More to come

The past few days have been filled with fun and adventures. Bryan's parents and sister were here for a few days. The timing was great because Bryan had a few days off too. On Monday we took the kids to Marine World, Tuesday was lots of playing and tee ball, and Wednesday was a trip tot he city and the Exploratorium. All this to say I do have pictures but life is busy for the next few days.

We are getting ready to say goodbye for Bryan for a while. On Sunday he will be heading down to Riverside to attend the Police K9 Academy at Adelhorst. It is a six week course that he will go through with his new dog Basco (he is the replacement from his second dog Fasco who blew out his knee this summer). It is going to be a long 6 weeks up here but we are going to do our best to keep busy. We already have two weekend st hat Bryan will com home and one that I will go down there without the kiddos YIPEE!!!! I know the kids are going to miss their daddy,s o that will be the tough part.

All this to say I will have plenty of time on my hands after Sunday to post some pictures from the past few days.

Farmers Market Fun

Saturday morning after the gym I took the kids to the Tracy Farmer's Market. The weather was great and then kids had a blast.

Dani searching for strawberries in the bag

She ate her body weight in strawberries

Nothing like dancing in the streets

Hi mom!

Dani's new love

The nice thing about tee ball is that we can take the wagon and the scooter to the games since we live behind the sports complex. Dani has taken full advantage of the uninterrupted hour that she has full access to her brother's scooter. In the past few weeks she has really become quite the rider. I see a pink Razor in her future.....

Okay so this next picture is just because it made me laugh. I ran upstairs just now to go get some laundry and I peeked over at the kids room. This is what I saw at Dani's door. Needless to say she is still getting out of her bed occasionally, but now she stays in her room and usually just talks to the dog through the door. Precious, I know!

A crappy day.

Today was a long day. One of those days that you know will be long when you wake up and you have to hit the snooze button a few times just to be able to get out of bed. The first half of the day was spent working out in Brentwood at church. Bryan worked a midnight shift last night and then picked up a swing shift today, so needless to say he was not around to help with the kids today. So this was a bit of a challenge come tear down at church. But we managed with only a few melt downs, mostly the kids. By mid afternoon the kids missed Daddy though and so did I. We decided to head out to Castro Valley to see Bryan and have dinner with him. This was also a way of getting the kids out of the house for a little bit not having to cook dinner. Unfortunately the car ride was less then pleasant and I was worn to pieces by the time we made it to Chipotle. As luck would have it Bryan got a call on his way to meet us so we had to wait about 30 minutes for him.

The kids saw Bryan pull in the parking lot and got all excited. I took Dani out of her high chair so she could go see Bryan. She was sitting on my lap while I put her shoe back on. As she slid off my lap to go run to Daddy I noticed my jeans were smeared with poop. Yep, that is right, smelly poop all down my leg.

Not knowing how exactly it got on my leg, I panicked. Dani was running towards Bryan to pick her up. The problem was that he was in uniform and I did not really want him covered in poop all night. I yelled out to him, "Don't pick her up, she's covered in poop." I quickly realized that this is not the best thing to yell out in a restaurant.


I will spare you the details of the clean up. Needless to say we had bath time when we got home and the kids were off to bed. Hence my crappy day. Tomorrow is a new day.

Finally some 4th of July

I realize that it has been a few weeks but with school and tee ball starting.....life has been busy. So here are a few pictures from our weekend in Truckee. The kids had a blast being up there and the weather was great. Like always we hit the Truckee 4th of July parade and then headed down to the lake to watch fireworks and BBQ with the Benson's. Next time I will try and bring a functional camera so I have more then just pictures from my phone.

I think Dani consumed her body weight in watermelon throughout the weekend.

Chris had a blast learning how to fish off the Benson's dock on Donner Lake.

Dani just relaxing at the park

One of the winning crawdads in the crawdad race the kids had. It was actually pretty funny to watch, the kids both thought it was hystarical.

Nothing like an old school life vest for a girl who just over leaning over the edge of the dock to look at the fishiesCat, Ali and Krista

I think a definite highlight of the trip was hanging out with Cat and Krista and the kids. Krista and Cat are some of my closest girlfriends from high school and before, we have all been friends for 16+ years. So many of our fun memories were spent in Tahoe during the summers on the lake and winters on the mountain.....so it is always fun to get together up in Tahoe. These girls are both such great friends to me and now my family too. We have been through it all together.....we have gotten married, had babies, said goodbye to friends and moms, and mostly just gone through life together as friends. I always treasure the times with these gals because no matter where we are, when we are together it is like we are 14 again hanging out on the dock and just being girls.

Homework in Kindergarten?

School has definitely changed form the days when I would cut color and learn to share in Kindergarten. They are no joke these days. Chris came home with homework for the first time yesterday. The funny thing was that he was so excited to do it. That is why I figured I should at least blog about it so I have proof in a few years (or weeks) when he is protesting doing it.

He was so proud that he finished it and even wanted to continue on to the page for tonight. Now granted it was just writing your name five times on the correct lines, but still he had to sit at the table, take out his folder and listen to the directions.

Once I got him started he looked at me and said, "Mom, I think I've got it. you can go do something else. I need to do my homework. " Alrighty then....

Poor Man's Pool

.....what else are you suppose to do when it is 110 out !!! The nice thing is he had fun, and it was "free fun"

The BIG day!

The BIG day has arrived and we all survived. Chris was so excited to head off to Kindergarten this morning. It was quite the change to have to load the kids in the car and actually drive to school.....we have been spoiled the past few years with pre school across the street.

Chris anxiously awaited outside the Kindergarten building at George Kelly School for the bell to ring. As the kids started to pile in to the class the found their name tags and had a seat on the carpet. His teacher, Mrs. Vasquez, welcomed them and started them off with some great music. Who doesn't love a good chicken dance in the morning. The kids read a book and then it was time for them to turn and wave goodbye to their parents. I have to say it did make Bryan and I happy to know that Chris was very comfortable with staying there and leaving us beyond, some other kids in his class were not doing so well. As we headed out the door Dani was yelling to him....."Bye , bye Beeper!!!"

Chris had a blast today at school. Tonight when we were leaving the gym he said to me, "Mom we need to get home quick, I have to get to bed for school tomorrow." So here we are at the next chapter of our lives with Chris is school now.

We are so proud of our little man and all he has grown up to be. It was quite a day watching him march in there with confidence and be so excited for school. Chris you will always be our little baby, we love you and are so proud of you!

Vacation in Tahoe (part 1)

Sorry to disappoint but there are no pictures for this one. Just a little preview of whats to come from our 4th of July "vacation". My mom was nice enough to rent a great place in Truckee for us to spend the 4th at so we could relive all the great traditions of our youth being here in Truckee ALL the time. Bryan has to work all week with the holiday, shocker, I know.....so it is me and the kids. I think the craziness started Wednesday when I was trying to get out the door to drop the kids off and get to work. I could not drop Dani off because they thought she had pink eye, wonderful. So I have my companion for the day now trying to get things done and get her in to see the doctor. By the time 3pm rolled around and my mom showed up to get me and the kids ,I was already beat and Dani had yet to nap. We get Chris, go by Safeway to get all Dani's prescriptions and headed to Tahoe.

I got nothing done that day that I needed to and I was determined to get something I wanted accomplished done. So we made a slight detour through Walnut Creek so I could see my good friend Kristina and her little baby Caden that she had had that afternoon in the middle of all the craziness. I am still very glad I did that so I at least started the trip on a better note.

Traffic was not too bad and we were sailing along, but the kids were a wreck. Dani still had not fallen asleep and Chris was attempting to watch movies on my moms laptop. Not sure how I made it through the drive.....did I mention that Dani finally did fall asleep, ten minutes before we got there. Nice!

I decided this morning would start a new fresh day. Unfortunately Chris was in my bed at 6am ready to go. We had coffee breakfast and showered for the day. My mistake was taking Dani in the shower with me......she pooped in the shower. I will spare you the details. I was pissed. We packed up the rowdy and slightly disobedient children to go get groceries. If any of you have ever been to Truckee you know that the Safeway here is not super big. Let's just say don't go there right before a major holiday, especially with the previously described kids. Dani was at her melting point by check out time so I walked around with her outside to spare the 5000 shoppers in a 1/2 sized Safeway from my screaming child. We headed back in for purely selfish reason, I need a Venti Double Shot on Ice. While waiting there for the drink my monkey ( aka Dani) decided to try and climb the counter and in the process got a bloody lip. It was not even 11am yet people.

Fast forward a few hours......I got the kids fed lunch and Dani down for a nap. I figured I take Chris to the pool to let out some energy and also give my mom some peace and quiet. My sister was almost here, so I had her meet me there.. Chris and Amy played in the pool while I got a moment of rest. Soon after we return my still rowdy and even more disobedient children were still running around the house. Dani was heading downstairs so we could play outside. Well around three steps from the bottom she took a header and went head first with no bracing onto the slate floor. Instantly she had a purple golf ball sticking out of her forehead. The poor thing was so upset but the ice seemed to help. Not really knowing what to do I figured I would take them to the park. Chris wanted to play Rally Ball and the driveway was really not the place since he was almost hit by a car, I didn't need that. At the park I noticed that Dani's walking and movements were more of an old drunk guys. A little concerned I called the doctor to just check and see at what point do I take her in to be seen, especially since I was getting the evil eye from every parent at the park. She called me back and talked me through a few tings and decided it was really up to me as to whether or not I should take her to the ER. But mainly just watch her to make sure it did not get worse. Seriously this trip does not need a trip to the ER. Although Tahoe Forrest hospital is quite nice, I have been there a few times myself.

So far Dani is still good, bruised but good. I have been checking on her every few hours, hence the late post. I am really hoping that there will be some miracle that will happen in my kids tonight. You know the one where they are able to process the words thee hear me speak to them and actually do what i am saying. Again this would be a miracle, so my hopes are not high. If not I will just hope that between the good old fashion Truckee 4th of July parade and fireworks on the lake with the Benson's will still allow for a good day. We can dream right!!!

Oh did I mention that my camera ran out of battery and I forgot the charger. Nice.