San Francisco: Day One

We flew out early in the morning. I was awakened by my oldest at 4 am who needed an extra hug before I left. He has a way of tugging at my heart!

The flight was fantastic- I read almost an entire book that I'd been waiting a year to read (Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks). This was my 2nd time flying without the kids since I've had kids. It's a luxury to fly alone! It also doesn't hurt to travel with a "summit level" seasoned air traveler who gets the roomy seats and free tv either.

It was my first time in the city, so Kevin took me around to show me the sights.

We stayed at the Wyndham Parc 55 in Union Square. It was a great location and great hotel right next to the trolley stops and convenient shops and restaurants. These pigeons were always just outside our hotel. 

We had passes to ride the trolleys and buses. We did ride them, but sometimes it was hard to find space, so we walked a ton!

The end of the line- they still have to get out and turn it around manually. 

Lombard Street- the crookedest street in America?

Ghirardelli Square- Free Chocolate- Mmmm

The Street Performers and such-

• The "Jesus Loves You" guy was just outside our hotel the whole weekend 
• The second "Bush" guy hid behind branches and scared people as they walked by (We were told he makes $50,000 a year from this.)
• The last was a performer at Fisherman's Wharf. The boys hate this picture! 

A hill we climbed late in the day. If you look closely in the 2nd photo you'll see our reflection waiting for the trolley to help us to the top of that hill!

Did you miss me?

You may be wondering why the lack of blogging lately, it's because of this:

Over the last 14 days of May, I've been in California for 10 of them. First, 5 days of trolley-ing the hills of San Francisco with my hubby and then 5 days of basking in the sun of Southern California with the whole family. So, for now, I will leave you with this last image from Laguna Beach and a promise to update with some fun recaps of our trips over the next few days.

Kindie Graduation

We have a graduate in the house tonight! Big Brother graduated from Kindergarten this morning. Where did the year go? How can he be a 1st grader tonight? I won't go on a sobbing tangent about how I can't imagine him going to a full-day of school in August and seeing his teacher more than me. I won't do that now- I'll wait until his first day of 1st grade!

A Weekend Away

Thanks to my amazing Mom, who played endless amounts of Sorry Sliders while cooped up inside (rain) with 2 little energetic boys for 5 days, Kevin and I got away to SAN FRANCISCO to celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary.  It was a wonderful trip, both relaxing and exhausting at the same time!

More pictures to come, eventually, but for now, these will have to do.

Love In Action: Service Day

Last year our church started a new tradition called Love In Action. Something like 1500 people donated their time to service projects in our community, including working on schools, rec centers, neighbors house projects, trash pick up along roads, serving meals to firefighters and police, and more.

We joined them this year and chose to work at Big Brother's School. Just a couple of days before the service day, our yard looked like this! Seriously, how is there snow in the middle of May?

We were a little nervous if weather would hold out to do our projects. Despite rain all weekend, it finally slowed and (though still cold) we had an open window of time to work. 40 people were at the school to do various projects. Our principal was there, working alongside our church members, to build fences, prepare gardens (for future scientific studies), paint the blacktop where the kids have recess, move boulders, spread mulch and gravel and lay tarp. Below are some highlights of our day.

Big Brother sweeping the blacktop to prepare to paint.

Painting the area where his own class lines up each day.

Daddy is in there helping dig 2 foot holes for the fence posts.

Little Brother helped line garden beds with rocks, spread mulch, and move cardboard for the plant beds.

The Master Plan

Daddy moving fence posts. 

Three of the garden beds ready for planting this weekend.

All in all, I was surprised at the amount of work that needed to be done and how much was accomplished. It was a huge job, still more to be done, but so rewarding. I wasn't sure how it would go with the boys, but honestly, they didn't complain once. They worked so hard and I was so proud of them. It was really special for them to work at the school and be able to know they were part of something special. Throughout their time in Elementary School, I know there will be times when they remember helping to prepare these gardens and help their school.

The May Trifecta

No, I am not talking about horse racing. We did go out Saturday and were shocked to find out that people actually do the hat thing even when they aren't in Kentucky! (Like lots of people and really BIG hats! Who knew?)

I am talking about the fact that within 5 days of May, I celebrated my 34th birthday, my 7th Mother's day and my 13th wedding anniversary! It makes for a really fun week...

It started with my birthday last week. It was a simple day- helped in big brother's class, did the "mom" thing all day and went to dinner with the family at night. I got a lot of great gifts-

new running shoes, (This is the first time in a LONG time that I actually wore out my running shoes!)
a cute Rockies hat for bad hair days,
a backpack I am waiting for to come back in stock,
a new fun camera strap,
beautiful handmade pottery bowls from Arizona,
and MONEY to SHOP!

Then came a quiet and nice Mother's Day.

Big Brother made quite a few special gifts for me at school. My favorite though, had to be this book. Here are the pages....

This has to be my favorite page!

Our family!

After church, I headed for a massage and when I got home my 3 "boys" had filled in the flower beds with new mulch, cleaned the patio furniture and windows, and got us ready for summer! It was a great treat.

More on our anniversary later- we're planning a little get-away!!!

The worst time of his life

The other day Little Brother had his first PlayDate EVER! Don't get me wrong, he plays with Big Brother and his friends all the time, but this was the first friend he's had and his first friend to play at our house just for him. They had the attention span of mice and played just about every activity and with every toy we had in the short span.

Later that day, Little Brother said to me, "Do you know what the worst time of my life is?" I was a bit surprised at such a statement from a 3 year old, but he proceeded to tell me anyways. 

He explained, "The worst time of my life was playing the Wii with ------- (insert friend's name)!"

What a kid!

Bible Blast Surprise

(Warning: This might seem like I'm bragging a little bit- well, I am. It's my blog- and I'll brag if I want to, brag if I want to... )

This year we put Big Brother in a special Sunday School Program called Bible Blast. Throughout the school year, we read the entire Children's Bible and he had to learn answers to 10 questions each week. He also had to memorize some scripture. It was a big commitment for him and for us each week. This past Sunday was the final Sunday and we celebrated in the Chapel with a special service honoring the kids. 

We knew the kids were each getting a trophee for participating. So, when they skipped Big Brother's name, out of alphabetical order, we thought they forgot him. As the names kept getting called, we got a little worried he'd be the only one left in his seat. Well, to our surprise and excitement, they finally called his name last. He had tied with another boy for "Kindergarten Boy 1st Place Quizzer". He and another boy had never missed a question all program long! He got a little bigger trophee and special recognition. 

He got a 2nd trophee for Perfect Attendance- he never missed a Sunday. I told Kevin that was really ours, since we were the ones that got him there!

After, he went to pick up Little Brother from his Sunday School class which started a bunch of problems! He was mighty jealous of the trophees and cried the whole way home. I felt bad for him, since he listened to every page of the Bible and learned the questions too. Too bad there wasn't a little sibling award- he definitely could have earned that!

Feeding the ducks...

Because of the Field Trip, the kids had Friday off of school. It turned out to be a a great warm day. We haven't had many yet, so it was a fun time to get out and feed the geese. 

 This goose cracked us up with bread stuck out the side of his mouth!

Field Trip: Butterfly Pavillion

Last week was the long awaited kindie trip to the Butterfly Pavillion. Little Brother and I tagged along to spend the day with Big Brother and his buddies. Here's what we saw and did!

This was the culmination of a unit on the life cycles of butterflies. It was a fun and exhausting day. Just thankful to not be on the loud bus!

Embrace the Camera

Let me start by saying trying to get out the door this morning and off to school was horrible. Little Brother is back to waking at the crack of dawn (actually before the dawn cracks) and is exhausted by the time we leave for school ... at 9am...

So.Am.I.

That wasn't a good mix this morning.

So, I was feeling pretty bad about myself and being a grouchy mom when I clicked onto a blog I like to read. (I've been following her story of adopting a sweet girl from Africa for some time. A good read!) Anyways, she has a thing every Thursday to encourage Mom's to get in the pictures with their kids.

I'm not that great at that, but I agree. I love looking back at photos and seeing my parents in their younger years! It's a rare photo to have my mom in there with us since she was always the one taking the photo. So, I decided to set up the self-timer and get into the shots this weekend, and this is what came of it...

Kevin and Little Brother were up napping, so Big Brother and I played his favorite game. It's Cranium Cadoo. It's a blast and now that he can read (some of the) words, he can do it on his own. It involves charades, drawing, playdough and more.

There's nothing amazing or artistic about these photos, but that's not what matters. What matters is I documented a sweet time spent with my boy on a sleepy Sunday afternoon.

Here is a cactus, drawing a taco, and one of the clues. 

Big Brother said, "Oh- that is Pumpkin Pants!"  That is what we were laughing about in the above pictures. 

Below you'll see the "magic" glasses that allow you to read the secret words. When you hold it up you can see what you're supposed to draw, etc. Well, Big Brother got a kick out that and we started taking pictures of each other with the red lens up against my camera. 

Alright, so back to my point about feeling bad about being a tired and grouchy mom.... When I read through her post, I started to look at the photos above. It helped me remember that sometimes I actually laugh with my kids and sometimes I not that bad to be around. Sometimes! 

And it helped turn our day around.

(that plus an hour at the gym)

!!!

Looking back over my posts, I see I have a bad habit of using explanation points too often!
I will try to work on that!

It's probably really annoying!

It makes it seem like I'm super happy and obnoxious while I'm blogging!

Well, anyways, enough of that!

I'll just do these  :-) to be emphatic from now on! That seems way less obnoxious!