The Superhero Party

We finally had Blake's 5th birthday party (a month late) last weekend. It was our first "friends" birthday party and Blake loved spending a few hours with 10 other superheroes.

They participated in a superhero obstacle course



Diffused bombs (balloons):
Got tangled up in spiderwebs:

Whacked a pinata(and unfortunately me as well):

And ate lots of cake:

Cole especially liked the cake....and doing artwork on the walls.

Fat Burger

I have always resisted going to "FATBURGER" because let's be honest, the name in and of itself kind of repulses me. Oh yeah and I am not a huge red meat fan. But I also must admit that I have heard so many good things about it and I was kind of curious. Last night Mike and I were in Westwood walking to another restaurant when I spied a FatBurger out of the corner of my eye. When I suggested we go to FatBurger instead Mike almost dropped dead in disbelief. Of course he gladly agreed to change restaurant plans. Afterall what man would choose Mr. Noodle over FatBurger. Happy Birthday a few days early:) The most amazing thing was that I REALLY LIKED MY FATBURGER. It was SOOOOO good. Delicious in fact. And the greasy onion rings were also good. Sorry FatBurger that I let your name turn me off for so long. You really are "that good". (of course if you want the best hamburger in the world you've got to go about 3 miles south of there to the Apple Pan)

The Field Trip

Nice version-Today Blake's preschool went on a fieldtrip to the fish hatchery. They got to ride a train and when we arrived at the hatchery they were able to buy some pellets to feed the fish. They loved riding the train and feeding the fish.

True Version- Today I took Blake, Julia, Cole and Blake's friend Lucas to the fish hatchery. Cole was not going to join us originally because I was appalled at paying an extra $8 for a one year old toddler to come. Unfortunately my friend who was going to watch him got sick and so I took him too. The teacher told us to be there promptly at 9am. I arrived at 9am (amazing because I never arrive on time) at which point we waited around doing nothing for 1 hour. Remember I have 4 small children with me and we are next to train tracks. We finally board the train at 10am and proceed to wait another 15-20 minutes. Finally the train ride started and the kids loved the 10 minute ride to the hatchery. Once at the hatchery the kids had fun feeding the fish while Julia tried to get lost amongst the very crowded facility. When it was time to go Julia decided she would rather throw herself on the ground and scream. Are you with me here? Remember 4 kids are with me and everyone is staring at me. A few people ask, "are they all yours?" Luckily for all of us one of the other moms took over stroller duty with Cole while I picked up the screaming Julia and walked back to the train with the flailing crying child. Good thing I was wearing sunglasses because I was on the verge of tears. We board the train and Julia continues to cry all the way back to the station. The teacher then asks me if I am going to join them for a picnic at the park. ummmmm....NO. And that was the very unfortunate morning I had where I thought at least one hundered times...I'M CRAZY!!!!!!!!

p.s. a big shout out to Blake and Lucas for being such good obedient boys.......because afterall it could have been a lot worse right?

Don't let the smiling Julia deceive you...that was the train ride there.

Beautiful Course

This weekend I ran the Palos Verdes Half marathon. I have a love/hate relationship with this race. This was the 5th time I've run it and everytime I am blown away by the amazing ocean views and bright yellow wildflowers all along the course. I am also blown away by the constant rolling hills of the course. It seems like it is one continuous up down up down. But alas it was fun and the weather could not have been better. It was overcast and cool. And I loved the cheering section at the end made up of my cute little children, Mike and my Mom.

My friend Tiffany is always great about getting suckered into signing up to run it with me. Thanks Tiffany for the good times.

Check out that ocean view and those wildflowers. Tiffany is such a photogenic runner. Me on the other hand, not so much. I always wear my lucky outfit, hand me down shorts from Alyssa and a t-shirt from Andrea in Brasil. All those runner chicks with their fancy running gear really intimidate me.

Confession Time

I have a little problem. I don't have very good follow through skills. I like to do things all at once and then be done with them because anything that requires mulitiple steps done at different times usually does not get completed. Take for example birthday cards. Sitting in my drawer right now are birthday cards for 3 of my brothers who had birthdays in April. I bought the cards with good intentions but those other steps are what kill me. ie:writing in it, stamping it and addressing it and then actually mailing it. SO if you don't get a card on your birthday from me please know that I probably have one in the drawer for you that you may get sometime or I may throw away when I find it 3 months later.
Right now my issue is the library. I currently owe $31 to my city library. I am prohibited from checking anything out until I pay that fine. That's horrible and I have no good excuse except for my poor follow through skills. Getting them back on time requires 1)I remember when they are due 2)I can find them all and 3)getting to the library on the due date. It is rather embarrassing to me that I can't seem to get my books back on time. From now on Mike is going to put a reminder on his blackberry about the due date. Hopefully this will help. I'm lame, really really lame.

COLE turns one

Somebody turned ONE. Cole had his birthday a few weeks back. Seriously, what do we do about Julia's thin shaggy mullet?

Don't you just want to kiss him??????

We LOVE LOVE LOVE this little boy with giant blue eyes and a bald head. I can't get over how much babies change. Here's a look at Cole one year ago.

Should've taken the VAN

This past weekend, Mike and I loaded up our mountain bikes on our trusty Civic, dropped the kids off at my sister's house and headed off to Southern Utah for the wedding of Mike's youngest brother. We were excited about our long weekend without kids, the wedding and especially excited to go mountain biking in Moab which we have done several times and absolutely love.

About 2 hours into the 12 hour drive my little Civic which I bought before we got married and have NEVER had a problem with started having issues. I could go into a lot of detail here but suffice it to say that the head gasket needed to be fixed WHICH IS A MAJOR REPAIR, and we did not end up going biking in Moab due to timing issues.

The wedding was great.

We hiked "Delicate Arch"

Note that in the top picture the sky is grey and MIke's shirt is wet from the rain. 5 minutes later it was sunny above the arch. Weird.

We rappelled. Mike's aunt and uncle love rappelling and brought down all of their supplies. They are great teachers and we had a blast. Stepping off of that ledge always freaks me out though.

I biked along a beautiful bike path in St. George as Mike spent the day under the hood of the car helping our brother in law fix it.

Utah is beautiful. Utah is freezing. Utah has crazy weather. Can anyone explain a May snowstorm?

Thanks to the "trusty civic" we are now $700 poorer. At least we have some good memories. :)