donuts this year).

I took them to school and walked them to their rooms and we discussed a place to meet for the afternoon carpool (I love that they look out for each other and it makes me sad to think that this is the last year they will be in school together).

At 9:08am Andrew asked me, "are the girls home yet?" He is going to miss them! So am I!

Lila was so excited to tell us that she is the teacher's assistant this week and next week since this week is a short week. She is so excited that I think she's told us each 2 or 3 times. She also comes down ready for school with clip-on earrings and some lipstick on. I let it fly because by the time she eats breakfast it's mostly gone and I like that she is interested in making herself look nice.

Ellie is in a portable again, but with most of her friends and a great enthusiastic teacher.

I'm excited to see their progress throughout the year.

Eclipse

This morning Steve had his regular Monday morning meeting and I had scheduled well checks for Ellie, Lila, and Marcus. So we ran to all of those and then met at home around 11am to watch the eclipse. Sunday, Steve had worked on a contraption we could use to view it. Andrew was really getting into and talking about how the moon was going to get in front of the sun, but then when it started getting dark he kind of got nervous. It was a fun lunch time to have Steve with the kids watching the eclipse. Then we ate loaded quesadillas with fresh salsa I made from the garden.

That evening for family home evening Steve gave all of the kids their back-to-school father's blessings. They were each special and a few things stuck out to me on each of them. Andrew went first. Once he realized what was happening he hopped into the chair before anyone else could. He was told how grateful we are for his enthusiastic spirit and that he has some fun opportunities to learn and grow in new ways this year. Lila was blessed with the ability to continue learning Chinese and apply herself in all of her school works. She was also blessed to continue working to be healthy and free of UTIs. Ellie was told how grateful we are for her help and what a great example she is as a big sister. She was also told to be careful about situations she knows are not good and to get out and be the good example. She is growing up and I know she is going to be placed in more situations that I cannot control so I visited with her about that a bit and told her she can always call us to come get her. 

It was a lovely day and I'm so grateful for Steve taking the time to watch the eclipse with us and being worthy to share these blessings with our kids.

California or Bust

We had been looking forward to our trip to California and Legoland, but with my ankle still healing and Steve got slammed at work the week before I was nervous about it. I kept physically preparing by making travel activities for the kids, getting movies from the library, books on CD, and even prepared a history lesson for the road. We had been praying about whether to go or stay and not feeling anything in particular. The Friday before we were supposed to leave I was still unsure and we talked about other options. That night I prayed and felt at peace with the decision to go. I had crazy dreams that night and woke-up Saturday morning with a headache, but pressed forward based on the answer I received the night before. We worked hard all Saturday to pack, clean, prep for school since we would be coming home just a couple of days before school started. We picked the garden and made two batches of salsa and then I froze the rest of tomatoes in hopes of canning them some time when life settles down a bit. Sunday morning we got up finished a few last minute things while cooking breakfast and the girls kept saying, "We're behind schedule Mom. We wanted to leave by 8 and it's 8:15." We finally hit the road a little before 9.

Here we are just pulling out. Andrew has his sunglasses on his head and the girls were still snacking on breakfast. We just turned Marcus's carseat to front facing, I was hoping he would enjoy the movies and the new perspective. . . not so much. Now I'm wondering if we'd left his rear facing seat in if he would have slept better but we survived.

The kids played with things out of their travel backpacks and were just excited to be going. I turned a movie on about 10:30 hoping to capture Marcus's attention who was not thrilled to be in the car for as long as we were. Ellie was a trooper and kept handing him activity after activity he would say, "oooh" and excitedly take it and then after 10 minutes you'd hear it hit the door as he threw it over the edge. At one point I gave him a white board and a dry erase marker only to turn around and see he colored on himself so I took it away.

Then we hit weekend traffic exiting Vegas and we were in stop and go traffic for hours. . .seriously people were driving like maniacs--zooming on the right median lane past people or pulling clear out into the dunes to try and go faster which it didn't it only made it more dangerous. Marcus was getting really cranky so I gave him the marker back and said have at it--you're already going to be taking a bath.

We finally pulled into our hotel in Carlsbad at 9pm their time. We got checked in, bathed the baby, had a quick dinner, and then put the kids to bed. My good friend from high school Toni drove out to visit with me for a bit and we sat down in the lobby chatting about our families and life. It was a great visit and I wish we had more time to take our families to the beach together and play and visit more.

Monday morning Marcus decided to get up at 6am even though he'd only slept for an hour in the car they day before and had been up for 12 hours. I took him down to the lobby so everyone else could rest some more. Finally everyone awoke, we all ate breakfast downstairs and then I put Marcus down for a quick nap before we took off and he slept for 50 minutes while we filled water bottles, packed up for Legoland, and sunscreened.

The kids were super excited to be going to Legoland. We had two free kids tickets and Marcus was young enough to get in for free and then as we were standing in line a lady gave us another ticket so we only had to pay for Steve and I so we could all go in together. So sweet of the lady and I wish I would have said more when she gave me the ticket but I think I was a bit stunned. We thanked our Father in Heaven that night for her tender mercy and asked that she be blessed for it. So now for the adventures in Legoland.

We were in before 10 when the park officially opened and were going to go straight back to the driving school ride because we remember doing that first last time and the line got huge, but that section of the park was not quite open yet so we rode this cute fairy tale brooke ride. It is amazing to me the things they can make out of legos.

Then we made it to driving school and they each did it twice.

  








I was a little nervous that Marcus would be cooped up in the stroller all day while the kids did rides, but they had these great play areas for littles by the rides so one of us would play with him while the other waited with the kids in line for the rides.

We went around doing ride after ride and ended up by the little splash pad area about 11:30 and it was pretty warm so we decided to go do this water roller coaster. They got really went and I didn't get any pictures because I was holding Marcus-we were going to do the parent swap so I could ride it with the kids again, but they didn't want to ride it again. Andrew was frantically screaming and it took us forever to calm him back down. The ironic part is he will now tell you that was his favorite part of the trips, "the water roller coaster". The girls wanted to do another wet ride there so I went with them over there while Steve watched the boys play in the splash pad. Then Ellie wanted to ride the pirate ship ride--you know the kind that goes high in the air then twists and falls back the other way. So Steve took the girls to ride it and I dried the boys put their shoes back on and we got smashed pennies. Then we ventured over to another area to get a snack, but the kids had to ride the jousting horses.

When they were finished with that ride there was a cute little play going on in that area, a twist of The Emporer's New Clothes. The kids loved watching it. Steve went and grabbed us some apple fries to snack on while we watched the show. Then we walked through the Star Wars lego exhbits on our way to lunch.

We ate lunch at this all you can eat pizza/pasta place in the park. We found a shady spot on the patio and the kids had fun going back and getting different foods to try and filling their drinks (that came with the meal). We were there for probably 45 minutes. It was a nice break and time to just enjoy each other. I was starting to get a migraine (probably from stress, lack of sleep and heat all combined) so we were heading to the car to get some Advil (which I forgot to put in our bag we were bringing in) when we walked past the first aid station. Steve went in bought me some Advil from a vending machine and I sat there in the cool weather with Marcus while everyone else went and rode the Ninjago ride right next door. The kids enjoy that show on Netflix and came out raving about the ride. Then we went on a boat ride together as a family that showcased more Lego creations like Mt Rushmore or the New York coastline. Then the girls wanted to go to the area designated Heart Lake City. The kids rode the carousel then there was another show that they enjoyed watching with the Lego Friend characters. Even Marcus got into dancing with them. Then we went over to the little kid are and they rode the Duplo train.

I kept the boys in that area to play there was play structures on houses and legos and lots of things for them to explore while Steve took the girls to ride the Car Roller Coaster that they had been waiting all day to do. Then they hit the Dragon Coaster one more time and we met up to make a quick run through of the aquarium. It was after 7pm when we finally left. We were all tired, but the weather had been lovely (at about 3pm it got overcast and cooled down and so the afternoon was not too hot). We really enjoyed our visit--well the kids had a blast and so that makes it worth it for us. :) We got in the car and I passed out yogurts, bananas, cheesesticks, crackers for everyone to eat and we left for Grandpa and Grandma Moore's house.

We arrived just before midnight. Steve was a great driver through LA and the windy California roads. The kids mostly slept, Marcus not at all. I had to entertain him or hold his head so he would sleep. Andrew fussed and I got him back to sleep then Lila woke up crying and I calmed her down then right before we pulled in Andrew went crazy mad. We finally got the rooms all set and took Andrew back to where he was sleeping on the couch in our room. His head hit the pillow and pulled the blanket up over him, looked down and he was out. So tired he'd lost his mind. I went to see where the girls were sleeping and to tell them where were in case they needed us, but they too were already sleeping it their bed. We had to wrestle Marcus to sleep, but he finally succumbed a little after 1am.

Tuesday we decided to just take it easy and Grandma and Grandpa's and let everyone recover from a couple of days of traveling and Legoland. Carole was awesome and made us breakfast and dinner. I told her it was like staying at an all inclusive resort. Grandpa took the kids out for rides in his old cars. They did the zipline out front and played in the tree house and went swimming in the afternoon for a bit.

Andrew fell asleep on the first ride. When Grandpa got him out, he woke up and said, "How'd we get home?"

Wednesday they played around the house again. Their friend Monique does swim lessons in their pool so she offered to work with our kids for a bit. It was nice of her and the girls made a couple of improvements with their strokes that I wanted to see so that was awesome. Then we went out to Montana De Oro. I had looked up the tide pool times, but Carole didn't think we needed to be there right at low tide . . . unfortunately you do. 
 

 

We couldn't see much so we ventured back to the beach area. It was lovely there. Usually Montana De Oro is overcast and a bit cold but it was beautiful and the kids had fun playing in the ocean and climbing the big rock with Steve.

That's Ellie in the picture on the left and Lila on the right. I took a distance and a close-up shot of each of them, but only posting one here.

Grandma and Andrew made cupcakes so we could have Cake by the Ocean. The week before we left that song came on the radio and Andrew said, "Mom do you think we could have cake by the ocean when we go to the beach?"

Thursday we went to Doug Joddy's in the afternoon to swim and bbq. The cousins played and played together it was so cute. Even Marcus splashed in the pool on the stairs with me and Andrew went back and forth from the pool to the hot tub where Kyle performed some magic for Andrew that sent him over the moon enthusiastic. Kyle pulled quarters out of his ears and hair. Kyle gave him the quarter and then Andrew said, "well can I keep them all?" which made Kyle stutter for a minute because there was only ever one quarter, but Andrew was so into it he really thought there was at least 10. :) So Kyle said, "a magician only gives one souvenir."

Then as we were getting ready to leave they got out these little drifter cars and the kids drove around and around in them--after a rocky start--Andrew got his foot ran over by Lila and then one of Doug's boys hit Andrew's drifter with his remote controlled car so Andrew looked back to see what had happened and came out of the car flat onto the pavement. UGH, not going to lie, I was tired and ready to go at that point so these incidents did not make me happy, but they finally got into a groove and had fun. Andrew was funny because he would just be cruising along and then someone would pass him and you could see this determined look on his face to get back in front. Even the big boys got into the action. :)

I really didn't want to pull the kids away from cousins but Marcus was super tired so we finally went back to Grandpa and Grandma's.

Friday Steve and I met Doug and Joddy for lunch in downtown Paso Robles (we snuck away while Marcus was napping). It was fun to just visit with them and walk their cute little square area. Marcus was still sleeping when we got back (that baby needed a good nap). So we decided to leave Steve with the van and the rest of us would ride with Carole and Russ so we could have more beach time. Off we were to Avila Beach. Andrew fell asleep within minutes.

It was super windy and a bit chilly. We used the umbrella as a wind break that day, but the kids still had a blast.

At one point I looked up to see Andrew playing the big shovel like a guitar. It was so cute. Yes, he's wearing regular clothes over his swim clothes. He wanted to be like the girls and it was ok because it was so cold it gave him an extra layer. Marcus mainly chased the birds around the beach and walked the farmers market with Steve and I. 

It was a great week. The girls love playing with older cousins and slept out on the trampoline and then in the front room one day with Katie and Lexie. The kids would craft with Grandma in the morning. They hot glued decorations on boxes, face painted, did fizzy explosion things and rode in more cars with Grandpa and they even drove the little electric car. First, Andrew gave it a wash and he was pretty particular about that because later when he was driving it he said, "Grandma I need that scrub towel again because we missed a spot right here." I love that our kids have such wonderful grandparents. This trip made me realize what a safe environment it is for the kids to explore their independence with Grandpa and Grandmpa and I am grateful for those experiences they share.

We didn't want it to end. We were dreading the drive back and returning to real life. Doug and Joddy had us over for crepes Saturday morning and the kids loved playing for a bit again. Then we left around noon. It was a long drive back, but we made it safe and we are so glad we went on this adventure together.