Proof that they really don't know what they want...

This JUST happened, two minutes ago:

Acadia was in the bathroom getting ready to take a shower and she calls out to me, "Mom, Rori won't get out of the bathroom!" So, I call to Rori, "Rori, come here, Sister needs to take a bath." Two seconds (no joke) later, Cadi says, "Mom, can Rori stay in the bathroom with me?"

Children.

More Presents!

A late birthday package arrived for Aurora today!

(Yes, the girls are still in their pajamas. lol)

Rori's Birthday Report

This post has been a long time coming.  But here it finally is! :)

Last Tuesday was Rori's b-day.  The plan was to have a small gift opening session (grandparent gifts and some of our gifts) and then have some cupcakes and ice cream - just us as a family.  The only problem was that Ryan had to work late; something had broken the night before and since he is the Engineer in Charge, when things go wrong, he's the one that is called in to see that they are fixed.  He didn't get home from work until after the girls were in bed.

It was the same on Wednesday.

And Thursday.

And Friday.

Back on Wednesday, Ryan told me to let Rori open some of the presents because he didn't want to make her wait (the ones from his parents were sitting out in the family room and she knew they were for her).  So when she woke up and asked to open them, I let her.



She got a couple of dresses, this is one of them:



I didn't get a picture of some gardening things: a little tote with a water can and gardening tools.  But I did get a few pics of this:



The girls both loved these and had fun playing with them for awhile that morning. :)





I don't remember which night it was, I think it was Wednesday, after Ryan came home from work, Rori woke back up and we decided to have cupcakes and ice cream right then - we didn't want the cupcakes to get stale. ;)





Later, on Friday, Rori woke up after Ryan came home again.  (She doesn't usually do that but this week she did it twice - and I'm glad she did!)  So we let her open the rest of the gifts we were going to have her open earlier.

(She's so color coordinated, isn't she?  She had fallen asleep early before bedtime so she was still wearing the outfit she had on that day... and it just so happens to be the exact color of this wrapping paper. lol)











Finally, on Saturday we had her birthday party!  We invited a few of her friends to join us at a nice park near our house for a Teddy Bear Picnic.  It was a lot of fun!  Here is a slideshow with pics from our picnic/party:



I find that the 3rd birthday is one of the more challenging to plan.  The 1st and 2nd are usually just family with maybe some good friends over for a BBQ, the kid is too young to really understand what a birthday is.  And when they are older, they have ideas enough to input what they'd like and they understand more of how a party works, can play games, follow rules, etc.  But the 3rd is inbetween those things.  Plus, at 3 years old, the kids are just plain WILD!  I think this was the perfect party for this age!  I didn't plan and activities because the park kept them busy and having fun.  Everyone had a great time and I had a great time because it was so EASY!  :)

I'm in love with a BIG BLUE frog!

Yesterday we had a fun little get together with friends who had moved away years ago and were back to visit. Earlier in the day, I told Ryan that if he wasn't able to get to the gym before the get together, he could go after the visit with our friends. But at the end of our visiting, one of the husbands in the group suggested that the ladies should go out for a girls night and more visiting away from kids. Yay! I love girls nights! I was excited but then remembered the offer I had made to Ryan about the gym... But he insisted that I go. I did go and it was a lot of fun! And when I came home, all of the dinner dishes were done, the kitchen clean, the family room and dining room clean (kinda a big deal since last night our friends' little girl Cadi's age came over to stay the night and visit more with Cadi - I did not expect a cleaner house when I got home than when I left it!)...
Can I just tell you how much I LOVE THIS MAN!?!?!? :)

Behind

I'm behind.

Rori's birthday was on Tuesday, she got to open gifts throughout the week, and we had a party for her on Saturday... I haven't posted about any of that yet. I do have pics, I will post them... eventually.

Last week was HOTTT! Even by California's standards. We broke an all-time record high here in Vancouver - twice! Before last week, Vancouver had NEVER been hotter than 105 degrees. On Tuesday, we broke that record with 106, then on Wednesday we broke that record with 107! And actually, my neighbor's backyard read 109 in the shade, so wherever they take the city's temp was cooler than here.

That just wiped us out! lol We were lazy and lethargic. Not completely, but to some degree. Thankfully, we have A/C at our house, so we were relatively comfortable, but to do so, we kept the house totally shut up, tried to keep lights turned off, did not turn on the stove or oven, etc. We instead, spent time watching movies, visiting with friends in their kiddie pool (in the shade), and ordering out for dinner so we didn't have to heat anything in our kitchen.

Things have cooled down now but we're still breaking records. Usually, we only get about 12 or 13 days in a whole year that are warmer than 90 degrees. And for us, anything in the 90s for more than a couple days is a heatwave. Yesterday we broke a 40+ year record of how many consecutive days are 90 degrees or more, with 9 days so far. If we hit 90 today (and we're forecasted to), that will make it 10. And 3 of those days were triple digits.
But tomorrow will see us back in the 80s and there is even a chance of rain later this week, which would be a welcome change!

Anyhow, it's funny that I grew up in California and heat never affected me like this. But you get acclimated to where you are and I just don't like that heat anymore! I LOVE 70s and even 80s, but anything higher than that makes me want to take a long nap. lol So... I have been feeling lazy. And therefore, I'm behind.

Long Beach Day Four

I wrote this a day or two after getting home:

Thursday was the day we had to go home.  And so it would figure that it was the clearest, sunniest day we had there! lol  It actually did rain lightly for part of it, but in between light showers, was clear, blue sky and warm sunshine.  We did take the kids to the beach to enjoy the sun, but all of our stuff was packed up and loaded into the car, so we had to lay down the “no water” rule.  It was a bummer that the one day that was warm enough to play in the water in swimsuits was the one day we didn’t have the time to.  But it was still fun and we made the best of it.

Before leaving, we decided to drive the truck out on the beach.  It was a first for all of us… and it was quite and exciting experience!  Things went really well until … well… I think we’ll let “what happens at the beach, stay at the beach”. ;) 

The drive home went well and quickly.  We grabbed dinner in Astoria (the one and only time we “ate out” during our whole trip) and had a smooth ride home.  Ryan was home when we got here and it was so good to see him!  We unloaded the car and I started to put things away, but had a headache and decided to lay on the couch with the fam instead.  We were all quite tired and so everyone turned in relatively early, not that I actually went to sleep, but that’s another story (which I’ve already told).

We had a fantastic time at the beach!  If we were going to do anything differently, I think we would have taken the kids to see the lighthouse.  Since the weather was on the cooler side, that would have been a fun alternative to just playing at the beach and watching the kids freeze themselves in the waves.  But we did all have fun just relaxing, so I don’t regret not going to the lighthouse at all.

I’m hoping we can go back next year, and in the meantime, I’m looking forward to another beach trip next month.  This time with my aunt, uncle, and cousins on the Oregon Coast! J

Long Beach Day Three

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

I think we originally thought we would get up and get going at a decent time today, but when it came down to it… we had another lazy morning.  Hey, we’re on vacation at the beach – what other kind of morning is there?  lol

Since arriving on Monday, the weather has been cool and often foggy/misty.  It’s not been too cold, so we’ve still managed to thoroughly enjoy it, but it’s not been quite warm enough to get out in our swimsuits and play in the waves either.  (Not that it hasn’t stopped the kids from doing that anyway. lol)  This morning it sprinkled and seemed a tad cooler than the other days.  We decided (after playing games inside) that we would just go for a walk along the beach today, instead of playing in the sand or water.  We walked for a couple of hours and had a lot of fun!  We found a couple of perfect seashells, some jellyfish, and a dead sea gull.  Even though we said “no water”, the kids still ended up walking along the edges of the waves.  (But really, is anyone surprised?)

After we came home to eat and play more games, we went back this evening to really let the kids play this time.  Yeah, it was a tad cold, but they didn’t care, they had fun!  After an hour or so, the wind off the ocean started to get colder, so we called it a day.  But we still had it in us to play more games and watch a movie. :)

I’m not sure what the game plan is tomorrow.  I think we’re staying most of the day and heading back late afternoon/early evening.  We’re kind of all hoping against hope that it will actually be a little sunny tomorrow, and dare I say “clear”? ;)  We’ll see.  Part of me would really like that, but part of me enjoys the cool, misty weather of the coast.  It’s what I’m used to and it reminds me of many summers camping at the coast in Northern California. 

No matter how tomorrow ends up, it will be sad to leave this nice little beach trip, but it will also be really good to be back home with Ryan.  I miss my Blue.