Tim & David Visit.

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Not much to write here other than we were so happy to see Timothy Stanton and David Rowley on their trip over here in the States.  It was a very short trip, one overnight with us but it was great to catch up.  David actually took the day off work the day after they arrived to go hang out and do some boy stuff with them.

Thanks you guys, it was great to see you.

This cutie pie wanted in on the picture taking too ... she is way prettier than these guys above don't you think :-)

Sometimes I think I have created these camera show offs ... I try hard to take a good amount of pics a year to keep you guys up to date but sometimes my gosh, I cannot get a smile out of either of them, I guess they get tired of the demand pics (hehehe) !!!

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The Girls First Day of School.

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Ok so August is the start of the new school year here, here is Jade on her first day of 4th Grade.  She looks so grown up, hard to believe she is only 9 in this picture.

Then this is Amber on her first day of school, I am so not one of these frufru moms but she so wanted this skirt that I figured, oh well it's a great first day of school outfit :-)

She is such a happy girl ... most of the time :-)

This was her first day of her new year in Preschool, she was only doing two days this year, Monday and Wednesday ... can't wait for next year, she will do four days, yay !!!

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Trip To San Diego !!!

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Well our trip to San Diego ... without kids, was amazing.  Thanks to Colleen and Joe which kept our kids for a couple of days while we took this trip.

Sadly I cannot remember all the details and I took so many pictures with this huge update I am trying to attempt I am just going to post a few.

We left on Saturday the 18th of August which was the week before Jade started school so I could not stay for the full time Dave was out there as I needed to come back and meet her teacher and get her ready and all but the time we had out there was amazing.  Vegas has always been my most favorite place but now after our second trip to San Diego I have to say that San Diego is my favorite place.  Our first trip out here a couple of years ago, in fact when Amber was still an infant was crazy but so much fun, we did all the kids stuff like the famous San Diego Zoo and Lego World and all the Wild Animal Reserves, not to mention SeaWorld but this time, it was all about the adult time and it was equally amazing !!!

First things first, when we arrived there, Dave left me at the airport to go get our rental car, when he picked me up on the curb with all our luggage, he said, mmmm you should have seen all those convertibles Trace, this is the perfect place for one don't you think ?  But he already had a rental so what was he saying, anyway on the way past the rental place I said to him, can we change our car now or is it too late ... long story short and it did take way longer than we anticipated to make the change, as part of his birthday present I paid the extra to rent a brand new 2012 hot red Mustang convertible, ok yeah, I know, Dave is so not a Ford kind of guy but he felt spoilt rotten to ride around in this all week :-) and I was happy I could do that for him, especially on our long trip up to LA which we took the next day, more on that later.  Anyway here are two pics of him taken that day while we were looking for a good sunset to photograph.

Doesn't he look cute :-)  Anyway we stayed in a really cool hotel that had a great complementary breakfast and cocktail evening but what was a nice treat is they had a valet service too, not that Dave would ever have chosen that but you actually could not park your car yourself at this hotel but I thought it was a nice touch to a adult only trip :-)

Anyway the Sunday we left as early as we could and took a drive up the coast to LA, the coast is so nice, my gosh something we definitely miss about living in SA but anyway, we stopped here there and everywhere we could and then eventually after lunch ventured inland to LA.  LA to me had the feel of Vegas, probably why I liked it so much but I needed lots more time there, we did not have enough time to see all we wanted to that was for sure.  We walked around as much as we could and walked the entire Hollywood Walk Of Fame which was just too cool knowing that if you stood on that star, that celebrity had actually been there while they put that star in the sidewalk.  I took so many picture of the stars, too much to put here but yeah, just some were Matt Damon, Tom Cruise, Celine Dion, Barbara Walters etc.  Had to post this one for my mom ...  Patrick Swayze !!!

While we were having lunch, across the street from where we were eating they were setting up for the Premier of Oogieloves ?  Yeah we didn't see it or even hear much about it so it could not have been a big hit movie or anything but just thought that it was our bad luck that on the day we were visiting there was this silly movie premier and not a big movie premier with actual movie stars :-(

Then I surprised Dave with another birthday present, a tour of Hollywood Celebrity Homes, yeah I know that sounds more like a present for me (hehehe) but thought we would both enjoy it which we did.  Only thing is you kind of expect these houses to be mansions and it is amazing how plain Jane some of these houses really are.  Big but plain much of the time, unless you are looking at a commune like Justin Timberlake has, ok that was huge.  I had a list of all the houses we saw but cannot find it now, go figure !!!  We did get to see Simon Cowells house which looked really modern and nice and the house where all the American Idols stay while they are on the Idol journey.  We saw Marilyn Monroe's cute pink house, the house where she was rumored to have had affairs with some of the Kennedy boys.  Some other celebrity houses we saw that I can remember are Julia Roberts, Robert Redford, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Leonardo  DiCaprio, Nicolas Cage, John Travolta, Jack Nicholson and so much more.  Here is a picture of Sylvester Stallones house, I zoomed in as much as I could coz there were people sitting outside but couldn't see if it was him, sadly we did not see one star sighting :-(

What was also amazing to me was standing outside the gates of the house that Micheal Jackson died in or at least where he was taken from.  We could not stay there long as his family are trying hard to get a law passed where tourists are not allowed up that road.

I could not believe I was actually in Beverly Hills, how cool was that or that we had earlier been in Orange County or are the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, or that we were outside the Kodak Theater where you see so many awards shows.  We actually drove Mulholland Drive that so many stars drive on a daily basis and we still didn't get to see anyone famous, that's my luck for you.

Then we also got taken up as close as we could go to see the famous Hollywood Sign.

Can't believe we also drive Rodeo Drive which yeah we cannot even afford to look in the windows let alone shop there and we still did not see any super stars :-( oh well there is always next time right and there will be a next time, totally loved it there.

Then once we were done with the tour, on our walk back to the car we stopped to watch something else really cool, there was a foundation there similar to Make a Wish Foundation that treat kids that have life threatening disabilities or kids that don't have long to live to something fun, well they had 4 or 5 Lamborghinis that they were giving these kids rides in, they had a stretch of road closed down, right there on Hollywood Blvd and they would open these amazing sounding vehicles up for a short distance, then turn around and come back our way fast too, amazing to see, obviously I had to pick Davids mouth off the sidewalk when it was time to leave.  Anyway here is a pic of one of the cars, we were there right close, so amazing.

 

My last request that day was to drive to the Santa Monica Peer which I have seen in so many movies, most of all my favorite Private Practice and watch the sun go down so that was just what we did.  It was a fast drive down there as we knew we didn't have too much time till the sun started to go down, actually we got there just in the nick of time.  The pier was such fun, wish we had longer to stay there too, it is a long old pier with many stores on it, there are restaurants and entertainment people, juggling, playing musical instruments, singing or stalls selling all sorts of stuff, really cool.  At the end of the pier they have this huge ferris wheel which you see in all the movies, we stayed to see it light up, too cool.  They have other small rides and amusement park games there too, all on this pier, too cool.  Anyway we had a 3 hour drive back to the hotel so we couldn't stay longer :-( it was 9 before we left and we still had to have dinner.  Love, love, loved it there, have to come back one day again or perhaps actually stay somewhere overnight close by so we can spend more time there.  Even taking the kids would be great, the beaches are so nice :-)  Very Baywatch kind of beaches if you know what I mean.

Here is the sunset at the Santa Monica Pier.

The drive back to San Diego was so mind blowing, we had traffic all the way back but when I mean traffic, it is bumper to bumper going about 75 mile an hour in 8 lanes of traffic, not 4 one way and 4 the other way, 8 lanes going to San Diego and 8 lanes going away from San Diego, never seen anything like it in my life, too crazy and scary if you ask me, glad I was not driving !!!  Apparently many of these drivers are people coming from Mexico, they stay locally during the week and then go home on the weekend, this was late Sunday night so they were probably on their way back to wherever they stay during the week, ok that explains some of the traffic one way but not the other ???

Monday Dave went off to his conference / training and I got a slow start which was a real treat and then I walked across the road to an outdoor shopping area right on the water, amazingly pretty spot with fantastic weather and so much to see.  I walked around there for a while, the highlight of my morning was the local fire department came and did their workouts there, all fantastic looking men, darkly tanned with their shirts off, yeah I know I need to stop now :-)  Anyway I met my friend Des from SA cousin Tania there, she lives in San Diego, you may remember last time we were out I spent a day with her too.  It was so good to catch up with her, she brought her kids with and it made me sad that my girls were not with me as they would have gotten on so well but next time ... she treated me to a very yummy fish and chips, then we shopped a bit and she was off, again so good to see her, catch up and just hang out for a while !!!

After that I shopped a little and then met Dave for yet another birthday surprise, I took him on a Seal Tour, nope not a tour of local seals like you think although we did see some local seals on this tour, this is what we went on ...

This is a boat that half the tour is on land and half of it was in the ocean, very weird I tell you.  Have to say though even though the day was really warm, it was pretty chilly on this tour.  They took us past many historical sights, many were army, navy kind of sights which was cool since so many of the navy get trained in San Diego.  Then we hit the ocean where they took us out to show us where the navy seal, the human kind get trained, that was cool, but then they also told us how they train seals, the animal kind how to go down and place bombs or cameras on stuff deep down in the ocean, also how they train dolphins to do similar things, we could see the dolphins in the distance, all very interesting.  Pretty cool tour but I was cold so note to self next time, take a jacket !!!

That evening Dave and I went and walked the very lively city which is amazing and seemed so safe even though there are tons of homeless people in this city, very sad :-(

The following day which was my last day, Dave was going to be stuck in his conference all day so I had to keep myself busy so I took another tour which was amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed, it was a hop on and off trolley which took me through the city, over this huge amazingly high bridge onto the island of Coronado which Dave and I had driven to earlier but this tour dropped me at several places where I got off and took a walk around, so very pretty, did I say how much I loved San Diego.  It also took me through Little Italy where I didn't get off because I was running out of time but I got off at Old Town which was fantastic, too cool but I just didn't have enough time there, so many little stalls to look at and it had the vibe of Spain and Portugal what Dave and I visited all those years ago, very Mexican and so festive.  We actually went back there that night so I could show Dave it a bit and had dinner there.

Then I went onto this long dock where I got off a ways from my hotel so I could walk it, yeah I didn't know how far it really was but am glad I took the walk, there was all these amazing boats, from old fashioned Southern Paddle Boats, to huge huge sail boats, even one that looked like a Pirate ship, to this amazingly huge USS Midway Museum, you have to google that to go check it out, with all the aircrafts on it, fantastic to see even though I didn't go on ... and submarines, so so much to see.  Again took so many pictures but this is taking so long to load I am only loading a few.

That night my last night there, before we went back to Old Town for dinner, we went along the coast again for our last sunset, sadly the weather was not nice and clear so I didn't get the best shot but still here you go. And to finish this update, only last pic of the handsome fellow in my life.

Thanks Dave for this fantastic trip, was such a nice treat for us both.  Love you babes !!!

Now I have to go rush and supervise cookie decorating for Santa and frost some cupcake for our party tonight so the rest will have to wait, maybe I will get some time tomorrow afternoon.  

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Ok Sooooooooo Far Behind, Where Do I Start ?

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Ok ok ... I know ... I know ... so want to just post Christmas pics but when I realize I have not updated since late Summer, oh boy do I have a lot to catch up on so I best get started, I will see how much I can get updated before we need to get ready for another Christmas party tonight !!!

This is just a cutie of Amber in Jades old shoes from when she was around the same age, only Jade was very steady on heels from the beginning where Amber, well yeah she would break her neck so probably first and last picture of her in them, excuse all the bruises, my kids I don't know, they are just so rough !!!

Oh good Lord, Blogger has changed all their stuff again, now I have to figure this all out from scratch, stay tuned though.


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Do you think uncle Gavin will buy me these Mom ?

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Shopping with my 9 year old this afternoon ... we are shopping for sneakers for school she comes around the corner and says 'mom don't think dad would buy me these but maybe uncle Gavin and aunty Gigi might buy them for me for my birthday or Christmas, what you think' ... OMG I think dad better start worrying ... and saving !!!

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Pool Deck Afternoon ... Oh and Humming Birds !!!

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One afternoon on the deck, these are usually afternoons we don't go to the pool and Dave needs to BBQ so we hang out on the deck and splash in our little pool and play on the slide Nana gave us.

Last year it was so hard for Amber to do this slide on her own and I was having a nervous breakdown she would fall, this year it was a piece of cake but this year Jade had completely outgrown it but she still had fun on it all the same ... it's been great fun while it lasted.  What was more the splash pool was big enough for us big kids to cool off in too or actually it doubled up as a hot jacuzzi some nights (hehehe) !!!  Depending on how hot it was during the day of course.

Amber was not playing ball and looking at the camera here :-(

Completely natural smile, see how her face lights up ... LOVE IT !!!  Only on her recent first trip to the dentist we found out that she has an under bite :-( so at some point she is going to have to wear a device of sorts to fix that problem, it's either that or surgery late but either way dad best start saving coz we have been told that Jade will need braces one day too and golly second mortgage on our house here we come !!!

This is our new deck table, chairs and umbrella, the other one was fine and is now under the house gathering dust but this was such a great deal and the table is so cool with tiles on the top and we didn't have an umbrella, so we got this one.  I have also hung two bird feeders there which have been keeping us entertained all Summer, bloody squirrels though, man I used to love them, now they are just a pain in the ass eating all the bird seed all the time.

So nice when they play nicely, but so rare.

My blond peaches and cream girl.

They were laughing so much here ...

Amber wanted to swap roles after this and almost drowned herself trying, we laughed ourselves silly.

Making my brother and sister in law proud (hehehe) great shot right ... I have to tell you I took about a gazillion before getting these two.

But not too shabby right !!!

So it's August and the start of my favorite time of the year, the run up till Christmas :-)  Some dates on the run up ...

This week Jade starts cheer again, oh by the way she tried out for the next season of competition cheer and made the Shooting Stars Team again, a bigger and older team this time but she still made it.  She starts practice this week, 6 - 8 on Tuesdays so there goes Faith Formation :-( and 5 - 7 on Sundays which is way better than the Saturday mornings, at least we can now go away for weekends again if there is no competition or other mandatory thing happening !!!  They have a big pool party next Sunday to introduce the new girls to those left over from the old team.  Love these monthly team bonding things, so cool.

Then the 18th - 22nd Dave and I will be in San Diego and Colleen will have our girls, this will be the first time Amber is sleeping over at their house, she is so excited, I am nervous but I know it will all work out fine, or I hope so anyway !!!  I am excited to see my SA friend that we visited last time we were out there :-)  Dave will be there one day longer but I had to come home because this is the last week before school starts and the timing could not have been worse :-( but it was an opportunity I didn't want to pass up.  Anyway both girls have meet the teachers Thursday and Friday that week so I needed to get home and also try and get Jade into some sort of routine before Monday.  Cannot believe they are starting school on a Monday they never do that, that sucks.

Then no sooner is Dave back and he leave again that Sunday the 26th for another business trip, one again which couldn't have worse timing, it's in Orlando for one and we would have loved to have tagged along on this trip, the kids and I but guess that is why work planned it that way !!!  For two Monday school starts so I will be doing the 6am wake up calls by myself that week and oh golly that first Monday is going to be no fun, no fun at all trying to get Jade up.  Sad Dave will miss the first day of school, always so much excitement behind that.  Then that Wednesday Tim Stanton and David Rowley are coming past us for a night ... hope Dave gets home early but he has no clue at this stage :-( but it will be nice to see them anyway.

Then I cannot believe as hot as it is, that Sunday the 2nd our pool closes, although we have spent a good deal at the pool this Summer I don't feel it's been enough yet :-( gonna be a sad day for me.

Amber starts school the 5th of September, she will be doing Monday and Wednesday mornings like she did last year.  I have dropped my Thursday morning work so she and I will have some good bonding time Thursdays, I am looking forward to that.

Then Daves birthday :-)

Then that following week the 10th I start back to work full time again, oh boy ... 

Then Cheer Competitions start once or twice a month ...

The Cabarras County Fair

Then the Southern Womans Show

Going to see Anjelah Johnson in concert

Renaissance Festival

I have Colleens boys for week while they go away ...

Halloween

Anniversary Trip away for us TBA

Christmas Show

Jades Birthday

Breakfast with Santa

Lots of Christmas parties

Our Cookie Decorating Party

Christmas

New Year

Yay, Yay, Yay .... love this time of the year, it's crazy crazy busy but love love love this time of the year as most of you will know by now :-)

I have also signed up on our Social Committee in our neighborhood over the past 6 months and am loving it, have taken on organizing our local Girls Night Out which we had recently and it was a huge success and with many people being away can only imagine the next one will be even more busy !!!  We have so many great things planned for the rest of this year, A see you on the bus party for new Kindergartners in the neighborhood, a back to school breakfast for mommys on the first day of school, late night pool parties, movies at the pool, girls night out, a lawson talent show, Fall festival, Halloween parade, cookie swap at Christmas, a vendors fair, breakfast with Santa and more ... love all this stuff keeps me crazy busy but love it all and it makes our family life such fun here in this neighborhood :-)

Ok I have waffled on enough I think but you can tell if you don't hear from me till next year, you know why (hehehe) !!!

Love to all.

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Bowling and Baxter Villiage.

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Not so long ago as a family we all went 10 pin bowling, I totally thought it would be a waste of time and Amber would hate it but we has such fun, we had 2 hours of bowling so yeah Amber lost interest but for the most part once we realized there was this rolling slide contraption for kids her age and she didn't have to throw herself down the alley with the ball it was much easier, funny thing is with the bumpers up and her using the slide, golly she could hardly not get a strike every time, I think I want to use that next time, it was totally upsetting Jade (hehehe) !!!

Here is a pic of all four of us with our shoes, can hardly tell which one is Jade she is as big as Dave and I shoe wise but you can tell little Ambers :-)

After that we went to Six Pence London Pub in Baxter Villiage for dinner, we had a great time, what a quaint little town with live music, perfect evening too, so nice there, here they were standing outside a London telephone booth as you can tell outside the pub, Jade has no clue what the hype was about (hehehe).

Ok yeah my girls were white and I had a tan already but thought this was a nice pic of the three of us and them on my lap made me look little ... bonus !!!

Just a random shot of the temperatures we have been experiencing lately.

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Funny One ...

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Isn't that a cute wind up toy car parked next to my car at the store, couldn't resist taking a picture and sharing it you y'all !!!

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Ambers Swim Certificate.

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Here is Amber with her Level 1 swim certificate ... no she cannot swim yet :-(  Cannot believe and I know every kid is different but cannot believe that Amber cannot swim yet and by 2 Jade was swimming like a fish and well by next Summer Amber will be 4.

She loved her swim lessons and thank God has absolutely no fear of the water, she loves it but as much as she learnt she did not learn to swim and at the beginning of Summer I put arm floaties on her and she was just so confident in the water and was enjoying herself so much I thought oh well ... there is always next year to learn to swim again.

We have has a wonderful Summer with her but it will be nice to see her swim by herself so we will start lessons a lot earlier next year so that when she gets into our pool once it opens she will absolutely know how to swim, looking forward to that.  I don't think it will be too long coz right now she puts her face under the water and does the arm motions perfectly and kicks like no ones business, she certainly gets where she wants to be fast so I think it won't be long we just needed more time this year.

We need to take a video of her, if I remember I will do it this week so you can see how confident she is in the water.

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Some Pictures Of The Girls

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There are not going to be many more times that I can dress the girls up the same and Jade will be all for it and well there aren't many outfits that I can find that are the same but anyway here was one of those times that everyone played along ...

My smiley girl ... golly this girl can light up a room with her smile, when she smiles her whole face smiles and you cannot help but smile with her.

Ambers hair has lightened up this Summer and she is not that much darker hair wise than Jade right now, but skin wise, well I have had to start calling Amber my brown baby ... golly that girl has amazing skin !!!  Jade has the peaches and cream skin and Amber has that olivey skin, so different, cannot believe it.

So cute to see them loving on one another, golly these girls can fight now days and Amber gives Jade a run for her money, oh my gosh, keep telling them that one day they will be the best of friends so why not just start now, but I think they just think their mom is crazy.

Jade is starting to grow up fast now, quite the young lady I have on my hands, sassy as anything but super sensitive too.

Love this picture of her coz it is a more natural smile and not the put on ones you so often see in pics.

It was so bright out there they could not focus on the camera much.

Such a cutie pie.

There's the put on smile (hehehe).

Love this one of Jade even though the poor kid could hardly open her eyes it was so bright out there ...

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