Park Day & Stuff

It wasn't raining today so we got to go to our park day! Yay! The past two weeks it has rained on Monday so it has been cancelled. It was beautiful too. It was a perfect California day, clear and 70 degrees. There were lots of people at the park today. The weather and the fact that it is still Christmas Vacation for the schools brings out many people. It was great to get caught up with everyone. Nikki was happy that she could spend the day with her homeschool friends. They had their guitars today and could be seen lounging on the grass or roaming the park. The boys rode their new scooters that Santa brought. And I sold a few of my bags! I'm so going to make more.

We went out to dinner tonight. We tried Mexi-Casa again after a long haitus. It was terrible. :( So we are still in search of a decent local Mexican place. You would think it would be easy!

After Christmas Blues

Yep! I've got them! So sad! I know! I've gotten into my old slovenly ways. I can be incredibly lazy. My Mom is going to read this and think "Oh don't I know it!". I've been lazy just about everything. Eating, cooking, shopping, kids, blog, house, etc. The house is a wreck and I feel crowded. That is mostly Christmas stuff, I know. The house has been taken over by Christmas decorations and presents. I think I will take the tree down tomorrow to give us more space. And I'm going to start paring down around the house. We all have so much stuff. I should be grateful that we have a house at all and stuff to put in it, but OMGoodness this house is crowded.

Besides that, my buddy went home yesterday. :( My friend Tia stayed with us over Christmas and it is so fun to have her and her daughter here. She is just a great friend and I miss her when she goes home.

We had a huge Playgroup Reunion on Tuesday. That was so fun! It was great to see how much everyone's kids have grown and what we have all been up to. We were only missing a couple people, but they are probably glad they didn't come. It was pretty chaotic!

Christmas was wonderful. We had dinner here with my Dad and Step-Mom on Christmas Eve and went to my Aunts house Christmas Day.

It was pretty much three days of non-stop excitement around here. Yesterday I cleaned a lot and today just laid around. I have a stuffy nose. I'm tired. And I really need to go to the grocery store!

Christmas Time Is Here!

Happiness and Cheer! I love "It's Christmas Charlie Brown!" We watched it tonight while we ate our dinner of Popeye's chicken at the coffee table. That is one of our Christmas traditions, watching our Christmas DVD's each night at dinner. Ahh the memories. :))

Today was super busy. I was busy baking. Dan hung curtains for his Mom. Nikki had a birthday party to go to. The boys, well, they did what they always do, played video games. I tried to get them involved in baking but they weren't interested. Tom did get dressed today. He has been having an issue with jeans lately. He doesn't like them. One day he wears them without a problem. The next day they are so unbearably uncomfortable he can't stand it. He likes his sweat pants when he is just around the house, which is fine except I needed to wash them today. Yesterday I went shopping at Target and looked for some more, but they were out.

Speaking of Target, I went Christmas shopping there yesterday and boy were the shelves bare. There were too many people there. But it looked like it had been a week since they restocked and this is a brand new store. Dan and I went to Toys R Us when he got home on Friday night. I was expecting a mad house. The Friday evening before Christmas? But it was not busy at all. We did get some really cool toys for a great deal.

All my Christmas shopping is done. :) I have to wrap though. I don't do that until the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. THAT is tradition!! I remember trying to go to sleep at my Grandma's house and hearing my Mom, Aunt, and Grandma wrapping away in the other room. How can a kid possibly sleep!!?? They were giggling and talking. It just sounded like they were having way to much fun for grown-ups.

Hmmm...what else? Not much. Just that I love Christmas. And my family. And I'm excited for the festivities to begin! :)

I'm bad and I haven't blogged lately! Seriously. The only time I really feel compelled to write is when the boys are in the tub. Everything is quiet and I'm all alone for a minute and can think. But I get lazy about getting them in the tub, especially when it is cold.

Update, well, I'm not done shopping for Christmas. I've barely started. I know what they boys will get, maybe and I have an idea of what to get for Nikki. I have to get an exchange gift thingy for my Aunts party. I'm sure I'm not the ONLY one who has waited this long.

Our cool craft fair at our homeschool park day was cancelled this week because it rained and now it looks like it will rain again next week. Bummer! I was really looking forward to shopping from my friends.

Tom and Jake started Karate classes yesterday. It was great and they are really excited to go again tomorrow.

Jake lost his front tooth yesterday. He had been wiggling it all day. It was loose on Monday, but Tuesday morning it was really loose because his brother punched him in the mouth over a computer game. By the afternoon, he was turning it around and grossing everyone out. He came home and counted all his money and wrote the tooth fairy a note that he needed 95 cents. He really wanted to buy an army jacket he saw at the Army Navy store on Sunday. She brought him $2! It was a big front tooth after all. We went to the store and got the jacket today. He was pretty stinkin' proud.

What are we doing?

Well, the fireworks ended, so I can hear myself think now! Tom is taking a bath while I wait for him. Jake is playing Rollercoaster Tycoon on the computer. Nikki is working on Algebra...I think. And Dan is watching tv.

I got down the Christmas boxes, all 20 of them! And put the Fall boxes back up into the garage storage. I cut the fabric for 20 bags that I'm making for our craft fair at the park. On Saturday my Mom and I are going to sew them.

I'm exhausted and I pretty sure I shouldn't be. Must be the highly unhealthy food I've been eating the past week. :( I'm going to the store tomorrow and I'm back to better food...OK!

Cabo's

We have a favorite restaurant called Cabo's. We used to go there about every week and the people who worked there we so friendly and we would even talk to them when we saw them at the grocery store! They always knew what we wanted to eat. The food was great and cheap. A while back the owners sold it and we knew it would be going downhill. All but one of our waiters was gone. The new owner wasn't very much fun. The new waitress was terrible. Tonight was the worst. The service was really slow (and we were the only ones there) and the food was gross. I guess we won't be going there again. :( Now we must find a new cheap mexican place!

But we did go get ice cream afterwards and it was $1 scoop night! Yay!

Road Trip!

Saturday was our annual Turkey Taco Feast at my Dad's house! Yay! I got a cool birthday present, a Kindle electronic book. I LOVE it! Thanks Dad! After the party, Dan took Ann and Nikki home and the boys and took my Grandma Shirley home to Yuma.

We took 86 down from the 10 freeway along the Salton Sea. It was dark, but we could see lights reflecting off the water so we knew it was there. We drove by a sea of campers and campfires along I-8. And we saw rows of headlights from atv's and dunebuggies along a ridge and riding down it. We were amazed! There were lots of trailers and trucks heading back from where we were and I was worried about what the traffic would be like the next day. We made quick time getting down there and spent the night at her house. Tom wasn't really secure in going. He kept saying he was scared, but couldn't tell me about what. We woke up in the morning and attempted to get Tom up and out for breakfast. It only took an hour. Grandma's house is really nice and it was fun spending some time with her. It has been a long time since we did that! We went out for breakfast at IHOP (my personal favorite) and tried to meet my Aunt and Uncle on their way back to San Diego. I haven't seen them in years, but we must have missed them. We took Grandma back to her house and said goodbye.

I wanted to get on the road early since it was the Sunday after Thanksgiving. We stopped at the "Ocean to Ocean" bridge and found a letterbox that I had looked up the day before. The boys had a blast walking across the bridge into California and back again. We read about the bridge and had fun laughing at all the mistakes they made.

Then we went over to the Yuma Territorial Prison. We found another letterbox there and went to the gift shop, checked the place out, and watched a gunfight show. Then we got on the road. It was almost 2pm our time, a bit later than I had hoped.

We drove up along side the Salton Sea up 86 and through Brawley. We stopped there for gas and tacos. We got from Yuma to Indio in about 2 hours. That is where the trouble started! The traffic was a dead stop. It took us about 30 minutes to get from the 86 to the next off ramp. We stopped at McDonald's for ice cream, coffee, and some running around. I called Dan and told him what was up. We stayed for a bit and then got back on the road. It was a dead stop for miles. You could see it snake along in front of us. We had been on the road for about and hour and the boys were doing well. We were singing along to the radio, discussing war and politics, waving to people around us. We decided to stop at the rest stop ahead just past the Whitewater exit and we would stay there for awhile. I told the boys to start praying that there was a spot for us! We got there in a little over an hour! That was 25 miles in over two hours! Yikes! We found a spot at the rest stop. There were probably 200 people there easy. Everyone was standing around telling stories about how long they had been on the road. A bunch of kids were playing kick the can. The boys ran around in circles for awhile and the made a small obstacle course around and over a bench and trash can. We went back to the truck and read our book for awhile and played cards. We tried to take a nap, but it was so noisy with all the cars and people. We got up again and started to read our book. We are reading "Mrs. Frisby and the rats of NIMH". At 10:30 there were people double parked everywhere and the traffic was still stopped. At 11:10, Tom looked up and yelled "The traffic is gone!" and he was right. There were half as many cars around and the traffic was flowing freely. We went to the bathroom and got back on the road. We got home in about an hour! It was 12:30am when we got to our house. The boys stumbled up the stairs and fell into bed. And they slept until almost 10am!

It was a wild trip and a lot of fun! I would so do it again. :)