Time Sure Flies

Sunday I spent most of the day cleaning my room and doing laundry. There is something so comforting about sorting out a junk drawer.

Yes, I'm strange.

While cleaning I had to put away stuff in my "to be scrapbooked" boxes and holy hell they are over flowing. I think that's a sign I need to work on those a bit. I'll just have to squish in some time for those somewhere.

I have a whole scrapbook that is almost done and is just missing one event. I just tried to print out some pictures but I'm out of the ink. Always something to keep projects from being finished.

This is one of the pictures that needs to be scrapped.

This is when Jessica was at Science Camp as a counselor.

Seems like she just yesterday and it was 3 years ago.

Tomorrow she turns 20, how is that even possible? I was 20 when I had her.

Of course I knew it all at that age (actually I was pretty sure I didn't know ANYTHING after she was born haha).

Twenty years sure goes by in the blink of an eye when you look back.

How many times did we wish the days would go by just a bit faster to get to the weekend and then bam! The whole year is over.

Then ten and wow now's it's twenty.

Becoming such a beautiful woman.

Car Show Fun

I had such a good time at the car show yesterday!

Lucky for us the huge storm we had on Friday appeared to be over and the sun was out. It was just a little bit breezy but not too bad.

Trevor and I walked down to the club house. First though I had to stop and take a picture of my neighbor's beautiful bottle brush bush. I remember when I was really little, we lived in a town house and had one of these bushes in the back yard. We moved when I was four so that tells you how little I was for that to make an impression on me.

My friend Lupe was selling tamales that her mom made in a booth so I sat with her for a bit and we walked around when she had someone to take over for her. 

I walked around with Trevor and then later Scott and then later my friend Traci.

Station Wagon :shudder:

I like the 2 tone color on this one.

Melissa showed up eventually and "hung out" with the other big kids.

My Grandpa used to have a car like this and I remember sitting in the back thinking that the window was soo long lol. 

My dad had a car like this when I was learning to drive and I almost drove it into a ditch. Whoopsie.

I'm not sure what kind of dog this is. Someone said afghan but when I looked that up it didn't quite look like that.

It's funny that this car was there since I took a picture of it in town last week and sent it to Scott. (we have a car like that in our garage that he's been working on for 20 years)

My little cousin Robert

Scott & Tom

Rawwrrr

Cool camper, just as long as you don't want to stand up.

Trophies for the winners

I was going to add a couple more pictures but it's not letting me so I might come back and add those later.

We went home full of tamales and kettle corn and I ended up taking a nap! What a fun day, can't wait until next year ;)

Previous car shows

2013

2012

2010

TGIF!

Ahhh thank God it's Friday! I'm so ready for a kick back weekend. We haven't had one of those in months!!

On my agenda?

Car show tomorrow (within walking distance)
Book club Sunday (also within walking distance)
laying on the couch
reading
napping
eating

I just got back from the grocery store. I went shopping without a plan which, yeah, doesn't always come out with the best results.

I only bought stuff for the weekend which was probably stupid because now I'll have to go back on Sunday night unless I make something to go in the kids lunches. Or make Scott do it.

Either of which are plausible.

I just missed having to load and unload the car in a huge rain storm. It poured on my way home, but when I got out of the car it had stopped. Good thing since I totally wore sandals, capri pants and no jacket today. I heard some guy in the grocery store saying "it's so cold" and I was thinking to myself I think it MAY be 65. People in California are such wimps lol. Half an inch of rain and everyone gets out their winter gear (which, you know, is a hoodie and real shoes).

Well, here's to an uproductive weekend of lazing around and relaxing. Hopefully everything dries out enough for the car show tomorrow.

Working Out, Or Not

I went all Rambo on my work outs yesterday catching up on my Bikini Body Mommy Challenge.

So today I'm all "when I get home, I'll change real quick and then go to the gym".

Then I get home, take the dogs out,
Oh I have to water the veggie garden,
and the side yard,
put the sprinkler on the front
have a snack,
Oh I have to pay a bill before I forget
balance the checkbook
oh screw it,

I'll just skip today.

Yep, that's how it works. I'm invited to go to a "wine night" at one of my neighbors/friend/book club ladies houses tonight, so that's making my time a little squishy. I totally could have made it to the gym and probably still could if I went really fast but eh, I don't really feel like it.

What a slacker.

Today.
Not yesterday haha.

So I've been taking a break from running since my half marathon in Utah. I always feel so burnt out on running after doing a half. So I just didn't run anymore. Except for the 5k at the zoo, which honestly, if my whole family had not been signed up for, I totally would have ditched. 

The last couple days though, I've finally kind of felt like going for a run. When I saw that three days of the Bikini Body Mommy was to do 1 minute run/walk intervals for 20 minutes I decided to just go out and do all three. If it felt good.

I went out and down the block then came home and changed into a proper running top. Way too much bounce in that other sports bra. OUCH. Then it was back out for a glorious hour where I remembered how much I like to run. It was dark when I went out (favorite time to run, yes I'm weird) and the wind we had been having all day had quieted down to a nice breeze.

I had set my Runkeeper to go off every minute but I started missing some of them so I set up the interval timer for 1 minute alarms and that worked much better. I was running and walking along and bopping around to my favorite running songs and just having a great time!

Before I knew it an hour was up.

YES! I like to run.
Again.

Now I'm like, man I have a whole month until my next race.
Maybe I should find another one to do.
Maybe a trail run.
Maybe I should pick another half to do!

Maybe I should just pipe down and just go out and have some more fun runs.

Easter

Easter Sunday I actually slept in until 8:00. Ahh bliss!

I was cracking up when I saw that Jess put this on Instagram.

One good thing about your kids being older is you don't have to wake up before the sun to go out and play Easter bunny.  Everyone here knows that I am the Easter bunny. 

Hiding eggs at 9:30 am instead of 5:30 am? WIN.

Scott wasn't feeling all that great so I got to hide most of the eggs.  I'm really surprised that all the kids were so into it. I thought for sure everyone would be whining that they were too old.

They each got a kite (front the dollar store) and amazingly 2 out of the 3 of them actually worked! It's like a dollar store miracle!

While the kids were outside playing with their kites I went back inside and made waffles. I ate standing up while they were being cooked. 

After that it was onto more cleaning and party prep. Scott was becoming sicker and sicker and I might have yelled at him that he was ruining Easter. I'm such an awesome wife. At some point he huffed off to the garage and I found him later laying on the hard floor out there. You'd think he would have at least huffed off to some place a bit more comfortable.

With him being out of commission I was on my own for every thing. Well the kids helped (Thank God) but I had to do a few things that I thought he was going to do. We probably should have called off the party but I had shit ton of food and everyone was coming over in a just a couple hours.

 think I was done cleaning about 15 minutes after people were supposed to get here. Lucky for me that was 15 minutes before anyone got here.

Then it was off to man the BBQ while Scott laid on the swing and gave orders about how to not ruin the food. I pretty much stood there for for an hour or two, then ran in and threw some rolls in the oven for about 2 minutes too long and burned the bottoms.

Lovely. As mom's always say "just scrape off the burnt part". 

While I was doing all this cooking my sister in law's dad Charly took Trevor and my niece Adrian for a bike ride. While they were gone the kids hit the plastic eggs I had filled with treats and toys. 

When they got back from the bike ride she noticed the eggs in the yard and said "THE BUNNY CAME!!" It was so very cute.

Since she was the only little one that came she pretty much got $40 worth of dollar store goodies all to herself. 

Score for being the only kid!

Next year should be much more exciting with the twins and Ava too. They stayed home this year since the babies are too little to go out still.

After the egg hunt, and eating we did some cupcakes and candles for the girls. Melissa turned 15 on April 8th and Jessica will be 20 on April 29th. We always celebrate their birthdays with the family on Easter to get it all done in one big bang.

Instead of cakes the both decided on cupcakes this year. AND they made them all themselves.

You know you're getting older when it takes 5 minutes to light your candles.

Here's my mom, me and Jess

A rascally rabbit Melissa (crown on with the ears lol)

I didn't take very good pictures and missed like half the people there. Whoops. 

Charly had brought a racquetball and was playing a sort of handball game with Trevor. He gave him the ball when he left. 

Trevor and I played for a bit after everyone left and I noticed that the sun was starting to go down so we rode our bikes over to my friend Traci's dock.

She was actually there on the dock with some family and friends so we hung out with them and watched the sunset. Trevor got to take their canoe out with Traci's brother in law too, which he just loves.

A nice way to end the night.

Well except when we got back I finished cleaning everything up and washed the dishes before passing out.

Sadly I had to work the next day. That just seems so wrong! (Scott actually stayed home on Monday since he was still sick)

So, note to self for the next party, do what I usually do and work a lot harder on getting things done BEFORE the weekend of the actual party. Easier said then done sometimes. 

Easter Eve

Friday Jess came home from school to spend Easter weekend with us. We always do a family party for the girls on Easter at our house so everyone can have one get together instead of three. So much easier!

I came home and picked her up and then we went shopping for Easter food and supplies. So much fun hanging out with her. I miss those little hanging out times the most I think!

Saturday morning we did a little bit of cleaning and party prep and then Scott and I went to Home Depot to get a new BBQ.  After that I had to go to Stockton to get my hair done. My sister in law was applying to work at a salon and she needed someone to get their hair done and she had asked me to do it.

When I got there my brother Joe and my niece Adrian were there too. Joe got his hair cut first and Adrian and I played Go Fish and then took selfies :)

My sister in law did my hair and then I went home. Well first I stopped at the store AGAIN to get a few more things that I forgot from the last 12 times I went.

I got home and with some steaks and got Scott to BBQ them on our new grill (yummy but way too expensive. Beef just seems to be so high now). And the kids dyed Easter Eggs.

I had bought an egg dying kit at the dollar store but when the kids opened it up it only came with four colors. Now when we were kids four colors would have been fine but these days that's just not good enough.

A quick Google search  told us we could make our own with 10 drops of food coloring, a teaspoon of vinegar and 1/2 a cup of hot water. All things we actually had, AMAZING!

I was happy that the kids all wanted to do them. They are all getting older and sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get them to do the old traditions but they were all into it.

I posted this pic on Instagram  and Facebook and people were like OMG that's so many eggs! Usually we actually don't have any eggs left over after Easter. The kids make deviled eggs and everyone eats them up. We were missing a few people this year so we did actually have eggs left over but I'm sure they won't last long enough to have to throw them out.

Jessica's eggs (and 2 of mine)

 Melissa's eggs

My eggs

and Trevor's eggs

Then I stayed up the rest of the night cleaning up the kitchen and making salads for Easter.

Field Trip!

Monday I went on a field trip with Trevor's class.

No work woohoo.
Still had to get up early though to get Melissa to the bus booo.

I took Trevor to school and talked to the teacher a bit and ended up taking two other moms in my car for the ride up to Sacramento. One mom offered to buy me coffee for driving.

Don't have to twist my arm, Starbucks drive through here we come!
These two moms were great and I had such a nice time visiting with them on the drive there and back.

I kind of think I MAY have went to the state capital on a field trip when I was a kid. I have some really vague memories of something. I'm just not sure if they are real memories or not. Weird. Hey I guess I could ask some school mates on Facebook. I bet someone knows.

[just confirmed that we did indeed go to the capital and old Sac on a field trip]

So anyhow, it was like seeing it for the first time for me. Well not the outside, I have driven by that quite a few times. (Should you say I have drove or driven? I'm not sure on that one)

When we got there we were able to park really close to the capital building because the other mom had a handicap placard. Score on the parking! Sad to have to have placard though (she has a spine disease).

First thing I had to do was make a quick trip to the potty. But first we had to go through security. The one mom had a huge mom purse and they actually had to open it all up and go through it because they couldn't tell what she had in all her little zipper pouches lol.

This is right inside looking up through the top of the dome. So pretty! you can't tel that it's super high in this picture.

 Below the dome are these sculptures

After using the potty we went back out and waited for the kids. They kind of hung out for a few minutes outside on the steps. This is the two classes that went.

The kids had to go through security. It was funny one girl was all worried about the change in her little wallet. They were kind of grouchy about the kids moving on down the hall and lining up. It would have been nice to have a tour guide in the beginning for more instructions.

Here we are on the 2nd floor getting our first talk to.

I was slightly distracted by my surroundings. 

There were a couple ladies working on dusting the stair case. What a chore! All that wood. So  pretty though. 

This was the Senate house in shades of pink but they called it red. I wondered how often someone had to dust those chandeliers. 

 And then the Assembly house, which is quite a bit bigger in shades of green.

 Look how fancy the ceiling is.

Back out in the hall are all these pictures of past Governors. A few were missing, Schwarzenegger, who they said has not given them a portrait yet and the current governor who is actually up there for his last time he was our Governor. (Jerry Brown)

 They said that each Governor gets to pick their own artist to paint their picture. I like how Jerry Brown's is so different.

Around the center area (looking up would be the dome)

I would have liked to walk around a bit more but we only had a little bit of time there.  We ended up back outside by a rose garden waiting for the buses.

The kids got on the bus and we moms got back in my car and we drove right down the street to Old Sacramento. I love Old Sac and have been there a ton of times. Today we got to park for free thanks to that placard! 

We met the kids and ate lunch and then had just enough time to go to the bathroom, walk down one row of shops and look around in a couple stores and then walk back again. I was like WAIT I need more time!! 

I had five kids in my group, including Trevor and they were a great bunch of kids.

They spent a ton of time in a toy store. I finally was like ok I'll wait by the door for when you guys are ready...This guy is outside the store . That's a lot of little yellow Legos.

We finally made it down to the candy store that they all wanted to go to. 

When we walked in one of the kids said "now don't go acting like we're a bunch of kids in a candy store". 

Baaddum dum too funny. 

 They were offering free samples of chocolate covered crickets. This guy took one. Haha LOVE.

Apparently the after taste wasn't the best haha. 

I had to kind of rush them in there because we had to walk all the way back to the bus area in like 5 minutes. I could have used at least 4 more hours there. 

Great ride home with the moms. I was kind of sad to see them go!