Fun in the Sun

We usually spend a lot of time at the Poveda household during the Summer months. They have a pool--we don't--no explanation necessary. Well, we also like their company, too. Carlos and Travis have a shared love of booze, while Marisela and I have a shared love of booza AND old school music.

Vegas, Baby!!

Suffice it to say that most people wouldn't take a plane trip to go spend 3 days with a bunch of people they never met. Well, I'm not most people.

I 'met' a group of ladies online through a message board that caters to new parents. When I was breastfeeding a 4 month old little leech named Faith I was having an extremely hard time getting that girl to un-suck her mouth from me. I needed advice, and I needed it now!

So I hopped online to get advice from other mom's like me, and as the saying goes, the rest is history.

I found a group of girls that I really, really liked. We have much more in common than just kids. I 'talk' to them pretty much every day. We have been talking for years, and it seemed only appropriate that we meet in person.

And could Vegas be anymore of a perfect place to meet a bunch of moms in desperate need of some crazy girl time?I met up with Rachel, Nicole, T, and Kris. They're just as great in person as they are online. We had the most awesome time on our first day there, just hanging out at the pool with 2, 3( or maybe it was 4? )buckets of beer.

I really hope that we can make this an annual trip because we just had so much fun! If I'm lucky I'll meet up with a few of them next year when we go to Pennsylvania for vacation.

San Diego vacation, 3 days of fun!

We took the kids to San Diego for 3 days and we had a lot of fun! Travis's work was participating in SpriritWest at the fairgrounds and his boss offered us a hotel room right on the beach for the weekend. We're not dumb, we didn't say no. We love free stuff as much as the next family does.

So we packed up ( ahem, let me explain that I packed up) and headed to San Diego.

We attended the SpritWest festival, stayed there about 6 or 7 hours letting the kids play in the 2 KidsZones they had there. Ethan and Faith were loving it ( Travis and I loved that his boss paid for their wristbands...again, we love free stuff as much as the next guy). SpiritWest is a Christian-based festival, and being a little on the agnostic faith with a little atheism as a side-dish, I'll admit that the religious tone of the festival wasn't exactly my cup o'tea, but I will say that the festival was very, shall I say, loving? Not sure if that's a good word to use, but if I were to compare this festival with a run-of-the-mill county fair, then this festival would be like the 4 Seasons while the county fair would be more like the Bates Motel.

So the next day we went to Solana Beach, Dog Beach to be exact. Gotta love going to Dog Beach when your son is afraid of dogs. Ethan was a little timid at first, he was very aware of how close the dogs were to him, but once we were there a few minutes he loosened up a bit and ended up having a spectacular time. My son loves the beach!

I think the most interesting part of the beach was that there wasn't any restrooms, not even a Port O'Potty. And I didn't even realize that we needed a restroom until Faith asked to go pee. Hmmm, this should be interesting.

So the mommy in me tells her to pee in the ocean. Hey, the fish pee in the ocean, right? The surfers pee in the ocean. And if the ocean can be a bathroom for surfers then it's good enough for my baby girl. Right? Not right. She wasn't having it. She refused to go pee in the ocean. She held that peepee in until she was busting and in pain. Poor baby, she was miserable...and poor Daddy, he was the one that kept taking her out into the deeper waters to try to get her to pee.

Eventually she couldn't take the pain and ended up climbing up on the rocks with me and peed right there by my feet. I held her up to get her to pee anywhere but on my pedicured feet. And you know what I learned that day? That if you hold up a 3 year old girl mid-pee it shoots out like a rocket? wow. You really do learn something new everyday!

We hung out at the hotel ( they had free breakfast each morning, too! Score!), went in the pool and just vegged out. It was a really nice weekend and hopefully we can do it again soon!

Happy Birthday to meeeee

How I ever turned 38 is beyond me. Last time I checked I was only 21. But here I am , turning 38. It is what it is. I must grow up, right? Or maybe I don't have to grow up, I can get older without growing up, right?

We had some friends over to help me forget the nastiness the surrounds getting older. As I see it, getting older means I'm just one step closer to dying, and that pisses me off!!

Disney Trip

We took advantage of the 2fer that they offer to So. California residents each Spring. We pay once but get to go twice. And that is about the only way we can pay for Disneyland. At the rate they're going, Disney trips will soon require us to apply for a second mortgage, or at the very least pimp out one of our kids in the parking lot with a stack of paper towels and some Windex hoping they wash enough windshields to pay for their admission.

JUST KIDDING! well, maybe...

Anyhow, truth be told, we didn't even pay to get in. We have a Disney Visa card and we use it throughout the year and earn bonus bucks, so after about 10 months we earned enough bonus bucks to pay for all 4 of us to get into The Happiest Place on Earth. Not paying a single cent of our own money made me and Travis the happiest parents on earth!

We went to California Adventure in April, then to Disneyland in May. It was great! The kids had so much fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed waiting in line for rides with a 3 year old. Yep, that oughta be a feeling that you can bottle up and sell.

This year Faith had grown just enough to enjoy more rides than she did last year. She also enjoyed meeting Tinkerbell, and thank goodness she wasn't afraid of the characters this year! Holy Moly, I waited in line for close to an hour so we can go to Princess Hell. Belle, Jasmine and Ariel all in one place! It was like crack for little girls. Ahhh, but you should have seen the look on my little girls' face when she saw the princesses. It was as if she was seeing that light that shines out of the briefcase on Pulp Fiction. You know what I'm talking about? It was the look that some of us get when cocktails are buy one get one free? Yep, THAT look. She was in heaven. And I have to admit, it made my heart happy to see her so happy.

We also went to see the Aladdin musical, and that is one awesome show! Wow, I have to say that I think it was up there with the Lion King. It's fantastic, all of us really liked it ( and let's be honest--any time we get to sit in an air conditioned building on cushioned chairs is a good thing)

Me and Mini-me

I found Faith and I matching shirts at Old Navy so of course I had to get them, and then once we put them on we had to get pictures taken ( it would have been a sin not to---maybe there's even a law against looking cute and not taking a picture of yourself).

Easter 2009

This Easter was pretty cool for Faith--she was at the age when she could finally compete in the egg hunt with her brother and not get completely obliterated. We did the usual: dyed eggs, hunted for eggs, ate eggs, then ate more eggs, then made egg salad, then ate more eggs. Quite frankly, I was tired of eggs after day 2. We also went to Angie & Dasans house for an egg hunt with the cousins. That was pretty darn fun, too.