Sedona weekend

I just realized that I started this post over 2 months ago and never published it. The pictures weren't uploading quick enough so I think I gave up. Anyway, the week before Thanksgiving we went up to Sedona for the weekend. My parents let us use some of their timeshare time. It was the first weekend of that Christmas lights display. We went goofy golfing, saw the ducks in the creek, and saw all the Christmas lights. It was a very relaxing weekend.

October 4, 2009

On October 4 my daddy turned 60! I cannot believe he is 60. He definitely does not look like it at all, and he sure plays with Adrian like he's 30. I think Adrian helps keep him young. Proof that he is still just a little boy himself, we asked what he wanted to do on his big day and he picked lunch and goofy golfing....lol. It was a nice day, not too hot, and I even think he beat all of us.

Adrian being very stylish on the drive over.

Putting away.

Adrian is getting better every time we go.

Best buddies!

Happy Birthday Dad!

September 2, 09

I am a big fan of zoos. I love looking at all of the different kind of animals, and I think Adrian likes it too. The Out of Africa zoo used to be out east near Fountain Hills. Quite a few years ago they moved everything up to Camp Verde. I have wanted to visit it for a long time, so Labor Day weekend we made a day trip up there.

Adrian was being goofy on the ride up.

Hopefully we were stopped at a stop light to take this.

Arriving at the zoo.

Riding the train around the park.

I love being so close to the big cats. I just want to pet them.

They are so pretty.

These bears were so cute. There were two of them running and chasing each other.

My boys looking out over a lion enclosure. Yep, Adrian is a Wonderpet, with a cape and all.

I love the prairie dogs too. They would pose for pictures and take food right out of our hands.

He was really happy, I don't know where that face came from. Soon after this picture was taken we decided it was almost time to go because the dark black clouds were rolling in. The clouds were nice to have most of the day to block out the sun and cool it down a little bit.

Right as we were near the exit there was a little incident. Adrian was standing up in his stroller and it started to fall back. This actually wasn't the first time he stood and fell back on this trip...oops. This last time though we weren't going to be so lucky. Adrian was fine, but Jon-Paul didn't come out without slicing his finger open. He tried to catch the stroller by the handle, but we didn't realized that the handle was broken from one of the earlier falls. Adrian got up and moved on, but Jon-Paul was dripping blood everywhere. We went into the gift shop to find out if they had any band aides. They had saline cleaning solution and band aides. Yay! The moment we stepped out of the gift shop to leave it started pouring. Good thing our time at the zoo was done.

July 1 09

I have had an interest in tattoos for a while, and kinda always wanted one but could never think off anything meaningful enough to have on my body the rest of my life. It was the beginning of May and my best friend, Monique, and I were talking about tattoos. She already has one on her lower back and has wanted more ever since. We have a made up name we call each other since we've been friends our entire lives. The word is "Hermiga." In Spanish the word hermana means sister and the word amiga means friend. Put them together and you get Hermiga. Meaning we are more like sisters than just friends.

She suggested we get matching tattoos of that word, and at first I just thought it was another silly idea of hers and just laughed it off. The more I thought about it though the more I realized that it was a perfect idea. She has been and always will be my best friend. There was no doubt in my mind that I would love this tattoo and not regret it at all.

She got her first tattoo from an artist up in Flagstaff and she really liked his work, so up to Flagstaff we went one day. On the drive up I did have a few moments of nervousness, but overall I was calm and ready. I still made her go first though since she'd done it before.

Is that a nervous or excited smile??

Monique getting hers done.

Yes, it hurt.

Monique's finished product. Hers is on her left ankle with purple writing.

Getting mine done.

By the time he was on the back of my ankle I was done. Yes, it hurt.

The back of mine...it does wrap all the way around.

Mine is on my right ankle with blue writing. Oh, and that's a mosquito bite right under it. It's gone now.

So, as of right now we have had them for 4 months and I am so happy we did it. There is not even a tiny bit of regret. I love it!

Hello readers

So do I? Do I win the award for worst blogger ever? It's pretty much to the point of ridiculousness that I haven't been updating this. I do think about it about once a week and then for some reason I find something else to do. So, since it is Sunday, the house is clean, the laundry is done, and football is on I have no excuse. Forgive the post overload.

From 1 to 3

I'm not a babysitter, I've never been a babysitter. In fact, Adrian's was the first diaper I ever changed. Now don't hate me for saying this, but I don't really like other peoples' kids. I just can't relate to them in a caring way like I do with Adrian. When Adrian has a booger, I pick it. When another kid has a booger, I'm to the point of gagging. And don't get me started on the other end of things.

So 2 weeks ago I had to put these feelings aside when I agreed to babysit the two children of one of Jon-Paul's good friends. He was going to be training for a new job during the day and his wife also was working during the day. I agreed to help them out for 2 weeks while he completed his training. After training he would be working nights, so they wouldn't be in need of childcare after that. The boy will be 3 this month and the girl will be 2 next month. So I was all of a sudden responsible for 3 kids under 3.

Monday morning he showed up to drop the kids off and of course Kata greeted them with her wall-shaking barking. They don't have any pets so meeting one dog and three cats was all new to them. Kata scared the girl to death by barking in her face and that was it for her the rest of the time they came over to our house. She was terrified of Kata and wouldn't let me put her down for 2 seconds. Yeah, that made it easy to get stuff done.

One thing I really wasn't used to was all the mess. If Adrian takes one thing out he has to put it away before getting something else out. Try telling that to two that weren't used to that rule. Wasn't working, so I basically followed them around cleaning up just to keep my sanity. I'm also not used to constant movement. Adrian is content to play with something for quite a while. These two moved from one thing to the next every five minutes! Sadly, the only thing that kept their attention for longer then that was if I gave them juice and turned on a cartoon. Their attention would be held until the juice was gone. I really, really tried to limit their juice intake, but they wouldn't drink anything else. While this went on Adrian stood there asking for water. What a good boy!

So I mentioned that I don't like to deal with the other end of things. I haven't had to clean a dirty diaper from Adrian since at least February. We're working on holding his pee right now, and we'll get there soon. Anyway, neither of these kids even attempt to use the potty. The boy will be 3 in a couple of weeks!! So you know what that means, I was doing a lot of breath holding.
I could go on and on about how much I hated it, but I won't do that. Here are a couple pictures of when I didn't mind having them here. Snacking on the couch, eating lunch at the counter, and ah yes napping!

To Show Low we will go....

You'd think that with me having the whole summer off of work I'd be able to keep up with this blogging thing. Adrian and I started our summer off by going "camping" with my parents in Show Low. I put camping in quotation marks because I don't consider being in a RV parked behind the ELKS club really camping. I would rather be parked down by the river, but I was still able to enjoy the cool weather and wonderful smell of pine trees.

In preparation for the trip Adrian helped my dad wash the RV, more specifically the TOP of the RV. My mom and I walked out to find this:

A little nervous shock ran through my body when I saw him up there, but I trust my dad and figured he would be ok. The next part had me a little bit nervous too though. We told them it was time to get down and of course he insisted that he ride on my dad's shoulders. At least they came down rather slowly.

Once they were safely back on the ground they both gave us their "Cheese!" faces...too cute!!

The relaxation began as soon as we arrived in Show Low. My grandparents were also up there because my Papa had been invited to play his guitar at the ELKS club during lunchtime for 3 weeks. My Papa set up the hammock that I actually used when I was Adrian's age. So Adrian and Papa jumped right in...

Adrian loved to walk around the park kicking over stumps and finding rocks. One day I found an inch worm on my arm, so Adrian began playing with him. He was gentle for a while but I think he eventually squished him.

The trip did have a little bump in the road about 3 days in though. On Thursday morning I woke up to my mom standing over me at 4:30am telling me that she was taking my dad to the emergency room. He was in so much pain he didn't know what to do with himself. His side really hurt. So off they went and around 6:30 my mom called to tell me they found out he had a kidney stone. Ouch! So, the rest of the trip was sort of a bummer because he didn't feel well enough to do much and Adrian couldn't understand that. So my mom and I took turns trying to entertain him as well as Papa does, but I know we just weren't as good.

Now my dad and Jon-Paul have something in common that they can talk about since Jon-Paul had his first kidney stone in high school. I guess they can compare their pain.

Goin, goin, back, back, to Cali, Cali

Last weekend we made a quick trip to California. Every year my school makes a turn around trip to Disneyland, and every year I say," no thanks, that doesn't sound fun for me." Waking up extremely early one morning, driving 7 hours on a bus to get there, spending ALL day at Disneyland, and then driving 7 hours home that same night doesn't sound too appealing. I did do this trip once before when I was in high school and I just remember that it took me an entire weekend to recover.

So this year when the talk about Disneyland started in March I just ignored it since I really wasn't planning on going. Then, my assistant principal mentioned something about Daryl, my old assistant, meeting us there. Daryl and I worked together the last 2 school years but then he moved back to LA because that's where he's from. Daryl and I still keep in contact and when he mentioned that it peaked my interest because I do love visiting Daryl. We went to LA to visit him last summer.

I asked Daryl if that sounded like something he would want to do. He checked with his work and was able to get the day off, so I guess that made my decision for me that I was going too. I told the teacher in charge that I would ride over on that bus, but that Jon-Paul and Adrian would be meeting us there and I was just going to stay so I wouldn't be riding the bus back. She said that was fine.

My best friend Monique asked if she could come to Disneyland with us when we took Adrian for the first time. (He was like 3 months old when she first asked) So, we also mentioned our plans to her and asked if she wanted to come too. She was beyond excited. So it ended up being Jon-Paul, Adrian, Monique, and Monique's husband Don that met us over in Disneyland.

The morning of the trip I had to get up at 2:30 am so that I was at school by 4am, yuck. We left RP at 4:45am. I got about 45 minutes of sleep on the bus, and by the time we got there around 11:30 I was a little worn out. Jon-Paul and the rest of them didn't leave our house until 5:30, but we happened to meet in the parking line at exactly the same time. I was told that Adrian got a little nap here and there on the trip over, so I was hoping he wouldn't be too cranky during the day. He wasn't at all. He actually did great and went on all the grown-up rides that he was tall enough to do. He went in an saw the Honey I Shrunk the Audience show, he went on Pirates of the Carribean, the Haunted Mansion, the race cars, and the Amazon boat ride.

We actually didn't go do any of the little kid activities, oops. We'll go back again I'm sure.

We did get to see Mickey but just in the parade.

Waiting in line for the Haunted Mansion.

For some reason those are really the only pictures we have of Disneyland. The rest of the pictures are from the rest of the weekend with Daryl. On Saturday he took us to the beach and he took his kayak. Jon-Paul loved it and they didn't even tip over once. The water was a little cold but we got used to it.

Of course the only thing Adrian wanted to do was dig in the sand and be buried, so that's what he did. He's not a big fan of the ocean. Especially since it was cold and the waves could have knocked him over.

Jon-Paul wanted to join in on the burying action too.

Daryl digging a big hole for Adrian to jump in to.

Adrian "helping" drag the kayak back to the truck.

Ride back to Daryl's place to clean up and get rid of all the sand.

The ride home on Sunday wasn't too bad. Adrian did start to whine about an hour away from home, and we found out later it was because he had some little stomach problem that kept him in the bathroom the next few days after we got home. TMI I know.

Our new truck!

About a year ago we had a Dodge Ram, and this was the time when gas was $4.00 a gallon. Jon-Paul was driving the limo, so it wasn't really necessary for us to have a second vehicle that was a big gas guzzler. So, Jon-Paul traded it in for a Saab that got incredible gas mileage. The only problem with the Saab was that it was extremely small and low to get into. Putting a child in and out of small car is not my idea of fun.

Two weeks ago Jon-Paul got the great news that his friend had gotten him a new job. Jon-Paul cannot be happier with his new job!! He has a normal Monday-Friday job with regular hours and a lot better pay. Heck, I'm excited for our new regular schedule.

So, we decided that we are now in a better situation and it was time to get a bigger vehicle. I'm a truck girl at heart, and I was so happy when Jon-Paul found this used Titan online. He drove it home on Friday night and we signed the paperwork on Saturday morning. I love it and it's extremely roomy. And it's pretty!!