Spring Break 2014

Spring break was really late this year so when it finally arrived, we were so ready for it.  For the first part of the break, my parents took the boys to Morro Bay for a fishing trip.  They fished at a couple of nearby lakes.  I think Jack sort of likes it, but Ryan is totally into it.  They had a blast and my parents were worn out when they were done.  I met the boys and my mom at the coast to exchange the kids on Wednesday so my mom could go home.  Lorie and her boys met up with us for another adventure.  

 When I got to Morro Bay, it looked like this.  I loved how the rock was peeking out of the fog.  After Lorie and her boys got to the condo, we headed over to Cayucos for some beach time.  Cayocos has an awesome new play structure that the boys loved.

We also walked out to the tide pools, but it was high tide when we got there.  There were still some tide pools visible so the boys enjoyed themselves.  They found a teeny tiny crab and a little starfish.  

That evening, we took the boys to pizza where they proceeded to devour a large pizza between the four of them.  Lorie and I are now scared of what feeding junior high boys may look like.  

On day two of our adventure, we took our boys to the Avila Barn.  They had a blast.  The weather was amazing and perfect so that was a bonus.  

We looked at the animals, went on the hayride, and had a picnic lunch.  

When we were done, we headed back to Morro Bay and the boys played at the pirate ship park.  They had met a little girl that was staying in the same condo complex as us.  Ryan was particularly smitten.  She also joined us at the park.  

When Lorie and I were done tidying up the condo, we left in time to stop at Birch Fabrics in Paso Robles. They are the same store as the online store, Fabric Worm.  They had absolutely beautiful fabric.  I splurged and bought a Kokka print that was beautiful.  I don't know what I'll do with it, but I'm sure it will eventually be part of a blog post.  The boys were wiped out and were content playing iPhones while Lorie and I shopped.  

Friday was the first day the boys were home during their spring break and they were exhausted.  They both even fell asleep for a nap.  

At one point during Friday, the boys were out in the garage drawing on our white board and Ryan drew this.  He cracks me up.  

Jack drew this picture.  I do know that the bottom left is a drawing of a pig from Angry Birds and the bottom left drawing is our dog, Maggie.  

On Saturday, we went to a family egg hunt at Aunt Gail's house.  We were so happy to see the extended family and have the cousins play together.  It had been along time since we had all been together.  

Sunday was our Easter service at church.  I got new shirts for the boys and made them take a picture for me.  They sort of cooperated.  We went church next.  Phil was playing guitar for worship.  As Pastor John welcomed us, Jack yelled, "Hi Daddy!"  They whole church laughed.  Pastor John then said, "Hey Jack, He is risen."  I whispered to Jack, "say, 'He is risen indeed.'"  Jack said, "He is risen in beans!"  

We went to Clovis after church and had an egg hunt and Easter dinner with Phil's mom.  We also stopped by Grandad Tom's on the way home.  

Since I job share, I had an extended Easter vacation so yesterday was my last day off.  I cleaned our house, then finished sewing together a quilt that I had started at the beginning of last summer.  While I was sewing, Jack was pretending to be a Ninja and was defending our house against the 100 bad guys that kept invading.  During the raid, this conversation happened.

Jack: Mommy, I mean Honey.
Me: Honey?!?
Jack: Mom, when Ninja's are being mans they call their mommies "honey."

Jack took pictures of all the things that the 100 bad guys were trying to trap during their raid.  This was a serious invasion.  I'm so thankful for my little Ninja's defense.  

This is Ryan's Raingutter Regatta boat.

Luckily, at the end of the raid, I was able to finish sewing my quilt top together.  

I completely enjoyed my vacation.  Now back to the grind for six more weeks!

Pictures with Grandma Enns

Grandma Enns saw the family pictures that we took for Grandma Net's birthday and she said she would like some.  We thought this would be the perfect way to celebrate Grandma Enns' 89th birthday.  We called the lovely Lorie Chambless once again and she took these great photos.  Clearly we did not take ourselves too seriously.  

March Happenings

Ryan likes to go to my dad's shop, aka "The Clubhouse", and build stuff with him.  They love hanging out together.  They've built quite a few models together.  The latest model that Ryan built was the Titanic.  He wouldn't let my dad help and put the whole thing together himself.  He's really proud of it.  

We also went to Morro Bay to celebrate Phil's mom's birthday.  It was beautiful while we were there. We had perfect sunny weather and blue skies.  

Don, Phil's step dad, has a birthday close to Beth's so we also celebrated his birthday as well.  We took them both out to dinner at Schooner's in Cayucos.  The food is fantastic and they loved it.  (Jack was in quite a mood pre dinner from being hangry and from being woken up early from a nap.)

We also went to Moonstone beach near Cambria at Don's suggestion.  We had never been before.  The beach is covered in little rocks and sea glass.  It was really pretty and the boys had a lot of fun collecting rocks.  I had fun looking for bits of sea glass.  

Jack has quite the imagination and is always dressing up in something new.  Last week, on a couple of occasions, he wore a "leash" (a necktie) wherever we went and pretended to be a puppy.

A little while ago, he also came up with this look.  Don't mess with a kid that has a fart blaster!

Lastly, Ryan's class made self portraits of what they would look like at 100 to celebrate the 100th day of school.  I love the look.  

Thank goodness for spring break.  Maybe I can stay on top of this blog now that I'm caught up.  

Book of Mormon and Mad Men

For Christmas this year, I surprised Phil with tickets to see the Book of Mormon at the Pantages and I booked a room at the Redbury hotel.  I was excited to surprise him and he was thrilled with the gift.  We had stayed at the Redbury once before and loved it and were so excited to stay there again.  The rooms are all studio apartments and are well appointed.  

We had a great time leading up to the show.  We went to a coffee place in the afternoon, had sushi for dinner, then went to our show.  Our hotel was within walking distance to the theater so everything we did, we could walk to, which seems unheard of in L.A.  The show was super fun, even though it was really irreverent.  

The theater was gorgeous and the singing and dancing were great.  

After the show, we headed back to our hotel only to discover that there was a club adjacent to our room and a well known DJ was spinning records.  It was loud enough that we could hear the vibrations from the music in our room.  We thought that most clubs went till about 2am so we would tough it out.  Apparently we are old now and instead of going to check things out and see the DJ, we stayed in our room.  Anyway, as 2am neared, the music showed no signs of stopping.  We called the front desk and found out that the music would be going till at least 4am.  We finally decided to leave and drive home in the middle of the night.  To say that we were disappointed was an understatement.  This was such a big deal for me to plan and surprise Phil with so I was crestfallen.  We called the hotel the next day and the music had gone on till 7am so we were glad that we had gone home.  We were not given any sort of refund and were told that the noise is what we should expect if we stay where we did.  Apparently that hotel is not for people who sleep at night.  

In March, we decided to try our luck again and go down to L.A. to see the actors from Mad Men at the Paley Festival Panel.  We did not stay at the Redbury this time.  For me, I felt such a rush to see the actors in person (especially Jon Hamm) and hear them talk about the show.  

This trip was much better than the last one and I'm so glad we got to go.