California, here we come! Sea lions, tiger fish, and polar bears--oh my!

On July 27th our family flew out to California to visit Chad and Darnell! We were so, so excited, until we got to the airport.

It was hands-down the worst flight experience I've ever had. And no, it wasn't because of the kids. It started with George forgetting his phone at my mom's house, only to realize it as we were unloading at the airport. No problem, Mom offered to overnight it, so that problem was solved. A mild inconvenience, but nothing we couldn't handle.

I won't go into too many details about what happened next but--between almost missing our flight due to incompetent customer service people at the counter, not being able to feed the kids dinner because we were literally running to catch the plane, the rude lady across the aisle that kept giving me and my kids dirty looks, Lily not sleeping but standing on her seat yelling, "happy! happy! happy!" for the last 30 minutes of the flight, leaving our iPad and Lily's shoes on the plane (only to be told 10 minutes after we got off the plane, realized the mistake and immediately talked to the airline attendants that they had mysteriously disappeared from underneath our seats), George's luggage being put on a different plane that wasn't landing until the next morning, the crazy shuttle driver who took us the "short" way to the rental car place through parking lots and a semi-truck loading zone, and the extra wait at midnight California time with four tired/wired East coast kids because they lost our rental car reservation--we were so done. 

We finally got our car, loaded the kids, and started our way to Chad's place about 90 minutes later than planned, one suitcase, an iPad, and a pair of shoes short, with four very tired kids. So, we did the only reasonable thing to do at almost 1 a.m. 

We got In-N-Out.

Stoney faces and bad attitudes turned into smiles and content, sleeping kids. Now vacation can officially begin!

We got to Chad and Darnell's place around 2 a.m., got the kids settled for bed, chatted for a bit, and then tried to get rest ourselves because our crazy 4 1/2 day California adventure was starting bright and early the next day!

Tuesday, July 28th, we got up, ate breakfast and headed to Sea World! Lance has been to Sea World several times, but it was a first for Jude, Cole, and Lily. I was so excited to see what they made of it.

First stop, the Sea lion show

It was already very hot and sunny, but the kids did a good job and thought the show was fun.

(No worries, I've not turned into Voldemort, the light was doing strange things to my nose.)

The kids like seeing the sea lions in their exhibit. We bought a handful of fish and each of the kids got to feed them.

This guy was by far the pushiest and sat there calling out to everyone that walked past, looking for fish.

This bird stole one of our fish right out of the tray!

We watched the dolphin show next. It was so, so hot!!

Waiting for it to begin...

Cole and Lily were very excited about the turtles. We spent about 10 minutes just looking at them sunbathe.

I think my favorite part was watching the kids get to interact with the different sea life. They had multiple stations where you could touch and handle different creatures and the kids thought it was very neat.

Sea urchin!

The only thing I didn't like about the aquariums was the constant fear of losing the kids in the dark. Otherwise, they were very cool.

This white turtle was the highlight of this tank.

While George, Lance, and Jude rode Manta, I took Cole and Lily to see the whales. It was awe-inspiring to see these magnificent animals up close. 

FLASHBACK

I was able to go with Lance to Sea World when he was about Lily's age, over 8 years ago. I love these pictures!

Back then, we were allowed to feed the dolphins, so they would swim right up to you and beg for food. We even got to touch them!

(This is Lance back in 2007)

Now you can't feed them, but you can still see them and try to touch them if they come up to you.

One little girl had a ball that stuck to the glass and this dolphin had the best time trying to catch it whenever she threw it. He talked and talked and tried so hard to figure out why the ball was sticking to the glass. It was neat to watch.

We sat by the edge of the dolphin pen and tried to get them to come say hello, but they never got close enough to pet. Bummer.

This one swam close to Jude, but not close enough. It was still very neat being so close to these animals. 

Last, we saw the main show. Back when Lance was little and we came, the trainers would get in the water with the whales and do tricks, diving off their noses and swimming with them in the water, but now they don't get in. I'm assuming it's new regulations due to the tragic death of a trainer a few years back. The show was very cool, but I missed watching the people and whales truly interact.

Lily liked making the "splash" sign and thought it was really funny when the whales splashed the audience. Sadly we were spared.

George took Lance and Jude to ride Atlantis, so I took Cole and Lily to see the Arctic exhibit. We saw penguins and polar bears, although the bears were napping, so all we saw were their paws. Huge, huge paws. It was still surreal to think that they belonged to a live animal and not a stuffed one. 

Lily was so funny. There was a ledge at the bottom of the viewing glass that was only about 4 inches off the ground, so I'd put Lily on top the ledge so she could see better. Every time, she thought she was stuck on the ledge and would hold onto the glass and fuss until I took her down.

On our way out of the park, we stopped at a large petting station where the kids got to pet sharks! They were little nurse sharks (I think...) and some skates. They felt amazing--soft and rough at the same time.

We were all exhausted and it was only 7 p.m.! 

This little one made it up the stairs of the apartment and fell asleep like this:

Poor guy was so tuckered. 

That night we had homemade tacos with Chad and Darnell (they both had to work Tuesday and Wednesday) and watched some TV before going to bed. They introduced us to the show "Blackish" which is hysterical! Lance particularly loved it and begged to watch episodes every night the rest of the time we were there. 

Better get some good sleep, because tomorrow is Lego Land!

Small moments

Some random happenings in June and July:

On, June 16th I came outside to find Cole had drawn this:

It's a train! And I could totally tell what it is! It even has a funnel, wheels and a bell.

I thought it was great for a 3 1/2 year old. Maybe I'm just not used to a child that actually enjoys drawing (Lance and Jude both have never been interested at all). Cole is my artist. He'll sit for hours and color, draw, and paint.


Bender continues to slowly steal our hearts. It's hard to be upset at him for chewing up every single pair of flip flops I own when he does things like this:

He loves his family and insists on being where we are at all times. Even when I'm working on a project and am up most of the night, Bender follows me around until I go to bed. We love our dog!

Scott sent me this picture one day in Jude. Lance found a huge black rat snake! Can you tell how excited he is?

I guess we have something to look forward to with Molty. Hard to believe Lance's little snake will look like this one day.

Lily is our biggest climber yet. On June 29th, I turned around to see this:

She wanted the candle on the mantle and figured out how to get it. While I'm impressed with her spunk and agility, I'll admit it makes me a bit nervous. I've found her on top of our piano, sitting in the sink in the bathrooms, and balancing on top of our dining room chairs (the top, top--not the seat). Slow down, little monkey! You're only 18 months old!

Our neighbor has a garden in their front yard and blackberry bushes planted between our properties. They were out of town for the first part of July and told us we were welcome to any berries we could find. The kids thought this was the best thing since discovering you could pee outside.

Lily especially liked eating them. She would sit on this green electrical box and devour every single berry she could find. I thought they were a bit tart, but that didn't seem to bother her as she plowed her way through bush after bush.

Cole just liked picking them and giving them to me to eat.

The kids may have enjoyed the berries a little too much. I was talking to my neighbor when she got back into town and she mentioned she was surprised that her bushes were not yielding their usual bounty. Oops. We stopped eating them after that.

Lily has developed a love of books. She begs us to read to her all day long. On July 23rd, I caught Lily and George reading before bed. She had her entire library on the floor and as soon as George was finished with one, she'd shove another into his hands. 

Love it!



Lance may have a hard time tolerating Jude and Cole's constant motion and noise, but he has a tender spot for Lily. I love coming into a room to scenes like this:

The last half of July was spent getting ready for our trip to California to visit Chad. We were planning on taking the kids to Disneyland while we were there, so of course I had to make shirts.

I wanted them to be unique, but something we could wear at home too. I finally decided to try out the bleach technique and was happy with the way they turned out. 

You start with a silhouette. The kids each picked out their favorite Disney character. Neither Lance nor Jude were that thrilled about the traditional Mickey and friends characters, so we settled for Iron Man. Not exactly a Disney character, but Disney does own the rights to Marvel, so good enough.

I cut the image out from freezer paper.

Iron the form onto a pre-washed shirt.

With half bleach, half water in a spray bottle, start spraying a fine mist onto the image, making sure to blot up any moisture that lands on the stencil. (Otherwise it gets soaked and will start to peel up.)

Continue spraying until you reached the desired effect. Peal off the stencil and admire your work.

This was for Lance and I wasn't that thrilled with the color fade, so I ended up doing it again with a black shirt that turned out much better.

Here are the finished shirts:

George wanted Gaston ("in real life he would have been the good guy, saving Bell from a monster that was keeping her captive and tried to kill her father..."), I had Mary Poppins, Lance and Jude had Iron Man, Cole wanted Mickey and Lily got Bambi.

They were totally easy to make and they turned out well!



One day we found Bender getting really worked up about one of our rain gutter downspout splash blocks. When we turned it over. we found a toad trying his hardest to hide. I caught the poor guy and let a very excited Cole hold him for a few minutes before we let him go outside our fence.

Before we flew out to California, we spent a few hours with Grandma and Grandpa. Cole found Grandma's newest dress-up outfit and insisted on trying it on.

Lily saw Cole rocking the costume and had to try it on herself, although she wanted nothing to do with the fake hair.

Now it's on to California!!

Out with the old, in with the new

July 18th was a sad day.

We said good-bye to our faithful van that had served us well for the past three years. When we found out it would cost over $1000 for it to pass inspection, we decided it was time to put her to rest.

I have to admit I got teary-eyed at the car dealership when I asked George to take this picture. As much as I disliked the sliding doors that didn't work and the loud sound it made when we drove, this van has been part of our family. We brought Lily home from the hospital in it and have put over 70,000 miles on it driving it to doctor appointments, parks, vacations, and to visit family. *tear* It was hard to say good-bye.

That day, we drove home with this:

A 2014 Odyssey Touring Elite.

I can honestly say I've never been inside a nicer van. It. Is. Gorgeous.

The kids refused to get out. Cole buckled himself in and wanted to take off right then and there. Hey, with a dual TV screen, surround sound speakers, leather seats that recline even in the rear bench and more space than you'd ever need, I don't blame them!

We took it for its maiden voyage that day to Outback to celebrate with George's parents, Allen, Callie and Bryce. The kids even got to watch part of a movie on the way. Sweet.

Lance was at his Dad's house that weekend, but got to see it when I picked him up a couple days later. He had a great time trying out all the buttons (because there are still some I haven't pushed) and figuring out all the cool features.

I think this new van is going to be a great fit!