Time alone

We had fun eating at the Social House at TI...I had lots of great suggestions...this one was the closest to our hotel with great reviews...a good compromise and ended up being yummy!

Lovely picture of us...we took it ourselves on our way to the spa...we stopped to listen to/watch the fountains at the Bellagio...so different for Vegas right?


Tired but happy to go home....and had a blast in Vegas! We Saw Kevin James and Ray Romano, Laughed so hard, caught up on a couple of movies we missed in the theaters, ate yummy food, went shopping, went to Qua-Caesar's Palace spa (I highly recommend it-they have an arctic room where snow falls from the ceiling), and somehow still came home tired...what?!

Girls Weekend!

I think I'm a little mixed up on posting about trips, so before I post about Vegas (I only have three pictures anyway) I thought I'd show you some pictures of my trip to LA with Rachel, my sister (...in law technically)...I LOVER HER! I adore all of Cord's sisters, they're fantastic and I'm so blessed to have them in my life! Above are my parents so excited to eat a bowl of Matzo Ball Soup from Juniors (an LA institution)!

And here Rachel and I are eating ours...Rachel had a lot of "firsts" on this trip...including Matzo Ball Soup...which she loved and has since craved!


That night we went to dinner with my parent's friends and it was crystal clear over the San Fernando Valley (I know, right?) so we decided to document this rarity with a photo!


We had fun, this is a favorite group of mine!


Had to take Rach for a ride in the 'stang...I think she was a little afraid...I think we went from zero to ninety in like 5 seconds...giddy up!


We were running some errands for my parents and got silly with the RX glasses...

way too silly...


Brunch at the Vines...yummy...and it couldn't have been a more perfect weekend! It was like 76˚ and then we left and my mom said we took the warm weather with us!


Me and my dad


We took a long walk that afternoon, in my parent's development they have "paseos" which are naturally preserved walkways that are amazing, this picture was in front of a heritage oak...probably 150 years old...and the picture below is not photoshoped, the sky was that blue.



The "scary" tunnel as I call it. Every time I check in by myself it seems, I'm in the wrong place and have to walk down this creepy tunnel and I'm always alone! This time there was a lady with us and she said she'd take our picture to document the "scary tunnel"...it seriously goes on forever under the airport.

We were sad to go home, but these were the happy faces we mustered up. Thanks Rach for indulging me and playing with me for the weekend. My favorite was shopping on Rodeo drive and having you take pictures out the car window! I also loved driving with the top down with the sun on our faces...but mostly loved hanging out with my sister.

Beautification?

So the other day I came home from a myriad of "beauty" treatments and I was immediately tackled by my children with questions, "what's wrong with your eyebrows mom?", "Is your hair okay mom?"...etc. I was feeling just a little put off until Cayden said, "Mom, when are your eyebrows going back to normal?" then I was a lot put off!

Cord later said, "you know you don't have to do any of 'this' for me, I think you're beautiful when you wake up in the morning just the way you are". What a sweet husband I have. Of course, I said, I knew that I didn't need to do that and I know who I am and how I feel about myself regardless of my drab blonde hair color or how blonde my eyebrows are. But we did have a good discussion that there was a certain amount of "maintenance" that I felt I liked to "do" on myself and that made me feel good...and I thought that was okay. (My pride was making me start to feel like this was an intervention from my family...I'm not off getting cologen or botox injections...or any plastic surgery...or even regular facials...I just wanna see my eyebrows for goodness sakes and blondes don't always want to be blonde! Then I had to just calm down and be more humble, this is not what he was trying to say.

The point I think I'm trying to get to here, is that my sweet husband was reminding me that beauty exudes from within and that he hoped that I remembered that. "But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance but the Lord looketh on the heart" 1 Samuel 16:7

What can I say, I have a saint for a husband, it's always good to have reminders and I needed a good reminder from Cord that the beatification that is most important comes from within, not from without and that without that inner beauty, it doesn't matter how much you spend on your hair...

Exhausted...but happy!

We got to the park early Thursday morning and actually had my dad there for a few hours...so we got a picture of our entire family at Disneyland (that made two total I think!). Cord refused to let the employees take a picture of us because he insisted that their wireless method of transporting the files was so quick that their resolution must be very low, like 2 megapixels...photographic elitist! "The Wharf" made me feel like I was in Carmel or on the bay in Monterey...I have been telling Cord we're going to Carmel in April...I'm making plans this week...we enjoyed a little time here for lunch two days in a row! That's my dad on the right for those of you who haven't had the privelage of meeting him...love him to death!


Love you all! Cordy kept taking pictures of me, so I decided to shock him a bit and pay attention and blow him a kiss...it got a smile.

She sure knows how to have fun!
You could tell that we were at the end of a long trip and a long day...everyone was trying to be excited about the teacups, but we were so tired! Goodbye Disneyland...until next time...give me at least six months to recover!

Day two-ramping up, ramping down

Grizzly River Rapids is (was) Cayden's favorite ride until we went on California Screamin' (he went at least five times-pictures to come...or video I think). We used the child switch pass since Eliza missed the height requirement by two inches...so our family went in two groups.


Hannah and I didn't get too wet!


While Cayden, Hannah, and I waited in line for California Screamin', Cord took this adorable picture of our future hero!



Here we are at the highlight of our day...bugs life experience! My glasses were the best part...Cord looks pretty adorable in them, don'tcha think?
We had our ups and downs on day two-filming in the middle of main street, Eliza being harrassed by the ride attendants about her height, and short lines with fun rides and my adorable family...I had a love/hate relationship with Dland by the end of that day!

The Happiest place on earth...for at least the first day!

We have had a blast on our vacation to Disneyland and are still traveling home as I write this. I have so enjoyed my family and watching how big they all are and their interactions with each other. It warms my heart to see them love each other (even though they also want to kill each other sometimes) and we had the time of our lives...but Cord and I are getting old...by the end of day three, we were so excited when Eliza asked, "Can we go again?" to the attendant on Pirates of the Caribbean because Cord and I were enjoying lying on each other and closing our eyes.

Here are some tidbits of the first day...more to come soon:After a very rainy start to our day, we decided to go on splash mountain, for which there was no wait, the ride attendants kept asking us to go again and again...we finally had to tell them no thank you and get out, we were soaked!

After a couple of hours, the weather cleared up and it was a beautiful day in Disneyland, we enjoyed the sun...but especially enjoyed no lines!


Hannah was way into her clam chowder which she had at various places in both parks all three days...and it's all over her mouth...she was really enjoying herself.


We had the most hilarious Jungle Cruise driver...he made us all laugh...there weren't many pictures of our entire family of course because one of us was always behind the camera!


But here was one precious picture of our entire family...the other one is coming...from our last day that we had my dad take (he came for part of our third day to hang out). The ride attendant on Matterhorn was kind enough to offer to take our picture amid lines (although the lines were small)...now that's service!

Weird Science

Cayden entered the Science fair this year with a project that was way beyond my comprehension, in fact, when he told me about it a year ago, I told him, "magnets can't float Cayden, we're not doing that". He is so smart! He ended up winning the award for the most advanced science project in the school, that was pretty cool! Superconductors are technology of the future...google them, it's pretty cool stuff. His cousin Zander was very proud of him too! I am also very pleased that Cayden did the entire project with his partner Brittain and we didn't help him with anything but the video burning...he did absolutely everything by himself...you can tell by the sign!!! Yay Cayden!