more pics.

Dolphin Show



Shamu making a big splash



Shamu



Waiting for Shamu.

Shamu.

California Pics.

California

We just returned from our trip to California on Tuesday. Yes, tuesday! We planned to be home late on monday but thanks to a snow storm we arrived home just before 5 a.m.! Other than the drive home in the snow we had a great time.

We spent 4 days in Anaheim and 4 days in San Diego. While in Anaheim we went to Disneyland 2 days and California Adventures 1 Day. The kids had an absolute blast and had fun finding all the characters and princesses for autographs. While we were eating lunch the first day Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter showed up and my girls got to play a game of musical chairs with them. It was really funny and what an awesome memory for them to have. How many people can say they have played musical chairs with Alice? It turns out Maddie is a little dare devil. She loves all the wild rides. We took the girls on the tower of terror and she is the only that liked it. Okay, she loved it and wanted to do it again. The other two got all upset if we even mentioned it, hehehe. It rained on us the last day at Disneyland. I am glad I took the advice from a friend and took some rain panchos so atleast we stayed dry. We had so much fun but were exhausted by the end of each day and the girls slept really, really well.

On thursday we drove down the California coast to San Diego. We spent one day at the San Diego zoo. It was absolutely beautiful there, it is like a botanical garden and a zoo. I was super impressed. We didnt get to see everything because the place is huge. We rode the bus that takes you around the zoo which gave us a good idea as to where everything was then we set out on foot to see as much as we could. We spent Saturday at the beach. The girls were excited to go swim but the water was FREEZING! They got their feet wet anyway and played in the water a little bit (I thought they were crazy!) We found tons of shells on the beach and brought home about 20 sand dollars. They were everywhere! We had a ton of fun even though it wasnt quite warm enough for the beach. Sunday we went to SeaWorld. The Shamu show was amazing and was our favorite. She is huge. We sat close enough to get wet but not soaked. We were about 8 rows back from the front. The girls enjoyed all the anmial shows.

The weather was great. It was in the upper 60's for most of our vacation so it was very disappointing to come home to the snow. We are soooo ready for spring!

30's kinda suck

So I came to the conclusion today that the 30's kinda suck. I'm getting wrinkles, my hair is turning gray, "me time" is practically nonexistent. I have to workout like a mad woman to get this pregnancy weight off once and for all.(okay, maybe it's not pregnancy weight anymore. I did have my last child more than 4 years ago!!! but it makes me feel better to think that I got fat for a reason and I can't think of any better reason to get fat than to bring another life into this world) I spend most of my days doing things for other people. I am not sure what I expected my 30's to be like. That was waaaay to far in the future to think about. It kinda snuck up on me. I did however think that I would be fabulously wealthy and I would absolutely love being a stay at home mom. Now dont get me wrong I do love being at home with my children but their have been many days that I have happily turned the kids over to Jai so that I could run off to work and not have to deal with the tears and the whining. Oh wait a minute, I still have to deal with that from patients in the ER. Anyway, I am glad that I am more sure of myself in my 30's. I know what I want and I am not afraid to tell people no anymore. I'm not afraid to speak my mind and am not worried about what other people think of me. I just hope I can come to terms with the wrinkles and the gray hair and realize I have earned them and not hate them. Yeah right!!

Christmas Day

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. It was so fun to see the excitement on the girls faces. We were lucky and nobody woke up too early. Maddie was the first one up but I think she forgot it was Christmas and climbed in bed with me at around 6:45. At about 7:30 Maddie must have remembered because she went running downstairs and then went and woke her sisters up. Usually Paige is our early riser. Paige 's big gift this year was a Nintendo DS which she absolutely loves and plays with everyday. Hannah got a Hannah Montana guitar that you can plug into the tv and play live guitar hero, and Maddie was supposed to get motorized Barbie Jeep until her friend and her sister found it hidden in the garage so instead Santa gave her Vtech vsmiles game system. They all got lots of art supplies this year. My girls love to draw, paint, and do any sort of art project. We also have lots more my littlest ponies and little pet shops. Santa was good to Jai and I also. Jai got a new snowboarding Jacket and I got a new bike. I am so happy to have a new bike and cant wait to ride it. We love taking family bike rides and my old bike was soooo uncomfortable. We had my parents over for Christmas dinner and with that came more presents. The girls were so excited because they thought they were done. We feel so blessed to be able to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa and wish we could do the same with Grandma Janet and Grandpa Henry.

Christmas Eve

We normally spend Christmas Eve with my parents but this year I had to work. I decided that after working 8 hours I didn't want to drive down to my parents because we wouldn't have a lot of time to spend there before we had to turn around and come home. We decided to do our own thing this year and had a lot of fun. The girls were driving Jai absolutely crazy all day because they knew they weren't aloud to open their Christmas eve present until I got home. I can only imagine how times he was asked if it was time for me to come home. When I got home that was the first thing we did. Tradition in our family is to open one gift on Christmas eve. In years past I have had a present already picked out for them(usually pj's) but this year I let them pick any present they wanted under the tree. They were so excited and already knew exactly which one they wanted. They opened their gift, we had dinner and watched movies. It was a really nice and relaxing evening. Hannah was the last one awake, the other two fell asleep watching movies. We were able to pull up the Santa tracker on the Internet and show her how close he was getting. She immediately ran up to bed and fell asleep so he could come.

Decorating Christmas cookies.

Over Christmas break Grandma baked a lot of Christmas cookies and invited the girls down to decorate them. We took a few of our cousins with us and I am glad we did because Grandma made lots and lots of cookies. Maddie probably decorated the most cookies. We assumed she would loose interest and wander off but she really got in to it and had a great time. Towards the end Grandma and I had to frost them all and the just had to put the candies on....they were done. After all the cookies were decorated and a few were eaten, Grandma took us all to Arctic Circle for lunch. We had a really good time and best of all I didn't have to do any baking. Thanks mom. The only bad part about the day was leaving. I was pulling out of the drive way and trying not to hit my Dad's truck. I had five sugar buzzed kids being crazy in the car and as I was backing up I heard a bang. I said "please tell me that was a garbage can." my nephew said "nope, that was a car!!!" Crap!!! Luckily it was the neighbors, she was out delivering her Christmas treats to the neighbors and was parked half in the driveway half in the street and I didn't see her car. She was very sweet about the whole thing. She came out to look at the damage on the trunk and claimed she really couldn't see anything. She told me not to worry about it since the car was 15 years old and had been hit before. I told her she knew where to find me if she changed her mind. She wished us all a Merry Christmas and made me promise i wouldn't feel bad. I could have cried I felt so horrible. I called Jai on the way home to tell him what had happened and had to repeat myself several times before the "I hit a car" sunk in. I am no longer "allowed" to back up in my parents driveway because this is not the first accident I have had there. WHOOPS!