Just the Girls

So, I was the first to abandon ship so to speak in college. AKA: leave the apartment of 6 girls when I tied the knot. Then, I started having kids and haven't really stopped. Because of that, I've subsequently missed almost all of their weddings and haven't spent a lot of time with the "girls" since.

More than seven years have passed since I left the apartment nest and I finally made it to an event with everyone. We all met up for a girls' holiday weekend getaway in San Diego to celebrate the upcoming baby of Jonnelle. It was well worth the effort it took to get out there (and I'm hoping Dave thinks it was worth the effort it took for him to be single dad for 3 full days). He did a fantabulous job . . .all the kids were alive and happy when I got home and the house was even tidy with clean laundry all ready to be folded. Thank you honey!

I got to spend my time actually running outdoors, eating a lot, breathing in the ocean air, and not having to care for anyone but myself. . . kind of nice to have that experience once in a while.

We ate some delicious food at:

Jonnelle introduced a few people to edomame that had never tried it before

After getting a manicure, Robyn proved she has a future in hand modeling should her current line of work ever fall through.

I enjoyed being the filling in a Tracy or Tracie sandwich on the beach

We waited forever to get a table at BJs Brewhouse, but left fat and happy at the end of the night

Tracy and I have been friends since we were five or six when we bonded by selling Girl Scout cookies together as Brownies. It's so fun to still keep in touch with her after all these years and see that she's still the virtually the same.

Hodad's burgers did not disappoint . . .YUM!!! Thanks to Tracy for catching this one on diners, drive ins and dives.

The freshly pedicured toes in this shot show that we come in all shapes and tones, but hey we all have 5 toes!

Waiting at the Port of San Diego while the Tracy and Tracie finished up their tour of the USS Midway.

It was a blast. Can't wait to see the babies of Jonelle and Tracy and get together again sometime down the road.

Girly Things

Here is a photo from a typical day showcasing Brooklyn's interest obsession with handbags.

I think she may have a problem.

OOOOOMMMMMM

Christmas Photogs

Brooklyn Rockin

Brooklyn Rockin Around the Christmas Tree

Merry Christmas

Sick kids+crazy kids+crazy mom+busy dad= Christmas card being put on our blog rather than mailed out. :)

Turkey Day Trot

We decided to support the YMCA by running in a race bright and early Thanksgiving morning. Dave and I did a 6 mile race and the kids had a little dash across a field in their respective age groups. Dave trained really hard by running 1 1/4 miles the day before the race to test out an app on his phone that tracks your run. He felt good after the race . . .that is until he had trouble walking for several days after. I ran ]about 4 miles on Monday to train while pushing the girls in the double jogger that acts sort of like a parachute when I run into the wind. It would have been better without a screaming baby. The race was better without any children and having the masses of people to pump me up.

Some of the kids enjoyed it more than others. . .it was freezing!

Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy

I have found that attending church with young children often leaves me wondering things like : Why do I do this? Where was the spiritual nourishment? Where were the quiet, reverent m0ments of introspection? My calling in our ward as the sunbeam teacher for Dallas's class hasn't helped answer these questions either. Take last Sunday for example.
Brooklyn is producing enough snot to cover her face and clearly won't be going to nursery, but we decide to load everyone up in the car and go sacrament meeting as a family and then Dave will take the girls home afterwards since I need to stay for primary. Dave buckles the girls in the car as I run around the house franticly grabbing snacks, diapers, wipes, blankies, things for my lesson, etc. I get in the van, Dave gets in his car and we head off.
Upon arriving at church and unbuckling the girls, I notice Dallas doesn't have his shoes on and ask him where his shoes are. "I couldn't find them." Great. He's kind of passed that age where it is okay to not wear shoes . .I'm pretty sure that's only cute before a kid knows how to walk. However, we're already late to a ward where you can come early and still end up sitting in the hard chairs on the gym floor because there are so many people so I decided he's staying as is. I can't find Dave and eventually start herding the kids in alone. We all meet up happily on the hard chairs on top of the gym floor. No surprize there. The kids are wiggling and whining as they like to do.
The important part of the entire meeting arrives, the Sacrament. The few minutes where everyone is putting their full effort into reverence and the room is pretty quiet as a general rule. Well, Brooklyn takes the box of crayons out and loudly dumps them all over the floor. Good thing she got everyone's attention because the next thing we kn0w, she picks one up and strategically places it between her legs and starts saying "Oh my penis. my penis, my penis " over and over and over in her very high-pitched voice until the teenage girl and her mother sitting next to us are tearing up from laughing so hard, the people in front of us are laughing and others within ear shot are probably condemning us for "teaching" our daughter such things. I am holding Lexi and tell Dave to take her out quickly. Of course we're laughing too because of the choice moment and because I have a tendency to laugh a lot when I am really embarassed. Things went downhill from there and by the end of the meeting, Dave had taken the girls and the shoeless wonder home.
At least I had the sunbeams who spent sharing time, jumping out of their chairs, licking and spitting on each other. They spent their bathroom time on the counter "washing" their hands and in front of the full length mirror teaming up to try and remove the toilet plunger they had stuck there and they spent their hall time fighting over who got to be at the front of the train line I have them walk in. (No, their behavoir isn't always this bad and yes it used to be a whole lot worse before I was put in as their teacher. We do have good days where with a lot of guidance their behavior could be deemed acceptable for church. This just didn't happen to be one of those days).
Revernce? Hardly. Nourishment? only physical as I ate snacks with them in class. Introspection? Only as to how many more kids I want to birth. (haha) Why? You tell me.