Crazy Fun Day

Last week we had a fun marathon day. It worked out that our preschool field trip to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach and our friends Dyan and Chris were at Disneyland for one last day. I gathered all my courage and tried to figure out the best way to maneuver ourselves for one day of insanity. I figured it was so crazy it just might work.... Either that, or it could go terribly wrong!

We left the house, well stocked, and headed down to the aquarium.

There was a huge crowd of us, but the kids loved playing with all their friends and running around like lunatics.
We really have the movie "Finding Nemo" to thank for the interest the children took in the marine animals. We spent most of our time looking for Dori, Nemo (Kiki's fave), Crush, Mr. Ray (Ryker's fave), etc.

Ethan and Nicholas buddied up for some fun, and loved being silly.

After a decent amount of time there we headed back to the car, and ate lunch on our laps on our way to Disneyland. Ryker fell asleep en route, what a relief, and Nicholas was having a good day. We parked at downtown Disney (3 free hrs!) and rushed in to meet our pals.

Nicholas and Logan picked up right where they left off, as seemless as could be, and began some little game. I loved catching up and remembering how much I missed Dyan!

The poor Perez-Youngs were tired out from their trip and headed out after one last ride, Winnie the Pooh. On our way walking them out the boys just joined hands and got a conversation going. Most adorable thing ever :)
Naturally, being at disneyland, we had to hit a few more favorites before we headed out. As we got off Pirates I realized we had 15 minutes until our parking expiration and we bolted out. I made it one minute short but the man was nice and let us go free. (Those who know disneyland know that Pirates to downtown Disney parking lot in 15 min is no small feat!!)

At the end of the day we were totally exhausted, sweaty, smelly, and done with having fun.

Sanctuary

Disneyland has been my favorite place these last few months

I never tire of all the cheer, character, and cheesy rides

No matter how I've been feeling before I arrive, the moment we pull off the freeway I am instantly happy

We've gone with friends, with Grandma, and even alone

I especially enjoy the times that Jared can come (and the extra hands are nice too :) )

Its no wonder I crave this place on lonely days like these.... Maybe I shouldn't have gotten a pass with black-out days!!! 50 long days until we can go back :(

Until then I guess I'll just have to look at the pictures and rely on my memory

Santa Babes

Our boys plus their cousin Dax make up the complete set of grandkids for Jared's parents. Naturally matching Christmas jammies ensued...

We also had our mini-Christmas with them while they were in town. Among the favorite gifts was Rykie's "Bumpo": a chair that supports babies so they can sit unassisted. After we discovered Ryker weighed a whopping 18 lbs (can you say 100th percentile?!) at his last doctor's appointment we decided it was time for him to learn to sit up.

doesn't his face just say, "feed me"?

On that note I must say the highlight of our last week (besides family visits, of course) was going to the boys' new pediatrician, Dr Kivitz. I absolutely loved him!! I was so disgusted and horrified by the state of their old doctor's office, not to mention put-out by the long wait, but I thought it was just an LA thing. I am so relieved that I took the initiative to try a new doctor! He is fantastic, works in a beautiful, clean setting, and he is very professional. He even gave me and Jared swine-flu shots, and told me I was an amazing mom seriously a million times. We ventured out to Beverly Hills, 90210 (I love LA), paid for parking (always fun), and watched all the Bentleys, and Mercedes roll by. I guarantee he has some celebrity clients. Sweeeet!

Day at the Promenade

The best part of living in LA is going to the fun new attractions. One of my new favorites is the 3rd Street Promenade.

On thursday Jared blew off studying for a few hours and we went down for a walk in the shops. We each got to pick something out, and we just enjoyed walking in the sunshine and sipping lemonade.

We stumbled apon a breakdancing group on our way out, and Kiki had to join in...

Nicholas loved having his daddy around, and I have to admit I enjoyed it too :)

Next week hopefully we can get to the beach, if the weather permits. Otherwise we'll find somewhere else to explore.

The New Place (pt. 1)

I finally got around to taking some pictures of the new place! Its a work-in-progress and we just found out we can paint too! I'm so excited. Picture yellow walls (I'm tenative on this one) in the living room/dining room, and blue in the bedroom. Also, I didn't put up pics of the boy's room yet because Kiki was sleeping and I want to finish something for one of the walls. Likewise I didn't put in pictures of the hallways and random corners yet because frankly they haven't been totally sorted yet.
The place has its quirks when it comes to design (no plugs in the hallway? a bathroom in a toddlers room?), but we like it overall and are happy to be living here for 2 years!

Here's the tour...
You walk in, to the left is the dining area



To the right is the kitchen

Walk ahead to the living room area


(additional views; Jared's fave is the new TV)
To the right is J's desk

Down the hall to the left is our bedroom

and finally our bathroom (which extends further to the right but it was hard to photograph!)

A few more to come... and potentially updated photos when I get around to painting in a month or two!

A Series of Unfortunate Events...

Well here we are, alive and well in LA. I'm even blogging again. Woohoo

It has been an insane couple of weeks, between the baby being born, packing up our stuff, then moving out here, and unpacking our stuff. With the two years we were at Jared's parent's we hardly touched about 50% of our things, so it made for some fun surprises.
(Who would've thought we'd have gotten by with a 6 piece set of silverware and 4 plastic plates for our dinnerware. Apparently we were slumming it in Provo all those years ago).
Anyways, just days before the move I was stricken with mastitis and a UTI. That's right, I was stricken like the pioneers were stricken with their ailments, because let's face it, I was very much like a pioneer recently. Likewise Nicholas, our beloved "Kiki", was hit with a nasty cold/flu rendering him fussy, irritable and flowing with overwhelming amounts of mucus. Well that put us back a few hours of work, but somehow we managed to pack everything on time and get going on our drive south.

A few hours later after (fortunately) little crying from both babies we arrived. The apartment was covered with a layer of dust, ants, and generally nasty things; I guess thats what you get for not seeing the place before you rent it. After freaking out for a few minutes ("I have to live in THIS with my babies?!"), we (Jared, his dad, mom, sister Brittany, and BIL Kelly) got to work unloading our junk into the junkyard, while simultaneously bleaching and vacuuming every square inch. I would have taken pictures, but honestly I do not want to remember what it was like.

By the third day, after dropping $500 at Target and $300 at BB&B, and nearly getting robbed at Walmart in Crenshaw (*shudder* I hate Walmart), we felt like we could breathe again. My ailments finally cleared up, Kiki showed improvement, and the baby only woke up twice at night. Now that we have been around for 11 days we are finally feeling like this is our place. The only significant element we are lacking is our couch, which has proven to be quite essential; it arrives friday.

All things considered I would say we like this place quite a bit. Even though we are still killing ants daily (yuck!), and we seem to have chosen the foreign language housing (more on this later-- at least they're quiet neighbors), we are becoming very comfortable here, and are settling in quite well. Kiki finally stopped asking to go "home", and has the way to the park and laundromat down pat. I think we'll do just fine here.

Wow that was a long entry... and it only took me four tries...

Our New Place

Here are some preview pics of our new place, pre-furniture and decorating. Completed photos to follow....



Front room- Dining area and living space

Kitchen

Our bedroom and bathroom

(The boys' room is similar, just a different layout)