Grandma Madeline's 81st Birthday at Disneyland

For Grandma's 81st birthday I had the great idea to drag her to Disneyland for 13 hours! HaHa! Actuallly I had no idea that it would explode into a 13 hour day with 9 adults and 6 kids. We had a great time. Rochelle, Damon and their kids, mom and dad, Aunt Patti and Cassie with Isla and Paul and our kids went with Grandma Madeline last week. We had a great time. We went on Haunted mansion with Grandma as well as Peter Pan, Small World and we even stayed to watch Fantasmic, and then she started to nod off during the final fireworks show. We all had a great time. Just the four of us went to the Tiki room, where Andrew danced his butt of like he has never danced before. He was REALLY into it. We got the whole thing on video. We had a lot of people come up to us afterwards to tell us they had more fun watching Andrew than watching the show. Allison did her part too, she danced nonstop, we even had some Asian couple taking pictures of them.

Happy Anniversary!

Five years ago today Paul and I said "I do" at the Hacienda. It was such a beautiful day, and I remember every moment...
Waking up and shaving my legs for like 30 minutes
Driving to the hair salon with my mom and sister
Showing the stylist the Jessica Simpson book to show her how to do my hair.
Putting my dress on.
My dad crying
My mom crying
All of my bridesmaids fussing over me
My photographer taking pictures.
Hiding in the lobby so no one could see me.
The tram ride over to the Hacienda.
Waiting in the bride's room.
Watching the guest arrive.
My dad saying "son of a bitch" when we almost walked down the aisle without my veil down.
Hearing Mike Prebie sing "you fill up my senses like a knight in a forest"
Seeing Paul's face looking very nervous.
Saying a prayer, taking communion, drinking wine after motioning to Mike to start the next song.
Kelly fainting.
Repeating our vows and putting on our rings.
Walking back down the aisle and so excited to party!
Toast by John, I am afraid I don't remember.
Cutting the cake.
Eating dinner, showing off my flip flops, kissing Paul to the clank of glasses.
Dancing our first dance "Our love is unconditional I knew it from the start......I cross my heart and promise to give all I've got to give to make all your dreams come true..."
Dancing with my dad "Whatta Wonderful world" and crying and crying.
Paul dancing with his mom and recovering from dancing with my dad.
Dancing, dancing dancing.
Dedicating "I like big butts and I can not lie" to my mom from Rochelle and I.
Doing the chacha slide "One stomp this time, two stomps this time...hands on your knees, hands on your knees..."
Dancing with my new father-in-law to "Hey dad this could be the best day of my life, I've been dreaming day and Night of being like you...now it's me and her watching you and mom I've learned I'm the luckiest man alive, this is the best day of my life"
Running to the bride's room balcony to have Paul remove my garter and throw it off the balcony.
Paul scooping me up into his arms and running to our decorated car.
My mom running after me to tell me I forgot my overnight bag.
Driving to my surprise destination for our wedding night, with little wedding bells ringing all throughout the car that our friends tied Everywhere!!!
Cars honking at us the whole way.
Walking through the lobby of the Hyatt in Huntington Beach in my wedding gown and everyone saying hello, congratulations and smiling.
It was the happiest day of my life. All of my dreams were coming true!
I am so blessed to have found the man of my dreams. Paul has made me into the person that I want to be, he brings out the best in me, and most importantly he has made me a mother. I thank God for my husband everyday and look forward to the day where we celebrate our 50th wedding Anniversary! I can't imagine loving him more, but everyday my love grows and grows. Thank you Paul for the best 5 years of my life!

Happy Father's Day

We celebrated Father's day this year just the four of us by going to the movies and had a picnic at the beach. We took the kiddos to see Toy Story 3, it was their first real movie at the movie theaters. Andrew did really good and sat and watched the whole thing. Allison on the other hand was not so easy. She was done after about 45 minutes, so I walked with her outside and tried about 5 times to get her back inside, but that didn't happen. I ended up letting her walk around the entrance to the theater so I could still watch the movie (sort of). The movie was great and we got home in time for naps. For dinner we picked up Enrique's and took it to the beach and had picnic. Andrew wore a shirt that said "My dad is rad" and Allison wore a onesie that says "My heart belongs to daddy".

I couldn't ask for a better father to my children. Paul is playful, loving, patient and a great teacher. Thank you Paul for being such a great daddy and dada.

Camping at Lake Cachuma

Andrew found a worm!

Last weekend we went with Paul's parents, John, Adrienne, Matt, Natalie, Lexie, Mike and Becky up to Lake Cachuma to go camping. We arrived Friday afternoon to our cabin that we shared with Paul's folks. It was a cute little cabin with 2 bedrooms a little kitchen and a full bathroom. Liberty joined us on our journey. John and Adrienne had just arrived and were setting up their trailer. Grandma and Papa soon joined us and we are gathered to have a yummy barbeque dinner and roast marshmallows of course. Andrew was super excited because we had been talking about going camping for a while now. Within an hour of getting all set up in the cabin, or as Andrew called it the "cabinent", Allison fell and got a pretty bad booboo. We purchased her a princess camping chair for her birthday and was so excited to use it this weekend. Well she was sitting in it by herself and tried to get down and she couldn't reach the ground and instead she fell flat on her face and got a mouth full of dirt, a bloody nose and a bloody lip. She was scabbed and had road rash around her mouth all weekend. That was the first of many falls, trips and spills that she encountered that weekend.
Our first night there we realized we forgot Allison's pack-and-play for her to sleep in, so I jokingly said she can sleep in Liberty's cage. Well as the night went on we really had no idea with where to put Allison so we decided to just go for it and she slept in Liberty's cage! She didn't seem to mind, we laid down blankets and she slept for 10 hours! Andrew was a little confused and told us "that's Liberty's cage, not Allison's!" The first night we stayed up with Grandma and Papa belly laughing and telling stories. We had a great time.
The next morning Mike and Becky joined us, they arrived at 2:00am after their long drive up after work. The whole group walked down to the lake and went out on the pontoon boat that Papa had rented for us. It was a huge boat that sat us all comfortably. Andrew was super excited to go fishing for the first time. Everyone got their lines in the water and we scooted around the lake for a few hours while chit-chatting, laughing and enjoying the beautiful weather. Unfortunately nobody caught anything, but Andrew still had a blast. He was proud to be wearing his life jacket and camping hat. We decided to head back around lunch time. By this time the wind had picked up and we were quite a ways away from the dock so we decided to haul ass into the wind to get home at a reasonable time. Paul drove us back and had fun speeding into the wind and splashing us. Everyone was laughing and getting sprayed with water, but I think the one that enjoyed it the most was Allison. I finally took her out of my sling so she could exercise her little legs and she was standing by herself as we were flying over the choppy water, and she was dancing up and down and "riding the waves" like a true champ. Paul walked her up to the front of the boat where all of the water was spraying and a huge wave came and sprayed her real good, she was little baffled at first but then got a huge smile on her face and started dancing. She put on a show for us and entertained us all. We survived the boat ride back to the dock and headed back to the trailer for lunch. After lunch Allison went down for a nap in her cage and Andrew played with his cousin in the dirt with his trucks. He was in heaven. He spent a couple of hours scooping up rocks and dumping them into his dump truck, what more could he ask for? Grandma took all of the grandbabies to the general store and purchased a special ice cream treat for all of them.
We had delicious hamburgers for dinner and once again roasted marshmallows. Andrew had a lot of fun "playing" Bingo with Matthew, Mike and Becky. Andrew was excited about whatever Matt was excited about. He really looks up to his older cousin.
We all went to bed pretty early that night. The next morning, we packed up the car and headed out at an early hour because I had to work that night. Both kids slept the whole way home thank goodness, and then I went to work!