Honey and vinegar

Kids are just so stinkin' funny.

So I have been talking to the kids about the saying "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar." I am trying to instill in them that if they talk to each other nicely (honey), the other ones will want to help or play with them more but if they are whining, yelling or complaining (vinegar), than the others will not want to help or play with them.

So as I hear them talking to each other I will randomly yell out either "honey" or "vinegar" based on how they are speaking to each other. I thought it was helping until I heard this:

Child A: Hey, you just pushed me.
Child B: No I didn't.
A: You did it on purpose.
B: No I didn't.
A: You're vinegar!
B: No, you're vinegar!

Oye.

Funny kids!

Catching up . . . again

Well, the last few weeks have been rough for me. April 6th marked the 1 year anniversary of my mom's passing. In the weeks leading up to it, I was sad . . . a lot. I just missed my mom. It was hard.

Also during those weeks, my dad announced that he is going to get married this summer. I love my dad and I am so happy that he is happy. I love Karen too. She is great and they are really happy together. They have actually known each other for a long time. Karen's husband, Bill, was a parts manager at another dealership and he won the same trips as my dad did every year so my dad and Karen have traveled all over the world together in a GM (General Motors) group. Bill passed away very suddenly about 5 or 6 years ago. It makes it easier that they have known each other for a long time and she is not a total stranger. It just makes me miss my mom even more.

On top of that, I have completely lost control of the house. Staying on top of it when it is already clean is relatively easy but once I get behind, it seems impossible to get caught back up. Then we went camping and that made the laundry load EXPLODE. I'm still not caught up. Things around here are not pretty but whatever. I'll get caught up eventually, right?

Trevor is awesome. We just love him to pieces. He is a very busy and active 9 month old. He is walking along things now and can push a push toy all over. He has discovered that if he wants to be heard, he needs to be loud and LOUD he is. He is probably about 23-24 pounds, has 8 teeth, loves to eat what we are eating, is an amazing sleeper(fingers crossed, knock on wood, throw salt over my shoulder and whatever else I need to do to not jinx myself) and loves his siblings. I love to see him light up when he spots them at school when we pick them up. He is just a happy, fun little guy whose siblings just spoil him. I can't believe his birthday is quickly approaching! Yikes! Time's flying!

As I mentioned before, we went camping last weekend. We had a great time. It was pouring, and I mean POURING, rain when we were leaving. Everyone thought we were nuts! But down at the ocean it was sunny so off we went.

We went to Dillon Beach, which has become our favorite site. Usually you camp anywhere and it is sandy and grassy and wonderful. As of January, the campground has had to start improvements to keep the coastal commission happy and so we could not camp at our usual place. We were bummed. We had to camp down at the sea wall which the ground is more gravel-ly. We were double bummed. BUT it turned out to be great! We backed right up to the sea wall and a pile of sand and been dumped right at the back of the site next to us. Can you see Evan in the sand to the left?

Right at the back of our trailer was a ladder to get down onto the beach so we just had to "hop" over to play. When tide was in it came all the way up to this wall.

When tide was out we had this great beach right in our backyard. The kids played for hours out there.

Tide either going out or coming in, can't remember, but it would go way out.

Cutest little boy:

We took a few hikes and Trevor loved the backpack.

The kids (Kurt included) build this huge "castle." Tide was out and the discussion was what would happen to it as tide came in. So over the next few hours we watched.

Here it comes:

And there it goes:

It was windy while we were there. So windy in fact, that after 2 days it became quite apparent that Evan was due for a hair cut.

Trevor loved the beach. First I held his hands as he walked around but when my back was about to break I decided to just let him go. He had a blast crawling around, trying to pick up handfuls of sand, throwing the sand. He gabbered the whole time - it was so cute. I now realize that we only got video of him crawling in the sand. No pictures. Bummer.

We tried to bury Hailey.

Kurt had the idea to carve out people in the sand. Instead of building up sand to make a person, he had Hailey lay down and he traced her. Then we used shovels to dig out around her. Kurt spent a great deal of time sculpting and smoothing. I finally went out to him and said "you do realize that you are the only one still out here working, right?" He really enjoyed his art work!

Me and T

Oh, here is a picture of tide being in.

This cracked us up. The first day was cool and windy so it was a bit chilly. When we came in Cody laid down like this. Nose on one heater vent and tail on the other. Silly dog!

And camping at Dillon's isn't complete until you are laying in bed and you hear a cow "Moooooo" right by your head. Gotta love Dillon Beach cattle!

Buried Treasure #2 ~ Mexico

This trip was crazy from the very beginning.

In 2006 Kayla was starting kindergarten and Kurt decided that we needed to take a BIG family trip before she did. Of course, he declared this right before she was suppose to start school. Apparently we are nothing if we aren't spontaneous! So on a Thursday afternoon we purchased an all-inclusive Cabo San Lucas resort trip for the whole family that left the following Wednesday. Why we thought taking a 5 year old, a 3 year old and a 10 month old to Mexico was a good idea is beyond me but we did.

The flights left only 6 short days later. Now, when you own your own business you can't just get up and walk away from it. There is a lot of planning, ordering, scheduling and "future-telling" to try to get done before you can just leave, especially in a construction-type business. So technically we had 3 days to get that all taken care of before we left (Friday, Monday and Tuesday).

Well, Friday I went to the bank to get our birth certificates out of the safety deposit box because, at that time, that was all you needed to have with you to get into Mexico. Everyone's was there . . . except mine. So I went home and started looking for it.

Couldn't find it.

Anywhere.

So I started tearing the house apart looking for it. Nothing. So that weekend my mom tore her house apart looking for it. Nada. Oh, great!

So Monday morning I called the county office for where I was born and explained the situation to them. They said the only way to get it in time for the trip was to come in in person. WHAT? I was born in Huntington Beach, Orange County. So within about an hour, Kurt and I decided that we needed to drive to So. Cal. to get my birth certificate, otherwise we wouldn't be able to go. My mom lovingly offered to stay with the kids for the night. So Monday afternoon that is exactly what we did - we drove the 6-7 hours down there, worked all the way down there on office stuff and stayed in a hotel. We were there when the county office opened up the next morning and then we drove the 6-7 hours back home on Tuesday. We spent the rest of the day frantically finishing laundry and packing for the trip which left EARLY the next morning.

But we made it! Whew! I am so glad I was born within driving distance! That would have been a total bummer to lose the trip!

(Again, picture of a picture. Plus I was in our closet and it's 10:30 at night. Not the best lighting. Sorry)

We actually had a pretty good time. It was humid beyond humid. We literally LIVED in the pools and drank piña coladas all day (virgin, of course). Evan was seriously addicted to them. 10 months old and he would start grunting as soon as they set the drinks down. I should dig out a picture of him drinking one - so cute! All-inclusive is totally the way to go with kids. We could eat whenever and however much we wanted any time of day. It was great!

Ok, I went and dug one up. This is a photo of his scrapbook so it's not the best but cute nonetheless. This particular piña colada had strawberries in it.

Well, one late afternoon/early evening we walked down to the beach and there was a guy giving rides in this flying contraption thing. It was like a hang-glider thing but with seats and a motor. Kurt had mentioned that he would like to do that sometime and so when the guy offered, Kurt really wanted to go but we didn't have any cash on us. The guy said "no problem. Just leave it at the front desk for me and I will pick it up later." Sweet! So off Kurt went!

This is the film from the wing of the thing. I didn't have the camera on me so these are the only pictures we have of Kurt flying. Buried treasure for sure!

I realized that as I stood on the beach with my three small children and watched my husband take off in this flying contraption thing that this probably wasn't the smartest thing to do. What if something happened to him? What if he got hurt? What would I do in another country where I don't speak the language and I'm all by myself with my kids? I kind-of had a moment of panic but realized there wasn't much I could do about it at that point. I just prayed he would come back quickly and safely.

Luckily he retuned to us with no problem. Kurt thought it was a blast and was really happy that he had done it. I was just glad he was safely back on the ground again!

So we immediately went and put the cash in an envelope and put it at the front desk. Then off to dinner we went. When we came back to our room after dinner we had a message from the guy saying that he didn't get the money. It wasn't at the front desk when he went to get it.

We went down to the front desk and they said that he had, in fact, picked it up. They then told us that this is what some guys do to scam people out of money. If you can't prove they picked it up, then they say that you didn't pay.

So we called the guy back and told him that the front desk said he picked it up. He kind of got a little upset and freaked us out. I can't remember exactly what happened or what he said but I remember Kurt and I were both worked up about it. I think it was because we were in another country with our 3 small kids and we had heard horror stories about bad things happening to other people. So we locked ourselves in our room for the night.

It seems like he called again the next morning saying that he wanted his money. I told Kurt to just pay him again so he would leave us alone. It wasn't worth the money. That morning we were seriously looking over our shoulders and thinking that we were targets of some scam. We kept death grips on the kids and didn't let them move an inch away from us. It was seriously scary. It totally sounds ridiculous, I know, but we were really freaked out. We jokingly (in a very nervous, freaked out kind of way) said the mafia was after us. Ya, I am sure they were worried about money from a piddly little ride in the air.

So Kurt set up a meeting time at the front desk to repay the guy. That way we would have witnesses to see the payment. It seriously felt like we were doing something illegal, totally crazy.

Luckily though, before the meeting time, the front desk called and explained what happened. Apparently someone at the resort had the same name so the front desk thought it was for him and gave it to him. Luckily he was an honest guy and brought it back when he didn't know what it was for.

So we were both right. Flyer dude honestly didn't get paid and we really did pay it. It was all smoothed over and he got his money but seriously for about 12 hours we were scared!

So then we flew home on Wednesday and Kayla started school the very next day. We had missed her Back to School night and so she didn't know where her class was, who her teacher was or where to go. They had a strict policy that parents were not allowed on campus the first week of school. I explained to the lady at the gate that she was a kindergartener and that she had no idea where to go.

"To bad mom, you're not getting in."

So I sent my first baby through the gate having no idea where she was going. I cried. She did great but I cried.

Those were the craziest 2 weeks ever!