Last time with Emily

One of my best friends, Emily is moving next week, all the way across the country. She has lived in the Sacramento area her whole life and has never been to the capitol, so as our last outing with our kids we went downtown.


Apparently it's Carl's Jr. 70th anniversary and so they were giving away free burgers. There was a super long line, and not worth waiting for with 3 young kids.

We love our kids.

The debut of my new glasses! They don't look half bad in this picture.

Oliver loved the bears.

Kaidan did not want to be in his stroller any more.

awww.

Lunchtime! With coupons of course.

Oliver tried to use chopsticks.

I'm going to miss you Emily.

Lake trip

For the past few summers we've gone to the lake to go swimming. This year we decided to go to Rancho Seco since it's warmer. The pictures aren't really in order.



Here's Oliver ready to go on a canoe for the first time.


Matthew's having so much fun.

Sam is having so much fun!

We loaded everything up in the canoes and canoed AALLLLL the way over to where those people are. Whew, it was quite the trip.

hmmmm, snack time!

So much fun!

Texas Trip part 2

The plan for that Wednesday was to go to the Houston Zoo. As we were on the freeway it became obvious that as the line for the zoo exit was already long, that maybe the zoo was not going to be the best idea. Then as we got off the freeway, and couldn't even get close to the zoo, we decided that maybe we should go somewhere else. So we wound up at the children's museum. Melissa, Oliver, Iliana, Rogan, and I wound up in the toddler area upstairs, while Rachel, Sarah, Roxy, and Roscoe wandered the rest. It was also crowded but but still fun. The toddler area had slides and mirrors, and cars, and blocks, and even a little area for the infants with bumpos. Then we went outside where they had a water area and the kids played in the water and got wet. On the way home, we stopped and got shaved ice again. The afternoon we relaxed and watched TV and Rachel made us barbecued pulled pork for dinner. Then we watched scary movies, since Rich doesn't like to watch them so Rachel likes to watch them when we're around.





Thursday was St. Patricks day. Rach and Rich do this holiday really big in their house, so I made sure my kids had their green on. Rachel bought really cute hats for Iliana and Rogie. That day we went to this awesome wild animal park where you ride on this tram and the animals come up to the tram and you can feed them. This was my favorite part of the trip. As soon as we pulled in, we had an animal come into the car! And it was my first time ever seeing a rhino (which was far away, but pretty awesome). I was a little nervous for Oliver since he was pretty scared of animals for a while before this, and I didn't know how he would react when they came up close. But for a while before the trip I was prepping him with animal books. He did pretty good and only got a little nervous. He threw the food to the animals though, instead of letting them eat from the bucket. The part he loved the most, however, was the free pony ride. As soon as he saw the ponies, he wanted to go on them. He calls horses "sit theres" or "yee haws" and they always say "yee haw" and that ride was the best thing ever! He was so sad when he had to get off. Then we went to the little petting zoo area that was right next to the giraffes. At one point Oliver tried to squish through the fence to get to the giraffes. Then we went to Chikfila for lunch, and the kids played in the playground more than they ate lunch. That afternoon we relaxed, played in the yard, and rested. One the afternoons, we skyped Anne, but I'm not sure which one. That afternoon, Mom came to Texas! She was staying for a month to care for the kids while Rachel worked, so her stay overlapped with ours. That night we went to the movies (we saw Red Riding Hood) at this theater where they serve you dinner while you watch the movie. Which is pretty awesome, and I wish they had one here. It was nice to spend with the girls without the kids. By the time we got home Rich had the kids all in bed!

Friday was our last day. I packed in the morning, and then we went to breakfast where they have giant food. Then we all got ready to go, said our goodbyes, and left for the airport. We said good bye to Rachel at the airport. We went through security, waited, boarded, flew (me in front, with Iliana, Melissa and Sarah behind with Oliver). Oliver had a lot of energy this flight, so he did a lot of jumping and kicking and not even Spongebob would keep him still. Then we got into the San Diego airport which has to be the lamest airport ever, where you have to go through security again after you land before you get to the next plane. So we got through security where there was a super long line, and we were a little worried that we wouldn't make it, but we didn't need to worry, since our plane was delayed and delayed, which then turned out very badly since it was delayed for a couple of hours. I spent the time chasing Oliver around the airport while he ran and ran,and tried to lift poles and said "heavy" and basically had a blast. I figured this would tire him out for the flight. Finally we got to board, and we were on our way home. I sat in front again, Oliver fell quickly asleep, Iliana fell asleep, and we had a quiet flight in the dark. As we flew into Sacramento we saw that it was raining, and raining hard. We landed, and went to get our luggage. Nolan surprised us there. I had to do a double take because he had shaved his beard and mustache. We went outside and it was cold and pouring! We were not dressed for this type of weather. It was so nice to be home and with my husband.

Texas Trip

This year my sisters and I decided that we would take a trip to visit our sister and her family who lives in near Houston. Nolan did a good job of working hard to help save up money, and I asked for money for my birthday and Christmas to go toward the trip. We were able to save up enough for me to go with the kids, Nolan couldn't go because he couldn't get the time off of work, and we planned to go in March when Rachel would be off of work because of Spring Break. We waited and waited for plane tickets to go down, and it looked like we might not go after all, and then about 3 weeks before the planned date, the tickets went down in price and we bought them! Well, my sister bought them, and then I paid her back. Luckily, I didn't have to pay for my kids since they were both under 2. We left on a Monday evening. Nolan took the day off of work so he could take us to the airport, and so we packed up in Mom's van, picked up Melissa and Sarah, and drove to the airport. There we said good-bye and went inside. We checked our luggage, and proceeded to go toward security. 3 adults, 2 children, several carryons, and airport security. Recipe for trouble. Luckily having 1 more adult than there are children makes things a little easier. So between removing shoes, and holding children, and setting off the alarms, and being patted down, it was just a tiny bit stressful. I know that being patted down sounds terrible, but the agents were very apologetic and seemed to really not want to do it, but they have no control over the rules; they are not in charge. Do I like it? No. Do I think they should profile? yes. Did those individual agents have any more control over the situation than I did? no. They are given the rules and they have to follow them. If we want to make a change then we need to elect different representatives in government. So armed with the iPad, Spongebob, fruitsnacks, toys, cookies, etc we boarded the plane. We flew from Sacramento to LAX. This flight was very easy. Oliver fell asleep. We all tried to sit on the same row but were told that each row has only 5 air masks. So Sarah sat in the row in front of us. Iliana began to cry just as we were about to take off so I nursed her as the plane took off. Since this was only an hour flight, it was really fast, and were getting off soon. We hung around LAX for a little bit, until our next flight to Houston. We boarded, this time I sat across the aisle with Iliana while Melissa and Sarah sat with Oliver in another row. We finally made it to Houston sometime after 11pm where Rachel was waiting for us. Melissa and Sarah picked up the rental car and drove to the hotel, while I drove with Rachel to her house where I was staying. Rachel was nice enough to ask around and was able to borrow 2 carseats for me to use while we were there. We got to Rachel's place and I got the kid's ready for bed, but with the 2 hour time difference and the recent daylight savings time change, we were really 3 hours earlier then them and so my kids did not fall asleep until 2:30 am, and by that time I was crying because I was so tired and just wanted to sleep, and I missed Nolan.

The next day, Tuesday, we decided to just take it easy. So we slept in, got ready slowly, and when Melissa and Sarah got there, we went for Hawaiian shaved ice! hmmmm. Delicious. I only get these once a year when the state fair comes around so this was a good treat. The kids sat on this bench that was practically on the ground and were so cute just sitting there eating their shaved ice. Even Iliana got to try. Then we went back to Rachel's, played outside, then left the kids with Rich, and went shopping. By the end of the trip we all wound up with the same wallet. I bought some costume jewelry to dress up for a party Nolan and I went to when we got back. Then we had dinner, and had a Blue Bell ice cream party. Roscoe kept taking the cartons and acted like they were all his. hmmm, ice cream.