California '09

We just got back from California and I need a vacation! What a busy trip.

First of all, to all my friends who I didn't get to see while I was out there, I'm sorry I missed seeing you. I know you all know how crazy busy it is when we are out there and I hope to get to see you next time! :)

Our trip started at In N Out (duh, where else should a CA trip start?). We stayed and visited Grandma and Grampa and their kitty....who gets the most exercise when Anisa is around. :) It was nice to be able to enjoy that "dry heat". Even tho is was pretty cool in California standards, it was in the 80s, but it wasn't humid, so it was a nice change for us coming from VA.

A few days later, we headed to my dad's house. But first, we headed to the mall to meet with my friend from high school who I hadn't seen in about 20ish years. We had lunch and our nails done. I got my first pedicure (my toes are the little squishy toes on the bottom). It was fun catching up and meeting some of her family. The funny thing is, they live only about 3 hours away from us here. I hope to get to see her and her family while we live here.




Travis combined work with pleasure. He had to make a trip to LA/Long Beach, Santa Barbara and San Diego. The day he went to Santa Barbara, we decided to take the trip with him. We made the 3 hour drive up, had a quick brunch with Anisa's kindergarten teacher and her beautiful daughter, walked on the pier and went quickly through the aquarium, then made the 3 hour drive back. It was worth it, tho. Seeing Jennifer and Joslyn was fun and we got all caught up on life. Anisa was in Jennifer's first Kindergarten class. And, yes, that's Karalee at the aquarium with us. She flew down to CA for one last hurrah before school starts and for the two big girls, LIFE in college. oy.

Even tho our California trips are for visiting family, we try to make a trip to Disneyland or Knott's Berry Farm. This year, we went to Knott's. We actually like it better because it's cheaper and not as crowded. My sis, Wendy and her daughter Kels went with us. Karalee is terribly afraid of heights but went on Supreme Scream and actually liked it. She shook like a leaf for a while afterward, but had a good time anyway. :)




The girls and I also wanted to go to Newport Beach/Balboa Island while we were in CA and get frozen bananas and the teenagers wanted to lay on the beach. It turned out, they actually went in the water. My mom and baby neice, Chloe, went with us and it was really fun. Great weather. The thing that sent us packing, tho, was a big wave that took everyone by surprise. The girls were out playing, mom and I were sitting on the beach and all of a sudden the wave hit and the water came up almost to our blanket where we had all our cameras, purses, phones and baby! The scary part was that the wave hit the girls who weren't watching the water and it took them under, flipped them around in the sand then started dragging them back out. That was it, they were done, so we packed up and made the trip back to mom's house.

One of the biggest reasons we were in California this year was to celebrate my mom's 60th birthday. The only thing she wanted for her birthday is to have ALL her kids around her. Well, she got her wish. Even Travis came out! :) We took family pictures before Travis came out since my brother had a trip planned, but I cut and pasted Travis into the picture later for a frame for mom. tee hee This is my mom with her 4 kids, kids-in-law (minus my honey) and her 7 grandkids.



Here are some highlights from mom's birthday party....
Mom and her cake. (thanks Wen, for picking it out. The cake was cute AND yummy) and mom on the trampoline. She's been alive for 60 years, but she's only 29 in her head! :)

The Food (Thanks Bee for making the DELICIOUS carnitas and everything else..even margaritas..you're the margarita queen!)











The Partay (thanks Jean for the decorations. You did a fabulous job!)












We had to drive Travis into LAX on Monday morning, so we dropped him off and headed into Hollywood, LA, and Beverly Hills. The girls wanted to go to the Ed Hardy store, and we found one (there are 5, I think, in the LA area). Turned out that the designer, Christian Audigier was there. So, we got to shop AND see someone famous. :) The girls got shirts, and we headed out. We drove around town, saw lots of glittery, sparkly, fancy things...cars, building, people. It was fun, then we headed back to visit the grandparents a little, then off the my dad's to spend the night since we were leaving the next morning. We got up, ready and headed to the airport for another 8 hour travel day....It's good to be home now.

The girls are in Wisconsin for 2 weeks, so Travis and I are on a "honeymoon" at home right now. I'm hoping to get him to go somewhere fun, we'll see. I'll keep you all posted! :)

Virginia Beach

The girls and I made the 3.5 hour trek out to Virginia Beach. It was fun to see the Atlantic since we are all Pacific Girls! :) The weather was hot, humid, sticky, icky. There was a storm brewing so there were clouds (which we were happy for, since they kept the sun from beating down on us). We looked through some of the little touristy shops at all the tshirts and keychains. Oh, and the sunglasses. When we were done looking, we went down to the beach to lay on the sand and play in the water. It was pretty crowded, but we found a spot and sat for a while.

Then, it happened. A rain drop. Then another, and another. So, we packed up and headed to the car. By the time we got on the road, the clouds had opened up and drenched the town (luckily, I had put fresh Rain-X on the windshield before we left home!). We drove around to look at what we had missed on our walk, then decided to head home. The girls slept most of the time, and we went through a big downpour and lightning and thunder storm. We finished our day with Sonic in Fredericksburg. It was a long day, but we had a good time. Here are the highlights.

































This one is just for Monica!

Butterflies and other creatures

We took a trip on the Metro on Tuesday to go to the Museum of Natural History to see the butterflies. Well, we went to look at other stuff, too, but the butterflies were our main goal of the day. The butterfly pavilion is free on Tuesdays, so we went to pick up our tickets (they give out a certain amount of tickets for a 15 minute trip through the pavilion) then went to look at all the other exhibits until our time came up. Here are some highlights of our trip.....

On the Metro. This is Karalee and me. It was our first time on the Metro here. fun!












SQUIRRELS!













Butterflies.

Skyline Drive In Shenandoah National Park

We joined our pals, The Holms, for a drive along the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Shenandoah National Park. The road is called Skyline Drive and it's really beautiful. It's a 105 mile long cruise through trees with scenic views of the valleys on either side of the mountains. Ok, so, just so we get one little thing straight. The Blue Ridge Mountains ARE mountains, but they're baby mountains to those of us from the West. The highest peak is 4051 ft. Mt. St. Helens, our little short volcano in WA is 8,363 ft. It was definitely worth the trip, tho.

This is looking down east into Culpepper, probably Fredericksburg farther out. We pulled into around 15-20 overlooks and each one was beautiful. As you can see, we had great weather. It was cooler up there, which was VERY nice and a welcome change to the humidity down below. We packed lunches and stopped in a picnic area. First, tho, we made a little hike on part of the Appalachian Trail through the forest. We saw trees, flowers, bugs and bear poop. :) My goal for the day was to see a BEAR, not just the remnants of a bear visit.


A little bit down the road, my goal was complete. Traffic was stopped, I got all excited and started thinking there was a bear there, and THERE WAS!!!! It was just a baby bear cub. We took pictures of the little guy and got the heck outta there before Momma came by to protect her little one. He/she was just right off the road. It made me a little nervous because of all the traffic. I hope Momma came soon to shoo her baby into the forest, and away from all the dumb tourists...some of who drive just a little too fast for this road.


Another little hike we did was to Dark Hollow Falls. Did you know Falls can Kill? That's what the sign says. I didn't make this fact up! It was about half a mile downhill to the falls, then half mile UPHILL back to your vehicle. All along the trail was a sweet little stream that gradually got a little bigger and a little bigger until you reach the falls. Then it becomes a cascading waterfall about 70 feet over big rocks. Ok, here comes another comparison for those of you out west. Multnomah Falls is 620 ft. The bad thing about Dark Hollow is that it's easy to get to so it was CROWDED. We stopped and took some pictures and started our short trek back to the vans to continue along the road to the next fun stop.

We made it to Big Meadow/Byrd Visitor Center. We got out to stretch legs, make a potty run and check out the visitor center to see what else there was to see in the park. We decided that it was more of the same (beautiful forest and overlooks) and it was starting to get late, so we made that our last stop. We had to stop and snap a picture of the entire gang for a newer, updated picture with Miss Ava (almost 4 yrs old now) in it. We had to click and run because of all the stinkin' gnats. They were pretty much horrible if you were standing still. The trick was to keep walking. :)


This is one of our whole family pictures we have way back in 2002. Mae is probably around Ava's age then. Look how little all the girls are compared to now! Wowwee!! Time flies when you're raising kids! Sara was about 8, Anisa was around 10 and Syd was around 7.

Anyway, our trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains was fun. We're planning to go back in the fall to see all the colors. I can't wait! :)

Even Our Pets Are Wierd

This is Anisa's fish. Well, one of them. She has 2 fancy goldfish. Batman and Robin. Batman is a big black fishie and Robin is a little plump yellow guy. They like to sleep during the day when they're not eating. They actually go to the bottom of the tank and just sit there on the rocks. Well, Robin also likes to just float......upside down. The first time we saw this trick it scared us. Now, it's just normal. I think it's because he has such a "fluffy" belly (don't want to call him fat) that it's just easier for him to float upside down. That's my theory, anyway. Why he does it really, we will never know, but he's cute, isn't he? :)

Why I love my Van and Traffic

Shocking news! I love my van! :) hahahaa Ok, most of you already know how much I love my big blue 1993 Aerostar with over 200,000 miles on her. But I'm not sure if you all know WHY I love her. Well, it's times like this when I am so happy to have her. We bought the girls new beds. Of course, they wanted the ultra plush european pillowtops. Big ol' hurfin' mattresses. We wanted to save a little money so we picked them up in Baby. I just took out the back seats and we got both mattresses and frames inside, then the guys tied the boxsprings to the top. You can't do this is any old van or even SUVs....I know. We've had friends ask if we could move stuff in the van since big stuff didn't fit into their space-lacking vehicles. :) There are people out there who laugh at my van (you know who you are) until they need something big hauled. She's more than just a people hauler. She's my Baby! :)

And, you're wondering why I said "traffic" in the title, right? Yeah, that's not a typo. Traffic is something we're learning to live with here. There is ALWAYS traffic on the freeways. It doesn't matter what time you go out, there is traffic.

Because I had 2 boxsprings attached to the top of the van, I couldn't drive too fast, but didn't want to take 5 hours getting home on the backroads. Luckily, I went to pick the beds up right about the time everyone and their brother was getting out of work. Traffic on the freeway was moving at around 45 mph, which was perfect for me. I only got a couple of funny looks, and since everyone was going slow, I didn't make anyone mad. It was a good day. :) Bonus, the kids were very happy to have new beds. I let you know later how they slept last night. :)

Paint

The girls wanted their rooms painted, so...we painted them. Here are the colors they picked.

Anisa wanted a dark plum-y purple. She picked a color called Kimono Violet. It's a little more purple than I thought she wanted, but we both really like it. We only did one wall in her room since it's so dark. The other walls are a really, really soft yellowy green color. It actually looks pretty together.







Sara just wanted purple, a pretty purple. So, this is what she found. We only did 2 walls in her room. Her other 2 walls are a really, really soft green, but she wants them white. We'll see.










Travis isn't happy about either color. He's more of an Antique White paint guy. The girls are happy, tho, and that's what matters. They are both getting new queen sized beds too, that's why their rooms are such disasters. :)

FINALLY, an update

Ok, everyone, I know, I know! It's been a while since I last posted here. I've been MOVING! :) And I've come to the conclusion that moving stinks. I'm so unorganized right now and I hate it. The house is a total disaster, but I did get most of the boxes out of here in less than a week. The boxes that are left, might be staying for a while.....in the basement. :)

So, anyway, since I still have tons of work to do, I'm posting mainly pictures for those of you who haven't seen them....

Anisa's graduation....
Seniors..... Anisa and Aaron in the senior tire.













GRADUATION!













Tossing their caps.













The kids, almost adults. :)













The Graduate with her mommy and daddy.













We did take a little time out to play while since we've gotten to VA. Poor Travis had to go to stinky work, but I got to take the girls to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg. We had a good time. It was really hot, but it wasn't SUPER crowded and we went on all the fun rides, sometimes twice! :) Busch Gardens gives military families free tickets, so we went for FREE! THANKS Busch! :)

So far, we really like Virginia (not enough to stay here forever, we'll be back WEST COAST!). Right now it's so beautiful with all the trees and different shades of green. The rolling hills. The birds singing. Travis picked a good house. As soon as we get it all organized, it will be much better. The neighbors are really nice and it's close to the bus stop and freeways. Shopping is CRAZY GREAT! :) Ah, I love being back near shopping. I'll try to keep updating my blog a little more now that we're getting settled in. And soon I'll post pics of the house and neighborhood. Come to visit us anytime!! :)

My little baby

Yesterday Sara turned 15 years old. Wow, I can't believe it. 15 years ago, my Grampa drove me to the Bess Kaiser Hospital in Portland (which is now Adidas headquarters), along with Grandma and Big sis Anisa. We met Travis at the hospital since he was at work, a couple of miles down the road from the hospital. As I was in labor, I got to watch float planes and boats on the Willamette River out of my room window. 4 hours after labor started, Sara made her grand debut into our world. Hey, Viv and Ranee, remember?? They were her very first visitors. Oh, by the way, she rode home in Baby, the van, that we had just bought when we found out we were having another baby. :)

15 isn't my favorite age. I have a theory. Kids lose their minds in about 6th grade and don't recover them until about graduation! :) Luckily, Sara is a pretty good girl. She makes us laugh and only argues a little bit (well, compared to some kids). She likes clothes, hair and make-up. She likes playing guitar (and plays her violin still, if forced to). She listens to music constantly and likes to talk on her phone. We love you Sara!!! :)

Isn't She Grand? Like 200Grand!

You all know I have a crazy kind of love for my van. Baby is my dream rig. I know, it's weird. Who would love a Ford Aerostar this way, but I do. I can't help it. I had a little Ford Festiva before her and when we found out we were having another baby, I REALLY wanted a van. I REALLY wanted the extended Dodge Caravan. We test drove them, loved them and wanted one. One day Travis was looking at the classifieds in the Oregonian and saw that Coliseum Ford in Portland had Aerostars on sale. I told him I'd go drive one, but I wanted a Caravan. Well, we came home that day with a brand new Aerostar. She has been from Port Angeles, WA to San Diego, CA, Astoria, OR to Sturgeon Bay, WI and will be heading out to VA in a month. We have taken several family trips in our little van. 200,000 miles of trips! I hope to post one day that she just went over 300,000. Hey, I could happen! :)

Well, I finally did it

I've been thinking about cutting my hair and I finally just did it. Both girls had their hair cut yesterday and I was talking to Jen (the stylist) about getting mine done. I told her I wanted to do it, but was nervous since I HATE doing anything to my hair. She said, what about just a layered bob kind of style. I told her I have to be able to put it into a ponytail. When she got done with the girls she still had lots of time before her next client came in. I asked if she wanted to cut my hair and she said SURE! :) And here is the result. I really like it. I did actually blow it dry today. It feel so good and soft and healthy. The last REAL haircut I had was probably, well, I can't even remember. I think I had my hair whacked off after Sara was born, but that was 15 years ago. I just don't really care about hair. At least she got it thicker feeling and healthy, tho. I DO like that. :)

Prom 2009

Well, last night was SB High school Prom 2009. Sara and her pal, Lena, had their make-up professionally done downtown for fun (and free). They came back to the house to start doing hair and getting ready to go out to dinner with a group of friends. Anisa was in there doing her hair too.....3 girls and a boy (Aaron) doing hair, nails, make-up. There was hairspray flying, straightening and curling irons warming, brushes swooshing and nail polish fumes! Sara ended up doing her own hair, Lena's curls and Anisa's poof.



Then it was time to get dressed. Anisa and Aaron went to dinner in regular clothes so they didn't spill on their beautiful clothes. They went out by themselves and met up with friends later at the prom.















Sara and Lena got into their dresses. Sara ordered special silver Puma high tops for prom. Her family doesn't particularly like them, but she does, so I guess that's all that matters. We thought since she was wearing a princess dress, she should wear fancier shoes but she swears she can't walk in any heels. She's a crazy girl. Lena's mom came over, we took pictures and off they went to dinner and then to prom.












Anisa and Aaron came back after dinner to get all prettied up. Check out Aaron's tie. I made that. :) They couldn't find the perfect green to match Anisa's dress, so we got some fabric, a pattern and there ya go! A tie! Anisa made her flower hair clip. Aaron made Anisa's necklace. Lots of crafty people around here!













They took off in style. They left in the Cavalier, but picked up the truck to actually head over to prom in. I don't exactly know how Anisa got into that thing with her dress on, but she did it. Maybe Aaron picked her up and threw her in. :)









Here are my beautiful girls after prom. Since they left the house at different times, I had to snag them after prom. They were exhausted, but had had a good time. We stayed up for a few hours telling stories. Anisa headed to a friend's house to spend the night and Sara and I finally got to bed around 3:30 a.m. It was a fun night for everyone. :)