Hike

Monday morning after Christmas arrived. Christian and Marian managed to get her car to the dealership for  repairs.

We had been talking about New Year's resolutions and the fact that we have all gained back some of the pounds we managed to lose last year. All the Christmas goodies, parties and excellent dinners and desserts did not help.

We had been talking about taking the girls up for a hike up to the "C" for a while now. Since we were waiting for Marian's car to be fixed, we decided that it was a fine day for a hike. And so we dragged her and one of her dogs with us. It was quite a beautiful day for a hike...only it is a bit steep for the girls and their out of shape mom but we finally made it up to the top. We have proof!

This was only the second time I'd been up there. The last time was in college and it was getting dark when our group finally made it up. It was getting difficult to see and we were nearly to the top. Christian was hiking up behind me and I slipped and slid down a bit but not before kicking Christian's legs out from under him! I may be more out of shape this time, but I had a lot better luck getting up without any problems in the light of day!

Christmas Day

Christmas with my family went off almost without a hitch. When we arrived at my brother's house. My mom called saying that her car was not working! So Christian and I drove to my mom's house to check out her car and perhaps to give my parents a ride over. Luckily, they don't live very far away. Christian was able to get my mom's car started though, so they were able to drive in on their own and we followed them back. 

The girls love to play with their cousin Lauren so the little nephew sometimes gets left out. Luckily, the older nephews usually are pretty good about playing with him and helping him do boy stuff!

The big gift for the night was a photo book we made for our mom. My brother, sister and I got together to make a book of all her grandchildren in their various stages. It took quite a bit of work and we had some complications in trying to all work on the book on-line at the same time but in came out really nice.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning

Our best friend, Marian, comes over every Christmas Eve and spends the night with us so that we can spend Christmas morning together.

picture courtesy of Auntie Marian

This year, Marian arrived a little early to take the girls out to watch a movie. It's actually the first time the girls have been to a movie theater. We usually just watch movies at home. There are never any really compelling movies to go see that is worth the price, hassle and having to deal with other people. I almost took them at the end of summer, but they started misbehaving and I decided not to take them. Anyway, they went to see the Muppets. They went to McDonald's for a treat afterwards.

Unfortunately, Marian had some car problems on the way home. Luckily they were just up the hill but I'm sure it was pretty stressful having the added problem of having the girls with her at the time. Anyway, Christian went out to get them and they managed to get the car back to our house.

We tried to make the best of it and have a nice evening. Marian also brought a prime rib roast for our Christmas Eve feast. So while she was off with the kids, Christian and I prepared dinner in peace (prime rib, braised carrots and french onion soup...mmm). As usual, we ate too much and stayed up too late talking.

We had our usual belgian waffle breakfast on Christmas morning then we were off to church (yes, we made the kids wait until after church to do presents...got to have our priorities straight you know).

As the kids didn't whine or complain about the wait, we did finally get to the presents shortly after returning home.

It's fun to see that the kids are finally old enough to really think about others for Christmas now. During the week before Christmas, they would go through some of their stuff and secretly wrap them for each other and for us. Plus the girls got out their jewelry making stuff to make gifts. Caitlyn made me a bracelet and Emily made me a necklace.

So during the week before Christmas, Christian would take turns, taking each of them to work for a few hours in the morning to give me a break and I would take the other one on errands to deliver treats or to help make goodies or clean. Then we had them collect their money and I took them to the Dollar Store to buy a present for their sister with their own money. They were really excited about it. Emily got Caitlyn a little fairy snow globe (or glitter globe, I guess) and Caitlyn got Emily a little kite.

Christian got me more parts to my Willow Tree Nativity set. I've been wanting it for a while now but never had the heart to spend the money on it. Christian started getting me the pieces in November for our anniversary.

Normally, Marian would take off at this point and we would prepare food for the potluck dinner at my family's house while the kids played with all their new toys. But unfortunately for Marian, she was stranded at our house. And to add to her bad luck, no one would be open to fix her car until after Christmas. But, her misfortune was our good fortune. She helped entertain the kids, helped with dishes and peeling and slicing potatoes for the gratin I was preparing for my family's dinner! I also made dessert but I made cheesecake so that I could make it ahead of time on Friday night so that I would not have to spend time doing it on Christmas Eve when we had a house guest already. So everything worked out for us pretty well...sorry Marian : )

Caldwell Christmas

We had Christmas with Christian's family a week before Christmas. It helps to separate the celebrations so that we pace ourselves and the kids can enjoy it more. Otherwise, it is just too busy and overwhelming for everyone.

Unfortunately, before we arrived, both the girls got car sick at separate times on the way down...Merry Christmas for mom and dad! Emily even had on her accu-pressure bracelets. I think we can safely say that they did not work. She got sick first and we were not even out of the county yet. Caitlyn got sick as we got off the freeway at our destination. Caitlyn told us she felt fine not 30 seconds before getting sick. Lucky for us (and Caitlyn) that her cousin has clothes that can fit her in a pinch.

They always love making gingerbread houses with their cousins. Aunt Erin sets them up with all the fixings and Aunt Danielle helped out our girls with their projects. As all the kids are getting older, you can see their gingerbread houses gets more complicated and fancy.

We had lots of food.

A Christmas program put on by all the kids.

And of course, the presents.

Grandpa narrated the nativity story while the kids dressed up and played piano pieces in between parts in the story. Unfortunately, Caitlyn was too shy to play her song. We knew there was a possibility that she would not play it. We actually forgot our music sheets but Caitlyn had the songs memorized and had to refresh her sister's memory earlier in the day regarding Emily's song. So she knew both songs and played them when the whole family wasn't in the room staring at her but would not even put her fingers on the keys when it came to her turn. Oh well, maybe next year.

It was fun but I don't think we'll be driving the little up-chuck princesses back down there any time soon...or any where else for that matter. We were planning a little winter trip but I think we may have to rethink that idea.

Holiday Cheer

There is something about carollers that seem to really bring about the holiday spirit. Some friends came by a couple of weeks ago to share some of their holiday spirit. 

So even when I'm feeling tired or stressed or whatever, I always feel a whole lot better after they have come and gone. I don't know if it's because they can actually sing or just because they are friends, but I am always a bit more cheerful and thankful afterwards!

Awards assembly

A couple of weeks ago, the girls' school held award ceremonies for the first trimester of the school year. Caitlyn got honor roll and perfect attendance.

I couldn't really get Caitlyn to smile as she knew everyone was looking at her!

The next day, Emily's grade had their assembly. They separated the ceremonies because there are too many kids (and parents) and with the early rotating lunch schedules, we don't have enough time to do more than two grades at a time.

Emily got high honors (which is advanced in every category) and a citizenship award.

We usually work on giving or doing something special with the girls when they do well in school as a reward for their diligence and hard work with something extra special at the end of the school year if they do well all year.

So far, we are off to a great start. We are so proud of the girls!

Tree Decorating

We generally get the tree out as soon as Thanksgiving is over so that I can work on the girls' annual Christmas picture. So, we got the tree out Friday and it got put up but we really didn't decorate because of certain kids' trantrums and stubbornness and really, I was ready to leave it as is...a bare tree just strung with lights for this year because their attitudes and behaviors have been that good this past week.

But they finally shaped up and so Saturday morning, I set out some decorations and Christian did this fun stop motion video of them decorating. It was so fun, I had to share.

It's kind of hard to see with these little thumbnail versions they let you post but you get the idea. It was Christian's first attempt with doing the stop motion videos so now our minds keeps racing to see what other fun things we can do with it!

Thanksgiving

We usually go to my family's house for Thanksgiving. We've gone down to Christian's family's house a few times but the drive is murder and I'm rather partial to my family's food. We have the traditional turkey and ham but instead of the traditional bread stuffing (which nobody in my family cares for except for my brother-in-law), we have sticky rice!

Thanksgiving isn't Thanksgiving without some sticky rice. Unfortunately, in our old age, it isn't easy to stuff ourselves on Thanksgiving like when we were young (and we certainly pay for it later if we do). It kind of takes some of the fun out of Thanksgiving.

I made pies as per my usual and a side dish. Caitlyn helped me in preparing the pumpkin for the pumpkin pie...which was great because most of the work is in cleaning out the pumpkins.

We actually had a Thanksgiving luncheon since my sister still had Thanksgiving dinner to attend to later that evening with her in-laws. So after lunch, we just hung out to let the food digest. The rest of my family plans out their black Friday strategies. I make it a rule not to go out if I can help it on black Friday. My goal is to be done with all my Christmas shopping by the time Thanksgiving roles around. I'm only 95% done, but I'm okay with that.

My brother moved into a bigger house this past year and offered to host the party at his house. After every else had left, we had a quick small dinner with some of the leftovers with my brother's family before heading home. It was nice getting together and it was nice not to have to cook another meal.

The Living Desert

It's Monday at last and after having the kids home for the last 10 days, I've been trying to catch up on all that I need to do including, my posts!

During the break, we decided to go on a little field trip with some friends to the Living Desert. Christian and I had been there a long time ago. It was definitely before we had kids. I always liked it and have wanted to take the kids for some time, but never really made it out there. Our friends, the Sorenson's invited us to go along with them on their outting, and we jumped at the chance.

We were hoping to make it there on time for the giraffe feeding, but were about half an hour too late. We did make it on time to catch a show and have lunch at the park (playground).

Then we got to walk around and see the many exhibits in their zoo. They were all desert animals and birds, of course, like big horn sheep, camels, coyote, wolves, hawks, eagles, road runners and a baby giraffe with it's mother. Caitlyn's favorite was the little burrowing owl though. I didn't get a picture of that one!

Some things has changed since we had been there but you see it in a totally different perspective when you go with kids. I was somewhat surprised about how very kid friendly the place can be. There is lots to see, of course, but there is also a lot for the kids to touch and climb on, etc.

There was a petting zoo and also a discovery center where they can learn more about some of the things that live out in the desert.

We pretty much closed down the place...otherwise the kids would never leave (despite being cold and hungry since we left our sweaters in the car and didn't bring enough food because we didn't think we would stay that long.

All and all, it was a pretty fun day and it really helped break up our week with the kids at home. So, thank you to the Sorenson's for inviting us! We had a great time.

Happy Anniversary, Christian

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

-William Shakespeare

Field Trip

On Monday, Emily took a field trip to the California Citrus State Historical Park. I went along to chaperone.

They got a tour of the museum, some of the grounds and got to taste some different kinds of citrus (of course, none of the citrus that they tasted were actually grown here since they are not even in season yet).

I love the new field trips the girls have had this year. Caitlyn went a month ago to see a play at RCC. I can only assume that these new changes is due to the new principal at their school this year. The citrus industry is such an integral part of Riverside's (and California's) heritage. I'm glad they are teaching these things to our kids because I still haven't figured out what the point of a field trip to Lego Land is about yet (except to party and have fun and not have to teach our kids which they are getting paid to do, but I digress...).

Incidentally, this is also the place where Christian and I got married...14 years ago today. I took a walk with Emily and her friend around the amphitheater where it took place.

Okay, so I am a little biased about this place. It holds some wonderful memories for us.

Christian's Birthday

Christian's birthday ended up as a very small affair. He had to go to work early to make sure he got home on time since he had a lot of work to do.

I made him some braised short ribs over mashed potatoes by request. I was a bit disappointed. I thought that they were not as tender as they should have been. Plus we had a caramel cake.

After some small gifts and cake, Christian had to take off again to do some things at church. By the time he got back, it was time for the girls to go to bed!

Happy Birthday Husband!

i carry your heart with me

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

 

i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

 

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

 

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

San Diego

Over the weekend, we drove down to San Diego to visit with Christian's family and to have an early celebration for his birthday, along with our niece, who turned nine.

The girls love playing with their cousin. She is about 4 months older than Emily. So they are close and love getting together.

Her older brothers also have a little buggy and they were giving rides to some of the little ones but Caitlyn didn't want to try it for some reason.

Emily's Aunt taking her for a ride.

Halloween Day

So, at long last, we come to Halloween Day. I had to run a couple of errands in the morning and got back in time to eat a quick lunch before heading over to the kids' school for all their Halloween festivities.

First came Caitlyn's classroom party. They had pizza and pumpkin pie...along with a plethora of other goodies. Caitlyn decided to go with a princess dress. I don't know if she decided to go with being just a princess or going as pinkalicious.

They got to help carve pumpkins and other fun things.

Then it was time for the their school costume parade. I didn't get any good pictures though since when Caitlyn passed by where I was standing, she kept turning around to look at something or someone.  And then when Emily passed by, she didn't even bother to wear her hat.

As soon as that was done with, I went to join Emily in her class room to help out with their class party.

That lasted until school was over. We drove home and I had them hurry up and do their homework. I only had them do their math. I didn't bother having them do any reading or whatever. Then we were off to another Halloween party at one of Emily's classmates house. I thought we would stop by for a couple of hours since I was interested in meeting her mom and they were nice enough to include Caitlyn in the invitation.

After the party, we picked up Christian to have a quick dinner. We were having another family over for FHE. We sat around the fire pit and roasted smores.

The girls didn't do any actual door to door trick or treating this year. They already had more candy than I would like them to have in the house anyway. We had a record number of trick or treaters come to the house this year...a whopping six people! Well, four of them were teenagers. Christian says that they don't count! But we didn't get any cute little kids. The youngest was about Emily's age...so sad.

Anyway, I'm glad Halloween is over...I'm exhausted!

Halloween Party

Saturday. Another day and another party. This time we went to a party at our friend's house. They throw a big Halloween party every year. The girls made us go early to play with their friends but honestly, they didn't do a whole lot of playing until it got too dark to take pictures. They just seemed to wander around together in their little 'girl pack.' It was kind of annoying. I always wondered about the kind of girls that did stuff like that.

Towards the evening, they finally started being more social and having more fun. There were games and all kinds of junk food and a little bit of real food. I made candy corn cupcakes earlier in the day to bring.

Christian and I usually make an effort to dress up for the party but this year, we were not really in the mood so we just kind of threw something on. The girls wanted me to dress up as a witch again so that we would all be witches but as I was looking through my pictures, it dawned on me that I didn't bother having a picture taken of us! Oh well.

It's probably a good thing that we had church in the morning or the girls would never have let us go home even if most of the guests left. But by the time we finally dragged them away. They even had to admit that they were pretty tired.

Trunk or Treat

We had our ward trunk-or-treat Friday night before Halloween this year. We decided to decorate Christian's truck and hand out candy this year.

The girls dressed up as little witches. There was a pretty good showing, especially since we kind of all threw it together somewhat at the last minute. As usual, there was way too much candy flowing. Some of the kids just keep going round and round the parking lot until all the candy are gone or their parents force them to go home. Luckily, our kids were too shy and managed only going around about one and a half times.

They spent the rest of the time running around with their friends. That's fine with  us!

Afterwards, the girls always like to lay out all their candy to see what they got. Emily had hers spread out over a wide range on the floor. Caitlyn took a more organized approach.

Pumpkin Carving

We finally decided to carve our pumpkins Thursday night. We had to keep putting it off because it has been so hot still that if we carved the pumpkins earlier, it would be nothing but a steaming black pile of goo by the time it was Halloween.

We broke our pumpkin carving tools on our pumpkin last year and I swear I bought new tools but as we were getting ready to carve them, we couldn't find them anywhere! We had to make due and use kitchen and pocket knives. It was too difficult and dangerous for the kids to do, so we had to confiscate them and do them ourselves.

The kids still got to clean out the pumpkins seeds and junk. Also, since we plan to use the pumpkins for our trunk or treat tomorrow, Christian and I decide to go with a Nightmare before Christmas theme on our pumpkins and we carved Jack Skellington and Oogie Boogie pumpkins.

They came out pretty neat but it was not easy to do it without the proper tools. I did, however, finally find the tools I bought a couple of days later! Oh well. At least I'm not going completely out of my mind...I knew I bought some!

October Haiku

Kids are off to school

A beautiful foggy morn'

for a pleasant hike.

Ascending the mount

to take pictures of the fog

drifting at our feet.

Box Springs Mtn.

A Dream Realized

Living vicariously through my little girl...

Caitlyn reading in her tree house...of her own accord. I repeat, without any one making her! 

Pay no heed to what kind of book she is reading (it is inconsequential...don't burst my bubble).

Birthday

Christian took the day off to spend with me on my birthday. Caitlyn had a melt down in the morning over some absurd thing about her socks. Christian had to take her to school because she wouldn't get on the bus. We had a lazy morning after, trying to recover from the kids' nonsense.

We spent most of the day running errands together...mostly stuff for the kids. But also, my sewing machine died the previous week, so Christian and his dad decided to get me a new sewing machine for my birthday. He took me to JoAnn's to pick one out. The one I thought I wanted, didn't turn out to be so great so we took a while trying to figure out what to get. I finally settled on one, but it so happens that it was on back-order. So we purchased it but I am still waiting to receive it. It's fancier than I wanted but I'm excited about some of the new features now. We barely got home in time to pick up the kids from the bus stop. It was really nice spending some time with just Christian though.

Emily had a tantrum relating to having to do her homework. Meanwhile Christian was trying to make me a nice dinner in spite of it all. He bbq'd up some beef, made some fresh bread (naan, a really tasty flatbread) and smothered cabbage...yummy, even the kids ate it.

As we were trying to finish up for the night, the girls were fighting about wrapping little gifts for me...mostly because Emily did not listen to instructions her dad gave her (apparently 3 times) about what she was to do. So she thought she was being cheated and wanted to encroach upon Caitlyn's project. Caitlyn wanted to do hers a very specific way and didn't want her sister to mess it up.

Aaah, what a day. Happy Birthday to me...I'm beginning to dislike my birthday. Not only because I'm getting older (which doesn't help) but it is increasingly frustrating and just sets you up for disappointment. You never expect anything really special but you can't help but want to be a little selfish, to get just a little peace...a little thoughtfulness from the kids. But apparently it is too much to ask.

At the end of the week, Christian's dad drove up with Mark and Danielle for my birthday. We decided on a simple menu so that we don't stress ourselves out too much. As part of my present, Emily wanted to make eclairs for me with her dad. There was still a lot going on. We were trying to tidy the place up a bit. Emily was pestering her dad. I wanted to clean the bathrooms a bit. The bathroom sinks (which are kind of connected through the wall since our bathrooms sit back to back) were draining a little slowly which was worrying us but we did not have time to look into it yet. It decided to stop draining as soon as I started scrubbing. Christian was in the middle of making the eclairs but we decided that having working sinks was far more important than the eclairs and went to go fix it. Evidently, an ingredient was left out of the eclair dough. I tried to pick up where he left off and finish it but it did not look right. Anyway, I piped them out and baked them but they did not rise. They were like dense little cookies.

Luckily, Christian was able to clean out the "clean out" for the sinks and get them working just as our guests arrived. We tried to salvage the afternoon and forget about all our frustrations. We had a nice lunch (no dessert...which is probably just as well since we were all stuffed) and relaxed with a movie afterwards.

So, that was my eventful, somewhat stressful birthday celebration.

A couple of days later (since it was bugging me), I figured out what the missing ingredient was (water) in the eclair dough and decided to make it again myself. It turned out this time. It was tasty and we ate too many. We were going to bring some over to a friend's house but it was kind of late so we just ended up sharing with our neighbor and ate the rest. I better start exercising again...it's been a while!

A baby shower, a funeral and 3 birthdays...

It was a busy weekend. It's taken me a while to get my posts up...I guess I have been a bit out of sorts lately.

I started off the weekend with a baby shower for a friend. I made french macarons for the first time. I was excited to finally try it out. It didn't come out perfect as a third of them were not presentable enough for me to bring. I guess it was just as well as my family loved them.

I think that I know what happened though, so I think I can do a better job next time. I will definitely be making them again. They were yummy!

We were supposed to visit with my family for birthday celebrations the next day but found ourselves unexpectedly going to a memorial service instead. Apparently my cousin's wife, Adele, passed away the week before and they were going to have a memorial service for her at Angel's stadium...which we thought pretty unusual, but then they wanted everyone to wear red...which really goes against the grain of any chinese person. I think they only got away with it because most of the older generation have passed on. In chinese culture, red symbolizes happiness. So even though this was not the actual funeral (they kept that with just the immediate family and close friends), and they wanted to call it a "celebration" of her life, it would have been highly impudent for a chinese family (had my aunt or grandmother had still been alive).

I think that I abstain on a lot of chinese traditions (much to the vexation of my parents), but I would not have even dared to do such a thing!

Adele had been battling cancer for the last 15 years. Adele and most of my cousins are much older than I am, so they seemed more like aunts and uncles to me than cousins. I am the youngest in my family and my mother and father were the youngest in theirs. So I can't say that we were close. In the last 10 or 15 years, I think we only saw each other at weddings and funerals. In fact, the last time we got together was something like 6 years ago since I was pregnant with Caitlyn still at the time.

But I would like to say this much for Adele...every time we got together, it was as if no time had passed between (although, their kids grew up and got married themselves and started having her grandbabies). She and her husband are so genuinely friendly and kind that you felt right at home around them. You never felt a awkward around her. I wish I had known her better so that I could have learned to be more like her. She was just "good people," you know? I guess that's why there were some 400 odd friends and family at her memorial service...I don't even know that many people!

She used to work for the Anaheim Angels...in the ticketing office, I believe. Her husband kept stats for games a lot. So I guess they were part of the Angels "family." It seemed weird to have it there at first, but when you consider the amount of people showing up and after you sit in back of home plate and hear the hush around the empty stadium, you felt like it was the most suitable place to have her memorial.

We took a quick snapshot together of just my family before we left.

We headed back to my family's house afterwards. We hung out with my brother's family for a while so that the kids could play and get their wiggles out. We had dinner at my mom's house to celebrate my birthday, my sister-in-law's birthday, and my father's birthday.

Although, I did not see my father once the entire day...but that's entirely another story.

Labor Day Weekend

We didn't go anywhere for Labor Day weekend. It was hot. There was too much work to be done (plus I'm fighting a horrible summer cold). The girls decided to go camping.

Camp Caldwell encompass many wonderful amenities, complete with picnic area and "lake". Emily set up their tents almost all by herself (her little sister gave her a little assistance). It was a hot and humid weekend, so the only thing missing from their little camp was a campfire. But it was way too hot and uncomfortable for that. But since the sun was behind clouds half the time, the girls could not stay in the pool "lake" very long before they were shivering. But they would get hot again in short time and jump right back in.

Back to School!

Today was the first day back to the school for the girls. I wanted to sigh with relief but I can't help but feel a little anxious for them. We got them off on the bus (which actually came on time today). Then we followed shortly after in the car.

There was very little change actually for the girls to get used to. Emily has the same teacher as last year. He generally likes to loop his classes for two years. Only maybe 25% of the class changed. Most of the kids stayed the same. She did get a new math teacher though so we went to meet her and introduce her to Emily so that Emily knows where she will be going. We found out that the kids she went to math with last year stayed all together in this class as well, so she knows most of them already too. Only the teacher changed because their teacher is not "teaching" this year. She has some special assignment I'll get into more later.

Caitlyn's teacher this year is her 1st grade math teacher from last year. So she already knows her. She also knows at least 25% of the kids in the class already so it was not so different and scary. Her math teacher is the teacher I was originally hoping Caitlyn would get this year but I found out she is teaching 2nd grade this year. I was a little disappointed because I had heard such amazing things about her but at least she still gets to take math with her. And I know her current teacher is very similar to previous teachers. They don't just leave well enough alone. They try to push their kids to excel in whatever areas they can so I know she won't just ignore Caitlyn because she doesn't need help and let her stagnate in the class. So I guess everything worked out for the best.

I thought I would just relax on their first day at school (just because I could) but it didn't work out that way. I had to run a bunch of errands because I couldn't go out last week. We went swimming at a friend's house and Emily jumped off the diving board and landed wrong in the pool or something and re-injured her foot (at least we think it is the same foot she hurt during the last school year). So I mostly ran around picking up little odds and ends for the kids and re-stocking up on bread and milk and stuff! It was still nice not to have to drag the kids around!

There's always tomorrow!

Dentist

We took the kids to the dentists for their checkups to get ready for school. Caitlyn came out with no cavities. This is actually her first time to the dentists (I know, it's a little late). They had a dentist go in and check the kids out in preschool though...more of a quick checkup but she didn't have any problems. We were supposed to go last summer but we were sick the whole time. We did try to get a hold of the dentist during the year a couple of times but was never able to get a hold of them for some reason or another. I do think that I need to find a new dentist for her though in the next 6 months because this dentist is not very good with kids (or people, really...but Christian likes her because she is straight forward and honest).

Emily, however, did not fare as well. She got her first cavity. Actually, she has a mouthful of cavities. She had a couple filled already but she still has to go back to do a few more. It's going to cost a pretty penny and we are not happy. I thought they would be in pretty good shape as they floss and do mouthwash as well as brush their teeth on a regular basis, but alas, it was not good enough. We obviously need to get her to brush better (especially in the back).

We have also had a lot of problems this past year with her and candy. She's been obsessed with candy. And I can't blame her entirely as there is candy every where we turn. At school (even though it is forbidden, she's been getting it from her teacher and possibly friends), at church (even though we are also told that we aren't supposed to give the kids snacks or candy unless it is incorporated into the lesson), and again at the activity girl things.

She has a whole basket of candy that rotates from Halloween, Christmas, Valentines, Easter and parties or whatever. I have thrown out handfuls of it and it keeps coming into the house. I usually make them forfeit all the candy into their basket and if they eat all their food (and it has to be a well balanced meal), I'll let them pick something out to have as a treat. But because they are getting it all over the place (and not necessarily forfeiting all of it all the time), they are getting too many sweets and something has to change. It got to the point where I practically had to frisk Emily for candy when she got home each day.

Hopefully the experience with the cavities will help Emily not sneak extra sweets any more, but I think we are going to save the candy for special occasions and occasions where they eat something especially difficult for them...like spinach or something...at least until she learns how to brush a heck of a lot better so that she doesn't get any more cavities.

I haven't even done as much baking this past year as I normally do (or I stick to bread and stuff) because I am too afraid of how much sugar and junk they are already getting outside of the home. And it's not fair because I know that I demand a lot from my children and I like to be able to surprise them with treats now and then too.

San Diego

The kids did the summer reading program again at the library. But when they finished it and got their free pass to Castle Park, we decided to offer them a choice. We have an annual pass that we got from their Grandpa for Christmas this past year...but the price of gas being what it is, it's really not that cheap to go to and when you add the price of parking along with it, well, it's anything but free. However, since I would have to pay for admission into Castle Park...along with parking as well, we figure that in the end, the price would be almost the same. So we gave them a choice...Castle Park or Sea World.

Of course, they picked Sea World. We also offered them Sea World as a choice because Emily is always begging to go on the water rides and it is always too cold normally to ride them. She did convince her dad to take her on the Shipwreck Rapids once but they paid for it dearly afterwards as they were soaking wet and freezing. We thought this would be their best chance to do something like this because their passes will expire at the end of the year and we probably won't be going back any time soon.

When we got there, we figured that we made a huge mistake trying to go to Sea World in August. The parking lot was packed! But after we finally made it in, we found that it really wasn't that bad. It was more crowded in December, I think, when we first got the tickets.

But of course, can you believe it? I forgot my camera. Christian didn't bring his either! I was very upset. All weekend, I kept wishing for my camera.

Anyway, we spent most of the time going to some of the new exhibits and things we haven't been to yet. Like the Turtle Reef, the Skytower, the Bayside Skyride, Shipwreck Rapids and Journey to Atlantis. They also had a pretty nice fireworks show at the end.

We spent the night at Christian's brother's house. We didn't get there until after midnight as we left the park later than we had intended and then we still had to stop off somewhere to grab a late dinner. We were all pretty exhausted.

Early in the morning (very early), Christian and his brother helped out with an Eagle project for our nephew. They cut off after noon and we had lunch at the pool and the girls got to do a bit of swimming. Christian's dad joined us for  an early dinner before we headed back to Riverside. Our car was acting kind of funny when we arrived at Mark's house the night before and again that afternoon when we headed out again so we were a little worried and wanted to get home as quickly as possible.

Swim Lessons Part Deux

A friend encouraged me to apply for Operations Splash, a scholarship offered by Kaiser to keep people active and healthy. We ended up qualifying for deeply discounted swim lessons for the kids and so I enrolled them in another session of swim lessons at the local pool.

It's a good thing because the kids have gotten so lazy that if it were not for the swim lessons, I don't think we would get out of the house most of the time. So, no, they have not been doing quite as well as I had hoped this summer on their chores. It's been insanely frustrating. They don't even make it out to their pool in the back that often anymore. They seem to prefer doing nothing, lying around in their own filth and giggling.

But I digress, the girls did pretty well in their swim lessons again. Emily will move up to level 4 next time. She is swimming really well. She learned to do the breast stroke this time. Plus they worked on perfecting their free style swimming and backstroke. They also introduced them to diving.

Emily's dive is more like a froggy leap! It's so funny. They really only introduced them to it and let them try it once though. They will work on their form on the next level. Her jump off the diving board is still a  funny crouching leap as well, but I think letting them go off of the diving board at the end of the lessons is just mostly for fun.

Emily's swim class was considerably bigger this time, which is frustrating because each student gets very little time with the teacher since lessons are only 30 minutes but I think her teacher was much better at not letting the students distract her in chatting or playing and was really good at giving each student the individual instruction they needed, so in the end, I was pretty happy with her lessons.

Caitlyn, on the other hand, only had one other person in her class, so things were great for her. And the kids on that level, really need more help. She was able to move up a level again after her lesson as well. So, she will be starting level 3 next time. I kind of question whether she is ready for that though but apparently, her instructor said that she is able to do the bare minimum of what is needed to pass. However, she is no where near the level Emily was at when she moved up. Then again, Emily has always been the best swimmer in all her classes.

After some more thought and observation, I think Emily really should have started at level 3 instead of two.  Oh well, she's really enjoyed her swim lessons. And considering that we only managed to come back only once (again) to practice swimming during their open hours, they did pretty good!

The other great thing about their swim lessons is that RUSD offers free lunch just outside of the pool every day, so that after working up an appetite swimming, they towel off and grab lunch. I must say that it is very convenient!