Keeping Up With the Kays: March 2009

San Diego Trip - Part 1

Some of you have been waiting to hear about our trip to San Diego for awhile; some of you had no idea we had gone on vacation. Ha ha! Well, I had every intention of blogging about our fun trip as soon as I got home but Mother Nature (?) had other plans. Both Lily and I got sick and computer time was the last thing on my mind. But that’s getting ahead of myself. Let’s just tell you about all the fun we had!

We headed for San Diego last Monday (3/16) afternoon, after Elliott put in a few hour at work. The trip down was entirely uneventful, save for a dinnertime meltdown approximately 15 minutes from our timeshare. Luckily I had foreseen that, and we were already headed into Applebee’s when the time struck, so no big issues arose. After dinner we headed to our condo in downtown San Diego, right in the heart of the Gaslamp District. It was gorgeous! Unlike many timeshares, this one was just like a nice hotel, complete with deskclerk, activities desk, elevators and updated furnishings. Turns out there is only one one-bedroom unit in the building (the rest are studios, i.e. hotel rooms) and we scored it. I have to give a shout-out to my mom right here, because she is the sole reason we were in San Diego in the first place. She gave us a week of her timeshare because they weren’t going to use it this year. THANKS MOM!

The rooms were fabulous! I forgot to take a picture of the place before I started kiddie-proofing and rearranging furniture for sleeping arrangements. We got the girls to bed right away, trying to place both cribs in the living room, separated by couches. However, it was rough going. Lily, a normally super-easy bedtime girl, was freaked out by the location a bit I think and wasn’t her normal calm self. Ava, on the other hand, was not at all out of place. However she discovered she could climb out of the Pack n Play (a new feat to us too) and open the doors in the room since they had lever-style door handles. So we spent the next 90 minutes trying to get Ava to stay in bed while calming Lily down (and keeping her calm amidst Ava’s wanderings and exclamations of “whatcha doin’guys?”). Finally about 10:30pm both girls were out and so were we.

We were up bright and early on Tuesday for a day of fun at the zoo, which was right up the street from us. Even though I say “bright and early” we still didn’t get out of the room until about 10:30 (our average daily departure time, much to my annoyance), putting our arrival at the zoo at just about lunchtime. We hit the children’s petting zoo first and a few other attractions we thought the girls would like before getting a bite to eat. Lily, however, had the her worst meltdown EVER during lunch. I think she wanted a bottle of milk – and it has to be warm – but by the time I could rustle it up via the food court she was too far over the edge and was simply inconsolable. Honestly, I had never seen her so upset. I finally got her back to the lunch table, crying and screaming, and distracted her with animal cookies, which got her back on track to eating other food and hence calming down (though she still couldn’t care less about the bottle of milk I had worked so hard to procure).

After lunch we ventured to the points we thought Ava would like the most – polar bears, monkeys, etc. – while trying to balance it with my pregnancy low-energy level. All in all I think we did very well. The only down-side to the day was Ava’s insistence at being carried everywhere. We couldn’t convince her to ride in the stroller or walk on her own. She just wanted to be carried. Oh well, if that was the worst thing, I’ll take it. Both Elliott and I agreed that when we took Ava their for her first birthday she was very taken with the animals and paid great attention. Lily, on the other hand, had a good day, but took it all in calmly, just riding along in her stroller with her pacifier. She never reached the interest level Ava had at her age.

We finished up with the zoo and headed out to pick up our brother-in-law Shane for a nice Mexican dinner. I swear, two minutes after Ava hit her carseat she was passed out, even before we left the parking lot. It was very funny! She was so tired, poor little one. She wouldn’t even wake up for the restaurant (very unusual) so I held her sleeping on my shoulder for the first half of dinner. It was a fun restaurant and we sat outside on the patio with a man serenading us and the breezes blowing. It was lovely.

After dinner we went back to Shane and Gabby’s (Elliott’s sister) house where Ava took a bath. She had had it in her head ever since I made an off-handed comment so my choices were 1) bath at Gabby and Shane’s while we visit awhile or 2) hurry home so we can get her in the tub and into bed. We opted for visiting, so upstairs Ava went. All of a sudden I hear a scream and little girl hopping out of the tub and running down the hall. I immediately thought she had turned it to hot water but instead she had accidentally turned the shower on! I thought it was super funny; Ava did not. We left shortly thereafter and headed back to the hotel, where we split the girls up for bedtime – Lily in with us and Ava in the front room. This situation worked MUCH better this time than the last night (so we kept this set-up for the rest of the vacation.)

The next morning we walked to breakfast at a local restaurant called Richard Walker’s Pancake House. It was really yummy; I could actually taste that the pancakes were homemade. Afterwards we wandered down the street a bit while we waited for Gabby to come meet up with us for a day of playing. We found a little playground where Ava got some of her wiggles out after having to sit for a time at breakfast. Once Gabby met up with us we decided to go to the beach, so we went over to Coronado Island to a lovely beach Gabby knew about (and a chance to see the beautiful community and old hotel). We had a bit of a hike to the beach where we learned something very interesting – Ava still isn’t a fan of the ocean but Lily LOVES it! Simply loves it! Whereas Ava could care less (in fact I am not sure she could care less, as she cried the entire time she was near the water) and spent time up in the dry sand with me, Lily couldn’t get enough. She would sit in the waves as they rolled in, laughing and splashing, trying to eat the wet sand and just playing and playing. Well, what can we say? I am not a huge fan of the ocean either whereas Elliott would like to be a fish, so we each take a girl and they are happy. Watching Lily’ glee made it hard to call it a day after rather little time, but the water was cold and Ava was miserable, so we went back to the hotel for naptime. During naptime Gabby and I went out for pedicures (with a stop for some snacks for me) and enjoyed a little girly time.

For dinner that night we picked up Shane and went to Bucca di Beppo’s. Even though it is a chain I had never eaten there before so I really had fun. The girls ate well too, which is always a plus. Afterwards we went to a chocolate/ice cream shop where we decided to get take-out after the girls were in bed and so we headed back to the hotel. Both girls went into the tub to get all the sand off of them and then off to bed with Lily. Ava got to stay up a bit and was around when the ice cream arrived, which she enjoyed with the adults. Then to bed.

Sometimes Procrastination Pays Off!

I will confess that I have had Ava and Lily's outgrown and out-of-season clothes piled up for a long time around here. A seriously long time. I have procrastinated so long in fact, that I discovered just now that I am actually ahead of the game (is that possible?).

I have had about three bins/laundry baskets full of clothes that needed to be sorted out and put away since before Christmas. As I actually tackled the project today (I don't know why today, I guess I just got fed up with looking at the bins piled in my bedroom) I realized that when I had put away Ava's summer clothes she was in fact wearing the size that Lily is quickly moving into. What that means is that while I was sorting clothes to put in storage I saved myself quite some time by simply leaving out the short-sleeved shirts and shorts that Ava wore last year, since Lily will be using them this year! Ah-ha!! Who knew I could put off something so long that it actually paid off? Not me!

A Day Trip to Oatman, AZ

Sunday we had a fun outing to a little *almost ghost* town called Oatman, AZ, about 2 1/2 hrs. from Las Vegas. Elliott had heard of the place from his boss Pete, who told him that it was an old mining town where wild burros wandered the streets during the daytime, eating carrots from the tourists. Since we had nothing else to do that day, Elliott suggested we check it out after lunch, hoping that perhaps the girls would sleep in the car (we were not so lucky, but they were good nonetheless).

We arrived to find it exactly as decribed! Both adult and baby burros strolled the streets and sidewalks, checking out the tourists and trying to scam carrots. If you happened to buy some carrots while you were there (the local storefronts sold them for $1/bag) you would immediately be mobbed by burros until they exhausted your supply and moved on.

Ava LOVED the burros, wanting to pet and feed them all. She was very sad to leave until we noticed that the burros too had decided to head back into the hills for the evening; they trotted out of town in a single line as if somebody had blown a whistle and summoned them home. Even Lily got in on the act. One white baby burro took a shine to her and stuck it's nose right into the stroller; Lily responded by sticking her fingers up its nose, which it didn't even seem to notice.

We had a great day being out of town, taking a little trip and experiencing something new. Good job daddy!

I have to clean that up?

Yes, this is a picture of Ava's bedroom. Can you see all of the piles? What, Sarah, you mean there is more than one pile? Not anymore it seems.

Ava has a habit of grouping things together. She likes to line up the shoes by the front door, put her Little People in a circle, etc. Well, she did have four separate piles going in her room, which seems to have joined to form one massive pile. She did have one pile of Little People, one pile of "dolls" (which also included every stuffed animal), one pile of clothes (including both dirty ones she pulled out of the hamper and clean ones she pulled out of her dresser drawers), and one pile of blankets, which normally live on the bottom shelf of the changing table.

At night she has been requesting to sleep with it all. As you can imagine this leaves her no room to actually sleep, but we have discovered that she usually throws it all out of her crib before falling asleep anwyay, so who cares? We also thought that in the near future, when she moves to a toddler bed and has access to everything minus the crib bars there is nothing to keep her from playing with all of her stuff all night long. So she usually gets that entire pile of stuff in her crib with her at night. Can you imagine? I couldn't if I didn't see it every night.

So there you have it, the abyss that is Ava's bedroom. Thanks for not judging!

Happy 1st Birthday Lily!

Where's Lily?

Sunday fun with cousins

Whenever cousins Xander and Julia come over the first thing that happens is that the couch cushions come off and all of the kids start jumping on them. Ava nevers thinks to do this on her own when cousins aren't around, but boy do the girls enjoy it when it occurs. Lily too is really enjoying bouncing and rolling and dive-bombing.