Unanswered Prayers

I dated the same guy for most of my High School and early college years. Ok, so we weren't actually dating continuously the entire time. We'd break up and be apart for a while, until I convinced him we should get back together. Yes, you could say I was obsessed.

I was very involved with his family, went on vacations with them, and even worked for his Mom for a while. I spent so much time with him, that I would often abandon my own family and friends, something that I look back on with regret. I was totally faithful to him when we were together as well, something I look back on with regret... Not really, but I do think that being as young as we were, I should have dated a LOT more back then. Needless to say, I had visions of us ending up happily married, with a few kids.

After a couple years of college and being on my own, I started to mature and experience life. By the time we broke up for the last time, it was mutual and I knew it was for good. I was ready to move on, although I always wondered if I was making the right decision. Was I letting go of something that was "meant to be"?

Over the years, we've kept in touch with each other, periodically catching up on each other's lives. We are both married, both have two kids and a good life. Recently though, he's gotten really off track in his life. He's unhappy in his marriage, and is involved with other women. He's basically skating on thin ice, and I can see him plunging into the cold soon if he doesn't figure things out.

You know that saying, "some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers"?

I hope that I can somehow impart to my daughters how precious it is to spend time early in your life, creating yourself, and not getting wrapped up in who other people think you should be. Looking back, while I think I shouldn't have let this relationship be the primary focus of such an emerging time in my life, I learned a lot and I am happy that he was my first love. I'm also happy that he wasn't my last love.

Sleep Talking

Milly, my littlest, talks in her sleep a lot.

Last night, it seems she was actually walking in her sleep. She came out of her room and down the hall, calling for her sister, Seesa.

When I found her and took her back to her bed, she said to me, "I yuv deers. They make me so happy."

Hmm. Deers. I guess they make me pretty happy too.

You can comment anonymously now!!!

Ok, I know at least a couple of my friends are reading this thing... but I was surprised that I wasn't getting more comments, especially from some of my more outspoken friends - ahem, you know who you are.

Then, I realized that I didn't have my settings enabled for anonymous comments. (I'm still new at this whole blogging thing.) Problem solved! You are all free to comment away now.

You know you're old when...

Your babysitter has never heard of the movie "Flashdance". What the...? Really?!?!

I was just discussing this with my friend "A" tonight, and we decided that we are SO glad that we got to grow up in the 80's. Really, there is nothing cooler.

Who wouldn't love a generation that invented baggy off the shoulder sweatshirts and leg warmers?

First Day of Preschool

Today was my littlest, Milly's first day of Preschool, or "big girl school" as she refers to it. Her older sister is an old hat now, being that this is her second year.

It was Sessa's idea to pose by the pot of flowers behind the door of the Preschool...my little Spielberg. Whatever gets them to smile.


After dinner tonight, we had pink milk to celebrate.




I have to say, I celebrated a bit too. It's nice to have one more year, before Seesa officially starts Kindergarten. Then, maybe I'll have to change my blog name to "I left my heart at elementary school"...? Or maybe, "I left one of my hearts at preschool, and the other at elementary school..."? I jest.

Yes, I am aware that my children are starting to look like "Cousin It". I'm attempting to grow their bangs out. Any tips on how to keep it out of their faces with something that will actually stay in their hair for longer than 20 minutes?

Conversation with my 4 year old

Me: Seesa, want a penny to throw into that fountain, and make a wish?

Seesa: Sure Mommy.

(Seesa comes back with penny in hand.)

Me: Don't you want to make a wish?

Seesa: I wish to keep my penny.

Seesa's Daddy: Oh Yeah, baby!

Best Laid Plans

So, our wonderful lake vacation has come to an end, and we were heading home on Friday. Only thing was - we couldn't go home, because we needed to stay out of our house until Saturday afternoon because of our construction.

No worries, we decided to visit my best girlfriend, L and her family on our way home and stay the night. Here's a picture of L, me and our kids from last year around this same time.

L and I met in college, as dorm-mates. We hit it off right away, and were basically inseparable for the rest of our college days together. Even though we ended up living in different places after college, we've remained attached at the heart. We have one of those friendships where anytime we talk to each other, no matter how much time has passed, we pick up like we last spoke only a few hours earlier. We've been through so much together. We were both married within a couple years of one another, and have had the joy of having our children around the same time too. In fact, our first daughters are less than a month apart in age. Our second daughters are only five months apart. I swear, we didn't even plan it! We aren't the kind of chicks who have to do everything together, even pee. We have a connection, through Christ, and it's kept us together. I was looking forward to my "L fix".

Only thing was, she was working until 5pm, so we needed to kill time after our 10am check-out. We were doing a fine job of it in the beginning, with a trip to the ice cream parlor at Bass Lake after lunch. Things started to take a turn for the worst after we got in the camper to head out to her neck of the woods. The air conditioning stopped working... and it was around 108 degrees that day.

We decided to try to grab a movie in a town along the way, so I used my handy dandy Blackberry to find a kid's show. By the time we got to the theatre, the kids hadn't napped, so they were c r a n k y. Could it have been the fact that they were hopped up on sugar just before loading them up for hours in the car, with no AC? This was exacerbated by the fact that my husband was at his wit's end. Could it have been the fact that the kids were hopped up on sugar and driving him nuts while he was trying to drive our fully loaded camper, with no AC?

Walking up to the ticket counter with two crying kids in tow, we discovered that the kid's movie was not in fact playing at that theatre (the only one in town) anymore. Back across the 110 degree parking lot with two crying kids, into the camper - did I mention, with no AC?

After a not-so-pleasant conversation between my husband and I, which involved discussions of sleep deprived kids, out of patience parents, needs to have discussion with contractor before husband leaves for another week-long business trip on Sunday... we decided to just head for home, and bypass our visit with my friend L.

Back on the (not-so-handy-dandy) Blackberry, to search out a hotel for the night. Eventually, we landed in our home town. The hotel was great, despite our continued personal woes, probably due to all of our exhaustion and lack of brain cells after our drive in the oven. We argued about where to eat - I wanted to make it easy, and just eat at the hotel, and my husband insisted that hotel food sucks, and we were in our hometown after all - we could find a better place to eat. I acquiesced, and he proceeded to drive us to... McDonald's. Yes, this is his idea of food that is better than hotel food.

We are now home, and have spent the rest of the weekend trying to get the house back in order from all the disarray of the construction, on top of unpacking from our lake vacation. So much for being rested.

L - I MISS YOU, and wish we could have seen each other. But, as I know you'd want me to do, let me look in the bright side here.

1. I just had a fantastic vacation with my sister and her family, at an idyllic location, creating memories for ourselves and our children that will last a lifetime.
2. The fact that L understood why we didn't make it, without a shred of animosity, is a shining example of our amazing friendship.
3. I heard that WALL-E isn't worth seeing in the theatre anyway.

Best day EVER

We started the day at the Children's Museum of the Sierra.



Pizza for lunch, then home for naps... ahhh.




Fun afternoon playing on the boat, then swimming off the dock, right in front of our cabin.









Evening out for Moms and Dads to the Chateau du Sureau for one of the best dinners I have ever had. Truly. There is nothing like great food, great wine and great conversation.

GOLD not so RUSHed

After a morning of PlayDoh on the deck of the cabin, we headed out to the Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad for a ride on a steam train.
On our way back from the train ride, we decided it would be fun for the kids to pan for gold at the little gold panning kiosk at the railroad. Since it was close to lunch time, I asked the gold panning guy if he could do the condensed, child-friendly version of the gold panning lesson. He looked at me like I had just asked a master chef to whip up some Easy Mac & Cheese. He said that the whole process took around 20 minutes, and afterwards, they would really know how to pan for gold. Come on. They are 2, 3, 4 and 5 years old. Granted, in this economy, I can see where it might be helpful to know how to pan for gold. But since I'm not currently considering hiring my kids out as child laborers, I don't think they really need to leave this experience with actual gold panning skills. I felt pretty confident that if the kids just got to stick their hands in the water, shake a pan around a little and leave with a tiny vile of REAL GOLD, we'd all be happy.

After talking the gold panning guy into a 15 minute version of the program, we set the kids up at the makeshift riverbed, and he set forth showing us how to pan for gold. You can see how excited everyone is to get started... This is probably because it took around 5 minutes of explanation before the kids were allowed to dip their hands in the water.
Finally, after the gold panning really got going, the kids' interest peaked as they could see the little flakes of REAL GOLD. Eventually, we left with our goods, and avoided hitting the wall - thanks to the snacks we brought with us for the train ride. If there is one thing I've learned as a Mom...always bring provisions.
We ended the day with Popsicles. Hopefully we will be able to find the little viles of gold somewhere in the cabin, or maybe the kids will forget all about them...yah, that was worth it.

The Great Outdoors

We are having a blast on our vacation in the great outdoors! Incidentally, the movie by the same name was actually filmed right here at Bass Lake.

My husband has been loving the opportunity to use his Jeep (which was recently restored by him - after countless hours).

The boating has been fantastic.

There's been lot of beach time. One of the best thing about this lake, is the water is WARM!!!

...at least most of us were having a good time in the water...

There have been a few rousing games of "Don't Spill the Beans".

And the girls loved choosing a bag full of colored rocks at the local gift shop.

I may even have to dedicate a post to "camper baby", shown in the above picture, being held by Milly.


So far, a good time is being had by all.

My "out of office" post

Thanks for checking out my blog. I'll be on vacation through next week. For urgent request, try my cell phone, but don't expect me to answer...

Seriously though, we are on a much needed family vacation to Bass Lake with my sister's family. It's perfect timing - work has been kicking my a$$, and our construction is nearing completion, so they've been working overtime - the number of people walking in and out of my house has been piling up almost as much as the dust.

I do have an Internet connection here, so I am going to be posting some pictures of all the fun we are having.

Stay tuned...

Impromptu take your daughter to work day

We had our very own "take your daughter to work day" today.

Seesa spent the morning with our sitter, Meaghan at the Bay Area Discovery Museum. Meaghan dropped Seesa off at my office in San Francisco after lunch. I expected to wrap up and leave the office for the day.

Before we left for home, I set her up with a little show (thank you Nick Jr website) at a desk right next to mine that happens to be unoccupied, as my co-worker is on maternity leave, so that I could finish a few emails.

She was having so much fun, that I decided to stick around a little longer.

We got some pretzels from the vending machine, visited the bathroom - complete with a full length mirror perfect for dancing in front of, and opened up a little "unicorn tattoo stand" (the office version of a lemonade stand?) .

She loved looking out the windows (from the 10th floor) at the cars, buses and people down below. She loved saying hello to everyone in the halls and elevators. She wanted to visit all the different areas of the office, and sit in all the chairs.

What a great day.

Although, I'm sure that she now thinks that Mommy gets to watch Dora the Explorer all day at work... if only.

There must be something in the water

Why must there be this many toys in the bath?
Where do they all come from? I swear, they multiply by themselves in there.

Apparently, a bath is no fun without:
4 Diegos, riding various sea animals
1 "other" animal rescuer
7 stacking cups
4 linking turtle cups
2 plastic bowls
5 small frogs
Mommy and baby Penguin
Mommy and baby Whale
Mommy and baby yellow duck
3 different sized whales
2 spinning Nemo fish
2 suction Nemo fish
1 large Nemo fish
3 small Nemo fish
2 spray bottles
2 balls
8 other miscellaneous sea life
at least 2 - usually more - washcloths

...and believe me, this is nothing compared to what I've seen in some of my friend's kid's baths - so I guess I should count myself lucky that my kids can get along with just these items.

The prince and the pea

You know that story about the princess and the pea? Where the princess slept on like 40 mattresses with a pea on the very bottom of the stack, and she could still feel it?

This is my husband.

The other night, my husband went to bed around 10:30pm, and I headed to bed a couple hours later. On my way from the bathroom to the bedroom, I noticed that the lights in our bedroom were still on. I figured he must have stayed up reading or something, but when I walked in, he was sleeping. He heard me come in and woke up. I inquired as to why he was sleeping with every light in the room on - believe me, it was not just a muted bedside lamp, the place was lit up like it was broad daylight. He said that there was a mosquito in the room.

A mosquito.

He claimed it kept buzzing his ear when the lights were off. I asked when he planned to turn off the lights. He said, when I catch the sucker. Ok. So, I took my pillow and blanket, and went out to sleep on the couch. It's not worth arguing.

Genius!

I was pondering the question of blog names, when it came to me. I'll use the names that my kids call each other!

Introducting "Seesa" (the big sister) and "Milly" (the little sister).











Shown here, of course, in disguise... ha ha.

Ok, maybe not genius. But, clever, huh?