The Best Little Things

Summer is a mixed bag. Some of the days are absolutely great and then the next day is horrible. Last week there was one day where everyone was in a good mood and got along. Meg gave me a pedicure and a manicure (her favorite hobby right now is doing nails). Then she did my hair...a really tight pretty dang good ponytail. :) Then she requested a makeover with a special request of "cat eyes". She wanted to look like Taylor Swift. That was followed by a good hour practicing lip syncing in front of the bathroom door. Then she requested that I film her lip syncing. Pretty cute. I played catch with Adin and threw the ball for him to practice batting. Gracie wasn't teething and napped well. I felt pure contentment. The very. next. day. was BY FAR the worst day of the summer. The kids were fighting incessantly  and very disrespectful to me. It ended up earning them 2 hours of extra work on Saturday as a punishment. That's how it goes, I guess.

I adore these kids of ours. They bring me the most joy. It's a struggle right now because I'm not sure I've ever felt more stressed and depressed than right now. Brian despises his job and we really hate the town. I'm trying to take on the mantra, bloom where you are planted. I'm trying to make the best of the situation but overall I feel so low. I think it's a combination of never being the same since my thyroid removal, coupled with stress about Brian's unhappiness, coupled with my own unhappiness. I also finished nursing Grace this week, which was so much more emotional for me this time. I actually wrote a post about it, but haven't posted it  yet. Anyways, just a lot I'm dealing with that makes me have far less patience than I normally do. Then I get frustrated with my lack of patience and end up feeling even more down on myself. Vicious cycle. I am so hoping something will get better.

I wanted to document a couple of conversations with Adin. We were eating breakfast together. He insists that I wait for him every morning to eat. He MUST eat his breakfast with me. Meg, on the other hand, wont eat breakfast with anyone because she hates the way people chew. Anyways, he said that his plan in life was to find a girl that loves Disneyland and marry her. Then he would need to get a job where he made lots of money so that he could live in California and have season passes. Then today, at lunch. He said, Mom, I know how getting married works. I asked, how. He said, well, first one person sees someone that they think is cute and then the other person thinks that person is cute too...and they just...get married. :) I love the way his mind works. I also love that he loves Disneyland as much as me.

Now for a little Gracie update. She is 16 months. She got her first 4 molars all at once and was miserable. I was constantly giving her motrin because she was in so much pain. Their all cut so we've had a little break where she has seemed a little better. She loves to give me loves. She will run up to me and give me a love on my legs, then run off and play some more. She is constantly grabbing my had to take me to the door or the TV or just to walk around with her. She goes and stands by her high chair if she is hungry. She switched from nursing to a bottle fabulously. She now gets super excited when she sees her bottle and blankie. She loves whatever meal we are having. The main snacks she likes are hot dogs, bananas, pears, and cheese. She loves Michael Jacksons, "Beat it". Adin started out booming it for her in his bedroom. They would go in there together and she would get so excited and dance. Now, Brian starts it on the computer and her eyes light up. She does this adorable high step dance with some spins and says "dika dika dika" in a high pitched voice. Not sure what that means, but she says it often...usually when she is happy. She also says uh, ohhhhhh. She uses her low voice for this one and emphasizes the ohhhh with a really wide o-shaped mouth. She'll say it over and over and is usually frustrated, chucks something, and then says uh ohhhhh over and over with an edge of frustration to it. She says da, da  very consistently when she sees Brian. She absolutely loves him and will sit at the computer with him while he surfs. The other day, I was certain she said "zozen" for the movie Frozen that she adores. I haven't heard her say it again though, so maybe not. She is still pretty stranger danger, but does love other little kids. She loves to go on walks and often holds my hand and drags me to the garage and then to the stroller. If I ever tell her we are going to go "bye-bye" she heads to the stroller and is ticked when we are actually going in the car. She still hates that. She brings an indescribable amount of happiness to me even if she is a little tough. :)

Vacation EXTRAS

This trip we had two extra days to fill with things. Brian did his research (as usual) and found some really fun things to do. We ended up having to narrow things down. Our spare days were equally as much fun as Disneyland this year. I'll let the pictures help me tell the story of these two days.

Spare Day #1

 This day started with a trip to the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood. It's an old Hollywood theater built in the 20s. It hosts a lot of Hollywood premiers still today. The movie they were showing was a new Disney movie call Maleficent. The ambiance was awesome. This theater was so cool inside. I wish the picture would have picked up more of the background. We were running a little behind and were lucky to get seats by each other. Another ten minutes and the theater was packed. Before the show they did an completely awesome magic show. It only lasted 20 minutes but it was something none of us had experienced in person. We got to watch them cut a lady in half and switch places in a box, and the trick with swords placed all around the magician and then he just gets right out.  It was absolutely awesome. Gracie didn't make it through the whole movie so I wandered the halls for a bit, but the kids loved the show.

 Outside the theater.

 Funny side story was that because we were in such a rush to get to the movie neither of us paid attention to where we parked in a parking garage. As we were headed back to the van, Brian said he needed to go to the bathroom. I told him we'd go ahead and get loaded into the car. We joked about wishing each other luck finding the van. The kids and I got to the van (found it easily) and were snacking for a while. Fifteen minutes went by....then twenty. I started to worry that Brian was lost. I left Meg and Adin in the car and went up to look for Brian. As I rode the elevator up, the door opened and there was Brian. The first words out of his mouth, "Where have you been?"..."Umm, in the van, where have you been."  Well, he was lost. He used the restroom quickly and then headed down and couldn't find the van. He was trying all sorts of floors and was totally turned around. He got nervous which made him need to use the restroom again. Then he started looking again. My cell didn't get reception in the parking garage so he had to no way to find us. I led him back to the van. He just needed to go one row over from where he had initially thought it was. Hahahaha. We teased him quite a bit.

Another funny side story. Once we got into the car, we were driving around and I made a comment about us being tourists. Not knowing Adin was listening suddenly Adin piped up and said, Tourists, I'm not a tourist. You guys can be tourists, I'm a hare because I'm super fast. Haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

 Next we tried a famous hot dog joint call Carneys. It was a restaurant in an old train. It was pretty cool, but we were in a panicked rush. Our extended time in Hollywood had us running behind to make it to a marionette show that we had tickets for. After eating we drove like complete mad people to try to make it on time to the show. It was only 15 minutes away, but the most direct route showed it would take us 35 minutes. Yikes! Brian was driving like a true californian. :) We were only 10 minutes late and hadn't missed any of the show, just some preshow talk.

 The place was beyond kitschy and really unique and fun. The kids got cheap little marionettes after and some ice cream. It was super memorable.

We capped off a pretty perfect day in a pretty perfect way. Farmers Market is a staple for us when we go to California. We love it. No trip to CA would be complete without it at this point. This time we went in the evening. It was cooled off. We spent a while watching the fountains with the music and then browsed through the shops and ate.

DAY 2

Day two was a Sunday so we try to keep it a little lower key. We visited San Juan Capistrano. This place is peaceful and breathtaking.

After that we were headed to the beach and stopped at another popular place. It's called Rubys Shake shack. It's right off the highway and overlooks the beach. It has a tiny parking lot so you literally wait in a car line off the side of the highway for a spot to open up. It was delicious. The burgers were awesome. Charisse got a PB shake that was too die for. I have a feeling we'll be back. :)

Our ocean day was pretty perfect. Gracie was a wild card. I wasn't sure what to expect. She was crawling out of my arm. She didn't care one bit about the sand.  She went straight for the water. She lost a little bravery when the waves were strong, but she didn't get grumpy the whole time.

 Adin was absolutely fearless and crazy at the beginning. He was jumping into the waves and squealing. It was so fun to watch. That came to a fairly abrupt halt when an undercurrent got ahold of him and slammed him against the sand. I watched it happen and worried for him. He came walking up to me breathing heavy, trying to act cool, and said, "Did you see that, I was thinking to myself, Well, I'm dead." :) After that he was not adventurous and liked to play in the sand.

 Brian was awesome this year. He has a lot of endurance and just goes and goes. Meg gave it a go, but didn't love it.

Gracie was attacking Meg, with her sandy feet. Meg was helpless. It was only funny to Meg for about 10 seconds and then she started bawling. :) It was such a relaxing fun day. Oh California, you treated us well. How I miss thee. :(