SPRING BREAK IN SAN DIEGO

The kids and I took a trip over Spring Break to San Diego to visit Jeff and see the new area that we will shortly be calling home.

Before heading to California we started our fun right here in Illinois -- we left Peoria last Thursday afternoon and headed to Naperville where we stayed the night at Peggy's house and had a sleep-over with cousins Carter and Noah......


On Friday afternoon we loaded up the van and Peggy drove us to Midway airport. The trip to San Diego went pretty good -- we were about an hour and a half delayed out of Chicago, but the kids did good entertaining themselves with some new books, coloring books and stickers.

On Saturday we spent some time looking at houses, but on Sunday it was a beautiful day and we spent the afternoon at the beach with Dad and Bonnie who drove up from Las Vegas to visit us.....

We all had a great time playing on the beach.....

Dad actually thought he was going to rest a little bit while we were on the beach. It only lasted until Rena dumped out her bucket full of sand and the wind blew it all over him -- rest time doesn't last long with 3 kids running around!!!!

After we got cleaned up and the kids got changed we walked up to a "lookout"......

On Monday Jeff had to work so Dad, Bonnie and the kids and I spent the day at the San Diego Zoo. What a great zoo! We will definitely be buying season passes and spending a lot of time at this zoo once we are settled in the area.

Cameron loved the double-decker buses......

And the footsie-wootsie machines were a hit with all 3 kids.....

We all enjoyed the sky-ride.....

And we finished the day off with some ice-cream.....

We went swimming a couple of different times in the pool at Jeff's apartment. I did more sitting in the hot tub than swimming in the "cold tub" (as Maleah calls it), but luckily the girls are big fans of the hot tub also so I had them as an excuse!

On Friday Jeff took the day off and we went to Sea World. The shows were really amazing and a lot of fun to see. Jeff sat us in the "soak zone" a couple of different times, but luckily we avoided getting too wet. At the dolphin show Jeff, Cameron and Rena got pretty wet, but no one seemed to really mind and they dried quickly.

Saturday wasn't a great day with the weather, but we did get a little bit of sunshine and got out on to the beach to play one last time before we had to head home.....

Happy Easter! The Easter bunny was able to find Cameron, Rena and Maleah even though they weren't at there own home. We had a fun morning looking through Easter baskets, searching for eggs and eating all of the jelly beans out of the eggs.....

Unfortunately the time came when we had to head home. We had a good trip home. The flight was right on time and Peggy met us at the airport to help with all of our things and get us back to her place for the night.

This is Rena at the airport practicing her ballet while eating McDonald's chicken and fries......

We spent the night at Peggy's house and then did the 3 hour drive back to Peoria this morning. Fortunately when we arrived home in Peoria this is what we found..............a SOLD sign on our house!!!!!

We obviously knew it was sold, but it felt good to see the sign hanging there. Our next trip to San Diego will be sometime next month when we will be moving there permanently!!!

MORE SNOW

We woke up this morning to a few inches of fresh snow. Of course the kids were ready to go outside and play by 7am, but I was able to hold them off until about 9am.

They really wanted to build a snowman, but we just couldn't get the snow to stick together so we decided to shovel the driveway, pile it in one big pile and call it a mountain!

We didn't stay out too long, but we had fun in the snow.....hopefully for the last time this year!

BIKE DAY

Rena's preschool has been doing some fun things the past couple of weeks including having "Trike/Bike Day" this morning.

It was really cute and fun. All of the kids brought either their trike or bike to school and the gym was set up with different "town" stations that they could ride to. They would ride to a station, do something and get a prize.........there was a bank where you got a lollipop after writing a check, a grocery store where you got a bag of popcorn after shopping, a pond where you got goldfish crackers after fishing, a barber shop and beauty salon where you got a comb after shaving or fixing your hair, a golf course where you got a ball after golfing, a doctors office where you got a band-aid after doing a check-up on a doll, a farm where you got to plant some seeds in a cup to take home and a few others.

Here's some of the fun from the morning.....

Cameron and Maleah found some extra trikes at the preschool to have fun on.....

FIELD TRIP TO THE LIBRARY

Rena's preschool also had a fun morning last week when they took a field trip to the library. At first Rena wasn't all that excited about going to the library since it's not really a new thing (she was actually more excited just that one of her friends would get to ride in our car with her) but once we got there she had a good time and enjoyed the morning.

They got a tour of the library and got to listen to a few books (about how to act in the library and how to treat library books). I think the biggest excitement from the morning was when the kids got to go outside, drop a book in the book-return slot and then go back inside and see where it actually was and how it ends up back on the library shelf........that was exciting!!! :)

THE CHILDREN'S DISCOVERY MUSEUM

Cameron has been off of school for the past 2 days so we've been looking for fun things to do to fill the time. Today we decided to take a trip to The Children's Discovery Museum in Normal, Illinois. We were there one other time this past summer and the kids really liked it so we decided it was time to check it out again. There are tons of things to keep all 3 kids busy and happy..............

These magnetic things were a big hit with all 3 kids.

(Notice how all 3 of them are wearing some sort of shade of green on St. Patrick's Day. It was a big deal getting dressed this morning and finding something green. Rena told Maleah that hers was actually blue and not green, but I was able to convince Maleah that it was bluish-green and would pass for green on St. Patrick's Day!)

The girls love everything about this painting wall......paint, squirt, squeegee, paint, squirt, squeegee......over and over again!

Rena had fun riding bikes with the skeleton.

Maleah had fun with the air exhibit. You are really suppose to point the tube up and put a ball or towel over it and watch how it stays up in the air, but Maleah just liked it blowing on her and messing up her hair!

All 3 kids had fun at the pizza restaurant. Rena was in-charge of answering the phone and taking the orders and Maleah and Cameron made the pizzas, cooked the pizzas and served the pizzas. At one point I had about 10 pizzas in front of me at my table and when another mom tried to sit down beside me Maleah pointed out to her that she made all of those pizzas for her mom -- I guess she thought I was really hungry -- I was willing to share though!

We also had the pleasure of seeing our friends Stephanie and Aiden Fernandes while we were there at the museum. Unfortunately Amaya was at school, but we were happy to spend a few hours with Stephanie and Aiden!

The kids are already looking forward to and planning our next trip back to the museum!

ST. PATRICK'S DAY PARADE

We spent this past weekend in Naperville at Peggy's house and joined her, Kari, Craig, Carter, Noah, Riley and Oliver in the Naperville St. Patrick's Day Parade on Saturday morning. Peggy has a friend that makes custom dog and cat collars.....Lucky Fiona.....and was advertising her business by walking in the parade. Peggy's friend was looking for dogs and kids to walk -- dogs because of the business and kids because there was candy and dog treats to hand out.

I don't really know what I was thinking when I said that the kids and I would walk with this group considering the fact that both girls are completely scared of dogs. So here we are at a parade walking with a group that had about 20 dogs with them and every time a dog came near either one of the girls they started yelling and crying. Both girls ended up doing fine once the parade started, but they wanted nothing to do with any of the dogs (big or small) while we were waiting for our turn.

This is Oliver, Tami's dog, after Craig got him ready to celebrate St. Patrick's Day!

Carter, Cameron and Noah waiting for the parade to start.

Peggy and Riley waiting for the parade to start.

Peggy was the driver of the truck and Oliver and Rena took turns riding with her. Rena is also afraid of Oliver so they couldn't ride together.

A SLUMBER PARTY

Last night the kids and I had a slumber party in my bedroom. The kids have been anxiously awaiting for Friday night to arrive so that we could watch an "all new episode of The Clone Wars -- only on Cartoon Network" (Cameron has the commercial memorized and repeats it often). When the night finally arrived we decided to make a party of it..........

Of course during the show the commercial played a couple of times....."all new episode of The Clone Wars, Friday night".....and the kids are already looking forward to next Friday night and our next slumber party!

GOOD-BYE HONDA

Our first piece of property is on it's way to San Diego. Jeff's car was taken this morning and is now on the road moving to California............

HOUSE FOR SALE

Things are moving pretty quick around here with the move. We got the house listed last Friday and are now just waiting for someone to buy it so that we can all head to California!

MALEAH'S ROUGH DAY

Maleah had a pretty rough day today with lots of whining, crying and hitting. That would be why she ended up in a time-out....she hit Rena on the head with a Barbie doll and was very proud of it! Of course after she fully admitted to the hitting she earned herself a time-out.........a time-out that ended up being VERY long. Here she is while in her time-out -- she was so tired that she laid down on the hardwood floor and fell asleep, using her doll as a pillow.

Luckily, she was in a much better mood after having a little rest!