Sooo, after we visited my cousins and Grandparents in California, in all of two days, we headed out through Palm Springs to Phoenix, where my sister and brother-in-law live.

I am totally ashamed to say that I did not get one picture with them in it while we were there (really? what kind of a sister am I? One who didn’t want to lug around a Nikon… hee hee.) Kevin got a lot of skateboarding in, and got to meet with some over-30 skateboarders from one of his skateboarding forums, which was really cool. Hannah and I, of course, took the kiddos, and really just kind of chilled out and got a lot of good conversation time in. It really is nice to hang with someone who knows and shares your history, yet still can offer different view points on things. Plus, Hannah is a pretty good listener as well, which is a trait I greatly appreciate these days. We mostly ended up going to parks and malls, seeing as this was Phoenix in the summer. Although, I do have to say that it was cool for them this time of the year, a lot of the natives we talked to there were thrilled because it was in the 90’s. Heh. When it gets that hot where I live, we start complaining! The parks had splash-pads, which are ingenious little fountain areas that the kids can run through and get cooled off.

Since going to a pool right now is an incredible energy expenditure for me, I really appreciate the easiness of these splash-pads.

It was interesting hanging out with Hannah, as she is in training for her body sculpting and had a competition coming up. Her diet is quite regimented. I have to commend her for sticking to it. But hey, she looks great!

(Photo credit Bill Comstock)

Her hubby, Darin, was just starting classes to become a fireman. Wooh! Exciting! We spent two nights as well, hanging out with Darin’s parents and sister, which is always a joy. Actually, the second night we gave the kids a choice between hanging with them, going to a movie or going to the Children’s Museum and they enthusiastically chose Darin’s family. Hannah also drives a nice little Jaguar, so she and I took it out for a little spin-that was fun. Maybe someday I’ll have one too (I will have to save up my own money though, Kevin has different thoughts on luxury cars, not that I blame him.) Saturday was our day to start our trip back home.
We were planning on making it a two day ordeal, stopping at Kevin’s dad’s again on the way through. However, as Kevin explained so well, a day of driving is still a day of driving whether is 6 hours or 10. So we decided to bite the bullet and take the 10 hour trip home in one day, and were glad we did. The kids did awesomely too through the entire trip, especially with the insane amount of driving we did. I was a little uncomfortable through the trip, but that is to be expected to some degree. I am really glad that Kev decided to be a little spontaneous and adventurous and do the trip. I imagine that after this little one arrives, this sort of thing will be hard to do again for awhile.

Too cute not to share.

Monday- Pesto with a mesclun salad
Tuesday- grilled chicken with apple salsa, rice and/or corn on the cob
Wednesday- taco salad
Thursday- chicken fajitas with pinto beans
Friday- blue cheese hamburgers with corn on the cob and possibly some fried zucchini
Saturday- leftovers
Sunday- rice and salad

Lunches and snacks- avocado, turkey, or tuna sandwiches, salads, tabouli salad, smoothies, nectarines,
apples and strawberries

Week of June 22-28

After hanging out with Kev’s folks in the desert, we drove on out towards the west coast, California that is, and visited more of my family out there. Once we hit L.A. we were kind of ecstatic. Though smoggy a bit, you could still smell the ocean and thriving vegetation and feel the moisture. Plus, it was quite a bit cooler, and felt so nice.
On Monday evening, we visited my grandparents, who we hadn’t seen in 2 years. Selah was 2 weeks old at the time of our last visit. It was really good to see them, and I was really glad we made the effort to get to their place. The kids did really well at their house until about 9 o’clock, (which is 10, our time) and then they went berserk. They were literally bouncing all over the place and could not contain themselves. Fortunately my grandma didn’t seem too overwhelmed by them, and it was a good cue to head to the hotel.

The kids testing out the bed in Ventura.

Tuesday, we headed about two hours or so down south, to Orange and went to the Van’s Skate park at the outdoor mall there. I wasn’t skating, of course, but this was an indoor park, and on the second floor was a little arcade, so the kids and I were able to blow some time off while Kev happily skated the legendary grounds below. I did get on the “Ultimate Skater” game they had- it has a skateboard that you can move with your feet while you go through the course onscreen. I felt like I still kind of got to skate that way, but in the end, decided it was probably harder on my body than just rolling around on a real skateboard would have been. I was a little tweaked after that, but it was fun. Drew and I played air hockey several times, and we also tried, unsuccessfully, to have all four of us take our picture in a photo booth. I was very grateful that the arcade was there, as I don’t think that kids would have had as much fun walking around the mall as I would have.
That afternoon, we headed down to Laguna Beach and met my second cousin, Jasmine and her boyfriend, Derek there.

Fortunately, we were having beautiful weather that day, and it was clear and sunny out. Kevin and I were delightfully surprised by Laguna Beach, and thought it was a cute little town, with a very nice beach walking path, and we’d definitely like to go back. In fact, we’ve been kind of tossing around the idea of heading out there, again, next month for my big whopper of a 30th birthday, but that is a different story. It was this afternoon, that we, well, actually, Kevin took some pictures. Yay!

This is pretty much what it was like, a really great walking bath all along the beach, blue, blue skies with artsy clouds, a light breeze, just gorgeous!

The boys and daddy having a fun little photo shoot with the locals.

The beach mostly consisted of these little coves, some of which you could walk down to.

You can see most of the town and the main beachy area off to our left. We took off to our right and walked up the coast.

Drew and Beau really diggin’ the sand.

Selah’s first time (sort of) at the beach. She really liked it, of course, I’d expect no less from this little girl.

Yep, we will definitely have to go back soon!

Just wanted to alert you to the fact that I posted not only a new belly shot in the Baby Monologues, but also an ultrasound pic.

Don’t worry, the vacation re-cap will return shortly…

Just wanted to let you all know, and you probably do anyways, that we had our ultrasound yesterday,
and we are having another GIRL!!! I have to say that my father-in-law’s and grandmother-in-laws predictions were correct! And honestly, I had thought it was a girl for quite a while myself, after I got over my disbelief that anyone could be that blessed. What I mean by that, is that at first I was convinced I was going to have another boy (NOT that that is a bad thing, by any means!), because who could be so lucky to have 2 boys and 2 girls? (Plenty of people, I know, I just didn’t think I would be included in that group.) So, I feel incredibly blessed and loved, and very happy to have a genderly (yes I made up that word) balanced family.

She is perfectly healthy as well, by all accounts on her ultrasound. Everything looked just right! And as soon as I figure out how to take a decent picture of my ultrasound pics, and/or acquire a scanner, I will post pictures of her.

So, after a 6 hour drive that took more like 8 hours, we finally arrived at Kev’s dad and step-mom’s home in the desert. The kids were thrilled, though Selah was a little shy at first because it had been over 10 months since that last time she had seen her grandparents.

We had a good time just chilling out and talking a lot with them. We all chill real well together, it’s a pretty laid back time. Although, I’m not quite sure Grandpa may see it that way. To my embarrassment, one of the first things Drew said when we got there was, “Grandpa, aren’t you gonna hide all the toys you got for us?”

High expectations, those ones… I’m pretty sure I had a conversation with Drew before we left about not asking about anything like that or expecting it. I’m trying to teach them that we go to see people because we love them and want to spend time with them, not because they give us toys. But, I guess that’s a pretty normal part of being a kid. I remember having expectations like that myself.

Anyways, I digress. Kevin and I took Beau and Selah one of the days and headed up to town about 1/2 an hour away, while Drew hung out with Grandpa and Grandma. Kev was planning on skateboarding in that town, but was thwarted by the BMX-ers and the wind. We went shopping instead and scored a few shirts for Kev, and some comfy men’s flip-flops for me. Hee hee… Our last day there, we took the kids swimming, which was quite a feat. Both Drew and Beau have the confidence of an olympic swimmer, but not quite the ability. They’re still in water-wings and ring floaties.

And Selah is the wiggliest of worms, always trying to get out of my arms, and constantly sticking her face in the water.

Here’s one of my attempts at curbing all the energy, getting Selah to jump off the side of the pool. She wont quite do it unless I hold her hands though, and that gets a little tricky sometimes. Often she sticks her feet out, which land right at the top of my bathing suit and pull it down. Yeah… tricky.

Future Michael Phelps’s, uh… minus the drug use.

See, Beau’s already got the swan dives down.

Hanging out in the hot pool in the middle of the hot desert. We’re weird like that.

I’m sorry to report that my and Kev’s picture taking sadly lacked on this trip. Fortunately, my father-in-law was able to get several shots with his trusty point-and-shoot camera, so all of these photos are courtesy of him! (Side-note: I have got to get myself one of those, lugging the Nikon around is just not practical.)