OUR CALIFORNIA TRIP!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Well after almost two weeks and too many hours of driving to count we have made it home safe and sound from our vacation to southern California. It was a very fun vacation for all of us. Here is a slideshow and some special pictures from our trip! Please comment!! ~I do want to give a send a big thanks to the Drews for letting us stay with them for a few days while we were in San Diego and to Nella for giving us free passes for Disneyland!~

Our Family at Sea World - We watched so many shows at Sea World plus we got to ride several rides! The boys and I also got to say hi to Elmo and Big Bird!

Ryan on His First Mini Roller Coaster~ I couldn't resist posting this picture because Ryan is so darn adorable. This was his first mini roller coaster at any of the theme parks and he went on it alone!! He was like an old pro... as soon as he got on and got buckled in he put his hands up. He yelled, giggled, and had his hands in the air for the entire ride. He must have learned it from his dad and aunt Liana because I don't ride roller coasters but either way it was so cute!

Us at Universal Studios Hollywood! There is so much to do at Universal, we weren't able to do it all. We saw lots of fun shows, took a tour of the backlot where we actually saw an actor (we just aren't sure what his name is,lol), and took lots of pictures with the characters.

Jason and the boys standing on the Malibu Beach~ The water was cold (like Navajo Lake) but that didn't stop the boys from running in to get wet. The first sorta big wave took Dylan and Aaron down so Liana and I had to run in and help them out of the water. Dylan didn't want much to do with the beach after that but Ryan couldn't get enough of it, he is a beach bum!

Character Breakfast ~ One of the highlights of our trip was eating breakfast in our hotel with Lilo, Stitch, Daisy, Donald, and Minnie. Every 15 minutes they would have games and dancing for the kids and all the characters came to your table to meet you and take pictures. The boys loved every minute of it.

Our Family in the Hotel Lobby with Goofy!! As I mentioned a little before we got to stay two nights in the Paradise Pier Disney Hotel. We could see California Adventure from the elevator and the awesome pool from our room. It was well worth staying in a Disney hotel. You get a VIP entrance into Disneyland plus the ammenities they offer were awesome. I think we all really enjoyed the hotel and Disneyland was the favorite stop on our trip!

California Here We Come!!

Well we are headed to California tomorrow! We have been counting down the days for this trip for several months and it has finally arrived. I am not sure how I am going to get us all ready and out the door in a timely fashion tomorrow evening but I always manage to pull it off. We will be driving all night to San Diego where we will stay with my aunt Heidi and her family until Tuesday morning when we will drive up to Las Angeles. While in San Diego we will be going to Sea World and Knott's Berry Farm plus hanging out with my family!! Once we are in LA we will pick up my mom, step-dad, and littlest brother from the airport. We will spend a couple nights near my brothers NAVY base and while we are there we will be going to Universal Studios Hollywood. Then we will stay a couple nights in the Disneyland Paradise Pier Hotel. We will be going to Disney Land and having breakfast with Lilo and Stitch!! We will head home late Saturday night (Feb. 21st) and once again drive all night.

Ryan is so excited he can't contain himself. He keeps telling everyone "California here we come!" and "that he is staying the Mickey's house and riding Mickey's rides!" He really doesn't know what all we have in store for our trip and I know he will enjoy every single minute of it all! Dylan doesn't really understand but I am sure he will have a ton of fun as well! We just can't wait to get there, see all of our family, and have some much needed fun!!

I will post pictures once we have returned and settled in. =)

Baby Update

We had our ultrasound yesterday afternoon. Everything looks really good. My cervix is still long (3.4cm and they don't get concerned until 2.5cm) which is great. Ryan was able to go with us so we got to see the baby moving around on the monitor. I think he understands now that I am pregnant and he will have a new sibling soon. We were really hoping to find out the sex of the baby but the baby had other things in mind. It was squirming and moving way to fast to see what it is. So we have another ultrasound in five weeks... hopefully we will be able to find out the sex then!

I had my check up after the ultrasound and everything checked out good. I haven't gained any weight yet but they won't get too concerned unless I don't gain weight by my next appointment. I got the go okay from the midwife to go on our vacation, yeah!!

I will post more in five weeks!!

Because our life wasn't crazy enough,

we decided to put our house on the market. We listed it on Friday the 30th then we put in an offer on a house on Saturday the 31st. So it is an under statement to say our lives have been turned upside down at the moment.

We have been frantically cleaning every nook and cranny of our house, inside and out, to make it more appealing to buyers. Plus we have been doing a few last minute updates like, installing a new garage door opener, laying peel & stick tile in our bathrooms and kitchen, plus refinishing the hardwood in our dining room. Not to mention doing touch up paint in all the rooms.

Today the seller, of the house we put an offer in on, sent his realtor over to our house to see how fast they think our house will sell (this is because we had to add the contingency that we must sell our house first before actually purchasing the new one). While that realtor was here she asked if she could bring another client back in an hour to view our home. So I fed the kids as quickly as possible loaded them into the van and headed to Burger King for an hour while they were showing our house. Meanwhile our realtor emails us asking if she can put our house in the local parade of homes for buyers and realtor's to come view our home, TOMORROW MORNING. Now I'm running around my house trying to tidy up before tomorrow morning. And needless to say the seller of the house we are wanting to buy asked for an extra day to think about our offer, so we won't know until tomorrow if our offer has been excepted or not.

Can you say crazy? That is how we feel right now. I don't think Ryan and Dylan know what to think. They enjoyed viewing new houses but mostly because they were either empty to run wild in, or because they had "new" toys and things to look at. I am just hoping and praying that this is all over very soon. Today when I was running around the house like a chicken with my head cut off trying to clean before the showing the kids all ran around and picked up the toys. Ryan even put away his big Thomas the Train track without being asked. When I realized he was putting it all away I explained that he didn't have to put it completely away but he insisted we must "because someone might trip on it plus it would make my room look messy" (his words to me, so cute).

We'll keep you posted on how this one chapter in our life turns out. Wish us luck, we need it!