Cruise to Mexico

John planned a "tester Cruise" for our anniversary this year. Neither of us had ever been on a cruise, so why not a short 3 day one to try it out? Turns out we'd like to go on another one ...


An old winery
We anchored by Catalina
John posed by some old paintings
John farmed out kids out to all our friends and family - thanks for taking care of the kiddies!
Wendy kept emailing me photos of Olive... here she is having a blast at the beach.

Model in Training... at 10 months

Penelope Lotus Weston

March 20, 2010

7 lbs 12 oz

19.5 in

My little sister had her baby yesterday. Congratulations to Tracy & Joe. I can't wait to meet little Penny! She looks adorable.

Girls Get-Away!

For the past year+ Lori and I have been talking about doing a girls weekend to Big Bear... it just never seemed to quite work out until now. We were so excited it was like Christmas when the day finally arrived. The six of us packed up and headed for Big Bear last Friday afternoon -- we got off to a late start but it turned out just fine. We got to Big Bear in time to find a place to eat dinner and get settled into the cabin.

I purposely avoided taking Dramamine because it makes me drowsy. Well, Adrienne had some non-drowsy, so I took one. Big mistake! We got to the top around 6 p.m. and at 8:30 I was passed out - drugged to the world. I was so mad (inside my head) because I knew why I was so out of it. I couldn't even get changed in pj's... just out cold. I woke up at 12:30 a.m. lucky to find everyone still awake and talking. We stayed up till 2 am then hit the sack.

It snowed all through the night and all day Saturday... it was a winter wonderland. We got to stay inside and craft the whole time.

Lori (we nicknamed her "mamma bear") was always taking care of us and making our food. So nice Lori.
When I would get frustrated with my own projects I started to learn the crochet techniques from Adrienne - here I am making a shoe lace. Nice. I think I got carpal tunnel from holding those needles so tightly.
Here was where I camped out and worked most of the time... I think I was a bit of a counter hog. Oops! As you can see we made Happy Birthday signs... so cute.
Brad was giving Julie a hard time asking if we were going to do pillow fights while we were up there. So to appease Brad we took a couple of "fake" pillow fighting pictures -although about 1 1/2 blows into it we realized this was no "fake" fight. It was very therapeutic. I haven't laughed that hard in I don't know how long. I almost passed out.
Here we all are - at the end of the Way Too Short Trip. We dragged our feet on leaving - I could have stayed a lot longer, but that's the life of a mom.

{Christy, Lori, Me, Adrienne, Julie & Diana}

Look how beautiful it was the day we left. We got 2 whole days to ourselves up there. We crafted, watched a bazillion movies, laughed, ate, slept, ate chocolate and laughed some more. Oh yes, I ended my chocolate fast up there. I did it - 26 days without chocolate. Not 1 lick!

Happy Birthday Brocky Boy

My little Brocky Boy turned 3 today. I can hardly believe it. It feels like he's been 3 forever (he acts so grown up). Since John was gone all night tonight we went out last night to celebrate. We took the kids to Farrell's for dinner, so fun...
and so loud... We were right next to the drums (can you see?).
Look at these guys. A bunch of blondies.


People always stare at us when we are out... I wonder why? :) No but really, the kids are getting much easier to take to dinner. Look at this crazy bunch!

They came to sing to Brock. He was super shy but I think he secretly liked it.
This morning Brock had his 3 year check up. He insisted on wearing these sunglasses and pink belt. Really? Well, I guess getting older comes with the perks of picking out your own clothes.

Lucky for us, today was also National Pancake Day and IHOP was serving free pancakes. Since John was working late, we headed down for a pancake dinner. Only the best for my Brock! ;)

After dinner we went home and sang happy birthday and ate cake. These kids may fight at times, but they are also good at showing each other how much they love one another. It melts my heart.

Happy Birthday little guy. We love you so much.

Brothers

A couple weeks ago I went in to check on the kids after putting them to bed. I found the boys asleep like this... Sweet Owen was comforting his little brother. So sweet.

Play-date with Great-Grandma

It's not very often that we get to hang out with Grandma, but since the kids were out of school and we had a free day to ourselves we thought... why not? Wendy drove us all up to HB where we picked up Grandma and headed for Main Street and the Pier. Grandma said she hadn't been on the pier in years! I could tell she was really enjoying herself and the kids (yes 6 of them) were all running around and enjoying the beautiful weather. They don't get to see their Great-Grandma very much - so it was a treat for all of us. Grandma loved the weather, she loved being with her great-grand kids and even survived a noisy restaurant with all of us. Thanks Grandma!!

Our Tree out front...

Valentine's Weekend

All the kids had some sort of Valentine's party to go to... We made cute Valentine cards with their pictures on it this year. I should take a photo of what it looked like -- so cute. Here is Brock with his playgroup. He doesn't like to smile for photos - but aren't they a cute bunch of kids???

My sister Tracy made these cute heart clips for the girls to wear. It was a perfect accessory for the holiday. They were able to wear them to church on Valentine's day too. I should of taken a picture of them on Sunday (what's with me?) - they looked much cuter in their red and white church dresses. Oh well...
(Ollie Pop wasn't feeling good. She had her shots this week and as you can see her eyes are a bit glazed over.)

John and I had a great weekend. We got to go out both Friday and Saturday night to really celebrate the holiday weekend. Friday night we went to sushi, go cart racing and Golden Spoon with the Barbers.It was a lot of fun - except for the part when I was run off the road by a 13-year-old and ran into a pole going 30+ mph. Yikes! Nothing 800 mg of Motrin couldn't cure.

Saturday night we went to Rusty Pelican with the Thurmans. We sat out on terrace and enjoyed the view of the bay. It got a little chilly for the guys - but they had blankets for them. Lori and I enjoyed blankets too - although we weren't as obvious about it.

Fun times!!!

Chocolate Challenge

Well I've had a week to get ready (not that it made a difference) and the day is here. I decided to start a month long Chocolate Fast. I will try and go 1 month without any chocolate. Let me just say, I'm scared! Now many of you may be thinking, why February? Valentine's Day! Well February is the shortest month of the year, so if I'm going to do it I need to keep my torture to a minimum.

Not a day goes by when I don't consume some type of chocolate. It's hardly ever candy. I usually have a chocolate breakfast shake in the morning or even a sugar free fat free chocolate pudding for dessert. But I have it every day.

I'm doing this challenge for 2 reasons.

1. To see if I can even do it.

2. To see if it makes a difference in my waist line.

Well, only time will tell. As for now - I'm confident. Let's see how it works out though.