Legoland

What a trip! We flew down to Orange County, and drove down to Legoland for Alisha's 5th birthday. We were in Disneyland for Megan's 5th birthday, so we figured it was only fair to do something big for Alisha. Since she's NOT into princesses right now, she chose to go to Legoland instead. She's really into Star Wars, Clone Wars, Batman, and Indiana Jones right now. We spend 2 days in Legoland, and the girls had a blast! I was just amazed at the replicas made of Legos. The Volvo was to scale, and it looked real until you got up close and realized it was all Legos. It took a team of 5 a few months to put it all together. Alisha went on her first roller coaster, and that's huge for her, since she has to work up to going on the little tiny kid rides that go in a circle.

The only down side of the trip was when we were at a restaurant, Megan had wrapped her retainers in a napkin, and set it next to her plate. You can probably guess what happened next. Yup, she left them there. She realized it about an hour later. We called the restaurant, and one of the waiters started looking through the trash. He called us and said he couldn't find them. So Chris went up there (the girls were in bed by then) and looked through the trash himself. Poor guy went through all the bags in the dumpster, and had to painstakingly take his time looking through EVERYTHING. Pretty disgusting. It's definitely one of those "You know you're a parent when...." moments. Unfortunately, he didn't find them, so we're going to plunk down another $800 at the dentist to have some new ones made. She had only had them for about 2 weeks. Oh well, what can you do, right?

We also went to the beach, swimming at the hotel pool, out to restaurants, and Chris didn't even work the entire weekend. It was nice just spending time together. We all definitely needed it!

Puppy Passions!

For my birthday, Chris gave me a card that said inside that if we REALLY wanted to get a dog, he wouldn't stand in our way any longer. He was the holdout for a long time. The girls have been BEGGING for a couple of years to get a dog. I wasn't sold on the idea, either, since nursing school was up in the air. Finally, I figured I didn't want to put it off any longer, since there was no way of telling when I was to start school. I did some research and found a beagle breeder in the area. I wanted to go see the puppies and just make sure that's what I wanted. Diane and I went while the kids were in school, and fell in love with them. One in particular was being dragged, carried, and stepped on by his 4-year old daughter, but the puppy was still chasing her around, and still was mellow. I knew that was the one we needed, since I knew Alisha would be all over the puppy in the same way, and that it could put up with her. I held her, and her face was just so sweet, and I was hooked. So I told the girls and Chris about her, and told Chris it was his last chance to back out.

We went to Petsmart and bought up a bunch of stuff to bring her home. It was really overwhelming, since I really had no idea what we needed. Luckily, Diane and her kids were there to coach me along with suggestions. They were nearly as excited as we were about the idea.

We went the next day, and brought her home. After going through several names and not agreeing on any, we finally settled on Molly. It took her a good week of waking up several times a night and crying, before she finally got settled. We're still working on housetraining her, and she is slowly learning that our feet are NOT chew toys. But she's a good dog, and she's even wearing Chris down. She runs to the door so excited when he comes home from work. And who can resist a face like this?

Wicked Weekend

So two of my sisters, Lori and Jenn, and my mom all drove out from Utah to spend the weekend with little ol' me. My birthday and Lori's are three days apart (well 3 days and 4 years), so we wanted to celebrate together. We went shopping on Saturday to a really quaint decorative store, called Vintage & Vogue in Campbell. They had some really cute things there! We got some yummy gelato a few doors down, and also found a store that sells all kinds of flavored olive oils and balsamic vinegar. Yummmm.... We went to a great Thai restaurant for dinner, and then headed up to San Francisco to see Wicked. It was such a great show! Sunday we went to church, and then after, went to the Filoli Mansion for a tour. It was so beautiful there! I couldn't get enough of the gardens, which were already in bloom.

Sadly, they left the next day. It was so great to just spend time with my sisters and catch up. We NEVER get to see each other, so it was so nice to have some girl time.

Birthday Girl

Here I am, the birthday girl. A whoppin' 32 years old. It's a little surreal, since I remember my parents being 32, and they seemed a lot older than I feel right now. (Sorry Mom.)


My birthday cake had a slight accident and the heart cracked on the way home, so Chris tried to melt it back together. It worked a little too well, and he put his finger through it. So he did some surgery, and glued the whole thing back together with some melted chocolate chips.

Megan made me a sign and cut out all the letters herself. I thought she was very creative. Chris bought me some calla lilies, my favorite.



It took Chris and our friend Kevin lighting the candles with both hands, because there were SO MANY candles! And the chocolate was melting, so they had to work fast.

There wasn't much room on top of the cake for all the candles, so Chris put them around the side. He wanted to see just how talented I was. And I blew them all out the first try! The cake was soooooo rich and yummy. Even the kids said there was "too much chocolate," as if there is such a thing! It was a great day!

Redwoods

After a lot of rain over the last few weeks, I got a little stir crazy. And since it was my birthday, I got to choose where we went. We went to Big Basin Redwoods State Park yesterday. It was about an hour drive from home, winding through the mountains the whole way. Luckily Megan and I had our Dramamine before we left. We got there and found that a guided tour was about to start, so we joined in and learned a lot of interesting things about Redwood trees and the local history.

This was a giant tree that was damaged by fire. The trees don't catch fire easily due to the tannins in their bark, so they just char. The trees can still live hollowed out like this, as long as their nutrient layer isn't damaged.

Alisha liked walking along the fallen trees, since they were REALLY long!

This is the "Mother of the Forest," the tallest tree in Big Basin at 329 feet. It's not the tallest tree in California, that one is 40 feet higher! I think it's funny that the "Father of the Forest" isn't as tall, but it's thicker in the middle.

We found a whole swarm of ladybugs covering one of the wooden fence posts. I had never seen so many at once. It was pretty cool.

It was so beautiful and peaceful there. I think the girls' favorite part was when we stopped for ice cream at Frosty Freeze's on the way home. But it was a fun day.