Owen's Field Trip to Sea World

On Monday, we took a field trip to Sea World with Owen's preschool class.  Owen has been looking forward to this trip for quite a few weeks!  The day was a bit gloomy but it wasn't too bad overall and we still had a ton of fun.  When Owen, Gavin and I arrived, we searched for the rest of Owen's classmates and his teachers.  Once we found them and waited for everyone else to arrive, we made our way in and our first stop was to see the Sea Lion and Otter show.  It was really cute and the show was a little different since it was tailored more towards the kids and put on by the education dept.  They showed how they teach the animals different tricks and they actually practiced in front of us.  I really liked seeing a different side of Sea World rather than what they usually show the public. 

 Ready for our first show

 Seamore the sea lion doing some tricks!

 At the Shark Encounter

 I tried to get Owen to touch the starfish but he couldn't get past the 52 degree water.  It was cold!

 Going to see some penguins!

 At the Wild Arctic

 Gavin loved the ice wall!

 Ready to go up the tower to see the cool views!

 See what I mean by gloomy?

 On Owen's birthday last year, we had breakfast with Shamu here!

 Patiently waiting for the Shamu show to start!  It's our favorite!

 Shamu!  Shamu!

 Gavin finally fell asleep after the Shamu show, so we walked over to the new(to us) Turtle Reef!

 I loved the beautiful, colorful reef! 

I had such a great time with Owen at Sea World.  He was so good the whole day and always had a smile on his face.  He is becoming such a sweet little man.  I am so proud of him! 



My New Hobby!

A few months ago, two friends tried to teach me how to crochet...out in the desert. While they were trying to teach me, I was trying to watch the kids at the same time and so much else was going on that I couldn't quite catch on.  So when I got home, I told myself that I was going to learn.  Luckily there are a ton of crochet videos out there to learn from on YouTube and it made it easy for me to pause and rewind over and over and over again.  I began with a flower and a beanie for Savanna and she loved it.  Then I made beanies for the rest of the family too!  Crocheting has taken up a lot of my time, hence the bad blogging on my part!  But I love to crochet and find it relaxing and am always looking for a new project to start. 

Here are some of my completed projects so far:

 This is a pillow gift that I forgot to take a pic of after I stuffed it and finished the stitching

 My first afghan took me almost a month to complete

A cute amigurumi elephant for Gavin

Feb 2012 Girls Weekend

Sorry I forgot to post this one earlier...

Back in February, I got to go on a girls weekend with my sister-in-law, Emily, and two cousins, Carolyn and May. As Christmas presents from our hubbies, we received a weekend away to go wine tasting in Temecula and then we stayed the night at Pechanga Hotel and Casino and the next day we all got a massage at the spa! It was such a nice and relaxing weekend. We all absolutely loved it! We have the best husbands!

We went on a Temecula Valley Cable Car Wine Tour and they were fabulous!  We visited four wineries and if we purchased wine or food, etc., they always made sure to take our items for us so we didn't have to hold onto it while tasting wine.  Everything was labeled and put together so at the end of our tour, we got all of our stuff once we got off.  They were very accomodating, friendly and informative.  I would highly recommend them!

Our first stop was at South Coast Winery.  They have a spa there too and someday I would love to go to it!  :)  We loved their wines and the lady giving us our samples was very friendly and gave us a few extra tastings.  Yay! 

Our next stop was Maurice Car'rie Winery.  They have this wonderful warm brie bread that you order before you enter and you have to wait 15 minutes for them to make it fresh, but it is so worth the wait.  Yummy!

 Our third stop was Oak Mountain Winery.  We had lunch here (included in the wine tour) and there was even some live entertainment going on.  The views at this winery are breathtaking!

Our last stop was Europa Winery.  There were 4 different environments to choose from to have your tasting.  I thought that was such a neat concept!

Here we are ready to head back to Pechanga to check in and relax!  We were all ready for a nap by this time!  Riding in the open air of the cable car was a lot of fun.  So many people waved at us! 

I forgot to take pictures between when we arrived and the next day, oops!  But basically after we checked in, we relaxed and some of us napped.  Then we headed to the buffet for dinner.  I really enjoyed the buffet!  Their dessert area was so good!  I managed to snap a pic of my dessert plate(s) with my phone, yum!

Then that night, we actually stayed up and went to their rooftop nightclub! No pics from there either, sorry!  We were all surprised that we stayed up that late, but we have to live it up once in a while when there are no kids around, right? :)  We also did a little gambling after that. 

The next morning, we ordered room service for breakfast and I enjoyed eating my breakfast in bed!  After that, we headed down to the spa for our massages.  Talk about relaxing!  AHHHHH....

I loved this girls weekend and will never forget it!  I actually hope we can do it again soon!  Haha

Apr 2012 Happy Birthday Justin!

Justin celebrated his 35th birthday last month! To celebrate, the kids helped me bake him a yummy chocolate cake complete with frosting and sprinkles. It was a pretty normal day for him with work but we made it special when he got home. Savanna made a special sign for him for his chair that said, "Birthday Seat" and the kids made a special birthday card for him as well. We had a delicious dinner and then sang and had cake!

Apr 2012 Western Science Center

The kids were on Spring Break for the first two weeks of April. So we visited the Western Science Center in Hemet. Savanna went on a field trip there a few months ago and really enjoyed it so she wanted to take all of us there, especially Owen, because she knew he would love the dinosaurs there. And he did! The center is right next to Diamond Valley Lake and it basically shows how they found a ton of fossils while digging up the lake. They had an interactive room where you could play games pretending you were a dinosaur looking for food, water, etc. They also had a movie room that showed all about the digs and fossil finds. And then they had a huge room that displayed the fossils and on one end, there was a volunteer that helped the kids make their own fossils out of clay. It was great learning all about the history of the lake. The kids loved it! 



 Making their own fossils

Water fun with friends!

An overhead view of the lake.  It's huge!



Mar 2012 Our Award Winning Student

In March, Savanna received two awards.  Both for reading, of course!  The first one was an Academic Achievement Award.  Owen, Gavin and I went to her awards assembly and cheered her on when the principal called her name.  We are so proud of her!  She is doing such an excellent job at school.



With her wonderful teacher, Mrs. West

 

Look at goofy Gavin! :)

Then, like I promised in my earlier post, here she is receiving another reading award for reaching 500,000 words read!  Wow!