Saturday, May 28, 2011

Barton Flats

This Memorial Day weekend is going to be packed. Today we headed up to Barton Flats to go off-roading with a group of "Jeep-ers" We were the only truck but Kevin definitely held his own. I will do anything once...but I don't think I'll be doing the off-roading thing again. Too nerve racking. But the kids had a good time, even got in a nap on the way back to the campsite.
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And of course I have to try and do a nature photoshoot...but can never get them both looking good in the same picture.
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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

My Life Should be a Reality Show

For as long as I have been running, I have seen moms or dads running with their kids. I run by them pushing my massive double jogging stroller while they are strolling along with their single, or even better..their kids on bikes behind them. The first time I saw that, I wanted to do that. How awesome would that be. Me, just running, hands free, with my kids getting their exercise in behind me. Sounds like a dream....until I tried it.

Olivia just learned how to ride her bike with no training wheels. So she has been super excited to ride these days. Yesterday I wanted to go to the gym, but Toby suggested that I go on a run and they could ride their bikes behind me. Sounded like a great idea, the days of big kids with bikes instead of a stroller was here and I was very excited.

So we take off, they did great down our street, but as soon as we turned the corner all hell broke loose. I was leading the pack, (because I know if I let them go in front of me I would never catch up and they would probably just roll right into the intersection) then Toby, then Olivia. Well Olivia got in front of Toby, and Toby flipped his lid. He did NOT want to be the caboose. (thats what we always call the person who is in the back) He starts screaming and crying and trying to pass her and knock her over at the same time. So I stop us all, 2 minutes in, take a deep breath, and realize this is not going to be a dream, but a very bad nightmare. I tell him if he keeps acting like this we are going to go home. Olivia, the peace maker, decides that Toby can be in the middle. Thanks Liv, so we go on. We are doing fine again until we turn to go down hill. Toby is running over my heels, Olivia is screaming because she is picking up too much speed, we go onto a very narrow sidewalk with ivy next to it and Olivia gets caught up and falls right over. Fake crying from frustration (she had had a hard time going slow and tipped over a couple times before this.) She screams at the top of her lungs that she hates skinny sidewalks. We get onto the street. Same speed problems till we turn again. The second straight was great, until we turn again, now to go uphill. They immediately start complaining how hard it is to go uphill, Liv starts crying and saying how her knee hurts, and Toby is frustrated that he cant keep up, screaming "slow down". Olivia finally falls over in the grass, face down, balling her eyes out and holding her knee (dramatic much?) By now, I am about 20 feet in front of her, so some good Samaritan pulls over to make sure she is ok. OH MY GOSH. I am so done by this time. I think we are about 15 minutes into it and I vow to NEVER DO THIS AGAIN. So I run back to her, pick up her bike and start walking. She grabs my hand, "Thank you mom" and walks the rest of the way up the hill. Once we get to flat ground again, we are off an running the last leg till home. We could not get there fast enough.

Im sure this will be like the half marathon I did, I know it was hell, but it was worth it. I will forget about the pain and try again another day. It can only go up from here...right?!?

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Olivia at School

I LOVE preschool. Olivia is in her last month and it makes me so sad. She has so much fun. At least I will get to have Toby there next year, and hopefully in the same class. I really LOVE Olivia's class. Her teacher, Mrs. C always does the cutest stuff with them. My favorite stuff is when she takes a picture of the kids faces, cuts them out, and glues them onto pictures to make them look like different things. Astronauts with their faces and slurpy lid "helmets" pilgrims and indians, pictures with them holding their hands out attached to a life size kite. I just love all it all, and will keep them forever. (yes, I'm a hoarder) Well in April they had an art fair. I wasn't expecting much from a preschool art fair but I was blown away. The art did not disappoint one bit. They made things out of recycled objects. I was not surprised Olivia made a jaguar and even less surprised she named it "Angel". (its what she names everything...even our vacuum.) Here she is all proud of her stuff. Just as beautiful as she is.
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Also, last week, they hosted a "mommy and me" dinner. Very very sweet. We ate, they sung a couple of songs, and they gave us our Mother's Day presents...a reinstoned jewerly holder with a heart necklace for me...and a matching one for her. It was so sweet. Here she is with her favorite classmate and cousin.
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Me and my date <3
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Pick of a lifetime

We have been yard sale-ing now for quite a while. We also LOVE American Pickers. We love packing up the kids every Sunday morning and going through other people junk. We are kind of addicted. So back in February, Kevin made the pick of his life. We were at an Estate Sale in Redlands, and while in line, Kevin spotted a barn. A rusty, haven't been touched in decades kind of barn. His heart was thumpin' and when they let us in, he made a B-line straight for it. And while I spent over a half hour looking through a queen size mattress piled 3 feet high full of vintage fabric (my own kind of heaven), Kevin was going through the barn. Inch by inch...looking for that rusty gold he loves so much. And boy did he find it. As he walked through the piles of "junk" he stepped on something that sounded like porcelain. He picked it up and Im sure he heard the Angels singing. He had found a 1916 Motorcycle license plate... in amazing condition for being buried in a barn! So he put it in a vintage igloo cooler he also found and loaded the cooler up with other rusty stuff. We went up to the front to pay and they let him walk away with the cooler and everything in it for a whooping $15!! I could tell he had found something good. He does this skip kind of walk with a big ol' grin. (sorry if that embarrasses you babe...but I love it) We got to the car and he showed me. He knew it was awesome, and he knew it was rare, but we had no idea just how valuable it was.

He went home and got to googleing. He could not find one single plate like it. And the other ones he did find, we not as old and in much worse condition. So he googled collectors and started sending out emails trying to find out what it was worth. One of the guys he e-mailed wanted it...and wanted it bad. Offering him $1,200 for it immediately. Now Kevin was not in this for the money, he just loves cool stuff like that and I truly believe he would have held onto it forever if I didn't "help" him realize how much other cool stuff he could get if he sold it.

Well, long story short, and tons of emails back and forth between a few different collectors. He ended up getting $2,000 for it. The plate he found finished this one collectors motorcycle collection he had been working on his whole life. The guy had been looking for that plate for a long time, and at least Kevin was glad it went to a good home. He was super bummed to let it go, but now he has a great story to tell.
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